Insightful, original and sensible, "Personalism v. Socialism" is about free people living in a democratic community being able to control their governments' actions and the authorities in their governments.
The book is really a collection of six essays. The first essay, "The Personalist Manifesto", talks about personal freedom and democratic governance. The personalist principle is that since reason resides in the individual, the individual person is the most important element in human affairs. Socialism is the principle that the individual has no value - that individual rights should be completely subordinated to the interests of the community. The essay talks about the need to eradicate socialism as an active, guiding principle in human governance.
Essays 2 through 6 talk about principles, structures, roles, financing and taxation in personalist, democratic governance. While most of the historical background and proposed renovations are Canadian, the principles and ideas could easily be adopted anywhere.
My adult life has been spent in the crazy years. It could be said that the crazy years began in the early 1960's with the births of John F. Kennedy's presidency in the U.S.A. and the Pearson-Kent regime in Canada. So, I've been there during the 40 years we've been misled awandering in North America's socialist wilderness.
I've read a lot about the human story - not in formal study but for pure pleasure. It has long amazed me that history repeats, in all ages and areas of the world, such a sorry story of misgovernance, and, that human beings did, and still do, put up with it.
My working career has taken me to New York City, Vancouver, Toronto, and other cities in Ontario. I've been a practitioner, executive, lecturer, consultant and company owner in marketing and advertising - when not reading man's story, running for parliament, or "commenting" on the news of the day.
This project was only made possible by my wife Erika.
THE PERSONALIST MANIFESTO
The people who are opposed to the socialist principle and all its consequences have handicapped themselves by allowing socialists to define the agenda and the terms of the struggle. Socialists have even been allowed to define the alternative to "socialism"!
Most often, "capitalism" is said to be the opposite of "socialism". But capitalism is merely one of three ways to describe how human beings do business. (Barter and mercantilism are the other two.)
Human affairs embrace much more than business and socialism is not just about business. Socialism is a fundamental first principle affecting all aspects of the human condition, and can only be countered and defeated by a first principle of equal scope.
The core meaning of socialism is that the community is the basic value in human affairs. The individual person has no rights - it is the community that determines the terms and conditions under which the people in it live.
Problem is, communities aren't living beings. They don't have a body, mind and soul. You can't take a community out for a beer and talk things over. Communities of any size, be they a club, an association, a church, or a nation, always "act" according to the wishes of the people who control them.
Throughout history, whether they shot their way to the top or got there by inheritance, election, or appointment, it has been the elites in the positions of authority who have decided the interests of communities and thereby controlled the people in them.
Now, it goes without saying that good governance is essential to civilization. Surely every sensible person can agree that only in a peaceful and ordered environment can we have the personal freedom that enables the pursuit of a good life. Law, regulation and the institutions of good governance are essential to creating and sustaining that peaceful and ordered environment.
The key issues are:
1) who decides what good governance is, and
2) who controls the people who occupy the positions that provide good governance.
"Personalism" is the opposite of "socialism". The core meaning of personalism is that the individual is the basic value in human affairs. If personalism prevailed, the individuals in a community would determine the terms and conditions of their own good governance. It's called democracy - government by the people. Mankind's agelong hunger has been for democratic governance operating on the personalist principle.
It is very difficult for people to pursue the good life when sticks and stones (or bullets and bombs) are whizzing about their ears. From the earliest days of living in groups larger than an extended family, the first role of governance has been to protect the individuals in the community from being harmed by outsiders. Organization and leadership of the manpower that acquired and defended the tribe's territory - its scavenging/gathering/hunting grounds and its water and salt sources - were essential to the survival of the individual persons in the tribe. As the ages passed, the benefit to tribal self-interest of negotiated external relationships gradually began to be perceived and defence and external affairs became intertwined aspects of safeguarding the tribe's territory.
In the pre-historic ages of primitive scarcity, territory determined resources, therefore it was essential to restrict access to the territory's limited resources to the members of the tribe. To do that, the members of the tribe had to be identifiable, and distinguishable from outsiders. The earliest self-description of each tribe as "The People" (which meant all others were ''Not People") was the origin of the concept of citizenship. Initiation rituals, costuming, body decoration, lore-telling, ceremony, etc. contributed to the senses of tribal identity that grew into the whole cluster of activities that can be grouped as civil affairs.
The semi-historical mythologies of Sumer, Egypt and China talk about first rulers, emperors or kings who led their people out of the darkness of pre-civilized barbarity into the light of civilization. Usually they were described as supernatural, or at least as agents or children of the gods. Legendary rulers were often credited with uniting the peoples of several villages into larger communities thereby creating greater security and prosperity for more people in an expanded territory.
Not only did the legendary rulers slay or enslave external enemies, they also made their communities' internal territories safe for all citizens by subduing the bandits and bullies. This grew into the larger concept of even-handed justice for all citizens in a community where even the lowliest person was entitled to be protected from unfair abuse. Equitable treatment of everyone was infinitely more beneficial to the community than the chaos of pre-civilized existence when the strongest/nastiest/craftiest/most belligerent got the spoils. Almost invariably, the legendary rulers were credited with introducing fair and sensible laws to govern relationships among their people, and with making wise judgments that resolved disputes among their people.
These four - defence and external affairs, civil affairs, and justice - were the earliest roles for governance. (A few modern commentators think today's governments should fall back to performing just these basic operations!)
B) A Standard Gold dollar - As Sensible As Standard Time
National sovereignties are not threatened by the fact it is the same time in Toronto and New York. A nation's independence is not put at risk when its people use numbers and a numerical system that came to the world from India via Arabia. Cultural identity is not jeopardized by the fact that the same 26 letters can be used to create an infinite variety of communications in a multitude of languages.
We hunger for standards to simplify our lives. We use standard chips, transistors, discs and tapes, and a host of other instruments and components all over the world. (If only we could establish a standard electric outlet, we'd be able to use our shavers anywhere!)
The answer is to move to a global "gold dollar". Simple, universal, completely neutral, apolitical and objective. Over time, it is likely the people of the world would shorten the name to just "dollar".
The price of gold would not be pegged - the gold dollar would be pegged to the world market price of gold at any given moment.
National central banks could be eliminated, for, with a single money unit serving the needs of nations, companies and individuals, the world would only need a single standards/credit rating/currency board and a mint to produce the relatively small amount of paper currency needed for cash transactions. (Most transactions are already conducted without currency via cheques, drafts, money orders, credit cards, electronically, etc.) National governments could continue to mint small change in 1, 5, 10, 25, 100, 200 and 500 cent, centavo, centime, penny, pfennig, pence, yen, won, yuan, whatever, coins that would also be parts of or whole gold dollars. The central world mint would issue paper Gold dollars in higher denominations.
Governors would no longer be able to debase their currency and beggar their people. Traders would no longer be able to debauch a nation's currency and beggar its people.
It is finally time to end more than two and a half millennia of monopoly control of money by irresponsible, unfit governors of states.
If political party representatives or dictators cannot be trusted with the control of money, neither should it be controlled by a handful of self-anointed "experts" from the banking/financial community.
The only safe trustee is the collective judgment of everybody involved in buying and selling gold on any given day. The price of gold is subject to a multitude of individuals' supply and demand circumstances. Over thousands of years, gold has proven to be the stable, safe-haven standard to which departees have always returned after venturing into the speculative "bubble" waters of floating, non-standard-based exchange rates.