November 29, 2021
Civilisationism
‘Civilisationism refers to Coopetition-maximised governance.’
‘Coopetition’, which is a portmanteau of ‘Cooperative-Competition’, consists of a foundation of ‘Cooperation’ upon which ‘Competition’ takes place.
In nature, Coopetition’s supreme manifestation is the society – i.e. there is intra-society Cooperation so that the society may successfully Compete in its environment.
Within human societies, there also exists Coopetition – for example, regulated rules-based sport, the Econo- and Democracy – which correlates contribution, reward, success and merit.
In loose modern political terms, Coopetition’s Cooperative component represents the best of the Left and its Competition component the best of the Right.
Coopetition-maximised governance involves:
The top-down design, implementation and management of infrastructure that maximises bottom-up entities’ desire and capacity for Cooperation and, subject to this Cooperation foundation, also maximises their desire and capacity for Competition.
[Note: society’s bottom-up entities include individuals, families, businesses, not-for-profits (including, trade-unions and, in democracies, political parties) and other non-government organisations and institutions.]
Coopetition-maximisation “maximises citizens’ country-contributive self-actualisation”.
Civilisationism’s Coopetition-Maximising Governance ‘Business’ Plan
[Executive Summary]
| Vision: | ‘Universal sustainable stability-prosperity maximisation’ |
| Mission: | “Maximise citizens’ country-contributive self-actualisation” |
| Core Values: | Government must: 1. Inspire and empower citizens to find and pursue their own country-contributive self-actualising path 2. Inspire and empower citizens to inspire and empower other citizens to find and pursue their country-contributive self-actualising path. [This embodies citizen human-rights.] |
| Strategies: | Government must maximise citizens’: 1. Desire to ‘country-contribute’ 2. Capacity to focus on pursuing ‘self-actualisation’ 3. Capacity to ‘country-contribute’. |
| Goal: | As per ‘The Univisionist 2.13’, ‘Government must maximise citizens’ desire and capacity to Cooperatively-Compete (Coopete).’ [Note: in retrospect, strategies and goal could be swapped.] |
| Objectives: | Government’s role is to exclusively design, implement and administer Coopetition-maximising infrastructure – i.e. it must maximise efficiency via being minimalist (including no Band-Aiding). |
| Action Plans: | There are 3 types of Coopetition-maximising infrastructure (CMI): 1. Physical Infrastructure (PI) 2. Taxation Infrastructure (TI) 3. Citizen Empowerment Infrastructure (CEI). Regarding CEI there are 5 cornerstones: 1. Universal Rule of Coopetition-maximising Law 2. Universal Liberal Democracy 3. Universal Education 4. Universal Healthcare 5. The Universal Survival Income (USI). [Note: The USI is substituted for Universal Minimum Hourly Wages (UMHoW), which directly eradicates both exploitation and Unemployment/Underemployment.] Currently, The USI’s absence means Indirect Survival Income Slavery (ISIS) is endemic, which is the supreme reason for our culminating perfect storm of exponentiating Socio-Econo-Enviro- (SEE) catastrophes. |
…
Civilisationism’s Coopetition-Maximising Governance ‘Business’ Plan
Introduction
Since the Industrial Revolution (c. 1760), due to Human-Organisational, Scientific & Technological (HOST) innovations, potential-productivity per person has increased, perhaps, 10,000-fold (including more than doubling since 2010), which means just 1 in 10 working efficiently would make us 1,000 times more prosperous than those living 260 years prior.
However, regarding HOST’s 3 components, Human-Organisation is supreme because it systemically determines how S&T develops, the pace of that development and, most critically, how the developments are used – i.e. to assist humanity (for example, vaccines) or harm us (example, biological weapons).
This means, there is little point focusing on S&T development until Human-Organisation – especially at the government level – is optimised.
And, as per ‘The Univisionist 2.13 – Fun-Fair Governance: From The Big Bang to The Universal Survival Income (USI)’, Human-Organisation is optimised when Cooperative-Competition (Coopetition) is maximised.
However, Human-Organisation hasn’t been and, currently, isn’t optimal – particularly at the country-government level – as evidenced by humanity facing a culminating perfect storm of exponentiating Socio-Econo-Enviro- (SEE) catastrophes including:
- The Socio-: Poverty
- The Econo-: not ‘exclusively efficiently producing and distributing the goods and services we need/desire, which we cannot or don’t wish to produce ourselves.’
- The Enviro-:
- Natural – Climate Change
- International – increasing Geopolitical Democracy versus Authoritarian confrontation.
Thus, very obviously, we are inherently definitively violating nature in a manner no amount of Band-Aiding can fix.
In this context, Civilisationism’s Coopetition-maximising governance is presented as the solution.
Vision
‘Universal sustainable stability-prosperity maximisation’.
This envisions a tempering of our current exponentiating Socio-Econo-Enviro- (SEE) catastrophes to the point all these issues become manageable.
Alternative visions include:
- Traditional-Western (Econo– fixated) – i.e. full-employment (and low-inflation)
- Contemporary-Western (Enviro– prioritised) – i.e. sustainability
- Authoritarian (Socio– distorted) – i.e. psycho/sociopathic central-control.
Regarding Traditional- and Contemporary- Western visions, they are typically (yet erroneously) perceived as requiring direct Authoritarian-like central-control, which, in turn, has resulted in tension such as, ‘should governments prioritise protecting jobs or habitats?’
Mission (i.e. in order to achieve the Vision)
“Maximise citizens’ country-contributive self-actualisation”.
Regarding ‘country-contributive self-actualisation’, to intentionally harm one’s country is traitorous and to intentionally not self-actualise is a betrayal of the self.
This mission’s main characteristics are, it is:
- Perpetual – i.e. it has no end date
- Universal – i.e. it is relevant to all citizens
- Pivotal to, what may be termed, ‘The Country-Citizen Interface’ – i.e. how the country and its citizens interact
- ‘A natural monopoly’ – i.e. a single entity can perform the task more efficiently than a multitude of entities.
Thus, the mission’s implementation requires government.
Government
Government evolved out of ‘societies of strangers’ as a ‘top-down’ law designing, implementing, adjudicating and enforcing monopolist originally narrowly tasked with maintaining security.
That is, as societies grew, due to people being increasingly unacquainted with one another, there was a spiralling propensity for crime and distrust, which required an overarching dominant power.
Hence, as well as being a natural monopoly, government is the supreme monopoly – i.e. simultaneously having more than one is suboptimal to the point it usually equates to some version of Civil War.
In contrast to ‘top-down’ monopolistic government, all other country-internal entities are ‘bottom-up’ in that they only possess subordinate-to-government localised power and are subject to government legislation.
As societies – and, therefore, ‘The Country-Citizen Interface’ – became increasingly complex, governments’ responsibilities similarly expanded.
Thus, in general terms, the government’s top-down role is to optimise the country’s bottom-up entities’ interactions.
Core Values (i.e. the Values government must follow in carrying out its activities)
In impacting The Country-Citizen Interface so as to “maximise citizens’ country-contributive self-actualisation”, a government’s core values are to:
- Inspire and empower citizens to find and pursue their own country-contributive self-actualising path
- Inspire and empower citizens to inspire and empower other citizens to find and pursue their country-contributive self-actualising path.
As well as these values being self-reinforcing, they also embody the full expanse of ‘human-rights’ – such as freedom, respect, inclusiveness, egalitarianism and civility.
Hence, revolutionarily, with these rights contextualised within Civilisationism’s values, its effectiveness eclipses stand-alone initiatives such as a ‘bill of rights’.
Conversely, institutionally preventing or hindering country-contributive self-actualisation may be classified as a human-rights abuse of which all governments have, to this point, been guilty.
Strategy (i.e. in order to achieve the Mission)
At first glance, government’s mission of “maximising citizens’ country-contributive self-actualisation” requires maximising citizens’:
- Desire to ‘self-actualise’
- Desire to ‘country-contribute’
- Capacity to focus on pursuing ‘self-actualisation’
- Capacity to ‘country-contribute’.
However, given the ‘desire to maximally self-actualise’ is inherent to consciousness, government’s strategies devolve to institutionally maximising the latter 3.
In addition, due to the inherent ‘desire to belong’, usually, unless there is division amongst citizens, the ‘desire to ‘country-contribute’ is also a default; however, since the Industrial Revolution, humanity has suffered the paradigm of the Left/Right schism.
Goal (i.e. in order to achieve the Strategy)
[Source: The Univisionist 2.13]
‘Government must maximise citizens’ desire and capacity to Cooperatively-Compete (Coopete).’
‘The Univisionist 2.13’ details a comprehensive nature-based justification for the Civilisationism goal of Coopetition-maximisation, the historical divergence from it and the consequential ripple effects that are culminating with our perfect storm of exponentiating Socio-Econo-Enviro- (SEE) catastrophes.
As per that article, Coopetition may be termed ‘natural-morality’ because it is both nature-driven and self-reinforcing.
That is, if all put Coopetition-maximising first then society’s strength will be maximised, which will maximise its assistance to its citizens, which, in turn, maximises their desire and capacity to put Coopetition-maximisation first and so on.
Also, with Coopetition-maximisation in this way entrenched, citizens are automatically both inspired and empowered to aim for maximising their own country-contributive self-actualisation and also to encourage and inspire their fellow citizens to maximise their country-contributive self-actualisation.
Accordingly, citizens’ social-status, rather than being aligned self-centredly with, for example, Materialism, is aligned with country-contributive self-actualisation.
Consistent with this, Coopetition-maximisation is the ultimate catalyst for dynamic ‘creative-destruction’.
Objective (i.e. in order to achieve the Goal)
‘Government’s role is to exclusively design, implement and administer Coopetition-maximising infrastructure’.
In order for governance to be Coopetition-maximising, its impact on societies’ bottom-up entities must be exhaustive yet minimalist – i.e. it must be maximally efficient.
In this way, government expenditure on minimalist infrastructure is an investment that is not only self-funding but in which its Return-on-Investment is maximised such that the 2-way net benefit to both country and citizens is optimised.
Maximally efficient government activity consists of both necessary and sufficient conditions.
Coopetition-Maximising Government Activity Necessary Conditions
For government activity to be Coopetition-maximising, the necessary conditions are they must be:
- Automatic rather than manualised
- Foundational rather than Band-Aiding
- Societal-wide rather than discriminatory.
Automatic, foundational and societal-wide systems are here termed, ‘infrastructure’.
Modern governance, in addition to including infrastructure, is also characterised by massive non-infrastructure in all 3 forms – i.e. manualised, Band-Aiding and discriminatory – which frequently exist in conjunction.
Regarding manualised activity, this results in ‘bureaucracy’ with all its associated frictions of financial costs, mistakes, delays and other frustrations.
Regarding Band-Aiding, it is not only inefficient but, frequently, directly counterproductive via also being discriminatory.
As detailed in ‘The Univisionist 2.13’, in the West, the supreme source of Band-Aiding is income-Welfare including its in-kind manifestations such as social-housing (to the able) and jobs-for-jobs’-sake paid-work.
Regarding discriminatory policies, this divides society by directly contradicting Coopetition-maximisation.
In Australia, the supreme example is income-Welfare’s Unemployment benefits, which spawns the ‘lazy dole-bludger’ (including the racist indigenous-variant) narrative.
In sum, any perceived need for manualised, Band-Aiding and/or discriminatory policies is an indicator of suboptimal infrastructure.
Thus, the confining of government activities to infrastructure is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for Coopetition-maximisation.
Coopetition-Maximising Government Infrastructure’s Sufficient Conditions
For Government implemented infrastructures to be Coopetition-maximising, the component infrastructure must:
- Each advance Coopetition – i.e. it is possible (though undesirable) to have Coopetition-detracting infrastructure
- Seamlessly integrate with each other such that there are no Coopetition-gaps.
- Together span the full-breadth of Coopetition.
Regarding Coopetition-detracting infrastructure, the most poignant current example is Universal Minimum Hourly Wages (UMHoW).
UMHoW’s purpose is idealised as – the very modest aim of – tempering the exploitation associated with Indirect-Survival-Income-Slavery (ISIS).
[Note: As per ‘The Univisionist 2.13’, Indirect-Survival-Income-Slavery (ISIS) came to prominence as a result of the Industrial Revolution when multitudes of subsistence-farmers were encouraged to become machinists yet, in so doing, gave-up direct control over their survival needs. This means people need a money-income sufficient to survive, which, in the case where it is not passively generated via wealth, means they are Slaves to this reality, which, in turn, means they are vulnerable to exploitation. In this way, ISIS spawned the Left/Right schism paradigm.]
Regarding UMHoW, certainly, even its supporters have no expectation of it eradicating either ISIS or its exploitation and, whether, in total, it tempers exploitation is also debateable as, among other things, by corrupting the labour-market – i.e. relative to the supply/demand equilibrium, it decreases labour demand and increases labour supply – it creates Unemployment/Underemployment.
So, regarding government’s objective, it must be to exclusively design, implement and administer Coopetition-maximising infrastructure whose sole purpose is to indirectly maximise Coopetition amongst society’s bottom-up entities.
[Note: also as per ‘The Univisionist 2.13’, due to government being an all-powerful all-pervasive unbankruptable entity, it must not participate as a bottom-up entity.]
Action Plans (i.e. in order to achieve the Objective)
With the government goal to design, implement and administer Coopetition-maximising infrastructure (CMI), there are just 3 types:
- Infrastructure (PI)
- Infrastructure (TI)
Physical Infrastructure (PI)
Physical Infrastructure represents that which is commonly termed, ‘infrastructure’ – i.e. particularly the catalysing of:
- Transport via roads, railways, ports, airports etc.
- Information-flow via, for instance, the postal service and broadband cabling.
In these cases, it is often suboptimal to have multiple bottom-up entities Coopeting to provide the service.
And, since no bottom-up entity should be allowed, let alone granted, perpetual unfettered monopoly power, it is better provided (or, at least, regulated so as to be Coopetition-maximising) by the all-citizens’ proxy of (Democratic) government.
Taxation Infrastructure (TI)
Taxation Infrastructure (TI) should consist of:
- Minimal income and company tax
- GST – full-breadth
- Land-tax
- Capital-Gains tax.
[Note: Land & Capital are distinct as, while Land is a natural inheritance, Capital arises from HOST and is, therefore, human-made.]
Taxes may also be applied to compensate for ‘externalities’ such as on ‘bads’ (for instance, tobacco) and when the production process consumption of natural resources and/or the creation of pollution are not automatically included as a cost to the producer.
Citizen Empowerment Infrastructure (CEI)
Citizen Empowerment infrastructure (CEI) is Civilisationism’s core.
Citizen Empowerment Infrastructure (CEI) consists of 5 cornerstones:
- Universal Rule of Coopetition-maximising Law
- Universal Liberal Democracy
- Universal Education
- Universal Healthcare
- The Universal Survival Income (USI).
[Note: The USI is substituted for the detrimental-infrastructure of Universal Minimum Hourly Wages (UMHoW) – this directly eradicates both exploitation and Unemployment/Underemployment.]
Regarding the 5 CEI cornerstones, they are:
- Minimalist
- Interrelated such that the absence or weakness in 1 detracts from each of the others – for example, no matter the quality of teaching, if students suffer poverty-induced family dysfunction, Universal Education will be suboptimal.
Regarding ‘Rule of Coopetition-maximising Law’, it should be noted that this is a Coopetition-maximising extension of ‘Rule of Law’. In the latter’s case, while it demands everyone be treated equally, it fails to indicate what those laws should embody.
Regarding ‘Universal Liberal Democracy’, this type of governing system embodies Coopetition-maximisation, which means just having this system constitutes leadership by example.
In Australia, while there have evolved robust versions of the first 4 CEI cornerstones, as detailed in ‘The Univisionist 2.13’, The USI is still absent, which is monumentally festeringly suboptimal.
First, The USI-absence means there is Indirect-Survival-Income-Slavery (ISIS), which, foundationally anti-Coopetitive, forces citizens to prioritise obtaining their and their family’s Survival-Income above pursuing ‘country-contributive self-actualisation’.
In a post-Industrial Revolution society, just as it’s inefficient to have vast numbers of subsistence farmers, it is incalculably inefficient to force a large proportion of families to separately focus on obtaining their family’s Survival-Income when this necessity can be streamlined via The USI.
Second, ISIS causes massive flow-on detriments, which begins with the insidious bottom-up top-down pincer of:
- Bottom-up: Multitudes of citizens either not country-contributing (for example, crime such as theft including tax-evasion) or not self-actualising, which may lead to escapism (such as alcohol and drug abuse), or both (for example, domestic violence)
- Top-down: Society’s disastrous Left/Right philosophical schism, which is already fragmenting into full-blown identity-warfare and, further, into Make Number One Great Again (MNOGA) selfishness.
Thus, there exists our culminating perfect storm of exponentiating Socio-Econo-Enviro- (SEE) catastrophes.
That is, without ISIS – i.e. with The USI – all our SEE problems and their associated Unnecessary Suffering would dissipate to the point of being very manageable.
Thus, The USI for UMHoW reform is the ultimate in ‘low-hanging fruit’, which, among other things, is a PUSH-eradicator – i.e. it eradicates Poverty, Unemployment, Stigma (‘dole-bludger’ narrative) & Harassment (‘mutual obligations’).
In addition, it optimises Human-Organisation, Science & Technology (HOST) innovation and unleashes creativity and dynamism in all societal areas including entrepreneurialism, the arts, the sciences and sport.
Moreover, it facilitates supporting loved-ones by implicitly recognising:
- A household is society’s most important ‘small business’
- The unpaid-carer is society’s most important ‘job’
- Companionship is becoming relatively more important
- Children are, literally, society’s future.
Meanwhile, ISIS’ continuance has disproportionately spawned problems in Democracies vis-à-vis Authoritarian regimes, which explains why Authoritarian-Illegitimates are achieving some comparative success (including in ‘winning hearts and minds’). It also explains why exporting our current model, for instance to Afghanistan, has failed to gain sufficient traction.
Conclusion
Civilisationism’s Vision of ‘universal sustainable stability-prosperity maximisation’ is achieved by Coopetition-maximised governance, which is singularly tasked with designing, implementing and administering Coopetition-maximising infrastructure, which “maximises citizens’ country-contributive self-actualisation”.
In this way, not only is Maslow’s ‘Hierarchy of Needs’ universally achieved, it is also universally country-contributively harnessed such that our culminating perfect storm of exponentiating Socio-Econo-Enviro- (SEE) catastrophes will be reharmonised to the point of being very manageable.
In both comparatively Developed and Developing countries, by far the most significant absent reform, which is a prerequisite for stabilising our SEE catastrophes, is ‘The Universal Survival Income (USI) substituted for Universal Minimum Hourly Wages (UMHoW)’.
With Civilisationism generic, holistic, painless, self-strengthening and its policies both ‘paint-by-numbers’ simple and set-and-forget automatic, its stunning success is boringly predictable.
This means, rather than the ‘pendulum politics’ of personality-driven Saviourism, it cements the transformation to policy-driven politics in which governance only requires competent technocrats.
That is, with Coopetition-maximisation the common aim and Indirect-Survival-Income-Slavery (ISIS) abolished, political parties only arguments will be about the subtleties of how to Coopetition-maximise.
In this way, Civilisation’s Coopetition-maximising governance constitutes a new paradigm, which transcends the current ISIS-spawned Left/Right schism.
Thus, Civilisationism equates to Fukuyama’s fabled ‘End of History’ governance model, which constitutes the antidote to Huntington’s ‘Clash of Civilisations’.
Accordingly, Civilisationism is a roadmap that can, potentially, be successfully implemented in any country (notwithstanding some nuance) no matter its income per capita base.
That is, it can be successfully implemented in countries as diverse as from Australia to Liberia to Armenia to India to Indonesia to the US to Iraq to Germany to Ethiopia to South Korea to Venezuela to Papua New Guinea to Russia to Lebanon to the Solomon Islands to China.
Regarding Developing countries, Civilisationism is the most efficient fastest-track way for them to fully develop – hopefully, the UN and international humanitarian aid agencies will take note.
For instance, civil disobedience is often erroneously described as being due to a lack of ‘jobs’ when it is instead due to the lack of a ‘Survival-Income’, which is another reason for paid-work and Survival-Income to be de-conflated.
Accordingly, anywhere in the world, any government or political party or politician committed to maximising assisting their fellow citizens – and humanity per se – can adopt it.
Also, the sooner the first country implements Civilisationism – whether it be Developed or Developing – the sooner such a demonstrative prototype will initiate the Civilisationism global salvational tsunami.
Thus, this should be – is destined to be – a worldwide movement with parties in every Democratic country.
In order to expedite the realisation of this aspiration, ideally, in each Democratic nation, either an existing political party must adopt Civilisationism or, given ‘the status quo has many friends’, a new party – preferably with Coopetition-maximisation constitutionalized – emerge.
In the case of the latter, a potential name is, ‘The Civil Party’.
Certainly, such parties’ signature policy must be The USI substituted for UMHoW.
In Australia, for decades, many citizens (perhaps, most), have intuitively felt uninspired by our electoral options and, forced into voting for the least deficient, have yearned to be able to support a holistic alternative; perhaps, herein lies the basis for such an entity.
Thank you.
Best regards
Paul Ross
Founder
The Citizen’s Dividend Organisation (CDO) Australia
The Civilisationism Organisation (TCO)