A New Goal: Restoring the Roots of European Society

[Sammaellofi]

I believe there is a natural order in which society aligns itself when not in conflict with any other force.  The comparative philologist George Dumezil saw earlier pagan societies in Europe structured and made up of three groups: Warrier-King / Peasant Farmer / Religious-Priest.  

After the fall of the Roman Empire, the medieval order can be said to have recreated this structure with it's KIng-Peasant-Church system that rose in the vaccum left.  This order lasted and was successful for something like a thousand years before massive empires and the industrial revolution snuffed it out again.  It was the form of government practiced in Northern Europe, however, from the begining.  It has a history in the region of certainly more than 10,000 years.  

To define these roles, we will start simple and go deeper later:  
-The peasant class performed the labor of an agrarian society and craftsmen were also used.  This group was educated by apprenticeships of different kinds.
-The Warrier King was a noble  position, chosen through family as most professions were, and his job was to protect the realm and inforce law with the assistance of his army, which was normally small and often composed of both professional soldiers and the peasents during times of war.
-The church's role was to provide spiritual and moral compass to the enitre realm and also to preserve all knowledge.  This was the only group that recieved formal education.  The local churches would keep order by working in cooridnace with local traditions and laws.

Our goal should be to understand that this soceity arose from this region of the world as the best natural way to run a society on a local level and to try to recreate this system and make our local and national governments match this system as closely as possible.

This order is not completely missng form the world of today and there are opportunities to preserve it, but before we go into that, I want to know what others think, and we can work on defining this system more thoroughly.

[fallot]

What about a merchant class? Would that have no particular place? What of Physicians and Counsellors and Scientists? I guess they can fit into the religious class; their duties divinely ordained (as they are service).

[Sammaellofi]

Merchants actually are a part of this and they fit in with the farmers and the craftsman as the men who bring wealth into the realm.  I was just trying to make it a little more simple to get the conversation going.

A lot of the other professions you listed are jobs that are essentially composed of people who fill needs that did not exist in a natural order.  I will not say that we cannot reap the rewards of them, but what you could not find a religious or practical use for, would not be needed.

Now let's be clear.  This isn't Plato style politics, where we build this society from scratch.  Instead, we must take away the old power structures that exist now, and allow this natural order to come into being on its own.  Whether these extra services will be a part of the new natural order will be decided by the environment of the situation.

[scourge]

We would need the agrarian economic roots restored. A renewable, sustainable system of production generates the wealth at its basic level. That beats the wealth basis we have now which is based upon the promise of future payment because we were always good paying up in the past - in other words wealth built atop an intangible promisory foundation.

[Sammaellofi]

Absolutely.  I would argue that an agrarian society is the only way to return to a natural order.  Merchants and artisans would have a place, but only to strengthen efforts to create and control resources by farmers.  Once again, not by decree, but by neccessity. 

Another good model is Texas after the Civil War.  The south was very wealthy prior, but after, they were practically third world.  While the rest of the bible belt tried to catch up to the north and failed, Texas got back on its feet with the help of its (I think its fair to say) legendary cattle industry.  This is an example of the natural needs of a society left alone creating a successful situation. 

[Conservationist]

-The peasant class performed the labor of an agrarian society and craftsmen were also used.  This group was educated by apprenticeships of different kinds.
-The Warrior King was a noble  position, chosen through family as most professions were, and his job was to protect the realm and enforce law with the assistance of his army, which was normally small and often composed of both professional soldiers and the peasants during times of war.
-The church's role was to provide spiritual and moral compass to the entire realm and also to preserve all knowledge.  This was the only group that received formal education.  The local churches would keep order by working in accordance with local traditions and laws.

A caste system and division of labor, in other words. Much better than competition, which rewards the most hours. Feudalism rewards working smarter, not harder. It also gives people stability. Unless they are utterly incompetent, they serve in the familial role (if they are incompetent, we send them to the church to keep the pews polished). This results in fewer incompetents and less general anger by people struggling for a place in the world.

[Sammaellofi]

One big thing that would need to happen in order to make this happen would be to build the church into a stronger independent entitiy than it is now.  I don't mean Billy Grahaming it and tying the exective branch of government to religion in order to pick up votes.  I mean we truly need to build the church as something separate and stronger. 

But what church?  I am a Protestant, but reformed chuches are a staple of modern society.  Perhaps Catholicism.  I don't think building a new church is likely or prudent. 

[WAAAAAAGH!]

I believe the establishment of a natural aristocracy is a necessity. I believe we can establish the first generation based solely on merit. The question remains, how do we go about ensuring the aristocracy does not become the artifical wealth-through-birth plague that continually sweeps great nations? I believe a valid solution is to restore the caste-esque system as discussed with one exception-to remain a member of the aristocracy one's ability must be validated. Nature has an unfortunate way of tossing pearls amongs swine and every so often producing a pearl ffom swine.

[Sammaellofi]

An aristocracy would come about naturally, but I disagree with you on a few points.  The wealth-through-birth issue is born of politcs.  So long as you don't do things like corporate welfare or make politcs out of taxes (taxes would for the most part be non existant in this system), you can avoid those kinds of political games. 

Yes there are bad kings in history.  For everyone 1 bad king you can name, there 1,000 that don't get credit.  It's a good system.  In America, Kings are given a reputation of being power hungry inept slobs because of George III and the politics of the revolution.  When someone is born into leadership and is raised knowing what is at stake and how to get things done effectively, you generally get far better results than the popularity contests of today. 

And historically, Kings before Henry VIII, were nothing more than the head of the strongest family, who also was in charge of the army and maintaining the laws and traditions of the realm by virtue of his superior ability to gather resources. Traditions eventually gave these family's divine justification.   According to all older writings of England and other medieval countries, the King was expected to "live off his own", that is to say, his own investments and farmlands, etc etc.  They only taxed normally in cases of heavy emergency, which is why Prince John's taxing to free his brother from foreign hands was so demonized in history. 

[tardocaust]

One of his core points is that we tend to confuse capitalism with competition. We tend to think that whoever competes best comes out ahead. In the race to be more competitive, we sometimes confuse what is hard with what is valuable. The intensity of competition becomes a proxy for value.

In fact, Thiel argues, we often shouldn’t seek to be really good competitors. We should seek to be really good monopolists. Instead of being slightly better than everybody else in a crowded and established field, it’s often more valuable to create a new market and totally dominate it. The profit margins are much bigger, and the value to society is often bigger, too.

Now to be clear: When Thiel is talking about a “monopoly,” he isn’t talking about the illegal eliminate-your-rivals kind. He’s talking about doing something so creative that you establish a distinct market, niche and identity.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/24/opinion/brooks-the-creative-monopoly.html?_r=1&src=ISMR_AP_LO_MST_FB

[scourge]

Two institutions are socially sustainable without the practices themselves causing frequent upheavals. The first is the default agrarian farmsteader way of life. The second is a caste system of governor, protectors, scholars, artisans, and farmers. Even the dirt eating throwaways in the outlands can play a valuable role as live game for target practice.

[WAAAAAAGH!]

An aristocracy would come about naturally, but I disagree with you on a few points.  The wealth-through-birth issue is born of politcs.  So long as you don't do things like corporate welfare or make politcs out of taxes (taxes would for the most part be non existant in this system), you can avoid those kinds of political games.  

Yes there are bad kings in history.  For everyone 1 bad king you can name, there 1,000 that don't get credit.  It's a good system.  In America, Kings are given a reputation of being power hungry inept slobs because of George III and the politics of the revolution.  When someone is born into leadership and is raised knowing what is at stake and how to get things done effectively, you generally get far better results than the popularity contests of today.  

And historically, Kings before Henry VIII, were nothing more than the head of the strongest family, who also was in charge of the army and maintaining the laws and traditions of the realm by virtue of his superior ability to gather resources. Traditions eventually gave these family's divine justification.   According to all older writings of England and other medieval countries, the King was expected to "live off his own", that is to say, his own investments and farmlands, etc etc.  They only taxed normally in cases of heavy emergency, which is why Prince John's taxing to free his brother from foreign hands was so demonized in history.  

I apologize that I was never able to fully respond to this. After a few beers this fine evening I am unable to respond in a proper manner. I will say that I have no qualms with monarchy and aristocracy. I only ask a question as to the methods which we are to use that would ensure only the highest quality of individuals are in such positions. Through birth was a fine enough system but as we have learned, reproduction is not a perfect system. Cell division and expression of traits is prone to error.