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Communists advocate the emergence of a "scientific state" in which all revenues and all functions of society are subsumed by government planning and execution. In updated terminology, Marx predicted that ultimately science would advance to the point that there would be no role for labor or enterprise -- only scientifically optimized systems of automated planning and production. In this situation, there would be no free market to sustain the masses since they would not own the automated means of production, and, labor being worthless, would, therefore, have no income. Although Marx predicted a "withering away of the state", the communist interpretation of Marx's dilemma was that the state should confiscate ownership of the automated means of production and distribute the products to the masses based on social need. Since science would have removed all uncertainty as to the most optimal way in which to plan and operate these facilities, there would be no need for the incentives of the market to optimally allocate assets.

Clearly, communism touched a chord with this vision of an automated future in which laborers could not feed themselves or their families while capitalists, who controlled vast production facilities, had no incentive to operate them. The communist movement dominated the politics of the 20th century. Adolf Hitler exploited a related idea when he attacked "international Jewish bankers" in his national socialist movement. When such profoundly destructive movements run their course, it behooves us to do more than merely condemn their evils in moral outrage. Analysis of this recurring political disease, why we are susceptible to it and what can be done to prevent it in the future is just as great a moral responsibility as is condemnation of its manifest evils.

The appeal of communism (and an appeal of fascism) is that it addresses a truth which capitalists exploit and typically resist acknowledging in a material way -- that nature and civilization provide common assets of knowledge, resources, infrastructure and defense of legal rights which enhance and secure the productive value of private assets. It is precisely this pervasive influence of common assets, attributable to natural and historical heritage rather than the merits of any living person or operating corporation, that provides the definition of government's proper function, and, therefore, its proper level and source of revenue.

I have moved beyond that view to a form of anarcho capitalism in which net assets are essentially taxed due to reinsurance premiums to indemnify against force or fraud, but the structural integrity of such a system is not far from that which I proposed in the 1992 white paper. A family's personal assets would be largely exempt due to the fact that they could afford to defend their own property -- so the "tax exemption" is still likely to exist even under anarcho capitalism.

Imagine that -- anarcho capitalism that "taxes" only asset concentration. Well, that's what you get when anarchy reigns and a few people own all the assets -- they need to start thinking about how to keep their lives and properties safe from assault.

Watch.

If you're not going to go all the way to clan-based anarcho-capitalism then at least have the decency to admit that in return for the service of protecting property rights against acts of war or crime, including any form of force and fraud, government should tax net assets, in excess of levels typically protected under personal bankruptcy, at a rate equal to the rate of interest on the national debt, thereby eliminating other forms of taxation.

If you're not going to go all the way to clan-based anarcho-capitalism then at least have the decency to admit that in return for the service of protecting property rights against acts of war or crime, including any form of force and fraud, government should tax net assets, in excess of levels typically protected under personal bankruptcy, at a rate equal to the rate of interest on the national debt, thereby eliminating other forms of taxation.

However there is an especially insidious reason to believe this market will be quite limited this time around, compared even to the depression of the 1930's, and that is the nature of the individuals in whose hands the net assets are concentrated.

When Greenspan decided to depart from his gold standard by keeping interest rates high relative to gold during the crash he in effect decided to concentrate net asset ownership in the hands of people who don't necessarily have the best of characters -- indeed they are far from the ideal of heroic capitalists so promoted by Alan Greenspan himself when he was a devotee of Ayn Rand's.

As I stated in a white paper posted to sci.space in 1992 (resulting from having spent a few years doing politics in Washington to promote commercial incentives for space launch companies):

Just as important, capital welfare severely distorts the
optimization of asset ownership in society by placing, as a
matter of public policy, ever more assets under the control of
those who already have the most assets. Capitalism expresses its
worst potentials when capital welfare debilitates the character
of the wealthy while it gives them ever more economic authority.
This asset centralization impoverishes the population at large,
ending with a collapse in consumer demand. Supply-side theory
fails to predict this collapse because it fails to deal with the
fact that the wealthy are just as prone to character erosion by
welfare as are the poor. It is even more destructive than
welfare for the poor because it corrupts the decision makers in
the economy. In the face of collapsing consumer demand and
capital welfare, acquisition of more capital assets is promoted
over the productive use or investment of those assets.

Political rhetoric defining "the rich" or "the wealthy" as those
with high levels of income or capital appreciation, focuses
public sentiment against the most productive members of society
and away from the centralization of net assets as the underlying
problem.

The incentive for productivity in the economy, left after the
disincentives of capital welfare are subtracted, is the long-term
economic growth rate minus the interest rate on the national
debt. When the interest rate being paid on the national debt
equals the growth rate of the economy, the fruits of all
productivity are being confiscated to pay capital welfare and the
incentives for productive investment and labor disappear. When
the incentives for productivity become negative due to capital
welfare in excess of the economic growth rate, wealth is
structurally centralized at the expense of others in the economy.
The absolute level of net assets owned by the general population
actually decreases so as to increase the net assets of the
wealthy. This not only removes all incentives for production and
entrepreneurial investment from the economy, but consumer demand
collapses as credit is liquidated to pay for necessities.
Depression ensues. It is under these circumstances that demands
for socialist intervention in the economy via "pub

The climatic memetic prisoner's dilemma showed it is highly dangerous to mix populations from all over the world but it didn't get into accounting relationships (e.g., 'tit-for-tat') as a way to mitigate disaster except to point out that with Enron, Global Crossing, etc. it is clear that accounting cannot be relied upon to avoid cheaters in the prisoner's dilemma. When all relationships become informational and global, all relationships devolve toward accounting.

As is repeatedly shown by the alterations of historic accounts as well as business accounts by cheaters, the system just can't work if you don't reserve your most severe punishments for the big cheaters. The problem is in the West we have come to honor the con artist as much as northern Europeans used to honor the victor of the fair contest by arms or quest. And the problem can't be avoided by going to civilizations that don't have such a fair contest history -- the honor accorded con artists is no less there.

W. D. Hamilton said it well in Innate Social Aptitudes of Man:

The incursions of barbaric pastoralists seem to do civilizations less harm in the long run than one might expect. Indeed, two dark ages and renaissances in Europe suggest a recurring pattern in which a renaissance follows an incursion by about 800 years. It may even be suggested that certain genes or traditions of pastoralists revitalize the conquered people with an ingredient of progress which tends to die out in a large panmictic population for the reasons already discussed. I have in mind altruism itself, or the part of the altruism which is perhaps better described as self-sacrificial daring. By the time of the renaissance it may be that the mixing of genes and cultures (or of cultures alone if these are the only vehicles, which I doubt) has continued long enough to bring the old mercantile thoughtfulness and the infused daring into conjunction in a few individuals who then find courage for all kinds of inventive innovation against the resistance of established thought and practice. Often, however, the cost in fitness of such altruism and sublimated pugnacity to the individuals concerned is by no means metaphorical, and the benefits to fitness, such as they are, go to a mass of individuals whose genetic correlation with the innovator must be slight indeed. Thus civilization probably slowly reduces its altruism of all kinds, including the kinds needed for cultural creativity (see also Eshel 1972).

What Hamilton doesn't address is what happens when you "civilize" the entire globe -- no frontiers to which the altruists can escape.

(FemaleStateLegislatorsPercapita2001*CostOfLivingG roceryItems2000*(AIDSTotalPercapitaThru2001/4+Suic idesPercapita1990+10*MurderPercapita2001)*(America n_Indian_Eskimo_or_AleutPercapita1990+Scotch_Irish Percapita1990)/BlacksPercapita1990)

So, I decided to mine almost 200 by-State demographic variables for correlates to autism by running through every combination of 2 variables via multiplication or division under a polynomial, exponential or null transformation -- then sorted them by their correlation to autism in the year 2000.

This is a case where what was "mined" was not just the raw data but various arithmetic combinations of statistical variables derived from the data. There needs to be some additional work to make the figure of merit, not just correlation but statistical significance. I couldn't find Perl modules that provide "alpha" (probability the null hypothesis is true) for correlations.

So, I decided to mine almost 200 by-State demographic variables for correlates to autism by running through every combination of 2 variables via multiplication or division under a polynomial, exponential or null transformation -- then sorted them by their correlation to autism in the year 2000.

This is a case where what was "mined" was not just the raw data but various arithmetic combinations of statistical variables derived from the data. There needs to be some additional work to make the figure of merit, not just correlation but statistical significance. I couldn't find Perl modules that provide "alpha" (probability the null hypothesis is true) for correlations.

Take a look at this highly significant (p less than .01) correlation between autism rates in the year 2000 and prior immigration from non-western nations into industrial states.

Try the competition to find the best predictor of UFO report frequencies by State. Its the closest to basic science you're likely to see for a while in the area of UFOlogy.

There are lies, damn lies, statistics and the over application of Mark Twain's complaint.

Unfortunately, since things have been so bleak professionally lately due to all the 'help' received by US programmers it may be left for someone else somewhere else to complete this work.

Finally I realized memetic systems defining reinsurance networks in terms of kin-selection were the most natural way to make stable technological civilizations because other memetic systems (those that deny the importance of kin-selection) merely evolve hypocrisy at an unconsciuos genetic level rendering rational thought, communication and action nonviable.