But don't you see I am one of them! Don't you get how valuable we become when there are not enough people to do what needs to be done, but when there are more than enough people and they must compete against each other, then is when we feel pushed out and unneeded. — Athena

Good reason to forbid birth-control! Oppressive governments and churches have always demanded more children than parents can support: they need the extra people for cannon-fodder, cheap labour and to keep them too busy fighting over scraps to turn on their oppressor.

But don't you see I am one of them! — Athena

No, even in well-earned old age, you are providing needed services and support to your fellow humans. In my ever-diminishing way, I, to am contributing. That's what society is supposed to be.

Life can become overwhelming, and that means being dysfunctional. — Athena

Another side-effect of the system that works to the benefit of the takers. How often have you been told that it's not the system that's wrong, but your attitude?
The system is wrong, in so many ways that it can't be righted with the tools currently available to the average citizen - especially since the average citizen doesn't even have the tools to think about what's wrong.

If we want everyone working, we must create simple jobs and make the work place a desirable place to be. — Athena

None of that will work as long as there are too many people believing they need jobs and too few in control of paying employees. We don't create jobs - which sounds like undignified make-work anyway and unsustainable. Nor do we need to. You know what people need and what makes them happy; you know what should be done, made, planted, cleaned up, repaired, improved, protected, healed, etc. There is useful work for every level of ability, whether some industrialist thinks it will make him richer or not. You can see how much more works should be done than volunteers are able to do, but workers need to eat for the energy to do it.

I would rather do away with money - it's just too prone to corruption! But I doubt most people could get their heads around the concept. They could fathom a universal basic income.
Everywhere it's been tried, the results were positive, even though most trials have been too small a sample to change a community. People don't sit around drinking beer: they learn things, try things, start things, provide services to others and make an effort to earn their neighbours' respect. They stay in school longer, commit fewer crimes and have fewer health problems. Every instance I know of that a larger-scale pilot was initiated, the next conservative administration cancelled it.

Our industry is based on the autocratic model, and that is very bad for our families and democracy and in general, our character. It creates inequality and authority over the people. — Athena

But that's how the bosses want it! And since the bosses finance political campaigns, they get exactly what they want.

Deming's model for Industry — Athena

Sounds fine, but only covers those industries that have proven profitable, even if they produce harmful things, fail to produce desirable things, distribute their product unevenly and unfairly, waste and pollute.
That ideal work-place may exist in isolated companies, but they employ fewer people with every advancement in technology - must, to stay competitive. The recommendation cannot apply to the growing number of surplus consumers. As long as Capitalism is the global religion, "we" don't have a say in the matter.

You’re not missing anything. Many consider moral foundations a half-baked theory. — praxis
What does that mean? — Athena

He was referring to this: not your post.

According to MFT, I guess MAGA is skewed towards Loyalty/Betrayal, Authority/Subversion, and Liberty/Oppression. — praxis

They could fathom a universal basic income.
Everywhere it's been tried, the results were positive, even though most trials have been too small a sample to change a community. People don't sit around drinking beer: they learn things, try things, start things, provide services to others and make an effort to earn their neighbours' respect. They stay in school longer, commit fewer crimes and have fewer health problems. Every instance I know of that a larger-scale pilot was initiated, the next conservative administration cancelled it. — Vera Mont

Native Americans had a domestic economy and a belief system of caring for the earth. I don't think I know enough about economics to say more. However, believe systems are important.

When the land holds resources, should these resources be viewed as shared or private? I grew up in California, aware of gold mining towns becoming ghost towns. This is nuts! Gold brings money into the neighborhood, and this leads to the value of land rising, and stores and services moving in, and everything is going great until the resource is exhausted, and then everyone's investments in the community crashes, and people move away. Shouldn't the money of the first resource be set aside to invest in an industry that will replace the first source of income, protecting everyone's investments?

I like to think morals are a matter of cause and effect. As long as we think in terms of private ownership instead of shared ownership, we will have an immoral economy because everyone's investment is unprotected.

Greeks tried different economic forms, and I think an economy based on farming, seems to do better under private ownership. However, a gold mine should not be privately owned, nor water and other naturally given resources. Industry needs to be a shared endeavor. I am not sure but just thinking out loud.

Spell check doesn't like me speaking of "community crashes"- and wants that to be one crash. But I see the community as many private investments and all of them crashing in a ghost town.

When the land holds resources, should these resources be viewed as shared or private? — Athena

Neither. They belong to the Earth which sustains us all - unless we despoil it. The principle that works best is to take only what you need, replace or replenish it and use what you take wisely. Private ownership of land, water, mineral and food sources is wrong. No human should own more than the shelter they inhabit, the clothes they wear, the tools and vessels they use. Everything else is shared or left alone.

Shouldn't the money of the first resource be set aside to invest in an industry that will replace the first source of income, protecting everyone's investments? — Athena

Alaska has an oil fund.
But, no, people motivated by money do not generally think beyond the next profit quarter, the next jackpot, the next dividend. Right now, after decades of beating out local competitors from every town they invaded, that cleared land and built roads and traffic lights for them, Walmarts and Walgreens are closing across the US, leaving thousands of people unemployed and many more thousands unsupplied with necessities.
In the 1980's the Reagan administration removed a lot of regulation from American industry and the corporations moved their operations to Mexico, India, Africa and China, where labour was cheap, environmental and worker protection was lax or non-existent. They left behind dozens of ghost towns and derelict buildings and toxic pollution. For good measure, some of them moved their headquarters, as well. Big business is free to go anywhere in the world and avoid paying taxes; their employees are not. The welfare of the community does not take precedence on the capitalist agenda.
Money has no morality and concept of cause and effect. As long as money and profit are at the center of the economy, there will be inequality, waste, environmental degradation, corruption and abuse.

If you are not yet familiar with the Venus Project, this may interest you. There are several movies, (That one was fun; your library may have it.) too, and I think, a documentary on You Tube.

I will stand with my argument that a moral is a matter of cause and effect. I know about the Venus project. What is your point?

I revisited Kohlberg's stages of moral development recently. I think leftists are in the preconventional stage of morality, and MAGA are in the conventional stage.

Conventional morality is only concerned with power. People in this stage don't have genuine moral opinions, but only act off of reward and punishment. So, they will do whatever authority tells them to do, no matter how transparently stupid it is. The left must clearly be in this category, because they talk about equality, and then discriminate against white men. They talk about saving the environment, and then burn electric cars. They talk about "justice" and then burn cities and punish good Samaritans. They are for feminism, but refuse to define what a woman is. So, the left has no genuine moral beliefs; all their beliefs are only verbally espoused in order to try to win the approval of other leftists. — Brendan Golledge

Huh? There is no left or right, us or them division of the 6 different stages.

Kohlberg's theory outlines six stages of moral development, categorized into three levels: preconventional, conventional, and postconventional. These stages are: 1) Obedience and Punishment Orientation, 2) Self-Interest Orientation, 3) Interpersonal Accord and Conformity, 4) Authority and Social-Order Maintaining Orientation, 5) Social Contract Orientation, and 6) Universal Ethical Principles Orientation. AI

The 6th level is the highest, and we can trace that back to Athens, Greek philosophers, and the concept of logos. Logos, reason, the controlling force of the universe, made manifest in speech. Conservatives are more likely to be stuck at the first level of obedience and punishment because they tend to rely on the Bible and ignore science or the pursuit of happiness, which is the pursuit of knowledge and is essential to a democracy, you know, rule by reason.

Our liberty is defended by following the law, and if one is not in agreement with a man-made law, then the responsible thing to do is to change the law. This means arguing that the man-made law is not compatible with the universe. So, while the Bible can be used to defend slavery, we can determine through logic that a society is much healthier when everyone has liberty and justice.

I will stand with my argument that a moral is a matter of cause and effect. I know about the Venus project. What is your point? — Athena

Only that there must are alternatives to capitalist, money-based economy and one of those needs to prevail before all that moral, logical, fair and democratic stuff can have any chance of survival.

Only that there must are alternatives to capitalist, money-based economy and one of those needs to prevail before all that moral, logical, fair and democratic stuff can have any chance of survival. — Vera Mont

I am sorry, I do not agree. If people are to have good moral judgement, we must have education for good moral judgement as we once had. Giving people charity without expecting something from them is harmful. However, along with the education, we need Industry that uses the Deming model and that is totally different from the autocratic model.

Ancient Athens placed a strong emphasis on morality and its citizens' commitment to the well-being of the city-state. This included a belief in civic duty, the importance of moral virtues, and a focus on intellectual and cultural development. Athenians believed that their private needs were intertwined with the needs of the community, leading to a willingness to sacrifice and restrain their passions for the preservation of Athens. AI

We need to feel valuable and that we belong. I would focus on creating opportunities for that, as Roosevelt did.

Adam Smith, the father of economics, strongly believed that a good economy depends on morality.

The problem is not money. Spartar determined what people needed and it provided that. It had almost complete control over everyone. Money would have given them freedom to decide what they wanted and, more importantly, freedom to think and act for themselves.

If people are to have good moral judgement, we must have education for good moral judgement as we once had. — Athena

When was once, and where did their good moral judgement disappear to when something changed?
Only, of course, nothing really changed. You always had the same disparity of wealth and power, education and opportunity that you have now, the scale of which varied somewhat over time, but was always the same at its core: The have-too-much using money to bribe and corrupt the have-never-enough; cheat, exploit and intimidate the have-not.

Adam Smith, the father of economics, strongly believed that a good economy depends on morality. — Athena

And now we have Pope Donald I, poster child for Economics.

Giving people charity without expecting something from them is harmful. — Athena

Maybe so, but I never suggested doing any such thing. Do the people you help pay you? People volunteer to do charity work and give food or money to those who have suffered misfortune. People in communities are supposed to pitch in an support one another.
If you were referring to UBI, it was mentioned only as a stop-gap measure for a foreseeable period of high unemployment with no other systemic relief for those left behind by automation and outsourcing.
I suggested organizing society in such a way that everyone has the opportunity to participate and nobody needs charity. That will have to wait until the present global economy collapses (They're busily chopping away at it!)

Money based systems simply do not allow for healthy society. This was so in ancient Athens, in medieval France, industrial England and electronic America.
You can teach and preach and pontificate about virtue, and nothing changes unless the system changes.

Money based systems simply do not allow for healthy society. — Vera Mont

I suggest there's a reason you are unable to make reasonable responses to critiques. Lines like this make it obvious you are operating on bullshit personal beliefs and not doing any reasoning at all. A good example is this:

I suggested organizing society in such a way that everyone has the opportunity to participate and nobody needs charity. — Vera Mont

There is no way to read this, other than that you cannot grasp reality. Everyone does have the opportunity to participate (unless physically unable, which you or I couldn't account for anyway). Charity is required in a just society because plenty of people are unable to participate. This take ignores almost everything important about discussions around social welfare. Not surprising, but something its probably time to front up to if you want to make some sense.

If you are not yet familiar with the Venus Project, this may interest you. There are several movies, (That one was fun; your library may have it.) too, and I think, a documentary on You Tube. — Vera Mont

I missed this. The Venus Project is utterly bereft of anything realistic or moral. Jacques Fresco was an absolute asshole (I met him multiple times) who did not give a flying fuck about anything but being a Jesus character to his followers. Unfortunately, several friends saw hiim this way, sunk their lives into his project and got left in the dirt. There's a reason this project has been going on for nearly 30 years and has gone absolutely nowhere - particularly after being associated with the absolute fucking trainwreck Zeitgeist. This explains a lot about how you're viewing hte world - totally unrealistic and ignorant.