Pooling

We all 'have' to share Earth and everything on it. We therefore all have the responsibility for its functioning and upkeep on a healthy level. This points to the familiar principle of pooling. Pooling is acting together losely, socio is the co-operation of pooling, is intelligent structure, is organization. Mondial sociologists cannot study a concept for a fair and safe society without a thorough knowledge of man's characteristics with regard to this pooling phenomenon. Schwarzschild and many others expressly pointed to the absence of knowledge about man, that made for the total failure of the League of Nations (and the United Nations) and for wars and wars, and torture and bestiality. An example of the pooling of words without the pooling (cooperation) in acts. Had the members pooled their power, their forces, their armies, World War 2 and Hiroshima would not have happened (59). Pooling in money is well-known. When a large group of people pool a little money each, the total of which is to go to the person who predicts the outcome of a physical process or a game, correctly, this winner (?) gains a tremendous lot of money (60). Often, a large part of this gain is strainedoff for the cost of the organization of such lotteries, in fact, even the simple raffle in a pub, the fruitmachines, the bingo-evenings, are designed to produce a gain for the non-participants, for the organizers. When one hears of a person who spent every week, 25 units of money, during 25 years, in a State Lottery, for the chance of winning 100,000 of these units as gain, but without result, one can calculate that, had he put this money in the bank, with a reasonable interest, he would have had the 'certainty' to attain these 100,000 units. Obviously, the truth about these matters is entirely different from what the advertisements declare. This same State then, when it recognises the misery brought by gambling and wanting to do something against it, certainly looks very odd indeed. The pooling of risks too is habitual and similar to the general use of police, firebrigade, army, etc. (61). When there is a risk of a great loss by circumstances, one can put this loss on the bill of an insurance company, meaning that, in order to make it at all possible, many and many people must pay and pay without ever claiming such loss. On first sight, insurance seems advantageous for society. It makes it possible for a person to run risks that formerly he could not dream of, the consequences of which he could never hope to suffer in his life. On second sight however, there is the question of: 'why should you (like to) run risks like that at all?' 'We pay, and you get away with it cheap, others not'. When a boxer or mountaineer enthousiast, takes a risk of very high costs in hospital or rescue operations, this is community money, risked for the pleasure of a few (62). He can say: 'it is insured', but he forgets that it affects the premium rate for all others. Clearly, we need a simple concept for understanding the principle of pooling. When in a block of flats, the water was pooled, i.e. everybody paid the same part of the total bill, I encountered a woman who had a clever system for cleaning her empty milk bottles. She simply put them under the running tap for a quarter of an hour or half an hour. Had she had to pay for her own use of water, she most certainly would have saved water, or would even have left the cleaning of these bottles to the milk company. Even severe advice for everybody to use water sparingly (in a very dry summer) would not convince her. 'Others will do it', and 'nobody would know about it', was the word. There was a similar case of a block of appartments in which the bill for central heating was pooled. Instead of turning the radiators down a little when the room temperature was too high, people opened windows and let the draught take care of the superfluous warmth, stoking the environment thereby. These examples are not incidents by cranky people, but only those that came to be noted down for later use. The reality must be far worse. It points to a different society with regard to laws. There should be a code instead, an internal law of conduct. With Wells:

Necessities bury rights. And create them. We've done with that way of living. We wont have more law than a code can cover and beyond that government will be free. The World Set Free.

Look at the trains, the busses, waiting halls, the streets 'n parks, dustbins, etc. that are all pooles (public money) ! I once had the experience to be unable to convince a student in social science, of a decidedly anti-social act. It was with regard to a canteen that worked on the principle of the so-called cafeteria system, meaning that the customer was supposed to fetch his food on platters and dishes which he took himself, and put away after use in the proper station for dishwashing. Not doing this latter, I marked down as contra social. He answered that this would imply that it meant something to me (and others). I affirmed this, showing how, when the dirty dishes remained on the tables, the proprietor had to take on extra personnel for doing this gathering, hence higher prices (for the same product) and therefore a disadvantage for all other customers. He could not grasp this reasoning and made a diverting answer (the customary strategy in such cases) saying that this was advantageous for the un-employment problem. I, going along with the digression, answered that it was a mis-appreciation of our reality to think that we must have less unemployment, that on the contrary we must have more and more. Quoting Cicero first, who had praised un-employment adequately, I remarked that; the more employment, means the more production, which in turn means faster devastation of our environment, and death coming faster. But a social scientist of that sort, will never be able to understand that all argumentation (against common sensical co-operation) stops when our extermination looms near.

It was the groans of dying men she wished to hear Iliad.

Another example is a pooling principle that resembles insurance. When a workman is paid only for the work he does, a situation of an earlier century, he will spread his spending of money in order to cope with rainy days when work (pay) is impossible. When there is a little rain, he will easily endure it for the sake of the upkeep of his family. When his payment is pooled, i.e. spread over the year, in combination with the payments of others, the result is that when there is a tiny drop of rain ... down tools. Even the man who wants to go on a little, is sanctioned by his comrades for doing so (Summum Bonum fallacy). There is nothing to be 'gained' from going on working. In our circumstances, pooling seems to be subject to a simple law. When it is 'I, to have' (the normal rule for all life (63) ), there is no thought of any other human being and his rights, when there is responsibility involved, duties, there are 'only' others to do it, not I, (I, to have, not I, to do, i.e. only rights no duties). People think by nature that they have rights, never that they have duties, except in small families or tribes somewhere. I have my rights, you have your duties is normal in our world. A governmental system should be based upon this knowledge (by advisors).

The whole earth belongs to everyone. That is not a doctrine, that is a fact - long overlooked. Wells, The Holy Terror.