Dear Aidan,

Since I am guilty of being the first to mention socialism ("Socialism failed because the people involved had no common values and thus no reason to freely consent to any common effort."), I guess that the onus is on me to list what is objectionable in each:

In socialism, one is told: "this fellow is your brother, you are responsible for each other, so if he doesn't work, you must work for him".

In capitalism, one is told: "you have no brothers. You should all fight each other, compete with each other and let the fittest survive".

Under socialism, production wanes: "why should I work for this stranger?"

Under capitalism, production becomes malignant: unnecessary jobs, products and services are created as uncertainty and the stress level rise.

The middle path, is to allow people to choose who their brothers are. One is happy to work for a brother, but not to work for a stranger.

Now whom are you likely to consider as your brothers? I believe that they would be those who share the most important values with you.

Rather than forcing people to live in a mega-society, spanning a whole continent and a variety of conflicting values and aspirations, people should be able to organise themselves voluntarily into smaller societies where they feel happy to get up in the morning and work for the good of like-minded people.

Yuyutsu

No real problem with that. We're seeing this now with the growing independence movements - Scotland, Catalonia and even now the Bretons in France. Not to mention the extremely violent independence movements across the Middle East, especially the Kurds, who are rebelling against the centuries-old dismemberment of their ancient society and culture into a piece of Turkey, a piece of Iraq, a piece of Syria, and so on.

The Tamils in Sri Lanka were perhaps the most tragic, as the fate of their 30-year war of independence was destroyed when the UN dutifully declared them (according to global capitalist dictates) a terrorist organisation. The world community, already starved of media coverage of their plight, abandoned them.

And, of course, the bleeding sore of Northern Ireland never really goes away.

The last few hundred years have seen the mergers, by mostly military oppression, into federated nation states. These mergers are usually accompanied by cultural genocide - suppression of the culture and language and violent suppression of independence activists as 'terrorists', all promoted by an oligarchic imperial-miltary ruling class who reaped the benefits of a much larger income from the public purse.

Yuyutsu, I've gone off on a huge tangent to your post. Apologies. But the historic social, economic and political issues surrounding the destruction of localised resources and production has a long political and military history.

Without any understanding of this history, 'thinking local, buying local' is a well-meaning trope that will never succeed, while mega-corporate interests are committed to a global food production chain.

Killarney,

I fail to see where my comment on social tolerance and unification being based on respect for one another equates to Galloway's political party.
The social fabric of any community, including Australian, has little or less to do with politics but more to do with the realization that everyone wants the same thing albeit some believing they are entitled to more.

Dear Killarney,

«I've gone off on a huge tangent to your post.»

But I can see the connection.

The national-separatist movement is a step in the right direction, but is it enough? Will every Tamil see every other Tamil as their brother? Perhaps so in the first couple of years with the euphoria of national independence, but then I think that it will wear off. I would happily be proven wrong, but I'm trying to be realistic: ethnic/national identity is insufficient common-grounds to call our fellow "brother" and be happy to work for them when they slack.

You need a stronger bond.

I don't believe that even blood bonds will hold in the long run, only deep convictions in common values.

I do for example admire the Amish, but unfortunately I cannot fit in their community because I am not a Christian. Common (yet not superficial) religious convictions are probably the tightest bond.

As for 'thinking local, buying local', yes locality only in terms of geography will not succeed: locality should better be also in terms of common values and goals.

But let us not forget the elephant in the room: mega-corporates can only exist and thrive because there are giga-people on earth. Without a drastic reduction in human population, our freedom is bound to remain very limited.

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Dear Ilmessaggio,

«the realization that everyone wants the same thing»

This is grossly incorrect, unless you refer to the realization that everyone ultimately wants to return to God.

Unfortunately the typical person wants a number of other things in between before they consider themselves ready to return. Different types of people who between them value and aspire to the same (more or less), should be able to group together and pursue their happiness in parallel.

'Everyone wants the same thing'
a peaceful productive life within which to raise a family and choose their beliefs as they see fit without any encroachment to or by others.
Life is in the struggle not the turmoil.
As to God...if he knocks on your door it's up to you, and no one else, as to whether you let him in

Dear Ilmessaggio,

Well not everyone wants a family and among those who do, there is a variety of family-types that they prefer (such as nuclear, single-parent, extended, tribal, homosexual, polygamous, polyandrous, living with Mom, etc.).

Unfortunately not everyone wants a peaceful life. Some prefer the thrill of danger and risk-taking, some like to brawl, others are passive-aggressive.

Most prefer a productive life, but not necessarily in the economic sense: there are those who consider playing golf more productive than growing corn or producing auto-mobiles, there are those who consider scaling Mt. Everest as productive, there are those even who consider sexual conquests as more productive, there are those who consider hacking into others' computers as most productive, then there are those like me who consider study, prayer and meditation as the most productive use of life.

Then there are those miserable souls who do take pleasure to encroach on others, that's a fact of life.

Squeezing all those different people with different and incompatible values into a single society/nation, is a recipe for disaster and suffering.