Meritocracy Party General Platform

[phoenixgoodman]

The Meritocracy Party Platform

A re-organization of government

• An overhaul and evolution of Democratic Republicanism to Meritocratic Republicanism- rule of law supersedes all individual interests of leaders. Lawmakers acting unconstitutionally are removed from office. A Meritocratic Constitution will outline the framework of the role of the Meritocratic government. The following shall be the basic tenets of Meritocratic Constitutions:
• Universal suffrage replaced with Qualified Universal Suffrage. Periodic elections of intelligentsia are held for limited qualified constituencies among various fields. Citizens must pass test in given subject before qualifying for an election for office representative of that field.
• Parliament composed of leading experts in designated fields of governance. (Banking, Agriculture, Education, Sociology, Infrastructure, Military, Psychology, etc)
• All high-level government positions must pay no more than minimum wage.
• Meritocratic Constitutions must explicitly endorse Reason and Enlightenment values. All conflicts must impartially utilize the Scientific Method to determine policy overhauls and empirical evidence towards desired ends will fundamentally take precedence over moral conjecture. Discrimination based on race, sex, is vehemently forbidden, and equality under the law is guaranteed. Education explicitly treats science and philosophy as fundamentally true and stories of old religions that contradict them as fundamentally false. Tolerance is maintained to such a degree that intolerance is utterly intolerable. Hence, any private religious belief systems that are contradictory to enlightenment values are not allowed to have any influence on public life. Hence any religious customs deemed misogynistic (burqas) or abusive towards children (child circumcision) is outlawed. Meritocracy is a “Theocracy of Reason and Enlightenment” that explicitly favors agnostics, atheists and skeptics into public office.
• A national Wealth Registry will be established to make the wealth of all citizens and residents completely transparent. All affiliations, investments and background information must be completely revealed to the public registry prior to running for office.
• Nepotism and cronyism are explicitly outlawed. Local legal experts shall draw up minutiae of legal definitions regarding such transgressions regarding public office, and prevention of non-meritoriously gained positions will be fervently maintained. It is to be a cultural taboo to have gained public office due to any form of nepotism or cronyism.
• Meritocratic Republicanism is defined as fundamentally altruistic in identity. Rewarding as well as cultivating merit are of equal importance. Hence:
• A massive overhaul in the education system will seek to systematize the proactive cultivation of knowledge, skills and mental health of all citizens, including and especially the young, as to make as many citizens as possible capable of voting in elections while maintaining strict standards for qualification.
• Implementation of psychology into state and social functions. All citizen’s personal psychological stats are registered and this knowledge used towards the specific ends of positively developing the individual. Stats include Meyers-briggs profile, psychological conditions, learning style, competencies and weaknesses. This information will be used to
  1. Specialize each child’s education so that their strengths are accentuated, weaknesses are overcome, and teaching styles matched with learning styles.
  2. Proactively maximize efficiency of employment possibilities, as the pool of human capital is analyzed to best match the best people for the State’s needs of production, research, and implementation of employment programs.
  3. The strict filtering of all would-be public officials. Anyone with a psychological profile reflecting an insufficient level of empathy and mental health as determined by impartial criteria is barred from office so that only those who seek the betterment of the people are allowed to run in the first place.
• An aggregate of empirical data on the techniques and effects of marketing and advertising will be gathered and implemented for the common good. Hitherto such potent knowledge has been used specifically towards the enrichment of private interests through the concerted manipulation of the general populace towards a culture of consumerism and a cultivation of neurosis, as the perception of material enrichment through buying the marketed product is the aim of free-market advertising. This knowledge will be used to inspire people through public awareness campaigns encouraging people towards educating themselves, being mentally healthy and altruistic. The school system will explicitly teach propaganda, marketing and advertising to all children so that they develop critical thinking skills. The state seeks to immunize all future citizens against being brainwashed against their own interests in a campaign of “anti-brainwashing brainwashing”
• The nationalization of the nation’s central bank and an overhaul into Social Capitalism. Just as the military is a hierarchical government entity that promotes based on experience and functions according to deemed national interest, the hierarchy of the central bank will be composed of individuals who have shown financial prowess in specifically creating economic health for the people and the state (NOT private shareholders). Hence, a person in charge of policies that lead to a crash that exacerbates unemployment will lead to discharge, whereas a reasonable but not exorbitant bonus would be given to the central bank leaders who accomplish the altruistic and economically efficient goals of the State, including but not limited to: Full employment, allocation of capital into problem-solving technologies and sectors, decrease in mental illness, increase in average IQ, increased production and efficiency, and accomplishment of said goals within the scope of 100% economic and resource sustainability. Loans from the central bank to private businesses, entrepreneurs, and citizens will be given at ZERO INTEREST, as the loans will be given for the sake of achieving said collective goals without any regard for banker profiteering from the people’s productivity.
• The Meritocratic economic model seeks to proactively develop a post-scarcity, post-money system in which it shall strive to rationally make itself obsolete in time. This will constitute a step-by-step economic goal set beginning with a revolutionary overhaul from private banking free market capitalism to Meritocratic social capitalism in which the flow of capital shall be used to incentivize socially conducive entrepreneurship and utilize markets for efficient pricing on the micro economic level. However, a concerted investment into R&D and production of post-scarcity technology will be implemented with zeal (much as DARPA currently allocates vast funds towards military hegemony, The Meritocratic State shall similar invest time, effort, money, and human capital towards developing ubiquitous 3d printing, free energy devices, intelligent AI for use of city planning, sustainable agricultural technologies, space exploration, etc). Meritocracy seeks to be the cultural and organizational bridge between the current world order and the Post-Scarcity society of Zeitgeist.
• An aggregation of the most qualified and accomplished individuals in the pedagogy, child psychology and child-rearing fields will be conducted to utilize the vast level of peer-reviewed research into the insights of cultivating humans into self-actualization. This aggregation of knowledge will be formed into a new department that utilizes this empirical knowledge to form a ubiquitous presence in the education system. Hence child-rearing experts will no longer be simply individually focused on educating inquisitive parents on how to raise their own children, but will apply this knowledge universally so every child, even orphans, are cultivated with this system.
• All would-be parents must pass a required childcare education program. This includes child psychology and development courses so that an “instruction manual” based on empirical evidence is given to all parents.
• A registry of national average scores of the 9 types of intelligence among its citizens. Quotas will be set for time frames in which the aggregate score of this intelligence must continuously raise. Example, if average IQ of its citizens at year 1 is 100, a goal will be made to have average IQ become 120 within 5 years, and so on indefinitely.
• A drastic re-envisioning of architecture, ergonomics, home design and city layouts. The most innovative experts in these subjects will be called upon by the state for a revolutionary re-imagining of city and home life that emphasized community values and support systems. Communes, phalanstaries, central city plazas, efficient transportation systems, etc shall be conducted. Concepts such as the Venus Project will be seriously considered for construction as a national public works project.
• An initial implementation of 100% inheritance tax for any estates over 1 million dollars. Assets seized at an individual’s death will be sold back to the market at fair market value, and only nationalized if necessary as Meritocracy seeks to guide, but not centrally control the private markets. Funds from inheritance tax will be allocated towards all citizen cultivation projects like education. Once Meritocracy and communal city arrangements are fully functioning so that every child is guaranteed a maximally advanced customized education, inheritance will gradually decrease from a $1m maximum to a 500k maximum, etc. until eventually inheritance tax is fully 100% for all individuals.
• Due to the realities of the dichotomy of unique psychological tendencies of men and women, the financial sector will be femenized by maintaining a quota for women in the financial industry. This has been arrived at empirically as higher levels of testosterone have proven to correlate to unstable levels of economic risk taking. Since decisions in the financial sector affect the common populace, unstable risk is antithetical to a cohesive economic stability of the state and people. Therefore a more altruistic and risk-averse culture will be cultivated through a female quota in the financial sector.
• A cultural revolution. Commissioning of new universities, cities, art projects, movies espousing enlightenment ideals, public works, music and museums as well as the promotion of philosophy and science. Competitions will set up by the government to inspire inventors and innovators, as well as student projects. For all non-English speaking countries, English will be the official second language that everyone will learn to fluency as to facilitate effective communication with the rest of the world.

[Roberto]

GENERAL

• The guiding principle of the Meritocracy Party is People before Profit.
• Meritocracy wants a world where everyone enjoys equal opportunity to thrive.
• Its mission is to achieve Equal Opportunity for Every Child.
• The transnational capitalist class is the main obstacle in the way.
• A meritocratic state is a republic based on Reason.

ECONOMY

• Nationalize the banking sector.
• Develop complementary currencies to create jobs and protect communities from the effects of globalisation.
• Develop support programmes for Small and Medium Enterprises.
• Implement the Millionaire Estate Tax.

POLITICS

• Align policies toward satisfying Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs for everyone.
• Apply the scientific method to all policy decisions and actively seek constructive criticism from society.
• Have top bureaucrats elected by their peers in their field of expertise.
• Develop effective policies to outlaw nepotism and cronyism from public affairs.

EDUCATION

• Cancel student debt.
• Offer free education up to university.
• Invest in the creation of a new educational model that maximizes student’s individual potential. Base it on the Waldorf and Montessori methods to begin with.

Most political parties are omnibus parties. They develop a policy or stance for everything. I don’t think we need to go that way as long as we have a clear vision to communicate that people can believe in and core policies to make it a reality or at least get us closer to the ultimate goal.

The above are the ones I think we should start with (based on the original post) to keep things simple. Every policy a Meritocracy Party endorses in its platform is another battle that has to be fought. This is why it’s really important to carefully pick and choose the best policies for achieving our aim of a world where everyone enjoys equal opportunity to thrive and not just a privileged few.

We need to look at this from the point of view of the average person in the street. Simple but powerful messages are the way to go in my opinion.

[Taylor_Martin]

This is amazing, truly. I have been thinking and thinking of ways to articulate cohesively a model for new leadership, not just in government, but in all places leadership is required and I’ve really struggled with consolidating my ideas. This is a beautiful consolidation, thank you, excellent model to work off of!

[Volmer]

Roberto is absolutely right about every policy being a new battle to be fought, but Phoenix’ proposal is a nice and comprehensive general roadmap of hypothetical advancement in the distant future. While we are an incredibly long way off from such a world, none of the points strike me as something that shouldn’t be strived for in humanity’s long-term game.

And while perhaps a little outlandish in the current world’s context, looking back a few hundred years or even a few decades many of the hard-won rights and social changes we’ve experienced since then would have seemed far more outlandish and even incredibly dangerous to the general mindset of that era.

Plan far ahead and dream big, but never neglect the short-term and the good we can do in our current climate and the paths we should take in the here and now. It’s absolutely imperative to our development and growth.

[Taylor_Martin]

While I agree that overloading ourselves with messages will create too much of an uphill battle, I do anticipate us being questioned on our stance for various, often arbitrary but still inflammatory issues of the day. Particularly in America, social issues are quite hot topic and many people often define their allegiance to a particular party based on their focused social issue.

I think meritocracy is pretty clear on many things but issues like the following, that tend to divide people in a way that is highly favorable to OWO politics, are a bit unclear:

Abortion
Gay Marriage
Drug use -recreation + medicinal
Privacy rights
Death penalty
Borders/immigration
Genetic engineering/stem cells
etc.

In my opinion, many such issues should not be left to the discretion of the government but even so, many people will ask about such things if we set up information tables and rallies etc.

Perhaps in addition to setting up the platform of core meritocratic focus we should set up stances for the obvious hot button issues in every country, even if our stance is to have no stance.

I think we should also identify those issues that inherently divide people and strive to offer a stance that is a balance to both sides of the issue. It is division of people itself that the OWO relies on, so as much unifying ideology as we can create can only help us.

Thoughts?

[Volmer]

This is a bit difficult, because many of the issues you’ve listed demand the party to take a stance behind a particular kind of view on humanity itself. Conservative parties draw theirs from ancient judeo-christian heritage, while left-wing parties are forced to act as complete opposites to the old ways and may also have to therefore take stances which might not be ultimately beneficial for humanity. I’ll give personal commentary on the more social side of topics you listed, but this is only personal opinion and I think every human being has strong personal bias regarding the more intimate or sensitive topics.

Abortion, in terms of politics, is somewhat of a hot-button issue in many countries that have been or still are deeply religious. We obviously cannot go saying that women have no right to their bodies as that is horrendous, but support for late-term abortion is a very… Gray area in many respects. It should be more of a case-by-case deal, with early abortions being far less controversial. Rapes or cases where the mother is at risk or underage, perhaps some severe birth defects, as well as cases where the woman feels pressured by immediate family or local community to not terminate the pregnancy should be more cut-and dry cases of allowance. Personally, I feel that early-on offering of free intra-uterine devices (safe, effective, you can detect it through the skin) for women would probably help terminate many so-called ‘unnecessary’ abortions.

Gay marriage… I’ve personally nothing against it as all the opposition basically boils down to “but god/tradition”. The people saying it feels iffy or unnatural have just been basically bathed in an environment of tradition from which their reactions stem. Do you really think homosexuals are likelier to choose risky, non-fulfilling paths and lifestyles within their lives because they think it’s fun? No, it’s because nobody’s offering them a life where they could settle down and truly commit to a person they love - in fact it’s been widely viewed as abhorrent and illegal. When someone says “you cannot love another adult fully capable of giving consent” or “the love between you cannot possibly be as good as the love between a man and a woman” and it’s viewed as a status quo or a good thing, that’s… Worrying. If people are so up in arms about homosexuals ruining their sacred marriage vows and thus voiding their relationships, maybe they should reflect on their reasoning and the views they hold on romantic relationships a little.

Of course, a lot of the mental imagery involved with both abortion and homosexuality very much still involve a lifestyle void of ethics or values. Drugs, excessive alcohol use, lots and lots of unprotected sex, addictions etc. This should be counteracted somehow, and the people who are at risk of falling into such self-destructive cycles should be helped. While nihilistic lifestyles are seen and accepted as an inevitable result of freedom, I think it has a lot more to do with people developing particularly hopeless and materialistic “here-and-now” attitudes towards their lives as a result of negative personal experiences. Not all, mind you, but a good portion of people I’d hazard to guess.

Drug use… Hmm. The view of marijuana as a thing you’re supposed to do as a rebellious teenager is hazardous and should be worked against. It has been proven that it hinders development in still-developing brains, and therefore create more simple minds for the rest of their lives. Maybe it could be legal as a closely-monitored government monopoly after the age of 25? Since the brain stops physically developing at that time. As for cocaine, heroin, etc. strictly off the list. More should be done to drive home the fact that the coke you’re snorting in the nightclub’s dim bathroom is coming from murderers and people who practically enslave women as prostitutes to get more money. It’s an ethical issue. Of course - the best way? Help drive the south american nations and asia’s ‘golden triangle’ region, as well as afghanistan, to develop as nations and cease production of the base substances they need. Oh, and medicinal marijuana? Regulated and monitored, yes.

Keep in mind that a lot of regulation I associated with drugs here would become obsolete if Meritocracy were widely observed as a way of life.

[Taylor_Martin]

I think every human being has strong personal bias regarding the more intimate or sensitive topics.

This is my point. By identifying and providing a Meritocratic solution to the issues of strong personal bias we can make friends where surely enemies would stand. In my experience, people who have strong feelings one way or the other on such issues are very rarely neutral in politics. I know some people who only vote to ensure that one side or the other wins because they may be neutral or apathetic towards politics in general, but the interference in their lives and general government of their society on specific issues gets under their skin enough to act.

These are the stubborn people, the ones who don’t budge and for better or worse (at least in America) make up a large percentage of the people who actually vote (as the amount of people who actually participate in politics is in no way a majority). I would like to get these people on our side, and even more SOLVE these issues so that they stop dividing people. It is division thta I think Meritocracy should focus on when it comes to issues that are not a priority for the Meritocratic platform. I think that most political debates are essentially a non-issue from a Meritocratic standpoint but the fact that they are HUGE issues to large portions of the population should be thoughtfully considered. Meritocracy should seek to fulfill its platform goals as well as to provide unifying theory/solution/ideology to the issues that the OWO exploits to ensure a divided population.

I just woke up so I am not at my most thoughtful, but off the top of my head I would suggest the following with regard to the examples you highlighted:

Abortion - Meritocracy is inherently focused on the individual and as such I feel that our emphasis should be on the woman’s choice, however I do not feel that just anyone can have an abortion. Not necessarily because of the rights of the fetus, but because of the personal responsibility/accountability for ones actions that needs to be stressed. If you have sex, you will always have a chance at pregnancy, its just what bodies do. With that in mind, state provided birth control and adoption clinics/orphanages could be part of the solution. We focus on creating an educated population provided with the most up to date scientific research and technology, free to women once they choose to become sexually active. We remove the parents right to dictate when a person becomes sexually active by allowing doctors to provide birth control without parental consent. I know I lost my virginity at a very early age, and I am not saying that an early start is necessarily a good thing, just that it happens. I also know that as responsible as I tried to be, things like condoms were still scary and I know that easy access to the most effective means of pregnancy protection would have eliminated quite a lot of stress and, with the techniques available today, would virtually guarantee that no pregnancy would happen. Of course people have a right to whatever religious principles they hold so we can never make it compulsory, but with the right amount of education, support, and access I think we can shape a population that doesn’t even have an abortion debate because the issue is obsolete. If everyone who chooses to be sexually active has the right and means to control whether or not they become pregnant, then ideally the only people getting pregnant would be people who chose to do so. As for rape and underageness and things of that nature, we provide the support, procedures, research, and outlets (be it abortion, adoption, or if they choose to keep it) absolutely free of charge.

As a side bar to this issue, I think as Meritocrats and moral human beings, sex crimes should be relegated to the harshest of penalties we provide as opposed to the appalling state that America is in where rapists and child sex offenders spend less time in prison then drug offenders. (I have other thoughts on prison reform and crime/punishment as a whole but that is a separate debate).

Gay Marriage - Meritocracy seeks to destabilize the power of the family structure and transfer those rights to the individual. Perhaps our answer to the gay marriage debate is not even acknowledging that it is a debate. We seek to abolish state and federal rights of marriage and make it a personal decision between consenting adults. The professions of love and eternal commitment are fantastic notions however the data is overwhelmingly clear that most people just should have gotten married in the first place. Divorce rates are ridiculous and the legal red tape and finances associated with it are a waste of resource. By seeking to abolish marriage rights and provide those legal ‘incentives’" to the individual from day one, then marriage becomes a purely abstract notion associated with love. Currently the legal rights/incentives provided to couples who choose to get married is just another method by which the OWO secures the control/consolidation of wealth and should be eliminated, much the same way we seek to impose the estate tax. The goal is always about equality, and while in the current regime I support the right for gay couples to receive the same benefits as everyone else, perhaps the answer is that straight couples should learn to love like gay couples and renounce their state recognition of marriage in favor of marrying for love as the ONLY incentive.

Drug use - I think the only way to break the power of these cartels and the ‘golden triangle’ and all those hyper evil organizations is to legalize all drugs. This is not something done willy nilly and I think Portugal and Canada have excellent perspectives on drug use. Meritocrats are about education and individual freedom/advancement. The organizations that plague certain regions of the world and indeed control the majority of the world are at the heart of OWO politics. In fact most of the leading lobbyists in America have been found to be funded by these organizations. Why? Because if it is legal and regulated by the state then their exorbitant profit margins vanish along with the power they wield. The taboo of drugs will always attract youth because hey, if you tell a kid he can’t have a cookie, hes really going to want that cookie; maybe to be defiant or maybe just because he has a natural curiosity that every human seeks to satisfy. There are treatments available for all types of addictions, ironically enough by using alternative illegal substances. For example there is data that supports that Ibogaine (an extremely powerful psychedelic, probably second only to DMT) can cure addiction. Indeed there are documentaries and personal accounts that say 20 year heroin addictions can be overcome in a weekend of treatment with this substance. This method as well as all treatments associated with the negative health consequences of drug use should be explored. In this manner we release the taboo on drugs, gain a greater knowledge of the various drugs health detriments as well as a more thorough understanding of their therapeutic/healing potentials. Drugs are just drugs and the legality/illegality of drugs is almost entirely motivated by industry lobbyists. If we really were concerned with the crime and additional consequences of drugs then we wouldn’t have such a crisis with legal prescription drug abuse. Meritocracy should be about examining the science of these drugs with an emphasis on their potential positive uses. Half of the crime associated with drug use is the fact that the drugs are illegal in the first place. By legalizing we eliminate a significant portion of the crime by default. The rest of the crime that typically springs from addicted persons I feel will be drastically decreased if drugs are made cheaper/taxed and there are appropriate avenues for help if someone feels like it is taking over their lives. Everyone has a right to explore their own consciousness and I am a big believer that you can never save someone from themselves. You can offer them a hand if they cross the line from recreational and in control to addicted and a danger to society but you will never stop the desire. Where there is will there is a way, where there is a way there is a market, where there is a market there is greed, where there is greed society crumbles.

I would have to check the data, but in my experience I don’t think many people just go nuts and harm people or property as a result of using a drug but rather in an effort to control, maintain, fund, or gain access to the drug itself. That being said, EVERYONE is accountable for their own actions. Meritocrats should support absolute personal responsibility so laws like drunk driving and a legal age to be allowed to buy should absolutely be advocated. But in the privacy of ones own home, or in a venue specifically designated as safe and supportive, then why not allow people to explore their consciousness in whatever way they desire? Particularly if we have a complete knowledge and research initiatives about the drug and we make an effort to inform every citizen of the positive and negative potential of each. Inform, tax, and enable help sounds meritocratic to me, particularly since, if everyone operates from the same foundation of knowledge, drug use and a persons ability to be responsible or irresponsible are strong indicators of merit. Legalization of drugs could be an effective means of examining the meritorious qualities of an individual as we would very clearly be able to see who can ignore drugs/use them responsibly and who is essentially seeking to escape reality and themselves and offers little to contribute to society.

Anyway, the point is that a solid ideology behind the intimate, sensitive, volatile, and divisive topics could prove to be a strong means for recruitment in the early stages and provide an excellent platform to work from once we achieve Meritocratic government as it will be our responsibility then to manage such debates.

[Volmer]

That is… Wow. The points you’ve provided are really, really well thought out! I see now that my personal thinking on many subjects is still very much confined within structures that are par for the current course, so to speak.

As for your addition regarding rape - I could not agree more. It is the ultimate selfish act of a weak will seeking malicious dominance over another human being, one that leaves horrid scars upon the survivor. And yet in Finland as well, with all our enlightened ideals about female participation in society, sexual crimes are belittled in a horrendous manner and the perpetrator often gets away with… Well, basically a warning that “if you do it again you’ll go to jail” and maybe a fine - which, because such fines are scaled on the aggressor’s income and they are often unemployed or have very low wages, amount to very little. Unless the abuse has been incredibly severe and brutal, in that case he might get a few years in jail.

I feel the Finnish justice system is a joke until it can fix this. Unfortunately, this is very much the kind of an issue that has contributed to the rise of reactionary politics and parties in Scandinavian countries. We are obsessed with treating the perpetrators of even horrendous crimes with such tenderness that the victim’s suffering is completely belittled and forgotten.

And let me clarify - I don’t want to see them drawn and quartered in public before cheering, blood-thirsty crowds. I simply want the treatment of such cases to reflect the severity of the crime itself, the absolute abandonment of any personal responsibility for the well-being of others at the cost of pleasing one’s basest instincts.