Policies for the interaction with other societies.
Inter-constituency coordination and cooperation
How a society that has adopted The Standards of LIFE will coordinate and cooperate with other societies that have not, is important to understand given that that will inevitably be the reality.
Addressing this issue also provides insight into addressing the existing difficulties, around the world, faced by the populations of nations, whose governments are failing to support oppressed people while, at the same time, failing to oppose the oppressors. This dilema is often phrased in the format of isolation versus engagement, where engagement typically means doing business without insisting on social changes.
Having an open a dialogue with everyone is important and should be the minimum position between any peoples – a fundamental of diplomacy. This should allow free travel and cultural exchanges.
What is laid out below is a framework for the development of policies based on LOVE, an acronym for the categorization of relationships. Classification of a state or society is determined by the application of a set of criteria (such as the Democracy Barometer developed by University of Zurich and the Social Science Research Center Berlin (WZB) – see External Links below).
This is a graduated system of classification and associated conditions. Conditions are applied to products and services based on their content, such that if a product is produced by an Oppressive society but contains inputs from a Violently Oppressive society, then that product is subject to the conditions applicable to the Violently Oppressive.
LIFE – LIFE
Relations between contituencies that have adopted The Standards of LIFE will be easy because they will able to rely on shared principles and structures, such as:
- known social support systems in place for their populations
- harmonized tax systems that include carbon loading
- shared legal system with built-in framework for common laws (Variable Law)
- mutual non-aggression stemming from their voluntary association within the multilayer democratic model
LIFE – LIFE-like
Coordination with other societies that have not adopted all of The Standards of LIFE but which do have many of the same attributes, such as social security systems, can be harmonious and can be mixed with the same conditions as those applied to ‘Other’ societies – see below – where appropriate.
LIFE – Oppressive
Cooperation with constituencies and societies that have not adopted any part of The Standards of LIFE are subject to conditions and restrictions and based on the extent of their deviations from the Principles and Standards.
Cooperation with constituencies and societies that have not adopted any part of The Standards of LIFE are still possible by working with them using ‘assumptive’ LIFE Standards. This means that where the ‘Oppressive’ society does not apply The Standards of LIFE, then the Standards are applied for them in all matters of trade and commerce, in additional to the standard diplomatic and political relationships.
For instance this would work as follows:
- all goods exported from Oppressive are loaded with the carbon taxes, that should have been applied at source. Those funds are remitted to organizations involved in the remediation of environmental damage caused, either at the local level in Oppressive by independant groups, or at the relevant Transterritorial or World level
- BASE-equivalent duties would be levied on all trade and commerce conducted with the Oppressive (including the portion of the activities of any businesses based in the LIFE society, conducted in the Oppressive)
- These duties are designed to provide the equivalent revenues to the Oppressive society as they would need to provide, at least, a basic set of BASE services to all their people
- Revenues from these levies will be disbursed to independent local organizations in Oppressive that are providing BASE-equivalent services or, if that is not possible, held in escrow pending the arrival of a government that does follow The Standards of LIFE
- Human rights abuses result in additions to the duties based on estimates of the cost of the legal services necessary to prosecute and defend the offenses, whenever that becomes possible. The high costs involved would mean that more than minimal human right infringements will effectively blockade external commercial interaction with Oppressive, because the levies would be so high.
- These duties are designed to provide the equivalent revenues to the Oppressive society as they would need to provide, at least, a basic set of BASE services to all their people
This will require the review of the extent of BASE services in Oppressive nations and an estimation of the costs of providing the services that are absent (something contributors to this wiki can help to compile).
LIFE – Violently Oppressive
For those societies engaged in violent oppression of their own people, all the conditions of LIFE-Oppressive apply, plus the following.
- Trade sanctions
- currency
- luxury goods and services
- potential-use military and policing products and services
- Democracy-equivalent levies to cover the costs of all elections that should be held under the LIFE Multi Layer Democracy model
- Revenues from these levies to be disbursed to independent local organizations in Oppressive that are promoting democracy and elections or, if that is not possible, held in escrow pending the arrival of a government that does follow The Standards of LIFE
- No rights afforded to the leadership that they do not afford to their own people, for instance:
- Investment or monetary transfers outside of their society
- Travel
LIFE – Extreme
Where there is a complete breakdown of all law and a basically violent, anarchic environment then the above conditions are to be supplemented by the deployment of direct assistance to the people, to help them establish the necessary conditions to start building a LIFE-based structure for their society.
Interventions will be basically humanitarian assistance but with an effort to develop infrastructure as well.
External Links
Democracy Barometer – a method of calculating degrees of adherence to principles of freedom and democracy developed by University of Zurich and the Social Science Research Center Berlin (WZB)
Responsibility to Protect – UN
Common sense demands that you do not deal with corrupt or brutal regimes because the very least you are propping up people who are killing others, that in itself is morally indefensible – John O’Shea, CEO, GOAL
Standards of LIFE 