DEMOKRITOS, OR A MOKUMENTARY ON A NEW WELFARE STATE

The greek scholarch Demokritos wrote some books on the ideal state in order to advise the rulers of his city to make laws for the well-being of its citizen. In this article the last known fragments will be depicted and commentated by Dr. John Siân’s. Siân’s discourse „On a New Wellfare State“ in wich Demokritos‘ philosophy plays a central role will conclude this documentation as an appendix.

PERI PHYSEIS POLEIS: The known fragments written by Demokritos

• Physis (or natura like the romans translated) is a dynamic process. Reality is not static, because only a priori truth and the first substance are eternal.
• The kosmos physikoi (or mundus naturale) has some rulesw hich are eternal
• Nomos kratoi (or leges fortissimi* like the romans translated (*i.e the law of the fittest)) says that the one with more elaborated attribute wins over the one with less elaborated attributes, but the elite is as powerfull as the people. Logically, the result of the antagonism between the two can either be eternal class struggle or a compromise. In this case the law of the fittest cames to its limits.
• The golden law (lex aurea) of reciprocity is the first and supreme tenet of all society.
• The law of defence of the weak and absence of violence for free is a corollary of the golden law.
• The law of aretê (aretê means excellence in greek). The exellence lies in the character, according to the master-philosopher Aristotle.
• The endigment of greed by the masses and establihment of order by the elite is the right distribution of tasks.
• The Polis (city state) is united as a systema and is divided by social classes.
• The Government should take the natural issues and worries of its citizen seriously.

APPENDIX: On a New Wellfare State by John Siân

I dare to think that neither communism, nor socialism, nor social-capitalism, nor neocapitalism is the end of economic developpement. The economic transmutations which occured at soonest since the second half of the middle-ages or at least at the end of this medieval period, are constanty on the change. § It is 2021 and the wellfare state is often in struggle with the economic tendenacies. The agrandised autonomy of the market and the corporations seems to chellenge the wellfare state structures as it is known since 1980. The first period (1945-1980) was the golden age of the idea oft he wellfare state. The second age (1980-today) is a period of deconstruction. The wellfare state will not always fully be questionned, but most of its elements are. What would be the third age for the wellfare state? § The Quinquennat Faction. The 10 Top Percent Faction. The 10 Bottom Percent Faction. The Top working Faction. The Bottom working Faction. § Maybe my system will only be alive for 50 years, because no system is eternal. But it is better to have 50 years a good system, than 500 years a feudal system.

The system of Tripartism and Pactism should regulate the society not the riches who are represents the corporations, not the masses which are represented by the syndicates or the state which represent all citizens, but all these three powerholders together. This Triarchy should negociate pacts which should be renegociated all five or ten years. The only condition si that the five vital conditions -nutrition, education, housing, health and environnement protection- should not be negociable.

In anglosaxon or austrian (Neo-)Capitalism the State only intervenes in coporations‘ affairs when there is a crisis. In rhenan Capitalism the state is a wellfare state. In an socialistic State the state has too much to do and the burocracy is exploding. What I propose is to let the corporations do their businesses to a certain degree and the state intervenes especially when the basic needs, proclaimed by the people in a national pact, are not satisfied. In this pactist society the state have to intervene, when for example one thousand homeless people are living in the streets of the capital city.

John Siân, London, 8th of March 2021.

TRIPARTISM AND PACTISM: The two principles of a new wellfare state ?

John Siân was a very ingenious theorists. On his 700th birthday in 2021 I decided, that his theories were worth to try. Maybe they would only last for a few decades, but neither neocapitalism nor democratic socialism would mark the end of History as no economic system is capable to exist for ever. Slavoy Zizek didn’t believe that the classical old model of the wellfare state of the 20th century would be for ever. He might have reason, but as an ardent defender of the wellfare state I believe that a new wellfare state might be possible. Therefore the loss of the old kind of socialdemocracy, if it occure, might not be so dramatic. I thought about the wellfare state as one of the greatest achievements of western democracies. Without this kind of wellfare system and its associated Marshall-Plan, Western Europe would have been dominated by communists after the Second World War. At the end, the wellfare system, keynesianism and socialdemocracy saved western Europe and maybe the western world and its kinds of capitalism. My issues with the future of the wellfare state is that corporations would be so powerfull, that they doens’t want to pay taxes and eventually the budged for social state projects would be non-existent. The decline of the wellfare-state was even observed during the long lasting financial and economical crisis in the years 2007 until 2020. In the latter year I refounded my belief in the wellfare-state by the experiences during the COVID-19 crisis. There even the neoliberal french president Emmanuel Macron realised the importance of statist wellfare structures. Maybe in the next decades the wellfare state could evolve in a new kind of economic system, that could benefit a wast majority of individuals.

Slavoj Zizek thought 2015 that the old welfare state after WWII will cannot be reinstalled in the times we live today. Therefore I though about to reinvent the welfare state. The new one should, at first, be based on five vital necessaties: nutrition, health care, education, housing and proper environnement. On these five basic things we should build a new welfare state. So, after classical Liberalism, Marxism, Keynesianism, and Neoliberlaism, should we try Pactism, Tripartism, Empirism and the Five-Necessities-Theory ? Yes, the old social state management should not necessarly be restaurated, but deliberation between masses and megacorps and mediation through the state to form a pact, which should be recognized by the masses and the megacorps, as well as sealed by the state to watch over for five or ten years could be made reality. In addition, I suggest to use empirism as an economic parascience, where the law of cause and effect is and the law of relative contingence dominate the beliefs on economic.

Julien Sita, 4th February 2021.