Squeers I take no offense.
Lets make this clear, very clear, I regard you , and many more as a good poster and enjoy your posts.
Differ some times but that is life.
Some will see a very pig headed bloke in me, he exists, without shame.
I hold in contempt any one who has no imagination, no room to digest others views.
And who, fixed and often uninformed in their views, claim that of me.
You I Joe , we stand on different hills different history's and experience, that makes us what we are, gives us our opinions.
You do unions an injustice,yet not all of them.
Unions represent, not lefty extremists, please know, one in a hundred trade unionist are that.
And about 50 in every hundred! TRULY! are more likely conservative voters.
I once, uninformed as I was thought Communism, or Socialism , One World Government, was coming.
That it would be wonderful.
I grew up, fast!
I go back first to that dream, one Lexi shares and one I would like to but can not.
No workers Paradise ever existed,no peoples one.
OWG would be a Bee hive,once in power most of humanity would be the worker Bees in a black nest without hope.

I have a few thoughts,and questions.
The answers, even the thoughts,should tell why I think humanity is headed for one world.
Can any one tell me of a time humanity worked as one to fix a problem.
Will someone put in to words why we fail to work together to end wars?
Why is China/Russia/America not sitting down today to fix and free North Korea.
If humanity came first,just after morning coffee they could fix and enforce settlement in the middle east.
Post lunch?
Resolve the terrorism problems of the world.
Self interest, use of country's and people as pawns there is my answer.
Communism, trying for a rebirth under another name, fell after a crack in the wall.
One day, maybe after a war so bad we could not think of it, a lifeguard.
One that enslaves us all,will be excepted and in a few hundred years? one big North Korea.
Think with me here.
If those leading nations fought short harsh wars,many deaths, to fix forever these problems,how many of us would not agree?
See I too would say ok peace is worth the pain.

Sqeers, Loudmouth, Peter & Belly are all engaged in arguing where
society will head in the future and how it can escape the clutches of
those Grey Eminences who they so fear.

There is actually a different style of society called the Gift Society.
It was an early form of society after the hunter gatherer and before
it morphed into the agricultural period.
If you have more tomatoes than you need you give them away and someone
may give you some grain. It was not a formal barter system but
something like this may come into being, perhaps more formalised.

Imagine every town or village had its weekly market and the town has
a row of trades and repair shops.
Does this not sound a bit like the traditional UK market town ?
If to smooth out the barter system they may generate their own money.
There are already quite a number of town moneies such as the Totnes
Pound already in circulation.
The purpose of these town monies is to keep the town wealth in the
town. They only use the national currency when they buy in something
from outside.

Have a look at
http://totnesedap.org.uk/
or
http://transitionculture.org/

There are people looking for a better way that will be possible under
future conditions.

Bazz
I agree with much of what you say including the growing need and increasing trend for local production and 'market towns'. The barter system is growing in Australia under systems like LETS including bartering labour as well as produce but of course it is happening at the individual and community level which is where it works best.

Belly,

Humans are tribal....and not only do they instinctively form cliques, they also form hierarchies. I think a one world government is a most unlikely possibility (in the true sense of our idea of "government")

Bazz,

Look out for a book titled "The Gift" by Lewis Hyde. It examines the mechanisms involved in gift societies throughout history and looks at the psychological aspects inherent in such a system. It might be said that our current system of usury is the antithesis of gift society.

Sorry for the delay all, I've had a child in hospital (and please don't lecture me, Yabby, about how I take that for granted etc. I promise not to cause any more babies!)

Joe,
thanks for clarifying my position to Peter (though I do like cats and dogs :).
What do we put in its place?
I agree it doesn't have to be either or. The real difficulty inherent in any alternative is capitalism itself; it's never going to be a walk in walk transition. All the world's billions and commodities and infrastructure are not merely the product of, but are dependent upon, capitalism, and a radical end to capitalism would surely mean collapse. Moreover, it's impossible for anyone to contemplate a viable alternative to the life of convenience and diversion that the wealthy at least enjoy. But that doesn't alter the fact that the planet can't support an advanced global bourgeoisie, or that it's based on exploitation. Maybe we should have a thread on alternatives to capitalism sometime.
cont..