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No offense but I think your second paragraph is much too idealistic. You're describing a sort of jury duty, but for doing government work. "Now the details of
by hndude 14y ago
No offense but I think your second paragraph is much too idealistic. You're describing a sort of jury duty, but for doing government work.
"Now the details of how that labour gets applied to building infrastructure for the common good would need to be worked out, it would be a much fairer system than we have now, and much less subject to being gamed."
People already crack jokes about working in the government, doing a minimal amount of work. Imagine if people were actually mandated to work in government instead of paying taxes. Nothing would be achieved, because no one would seriously want to do the work. Or the people who had positions of power would abuse them to no end.
You describe a nice system, but how would it ever be implemented in practice? What kind of media campaign/propaganda would be required to convince the entire country they should work hard at serving each other? Would this shift be characterized by a revolution? Perhaps it would start small, in communes? Would the shift happen nationally or on a state by state basis (in the US)?
- arbitrarywords 14y agoWe have this thing in Australia called work for the dole http://deewr.gov.au/work-dole http://deewr.gov.au/work-dole , basically a watered down version of what was suggested. It has had quite a few changes over the years and has been hugely politically unpopular, but in my post uni bumming around days, I was drafted into one of these programs, and it was really fantastic. Everyone whinged (as we will) but everyone enjoyed themselves and got satisfaction from actually doing something societally useful. I've never experienced anything quite like it in a government, commercial or non-profit environment. The camaraderie, the weird mix of people, the kooky old retired navy guy who ran the program - so much gold. I agree, that it's hard to do, but it did seem like it would solve some of the above problems.
- arbitrarywords 14y agoDon't know if anyone is still reading this thread.. but I randomly came across a US version of this today too http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_Conservation_Corps http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_Conservation_Corps