Мирский Христо
Hme0401@2 : My Common Publicistic Works : Now, Look Here! (Publicistics) -- Part One -- For Journals : Second Third : 2001 - 2017 : Mirski-Bis
Аннотация: Look at the original text, this form is good only for copying. Keywords: publicistics, Bulgaria, serious works, independently, untraditionally, own ideas, in English.
-->
--> ...
-->
--> -- -- -- -- --
-->
===>*_MYTHS ABOUT DEMOCRACY_*
-->
-->The millennial human history has proved many times that when people have not enough knowledge about some phenomenon they begin to invent all sorts of delusions, beliefs, or myths, for to complete with them the motivation for their actions. Some of them are useful because they provide easy explanation of complex facts, or also harmless, or bring some satisfaction and momentary happiness, like for example: the fairy tales about evil witches and wizards, which make children to be obedient; the myth about Santa Clause, who brings them presents; crossing oneself or knocking on wood, for to drive the devil away; the belief in afterlife, where will be recompensed all injustices on this world; the righteous God, who does everything out of love to us, although this seems doubtful; the notion that the Earth is center of the Universe and even the Sun rotates around it (more so because each one sees this with his own eyes); and others.
-->But there exist also such myths which are definitely harmful for the humans, at least by prolonged use, and their harm is revealed fast and causes turbulent reaction, as, for example: the fables about the blue blood of aristocrats, by which they differ from the common people; or bloodletting as healing method used for sufficiently long time so that to undermine people's faith in the abilities of medicine; or the narcotic intoxication as way for reaching of happiness; or the chaos as the best regulator in nature and society; and so on. With the time many of harmless myths became dangerous, or are rejected by the people with accumulation of more knowledge.
-->Similar is the case with the *_democratic myths_*, which, little by little, begin to be recognized and to confuse us, and many people now ask themselves the question: is the democracy really a good thing, when one thing is what is hammered in our heads by politicians and media, and quite another one what happens in practice. For this reason it seems correct to reveal some of these delusions in order to reach to their core, because the knowledge is /_not_/ at all /_obliged_/ to contradict to the belief (as many people naively think), in the similar way as a child, after becoming 5-6 years old, stops to believe in the tales about Santa Clause, but this does not hinder him (or her) to listen to them with joy; or how under the totalitarianism all liked to use, in the right place or not, the phrase about the "deserves of Party and Government", although they were surely convinced that if somebody has lifted the barbells higher then this has happened not because the Central Committee has strained together with him; or also all like the coloured eggs and Easter cakes, but this does not necessary mean that they believe in the immaculate conception of Virgin Mary or in the resurrection of Christ (all the more because there are no exact data proving his existence); or to add also that one will not stop playing lottery after he finds out that with the bigger sums he plays the more sure he will lose the half of his money (or even more than two thirds of them -- it depends on the regulations of totalizator); and other examples. In other words, the *_wish to /_defend_/ the democracy_* forces us to throw light on the myths about it, not the desire to humiliate it (though by perfunctory reading one can get such notion), or rather the conviction that earlier revealing of some misconceptions could make us look more favorable at them, while their belated realization may lead to more stormy reactions.
-->One part of these myths are "necessarily inherent" (as the economists say of some kind of expenses) to the very real democracy and in this case they are widely spread also on the West, while some others are born on local ground and show their intoxicating effect only on Bulgarians and some other nations from the former Socialist Bloc, but no one of them is entirely innocuous for the common person for to be neglected. Without pretensions on particular exactitude and completeness of presentation we will choose the beloved by Christians number of twelve. So that, let us begin.
-->
=>*_1. The democracy is ruling of the people_*
-->Maybe the widespread mass delusion, even on the West, is that the democracy is ruling of the people, but it is just ruling of the /_politicians_/, or of persons /_chosen_/ by the people. If it were ruling of the population we should have had situation similar with that by the choice of court assessors in United States, for example, who are chosen amidst the common people, and by this is looked that they /_were not_/ acquaintances or related in whatever way with the given lawsuit, in order to be maximally impartial. This means that if in Bulgaria the voters with tertiary education are, say, 15 %, then as many percents must be they also in the National Assembly (our Parliament); if the part of voters in the interval of 18 to 40 years are, for example, 30 %, as much must be also the Members of Parliament in that age limits; if 20 % of the electors by us are of Gypsy origin, then the same must be the percentage also in the highest democratic institution; and so on. In other words, the *_Parliament must be /_representative sample_/ of all the voters_*, but such thing neither existed somewhere, no somebody thinks to implement it!
-->But even if we reject such extremities then there are no problems to ask the people about nearly /_everything_/ via some kind of phone cards (like those for phones, or for ATM machines for taking money from an account), where everybody wishing to express his /her meaning must be in position to do this within a month by simple choosing of one out of 5-6 alternatives. This is easy to be done and would have been a real ruling of the population -- about the question of prices on bread and milk, for example, and about the legalization of prostitution, and about the fight with criminality, and pro (or contra) the Money Board in Bulgaria, and about what only not. Yeah, but, again, nobody even /_thinks_/ to do this, because such questions must be thought profoundly, not like by a gathering in the pub.
-->
=>*_2. The democratic choice is the right method_*
-->If we give some thought to the method of choosing we will come to the conclusion that it characterizes with this that: *_people who do not /_understand_/_* (i.e. they don't know the subject area of government and management, as it's said now) *_choose persons who they do /_not know_/_* (i.e. they have no personal or professional contacts with them), and by this they *_do /_not_/ require whatever documents_* for their professional qualification and length of service (i.e. there is no higher, or even secondary, specialized education for politicians, there are even no age restrictions, as some relative guaranty for live experience)!
-->Something more, *_this method is /_not_/ applied anywhere else_*, where are chosen persons capable to do a given work, like for example: by appointing at some post in a given company, in the sphere of education, healthcare, army and police, and so on. Not out of theoretical considerations, but out of practical experience is clear that the persons chosen by such incompetent way will not be able to perform the necessary work, *_but_* in spite of this *_the /_method_/_* in question *_does the work_*, as the millennial human history shows it! There are only two variants when persons chosen in this way can do the work for which they were chosen, and they are: *_a) they alone do /_not_/ do the work_* (or at least its most difficult part) but some of their assistants; and *_b) /_everybody_/ other_* alternative candidate *_could have done the same work_* (as they also do it, when their turn comes). Such trivial and uninteresting solution, which is always present and makes the procedure of choice meaningless, is called in mathematics "/_zero solution_/" -- it *_/_is_/_* a solution, but is not at all necessary to be the best one. The democratic choice, of course, has also its advantages -- psychological, and a possibility for easy change of the rulers -- but this is /_not_/ a correct /_method of choice_/ of suitable persons, no matter that this myth is widespread in the Western democracies.
-->
=>*_3. It is chosen the best party or politician_*
-->This is the next widely spread on the West myth, despite the fact that there are no reasons for such conviction but rather on the contrary -- the democracy /_is based_/ on the presumption of *_/_impossibility for existing_/ of best party or politician_*, because if such party has existed, then after its choice every other choice becomes absolutely redundant or formal (as it, really, was under the totalitarianism)! Even if it is possible to choose a good leader or party in the /_moment_/, then, as it is well known, every power corrupts the person (due to the worsening of his feedback with the society, which is necessary for correction of his behaviour), so that his change, or his moving in opposition, is /_obligatory_/ for his preservation as normal, i.e. averaged individual with adequate reactions. Besides, by the democratic choice in the Parliament are represented, together with those of the "good" party or coalition, also those of the "bad" parties that build the opposition, but both MPs receive /_equal salaries_/ and bear /_equal responsibility_/ in the governing (or at least it must be so), and in the same time there is no other choice where the losers are rewarded on a par with the winners. This is done in interest of the discussions (in which the truth is born) and for this reason the opposition is necessary by the democracy, but there is no point to consider that one party is better than the other -- just they all perform /_different functions_/, but are equally important!
-->
=>*_4. This is a good form of governing_*
-->Another widespread myth is the statement that the democracy is a good form of governing, while in reality it is good predominantly by performing of some /_change in governing_/, *_/_not_/_* in the very governing! The multiplicity of views, although they lead to finding of the truth in various questions, most frequently confuse and slow the taking of necessary decisions, what is expressed in this, that *_the democracy is_* quite *_/_inefficient_/ form of governing_*. When is necessary to act it is in such extent bad, in which it is good when it is necessary to discuss and tackle the question; the taking of decisions in presence of opposition and their bringing to fulfillment is much slower and more difficult than in conditions of autocracy. This must be well known and obvious, but it isn't so, for which reason the people often want from the democracy things that it is /_not in condition_/ to offer them, due to its nature.
-->For better illustration of the dynamics of functioning of democracy is useful to apply the simile of this movement of the parties in the time with the common /_children seesaws_/ of the kind of a beam fixed in the middle on some a bit elevated place, where on both ends stay both wings of the Parliament, and if there exists a center, then it stays in the middle and puts pressure to one and then to the other side. This party, which at the moment is on top, has risen there *_/_not_/_* because it is the best, but because /_the other one is worse_/ or has "fallen in the mud", so that the ruling party has to be just grateful to the opposition for rising it to that high level! This is very important to remember and understand, as by the politicians also by the population, for the overused boasting can bring nothing else except self-obliviousness, while the goal of democratic government is this oscillation never to cease.
-->
=>*_5. Under the democracy exists freedom of the media_*
-->The existence of free media under democracy is the next bluff for the population, because the majority of them are financed by the big business and in this case they work according to the imposed to them strategy, which is reduced chiefly to maximal gain (what not at all means maximal information and impartiality, although in some cases such exceptions can happen), and the left ones serve the ruling institutions, were it because of their official duties, were it out of :sympathy" to the strong of the day. Following the example of the West now also by us in each decent organization exist the so called public relations services, and the media are, in fact, such services but at a national level. We can argue for a long time on the question of their objectivity in presenting of the information, but the truth is that *_their existence is /_necessary_/_* in order to bring to the masses some complicated political decisions in such way that they will not provoke stormy reactions in the people, what means that concealment, silence, or whatever other milder form of lie you choose, are /_allowed and recommended_/ for them!
-->The classic simile in the case is with the good physician who does not tell the patient all truth, if this can worsen his health condition. So or otherwise, but *_the media are /_not_/ free_*, and can not be such at least for economic reasons, and, moreover, they are just /_obliged_/ to fulfill many propagandistic functions (to a great extent similar to the situation under the totalitarianism!). Like we this or not, is another question, but for the moment this is the best solution, which is used all around the world, where some degree of objectivity is obtained on the basis of /_partiality_/ of different media, which, providing for different layers of population, offer them what the audience /_wants_/ to find in them -- this is not necessarily the truth, but at least a /_pleasant way_/ to it. The solution, naturally, is trivial (but for that reason hardly achievable) and it is in this, that the /_people show_/ that they can listen to the truth, not to the political manipulations of this or other party.
-->
=>*_6. Democracy means market economy_*
-->This myth is as if more spread by us than on the West, but this is explained with the fact, that in the Western democracies people have not had the possibility to live under some planned economy and because of this they don't know that it can also be bad, and see only the drawbacks of market one by them. But anyway, this is a big delusion, at least because some form of market has existed even since the times of Babylon and, hence, /_has nothing to do with the democracy_/ as political form of ruling! But even the statement that the market is better than the planned production is sheer delusion, because *_it can be advantageous_* only for those, *_who can /_show influence_/ on it_*, i.e. for the /_big_/ producers or buyers, while for the "small fry" it is entirely unjust form of exchange of goods.
-->If we look at the /_small buyer_/, for whom the market is, generally speaking, something good, then this is basically an illusion, because under a good planning can be had on the market the same products and for the same prices (as it also happens in reality on the West, because at least two thirds of the goods in a given branch of industry are work of the big producers, who can not do without advance planning and without some agreements between them, and the smaller producers are just orienting by the bigger). It can even be said that, whatever thing one has bought, if he will later check well the prices, he will find that he was doubtlessly cheated, because could have bought the same thing cheaper, if has searched longer, or could have found something better for the same money, so that in all cases he can regret his purchase.
-->As to the /_smaller producers_/, then they have long ago marked that the market is inclined extremely unfriendly to them (a thing that by us will be only now realized), because when they decide to produce something what is not offered in abundance on the market, and while they collect the necessary money and organize the production and bring the thing to the market, then there is already teeming with that product, for the reason that, quire naturally, the big business has outstripped them (due to the abilities for better planning by highly qualified persons) and offers it cheaper (for the large-scale production has its unavoidable advantages). Not that there are not exceptions of this rule, but they are of the order of a pair of percents by well-saturated market economy, to which we aim. To avoid this the producers unite in some cooperatives, in order to become larger and have some influence over the market, or else work for bigger intermediaries, that establish in advance fixed prices for buying of their production, so that is turns out that the market for them /_ceases to exist_/. This is extremely clear, and the myth about the advantages of market economy is propagated by the big business, because the later always becomes winner in this unequal fight. In the particular case of currency market we, after long debates, have accepted that, at least for the moment, it is not a good thing and have introduced Currency Board, which is a kind of centralized regulating of the prices with preservation only of some /_semblance_/ of a market.
-->
=>*_7. The capable always succeeds_*
-->This myth, similarly, is supported by the stronger in society, and under the capitalism -- by the wealthy, because here the power is in the capitals (what is clear for the English speaking by the different meanings of this very word). It is refuted elementary by the method of assumption to the contrary, namely: if we take for true that the able always succeeds (to multiply his money, for this is the classical understanding of success under the capitalism) then the wealthy one will soon find out about this capable person and will hire him to work /_for him_/ and multiply his money, but as far as they are much more by the wealthier than by the just able one, then if will happen that the succeeded will be exactly the wealthier, not the able one, what contradicts to our assumption. There will be no contradiction if we go out from the statement that succeeds the wealthy one (or the feudal ruler -- under the feudalism, or the nomenclature -- in a totalitarian state, etc.), what corresponds entirely with the truth. Besides, this myth again has nothing to do with the democracy as form of political ruling.
-->
=>*_8. Paying for the things is expression of the freedom of citizens_*
-->This myth is in a great degree masked and is not expressed exactly in this way, but is implied this /_meaning_/, stating that under the democracy one can pay for to receive, for example, a better education (where this was impossible earlier by us), or better health care (which earlier by us received only high party cadres), or some other advantages, what is indication for the freedom of personality. This, of course, is expression *_/_not_/_* of freedom but of /_dependence_/, where *_in the world of capitals the only dependence is this of the money_*, but this delusion is popularized on the West, because it is useful for the wealthy layers of population, and, for example, in England, the private schools are called "public", while they are not at all for the wide public but for that (limited) number of parent, who can afford to pay such money for their children, and the so called Open University (now also in Bulgaria) is not at all open for everybody who has the needed knowledge to enter into it, but /_only_/ against payment!
-->The bad thing by us, however, is that, because of our, frankly speaking, high misery, these things do not stay as a matter of taste or of choice (say, to buy oneself ice-cream on the street, or to drink a beer) but become vital problems. In our naivety we think that for payment one may get something better, while in the same time even in one very wealthy country like United States hardly more than ten percents of the students (or their parents) pay /_really_/ for their education, no matter that it is entirely to be paid! The things are regulated with the use of various sponsors during the education -- be it of private funds, be it of big companies, be it the War Ministry, or state scholarships -- where after the end of educational degree the specialists must work for some years for that company with which they have signed the contract, i.e. the well known from our totalitarian past system of distributing to places. These, who alone pay for themselves, i.e. /_buy_/ their education, are predominantly in the area of management, what is quite logical, for if some parent has a good business then he can take care to give a good diploma to his children, even if they are lazy enough to learn. The freedom in the Western countries in this respect means /_freedom in the moment of giving the service_/ -- as health care so also educational -- and this is the really important moment, not compulsory payment without well devised system for its compensation (as it is nowadays in Bulgaria). And again, this has nothing to do with the political democratic system, but with the social measures in the society.
-->
=>*_9. Democracy and socialism are incompatible_*
-->This myth is generated on local grounds (or in some other ex-communist country), because, as we have stated this many times, the democratic organization of political power has nothing to do with the social settings in the society, and there, where it has something to do, this is in sense of strengthening of the social programs of each self-respecting party in the countries with Western democracy. Even if we make a brief survey of some classical democracies we can establish that in the half of the countries at least one of the first three most popular parties contains explicitly in its name the word "socialism" (or work, labour, social, etc.), and in the other half this is presupposed via defending of massive social programs, not for other reasons, but because in highly developed countries this becomes /_easy to be implemented_/ and is the best way to attract more voters! So that the truth about *_Western democracies_* is such, that they *_not only do not exclude socialism, but presume it_* in some degree (though they don't use this name because the former Socialist Bloc has frightened them using this word), and there are no reasons to stay apart of the world tendencies only because our socialism was not wholly democratic.
-->
=>*_10. The democracy is good for the state_*
-->It must be obvious that the democratic form of ruling is good first of all for its possibility for individual development and personal expression of its citizens, not from the point of view of the security in the state! One can find many examples of this, beginning in Ancient Greece, and also during the twentieth century, when some danger for the given country has arisen, always was established some strong centralized and militarized governing, which, even if it has preserved certain /_appearance_/ of democracy, was not exactly this, or at least was not more democratic than the well known to us democratic centralism, which exactly for this purpose was invented in its time, because the wealthy Western countries have not yet changed the policy of "stick" with that of the "carrot", as the English say. *_The democracy_* by its nature *_is /_disuniting_/ force_*, on the contrary to the dictatorship, what is pretty clear to the politicians, and that is why always is secured some legal form for entering of martial law in case of necessity. In Bulgaria the transition to democracy has begun only then, when all possible dangers for the countries of the former Socialist Bloc were lifted, i.e. then, when the totalitarian governing has became inadequate to the international conditions.
-->
=>*_11. The people alone have overthrown the dictatorship_*
-->This myth has arisen also on local ground and its refutation is reduced to the so called /_contradictio in adjecto_/, or contradiction in the definition, because if the dictatorship is really strong centralized force, which does not allow any intervention from below, then it could not have been so easily and bloodless overturned from below! What means that, either the totalitarian ruling in the last years has not been real dictatorship (what practically corresponds to the truth), or it has been overturned from below for the reason that it /_alone_/ "has wanted" to be changed (what is even more true, for the not unknown "Gorby" has conducted for whole five years the "artillery preparation", so to say, for this purpose, through his /_glasnost and perestroika_/, which, as you see, are written exactly so in English like in Russian). The truth is such, that the totalitarianism was overthrown because at the reduced international danger, which always has been mobilizing factor for the existence of totalitarian state and commonwealth, and under the increased property conditions in the countries of former Socialist Bloc, was created opportunity for internal tensions and struggles among the nomenclature, which has begun to search new possibilities for individual expression and enrichment (a question which has been discussed already in ancient times by Platon), as well also for recognition in the Western world.
-->This, that the things have not happened fully by the communist script, must not lead us to confusion, that the former nomenclature has lost remarkably much in the result of this transition; *_those, who have lost most of all_*, naturally, *_are the /_common people_/_* as a whole, because for them was left to blow at the fire and "burn their eyebrows", while the spark was lighted by the very nomenclature. But if somebody especially insists to imagine, that the meetings and tents have been the real reason for overthrowing of the totalitarianism, then nobody hinders him (or her) in this, although the right way to look at the things is that the nomenclature has objected only pro forma, for to give more pleasure to the masses of population (in the manner of some young girl, which does not yield to the persuasions of a certain man, whom she, anyway, likes), and also because of the understanding of the necessity for some counteraction, in order not to happen so (how /_exactly_/ happened) that, as is said, "instead of to paint the brows to gouge out the eyes".
-->
=>*_12. The transition to democracy is a good thing_*
-->This myth, up to some extent, is only a quibble, but the truth is that *_the transitional period is_*, as a rule, *_/_worse than any_/ of the final states_*, where in this sense our situation today is still worse than it was under our ruler "Bai Tosho", and it is not at all clear will we be able to stabilize in the near future at the new level. When the transition occurs unreasonably (and the situation by us was exactly such), it runs chaotic and on a bigger social price. The situation would have been entirely different if before introducing of the market prices we have found some way for providing of the population with basic foodstuffs; or before we have begun to give the land back to its owners we have decided how to keep the old level of production of agriculture; or before introducing of private practitioners in the healthcare we have resolved the question with preserving of health in similar way to that how it is solved in West-European countries; or before legalization of paid education we have fixed the question with the payment of expenses for it; or before the restitution we have distributed some part of national property to /_every_/ citizen; or before the crash of our lev we have taken some serious measures for its fixing; and so on -- in short: if before to demolish our old home we have tried to build the new one (or at least some part of it), or, as the English say, have not put "the cart before the horse". But how could have we done this when the democratic intoxication has muddled our brains? This condition still continues and the listed till here myths are still spread among the population, turning the "inebriation of certain nation" (as our writer Ivan Vasov has put it) in chronic alcoholism or, if you will to sound more scientific, in /_delirium democraticus_/.
-->
-->And, generally said, it is long ago time to understand that *_the democracy is not panacea_* for the society, and as form of ruling it is *_/_not_/_* at all *_ideal_*, *_but_* it *_is /_lively_/_* and can be incessantly bettered by the population, what namely makes it adaptive and stable for a long period of time. Only the setting of democracy via laws means still nothing, and what character it will have depends on our politicians, or, in the end, on our people. *_The democracy is not solution of our problems but only an /_environment_/ for their solving_*! If we continue to be consoled with myths about it we will get to nowhere, when de facto it turns out that our living standard is still significantly lower than in the last totalitarian years. And this having in mind that we have absolutely no excuses for our current-day condition because: neither some foreign enemy has attacked us, nor God has sent on us some plague or disaster, as they say, nor also we have fallen in some civil war, like this has happened with some of the others ex-communist countries, nor some politician (or party) has so firmly clutched at his desk that even with a cannon ball he was not to be moved aside, but rather on the contrary! And also not that we have not enough examples of other countries where this transition proceeds easier and more painless. There exist, unquestionably, certain objective economic reasons, as also some national specifics of our "Balkan" democracy, but the less myths we use, and the more common sense ant patriotism we show, the better the things must go. Or at least this is how they look to the author.
-->
-->August 1998
-->
-->*_-- -- -- -- --_*
-->
===>*_ABOUT THE OWNERSHIP AND ITS FUTURE_*
-->
-->The main stone in the economy of capitalism and socialism is the question of ownership, and exactly for this reason there are many speculations with it from a long time. And at the same time the things are pretty clear on the basis of the /_practice_/ of those two social orders. Let us first make clear that here we are not speaking about personal property, like: home, car, furniture, etc., which are used, directly or not, for satisfying of personal and of the family needs, neither about the degree of luxury which one can afford oneself, like, for example, someone may have even three homes (in different locations, or outside the town), but in spite of this he alone uses them, while some other person may rent his own room in order to make ends meet, but in both cases this is personal property. Another kind of property is this, which is used for some business, i.e. the person (or some company, municipality, or the state) owns certain company, where work other people (hired workers). In this case the property is used for obtaining of /_surplus_/ value, or with its help is done exploitation of subjected to the company workers, and for that reason we find it naturally to call it
-->
==>*_1. Exploitative property._*
-->Such dividing of property exists for millenniums in the world, so that till now we are saying nothing new. But if someone, still, is shocked by this name, then he can call it managerial, or business, or big one, etc., though these names are not so exact and in some cases some confusion may arise. It is true that the word exploitation does not sound very nice, for it means literally "pulling out of the soul" (taking out of the "plua", or everything), but in one impartial review is not good to be too shy, because in the world of business, anyway, does not reign philanthropy but cruel and merciless rivalry, so that we will use this term here, not necessary giving it contemptuous (communist) meaning.
-->And so, we will speak here about exploitative property, which under the totalitarianism was only state-owned, so that this social order is just /_included_/ in the capitalism, i.e. the communism was one state-monopoly capitalism, with all its pros and contras! Under the communism nobody had rights to own property with which help he, personally, could exploit the others, but this has not eliminated the exploitation of the workers, for the simple reason that it is just necessary (in the world of capitals), or that it can not exist cohesive society without mutual exploitation in it, a thing, that has begun with the emergence of labour division and first professions in deep antiquity. Under the capitalism, as well as under the communism, the exploitation in the sphere of production exists, only that under the communism it was used by some small number of chosen people, the nomenclature, which was allowed to occupy the leading posts, while the common people were not allowed to do this. Well, under the capitalism everybody /_can_/, but this does not mean that everybody really does this, because in the developed countries the percentage of wealthy, or those who own exploitative property, varies usually *_between 3 to 5 %_*, i.e. practically as much as our nomenclature was. Generally speaking, the percentage of elite in each society, from primitive communal and to the present day, has always moved in these limits, what means that the major part of people does not own this, with what it earns "its bread"! But then: in what is the difference between the communism and the capitalism? Practically in nothing, or it is a matter of nuances.
-->But there is no difference if we speak about personal and exploitative property, though if we fill our heads with notions like "private" or "state's", the things become messed. And let us not think that these 3 % are overdone, because even farmers, who (as if) own the means of production (the land, chiefly), in the developed countries are approximately 5-8 % (and in USA -- only 4 %), and by this not all of them work on their own land. It might have been theirs /_sometime_/, say, before a century, when the capitalism was still "green" (and exactly this has forced the invention of such social orders like fascism and communism!), but in a developed society this is an exception. Even a taxi driver, who can quietly own the car with which earns his money, simply does non enter in consideration if he is so tiny owner, what is seen well now in Bulgaria. Only free lancers -- part of jurists, private teachers, physicians, and others --, as well as large-scale capitalists, take out their "bread" with their own "shovel", where for the big majority of people, i.e. at least 95 %, this is not valid, and so they are hired workers, which we all in Bulgaria were (with the exemption of some high party cadres) before.
-->Well, after we have cleared for us that nowadays everything is capitalism and that the masses of population, anyway, can not have exploitative property (if not for other reason, than at least because it is necessary to exploit some people -- else it will happen something like the "Bulgarian variant" of transition, where for 1999, if we are not mistaken, were roughly 360 thousand single-owned companies and the workers in them were about 750 thousand people, i.e. by two for a company?!), then it is logical to plead that it is better if there were no property at all (except the state-owned), right? And such was the viewpoint of communists, and this, by God, sounds /_reasonable_/, because if something is an exception then we can quietly not take it in consideration and eliminate it. Only that ... . Well, there are many exceptions in the world, which, nevertheless, are very important and necessary, and here we will allow ourselves to give as example only -- I beg the readers to be excused -- the sex, where it is well known that masculine individual is "ready for battle" more or less in /_just one percent_/ of the time (say, 15 minutes in twenty-four hours, where there are 1440 minutes). Must we then remove also this one percent in the name of harmony in the society? That's what was the communism -- an utopia, because we have looked with prejudice at the things. Only that (again "only that"!) /_now also_/ is looked with prejudice, while we now think that everyone must become exploiter (or merchant)! So that, if we want to have some justified understanding in this issue, let us look impartially at the
-->
==>*_2. Pluses and minuses of private property,_*
-|or, as we have accepted to call it, exploitative property. The pluses, of course, are freedom of action, operativeness, market orientation of production. The single owner of a company can act much more faster than the state and, in many case, this is beneficial to all the people. By the way, such was the idea of Gorbachev's perestroika -- to reform the social order, but /_not_/ to destroy it. Because the state has also its advantages, and we just can't do without state army or police. However strange it may look, but exactly this idea of perestroika was clear to the /_Americans_/ somewhere in the 70ies, and they have succeeded to modernize in some extent their centralized structures. We, surely, have modernized nothing but have entirely demolished many things. And why have we done this? Well, ... because it was /_easier_/ so! There also the children, even the small babies, feel the greatest pleasure when destroy (some construction of blocks, for example), not when they build something, because they still can't make alone something good, but to crash they always can (and this ancient understanding of the things must have been the reason for emerging of Russian, but also common Slavonic, ... word "skuchnij", what means dull, but looks exactly like Russian "skuch/_e_/nij", what is cumulated in a heap; similar ideas, though, may be found on the West in the word "diversion" which is both, entertainment and sabotage).
-->Well, such are the things with the perestroika and changing of the social order, but let us return to our analysis. *_The most important plus_* of private property *_is_*, in fact, *_the possibility for competition_*, only that here we deliberately have used the term "private", because it presupposes its antipode "state's", where the competition is not effective, for it is a kind of "hara-kiri" of the system. When we speak about exploitative property then the competition here is unavoidably present, so that there is no need to stress on it. ( But one should not remain also with the impression that under the centralized property /_each_/ form of competition is excluded, because it can easily exist state's and municipal property, it can be accepted some level of state ownership, there can be various contests and methods for accumulation of scores for establishing of the most profiting enterprise in a given branch of industry, not excluding the small and medium-sized such, and so on. )
-->*_The main minus_*, in its turn, of exploitative property is its /_exclusiveness_/, i.e. this, that *_practically all_* members of a given society *_are /_not_/ exploiters_* (managers etc.), and when so then this creates most unjustified relations in the society, about which we can not miss to be interested because, generally speaking, one can not care about one's /_own_/ interest if does not care about the interest of the others, i.e. about the resonance of his actions over the others (and even less can think about the others if he does not think about himself)! So that the question is in this, to adapt in such way the exploitative property, that it *_will /_not introduce new injustices_/ in life_*, which alone is unjust enough. Well, let us unravel a bit this tangle. What is so unjust in the property inequality (because it is also good, as far as offers conditions for competitions and purpose in life for those, who have not exploitative property, and they are the overwhelming majority of the population)? Well, according to the author, although this has to be clear to everyone who has thought about the matter, *_the_* most *_bad thing of property inequality is_* this, *_that it is not /_personally_/ deserved_*!
-->Because people have well developed feeling for injustice, and, how it is proper, with accounting for the randomness or the chance, or the happy star. Almost nobody on the West complains especially against the fact that the big "fishes" eat the smaller ones, or that wins the stronger, or more capable, or more learned, and so on. Well, people, surely, grumble a bit, but this is not antagonistic phenomenon, like they have protested against the aristocracy, or the slavery (or the nomenclature), or against the fascism -- social settings which do not allow to the masses to go /_at the other side_/ of the barrier. The capitalism is good when it is well /_socialized_/ and when the masses have, but in reality, chances to be such how they want, according to the given them by God. The bad thing comes when one is born wealthy and another poor, and the poor ones have /_no chances at all_/ to become rich. In the developed countries everybody wants to become rich, but when this happens to be his single goal such life becomes much too boring and uninteresting, where when one struggles to show what has been put in him then life is interesting and the inequality does not oppress so much the people, how it is the case in such terrifyingly poor country like Bulgaria.
-->So that let us not deviate from the question of poverty (which, as is well known, is not a sin but a beastly thing), but also not to think that in the world of capital succeeds (in a sense to become rich) the more able one, because when he works for the wealthier or the exploiter then again the wealthier will become more wealthy. This, what prevents the capitalism from being liked also by the poorer, is its injustice. And on what it stands? Well ... *_/_on the heredity_/_*, of course! It the wealth happened to fall from above, or was personally won, but on /_equal_/ chances, then everyone will be contented with such "racing". But let us also not jump to the other pole, because the environment in which one is brought up from an early age, unquestionably, has its importance, and if everybody lives by completely equal conditions then the stimulus for the masses disappears, how exactly it has happened under the totalitarianism. So that we are not against inheriting at all, but *_against /_inheriting of exploitative property_/_*! Otherwise it turns out that all are equal, but some are more equal than the others, as was spoken earlier, but also nowadays nobody has rejected the necessity for /_equal conditions_/ for all, be it before the law, be it according to the sex or race, and so on. If not all can be exploiters then there is no need also for giving to some of us privileged start from the moment of their birth, but if someone, on a relatively equal conditions, succeeds to become exploiter only in the time of his or her life, then this may turn out to be useful for all, isn't it so? Well, after these judgements we are ready to explain our proposition about
-->
==>*_3. The future of capitalism,_*
-|from the point of view of exploitative property, or our view at the future large-scale property. As far as business activity, anyway, is separated from personal or family budget, then there are no problems for registering of them all, as also for inheriting of big sums. More than this, the inheritance tax, which is deserved by /_nothing_/ according to the meaning of inheritor (maybe the state has led quicker the deceased to the tomb, for to require payment in this case?), by big amounts often reaches up to 1/3 of the inherited capital, so that the state in any event takes enough. We just propose notably *_/_drastic_/ increasing of inheritance tax_* when some limit is exceeded, which we will call *_/_exploitative minimum_/_* (EM), but this will not be some unavoidable punishment for the wealthy persons, because everyone will be in position while he (or she) is living to transfer what he wants to his direct inheritors (what also justifies the inheritance tax, by the way -- i.e. if one does not give credence even to his own people, that let him pay for this!), and by this, if the inherited capitals, shares, parts, or property do not exceed one EM, then everything is inherited according to the existing in the country laws. And what means "drastic"? Well, such that, say, when reaching of 10 EM the given person will /_receive only 2 EM_/, or when reaching of 100 EM -- /_3 EM_/, and so on, by exponent.
-->Let us now establish this minimum, because someone may think that one will not inherit even his home. Well, one may think so if it was about personal property, but we are speaking about big sums, with the use of which is possible to do large-scale business, what means that the small enterprises must be inherited wholly (even by one heir), and also the middle-scale companies, too, if they are owned by several persons, or if there are several inheritors (what is the usual situation). Our proposition is quite simple: *_1 EM = 1000 MMS_* (minimal monthly salaries), what can be realized in each country, for the minimal working salary is for a long time centrally established indicator. And this level may be used only initially, and otherwise can be a question (as also MMS is such) of the competency of Parliament, where it will be established, say, so, that was applied to not more than 10 % of the population and in any case will include the price of an average apartment, car, et cetera (for example for Bulgaria, by 100 levs MMS this will give 100,000 lv; while for countries like USA, where 1 MMS is around 1,200 US$, we will have 1,2 mln US$).
-->It will hardly make a problem to legalize a special kind of property with lifetime force, which, in this case, is not subject of inheriting, but is returned back to the /_company_/. This may sound pretty strange (why some firm will sell actions, which one literally loses with his demise?), but this may turn to be suitable for capitals that have to belong to some varying group of people, for example: inherited estate, which must always remain in a given gender, or property of the municipals and other communities, and other variants, where such shares can be also /_distributed free_/ according to the regulations of the company, or can increase the parts of the left proprietors (if returned to the company). This can in some measure cause harm to the state, avoiding the inheritance tax, but, insofar as the state, anyway, wins from the application of our proposition, then let it show also some benevolence.
-->In order to avoid the monopoly of the state, on account of this drastically increased inheritance tax, can be accepted the condition that for the state remain not more than 1/3 of the assets of such companies (because this is a kind of nationalization), and the left part (if it remains something) is transferred to the local municipality, or given to some other organization, or distributed by some lottery. In the end, the important thing is that everybody was interested to become rich while living, but also that everybody has equal chances to "grow fat" a bit on the account of big companies, when some of their owners dies. This will not lessen the competition and will touch only the really large enterprises, about which the state, in one or other form, is obliged to care, or to perform some control over them. This will not be socialism, in the communist understanding of the things, but rather some *_/_people's_/ capitalism_*. But will this not weaken the bigger companies? Well, hardly, because in the life of a company there are three principal stages: of creating and pushing it forward, of developing and enlarging of its productivity, and of transformation and decline of it. Some nations have even the saying that the companies live three generations, where the first creates it, the second expands it, and the third spends it. Our proposition does not affects the first generation, which is the most important, it eliminates the third generation, what is good, and the functions of second generation can quietly be performed also by the state and, in general, by big number of persons (the big property, anyway, is not governed /_personally_/ by its owner), so that this must not affect the large, or leading for every developed country, business. In this way we have come now to the
-->
==>*_4. Conclusion,_*
-|where we will emphasize that, however new this ideas are looking, they are not coming on an empty place, because the capitalism evolves and modernizes. The current-day capitalism on the West is not this, what it was a century back, and its socializing, or pursuit of greater social justice, is inevitable. This, quite obviously, corresponds with the wishes of the masses (if only someone decides to ask them), but half of the exploitative elite also would accept this proposition, because it does not affect directly personal life of the wealthy person, and his or her successors -- well, they surely do not deserve so much wealth, for the reason that this, what comes at the ready, is not especially valued. When one company becomes old people look at it like at some elderly person fallen into infancy, who all just wait to be called by God, and if it will be the "dear God" then why not the state or Municipal Councils? The young and pushy small and middle-scale companies don't lose, the masses win from the more proper capitalism, the state too, and the large business also does not lose, so that this positively will be achieved /_some day_/. The big taxes (not only absolutely, but in percents, too), when the earnings are big, are not a novelty in many Western countries, just the people have not yet grasped that it can be so that both, the business continues, and the state becomes richer. The slogan of our UDF (Union of Democratic Forces) about "poor state but wealthy citizens", as we have seen on our bitter experience, can be realized only ... in its first part, and the existence of wealthy citizens in poor state is not possible. The socialist idea is neither new, nor erroneous. Erroneous was its realization, but this is valid also for the capitalism of the middle of 20th century, so that let us hope, that we will come to the right idea also about the question of property and exploitation.
-->
-->August 2001
-->
-->*_-- -- -- -- --_*
-->
===>*_JUST /_IN_/JUSTICE_*
-->
-->*_The judicial system_*, that has come to us from old Roman times, *_is one of the biggest /_misunderstandings_/_* in the social sphere, but this impresses almost nobody, because, as the people say, it is no good to kick against the prick, or ask for trouble. Well, it is so, of course, but if we don't "kick" at all the loop only tightens around our neck, so that in this paper the author intends to throw some "kicks" against the system as a whole, with its inherent flaws, and after this to make two formal propositions: for *_unified establishing of the damages_* and for *_personal modification of the punishments_*.
-->
==>*_1. Well conceived, but poorly implemented_*
-->
-->It is clear that the idea for establishing of punishment in advance, for a given typical situation, and not to decide about this in each concrete case has its reason, but ... . But the thing is that the judicial system very often does not perform its primary purpose: to protect the society against criminal acts, ensuring impartial punishment of the wrongdoers. People break the law and litigate, /_not_/ because they don't know the laws -- they may not know the letter of the law, yet they know its spirit -- but because they hope to remain unpunished, were it when they could not be caught, were it when they win the lawsuit (though being not right), and there are not rare the cases when they apply their own justice, because don't believe in the official one. And the justice itself can never be really impartial, when is done by persons who, obviously, are both biased and can easily be corrupted. And the *_judges_* -- they as if judge, for this is what their name says, but in reality are only a kind of ushers (or "conductors", according with the meaning of this word in English). The judge does not judge according to his (or her) meaning, or understanding of the situation, but according to the laws, and the best what he can do, for to express his view of the situation, is to /_adjust the law to the situation_/, not vice versa, what means that, in this case, he is definitely biased! So that the unbiased judge is not a judge, and the biased one is not a good judge.
-->This is one vicious circle in which we move for twenty centuries and the way out is: either in applying of automated computerized systems and /or taking of administrative decisions, at least at the first levels (what nowadays is not more an utopia); or in the massive applying of representatives of the people -- *_Court Assessors_* (CA) in the lawsuits, while the role of the judges is reduced to functions of ushers or conductors or of professional consultants of the CAs. Yet in this case the CAs should not just stay there "dumb as fishes" all the time, but have to be able to ask questions, to require information and expertises and, generally, to do the work of the judge. Well, as far as it is not proper for a heap of people to ask and order, then it must be allowed for their chairman (de facto, the judge, but who must /_not have right_/ to vote) to coordinate the things, and to has legal education, but all responsible decisions must be taken collectively by the CAs with usual voting. And not in this, I beg to be excused, perverse way in which this is performed in the moment (at least on the West, for the author is not a jurist), where is required unanimous decision by all of the jurors, because we in Bulgaria know pretty well what is this unanimous decision, applied nearly half a century in our "people's democratic" structures. The voting has to be performed via traditional voting, with "yes", "no", and abstained, and decision has to be taken with simple or qualified (2/3) majority.
-->And -- something that is more than obvious, but is /_not applied_/ till now in whatever country -- these Court Assessors should not be chosen nation-wide by the people and proposed by the political powers according to some, clearly /_distorted_/, views for best arbitrators, but to be a /_representative sample_/ of the population, what has to say that they are to be chosen in some /_arbitrary way_/, which can guarantee proportionate representation of all layers of the nation (not of the parties) in the justice. These people must be much more than the present day CA by us, and to serve for a very short time -- a month, maybe -- what will ensure wider participation of people in the system of justice (not only in the reading of judicial chronicle in newspapers). If everyone will have at least once in his (or her) life the right to be CA then the laws will be, most probably, better obeyed. Each higher instance must have more CA, and the highest must be chosen from some /_Court Assessorial Assembly_/ (AA for short), allowing also nation-wide voting (using some phone-cards, Internet, etc.). And it is absolutely clear that there is no reason for them to be even number, more so 12 (as it is on the West), and each part of the suit has to have rights to reject somebody -- what is the luck of the accused (for the given level), such will be his (or her) arbiters. It is logically to accept their number to be, from the lowest levels up: 3, 5, 7, and 9, where in especially serious cases the AA may consist of 99 persons, only for the voting. And let us not indulge now in talks that /_law-knowledge_/, for example, must be one of the learning subjects in the schools (surely more important in the life of each citizen than, say, the works of some of our poets or writers). Only that such changes can not enter the judicial system until they settle well in the basis of our democratic system, which continue to be /_party_/ one, or partial, biased, and does /_not_/ express the wishes of the population, but about these question the author has spoken largely in other materials.
-->Let us take now the *_lawyers_* -- they defend, above all, their own fees, and not the truth, because for money can be proven what not. The law suites, since Roman times, have been predominantly place for personal expression of the lawyers, not place for proving of the truth, and everybody knows that the suit is won, most often, by the better lawyer, what says that wins /_not the truth_/, but the competence (to /_distort_/ the truth, or to "pull the blanket to oneself"). Legally competent persons, if and as far as they are necessary in one lawsuit, can be used, though not as persons who speak /_instead_/ of a given part (except when the concrete person is in some extent hindered to do this), but as judicial advisors, consultants, or experts, in the same way as there are used specialists in other areas. When one has completed one's compulsory education and has learned to read and write, can move freely in the society, cross the streets or drive a car, employ oneself for a given job, and perform others /_dangerous_/, to a certain extent, activities, where every other one can cheat or deceive him (or her, and especially in democratic conditions, i.e. in a situation of greater personal freedoms), then every such person must be able to defend himself in person, or to accuse alone somebody, when needed. He, surely, will not be professional, but he will at least be genuine and less deceitful than the lawyers, i.e. by such person to find the truth will be easier, than in the current situation. And when the real arbiters, or CAs, are also not jurists (with the exception of their chairman) then this will not be considered as something uncommon. In the end, the laws are complicated, and become even more complicated, because the /_jurists want this_/, not because this is so necessary, for the reason that the feeling for justice or guilt is practically inborn in the humans and suffices literally a ten of "God's commandments", for him to know how to behave in the society. Add to this also the law-knowledge, about which we have just spoken, add the possible simplification of the things (about which we shall speak later), the various computerized guides, the judicial person (the chairmen of the jurors, for whom is proper to have right of veto when something against the law is proposed and voted), and it turns out that the professionalism is simply /_artificially forced_/, in order to allow the jurists to protect their "bread" or living! It is not that we don't understand them, and that, if the people have not /_wanted_/ to litigate, there would have been at least twice less lawsuits, bur until the very population will not decide to press a little this privileged stratum, the things will not improve. How the judges are not real judges, so also the lawyers do not defend the truth, and the place both, of the ones and of the others, must be only auxiliary, subordinate.
-->But if the lawyers will not work for their fees, how they will work then, will somebody ask. Well, in the same manner how work about 90 % of the employees, i.e. for a fixed payment. All lawyers can be appointed centralized via some arbitrary choice (taking into consideration their specialization); it might be also that somebody chooses some of them, but not because pays him more. Ponder a little, please, about the things: the question isn't so flat, as whether should be paid for a given activity (when each activity costs something) or not to be paid for it, but whether must be paid /_in the moment of using of the service_/, when the interest of the doer distorts the character of the work (like, for example, the physicians want to be more ailing persons and operations, in order for them to get more money; the lawyers want to be more suits for the same reason). If before a century such thought might have been an utopia nowadays, when exist social insurance, nationwide education, employment law advisors, and other things, there are no principal problems for the existence also of law insurance, are they? So that everything is a question of will -- will, but shown by the very people.
-->And one more thing: due to the ever existing wish of people to simplify everything, in the judicial system are accepted some /_obvious absurds_/, like this, that the Court is infallible (if a higher instance does not change some decision, but every worker in a given system is bound to defend it, so that this rarely happens), or that the decision must be always binary, i.e. guilty or not guilty, or that the laws must be obeyed literally, in spite of the fact that the people, if there is someone to ask them in the case, would have said something different, and similar things. It is clear that the higher instances, especially AA, or nationwide voting, have to be in position to interpret the laws as they deem fit, and even /_not to apply_/ them in some cases (without changing them). It is clear also that by a normal (not unanimous) voting there will be persons who vote both, "for" and "against", as well will abstain, so that there might be also /_level of certainty_/ by taking of the decision, which must at least be announced publicly. Every Court /_can_/ make an error and this is even very common practice! In fact also an entire nation can make errors, and it isn't that this has not happened or does not happen often, but the accent here is not on the infallibility, it is on the concrete view of the population in the given moment and for the given place, which standpoint may be changed later.
-->It has to be clear that it is not possible to write a program that will take exact decisions in an enormously big (not to say infinite) number of variants of behaviour, without existence of some intellect taking decisions /_on the spot_/, while the judicial system tries to make exactly this impossible thing, and because of this the errors are /_commensurate_/ with the situation when such program is not present (i.e. if we judged as in the ancient times -- not according to laws, but according to the conscience of the judge)/*. If the best decision, as a rule, is the compromise one, then let the jurisprudence, too, become one good compromise between impartiality and humanity, and not to be lowed on us like something given by God. The very jurists, obviously, are contented with their role of gods, and they alone will never resign from this position, but if common people will judge, if they change often (so that everybody will wait his or her turn) and have no grounds for pretenses and career making, the things, probably, will be better.
-->
-->[ * Let us remind the later case with Bulgarian medics in Libya, where all around the world was clear that they could not have been guilty in some /_deliberate_/ action (just because they were monsters, villains, giaours, etc.), but they were convicted in fully /_lawful_/, according to their laws, way. This is not miscarriage of justice, regarding the judicial procedure, this is pure and simple unjust justice, or vice versa. Of course, someone may object, that even if the whole Libyan nation has conducted the suit, even then the result would have been the same, so that, whatever the procedure, in this case would have been taken wrong decision and, hence, we have no reasons to give this case as example. Yeah, but it is not the same whether we (i.e. the whole Libyan nation) can hide behind the law and be with clear conscience, or we will be forced sometime to answer before God, whoever he may be, or the people around us (and all over the world), or before our conscience, when comes time to think about ourselves (because such time comes once)! Such moralizing considerations may seem today exaggerated and funny, but the common people do them, or at least the laws, authorities, and religion require from us to stick to some morality. And, in general, from this, that the conscience of people, especially of big groups of individuals, due to their strong partiality, often makes errors, we must not come to the conclusion that can do without any conscience and morality. ]
-->
-->The only rational grain in the jurisprudence, come to think about, is the system of Prosecution, i.e. of defense of the interests of the state, behind which stay those of the people. But there also are drawbacks in it because when the Prosecution initiates a suit it feels obliged to convict the offender as severe as possible, and the questions of elementary humanity remain in background. In this regard can be proposed also in this legal body to have three or five persons from CAs, or of some alternative group, but arbitrary chosen and non-professionals, who have to "hold the ball", in order not to come to harsh cases. Let us remind again that we are not against the professionalism of the jurists, but against their leading role and the possibility for mercenary extraction of benefits, maintaining also that each part must defend itself alone, and only when this is difficult to be implemented or impossible, just then to be allowed it to be substituted by an jurist. Such special cases can be, for example: physical or mental defects of the person; he or she can not appear because is dead or seriously ill; if the suit is initiated by the Prosecution but the victim or his /her relatives do not want to take part in person in the Court as accusers; defendant in a given case is the state (and we can't require in such cases at the dock to be called, say, the President); and so on, but when the physical person can be defined, even in suits from or against companies, they should be represented by the person who according to the law represents them (the President of the company), not by specially appointed lawyer (who is not a part of the lawsuit), he /she may take part in the suit, but behind the scenes and when the defendant or the claimant gives him the floor. Well, let us conclude with this the common shortcomings of the judicial system and go to one concrete question elaborated by the author.
-->
==>*_2. Unification of the assessment of damages and guilt_*
-->
-->The laws must be simplified as much as possible, because they also obey the Parkinson's law, stating that each work grows so much for to fill the time fixed for it, or to use the time of those who perform it. More precisely, here it goes about this, that each system strives to become more complex, hoping that in this way it will become better, but from a given point on it becomes /_only_/ more complicated, and later on it begins to function even /_worse_/, exactly because of its complexity. Maybe at the dawn of ancient legislation the laws have done the work, at least because they were much less in their number as are now, or the judges were with much higher morality than of those today. It might as well be so, though we don't believe much in this, most probable for the author seems the thesis that the legislation was yet another utopia with which the society has fooled itself and continues to do this also today. Well, the humanity can not live without utopias, and it is also true that the point is not so much in the severity of the punishment as in its inevitability, which depends not on the laws but on the bodies for coercion and various systems for monitoring (of everything that can be monitored) and for manipulating of the population (in /_its own_/ interest), so that let us at least propose some way for unification and simplifying of the assessment for guilt, which *_in the civil law_* is reduced mainly to material damages.
-->What we have in mind is that the measuring unit, which is the national currency, is the most uncertain of all, because in the business is not set on one asset only, there is money market, there are precious metals, there is unmovable property, and other things. Besides, no business has such ambitions as the judicial system, to exist not only for centuries but for millenniums. It is quite natural that there can't exist exact measurement when the "yardstick" changes, and it changes not only by high inflation, it changes also by stable social development, where under the normal 4-5 % interest rate and /or inflation for 20 years, or less than one generation (which is now up to 27 years), all prices double. This, obviously, creates work for the jurists, but we think that this artificially created work can and /_must_/ be eliminated.
-->So that, with what are we to measure if not with money units? Well, with something that does not change, i.e. that /_changes_/ with the time, but which can be used for measuring of the living standard, so that when we express everything else with this thing, then the prices will remain constant! If in Ancient Rome such decision could not have been possible, then at least for a century in every more or less developed country (and even in such like Bulgaria) exists the notion /_minimal monthly salary_/ (MMS), to which are tied all social payments. (Well, they are tied in the "normal" countries, where by us they can not be properly "tied", because, at least in sense of social insurance is accepted that one MMS equals two MMS/**, but let us expect that this is our another "error of the growth" and, sooner or later, the things in Bulgaria will normalize.) Only that we propose to use not MMS, but the *_minimal yearly salary_* (*_MS_* for short), respectively averaged after elapsing of the year, because most of the damages will be commensurable with the yearly salary, and for smaller damages may be used at most up to two decimal digits. For the situation in the moment 1 MMS = 100 lv, or 1 MS = 1,200 lv, where it is clear that for damages less than 12 lv nobody will sue, and most of the cases are for damages of order of hundreds and thousands, even tens of thousands levs (i.e. from several to several tens of MS), but may be also bigger sums, in suits between companies or especially wealthy persons.
-->
-->[ ** Then, but the situation is similar also in 2008, and in 2015. ]
-->
-->From here follows that the most natural and simply decision is for all laws to be reedited (this is done quite easy, when there exist computerized data bases, as the things stay also by us), where all fines are expressed in MS and parts of it to the second digit after the point. Later on is possible for every one of the laws to be revised and corrected, as it often happens. But in the fullness of the matter the things are more complicated, because we require /_only_/ this to be the unique measuring unit, for the moment at least in the civil law, where it goes primarily about damages, not about human lifes, which can not be restored again. This means that if somewhere is written "... and so many years of prison" then this, too, has to be expressed in MS. The simplest assumption, at a first edition, is *_1 MS = 1/2 years_* of prison (in fact, the direction in the beginning is reverse, i.e. 1 year prison = 2.0 MS), and in a new examination the things may be corrected. It can be introduced also some ranging of prisons (say, such where 1 MS is counted for 0.4, 0.5, 0.6, or 0.7 years). By this, however, always when there goes about compensation of damages which can be recompensed, it must be allowed to the convicted to do this (where, eventually, is come to confiscation of allowed by the law personal property), and only when this is not possible only then he /she has to be imprisoned, because the prison not only will not return the sum to the harmed part, but will also add new expenses for the state. So that also for this reason is justified that the major (and single) measuring unit is MS, and not years of imprisonment.
-->But this means that also the very repayment will be done /_exactly in MS_/, not in levs, i.e. it, surely, will be done in levs, but they will be momentarily converted to MS (with precision to the third digit after the point) according to the moment of paying of the sum, so that every necessity of calculating of interests or returning of the suit again to the Court as a result of changes in the living standard (say, high inflation) is avoided. This approach can be applied in full to all kinds of payments in the country, or at least to the suits for child support. The only thing, which is required in this situation from a given state, is for it to maintain correctly the MMS, a thing which it is obliged to do in any case, if it cares for its image before the world. More than this, so formulated the laws can be with one, really, /_global for all countries_/ sphere of validity, because the legislatures in all countries, anyway, aim at their equalizing, especially in the frames of United Europe, and this will be the best basis for uniting of countries with different standards of life. It might have been objected that it is better to use one average salary (income), but this is relative notion, with which can be speculated, while the minimal is announced publicly and is not subject of questionable calculation.
-->A bit more complicated, but not unconquerable, is the question with the *_criminal law_*, where the sentences are reduced mainly to years of imprisonment, by the simple reason that one human life is invaluable and can not be restored (similarly also light, medium, and heavy bodily injuries). Well, it is so but ... is it, really, so? Because when we say "priceless" we don't mean that it has no price at all but that it is too big, or likewise "invaluable" means that it is difficult to calculate its value. Yet in many cases we are bound to have some price for this priceless thing called life; we must have a price not because this will return the life but simply because there /_must be_/ also quantitative estimation. If we do not dig to deep in the moral aspects of the matter, because under the capitalism everything, also the working force, is object of buying and selling and, hence, has some price, we can safely assume that this is not whole compensation, but measure for the punishment of the guilty, or partial reimbursement for the injured or his /her heirs. Even only to be able to have unified measure this will be suitable and useful, and here we presuppose that this is some reparation (and you have heard that with a delay of half of a century the Germans pay today retributions to the left alive victims of nazism). The unified measure is the first condition for simplification and unification of the things, more so in a sufficiently complicated system, as this of the jurisprudence.
-->So well, let us think that we have succeeded to convince the reader how necessary is such unified measure, which is clear that has to be expressed via MS, but on what basis must be done this? Here, again, could have been proposed to use the /_average_/ (yearly) salary or income for the country, but our goal is to propose not some utopia but something real and, naturally, is exceedingly unrealistic to accept that an average culprit (a murderer, for example) can repay the value of the human life (or part of it, if it was only bodily injury) for the time left to the victim /injured till the average life expectancy (say, 80 years), by average income of approximately 2.5 MS, if he (or she) has the same average income and has also to sustain his own life. In this case we must either return to the gone away centuries, when for destroyed life was taken life, and for partial injuries, for example, to cut the culprit a hand, or a leg, or whatever (what will not, even partially, reimburse the victim), or must change the "yardstick". We again think that the right measure is also: /_by one MS for the left to the victim years till the average life span_/ (initially we accept 80), but not less than 1/10 of this time (i.e. 8 years).
-->In other words, it is clear that it is not correct to have different measures for different victims, because before the justice all have to be equal, and that this measure must be the minimal, not the average, income. But this turns out to be justified also for other reasons. If the average human being earns his average income, he does this not during his entire life (80 years), but somewhere about 30-35 years, what is roughly 2.5 times less than his entire life span, so that the measure: for one year -- one MS, is quite suitable. In this situation, as far as neither the compensation is full, nor is supposed it to be accessible to the "average culprit", nor also is educative for him to escape only with money fine, is necessary for the major part of the punishment to be converted to prison, requiring payment of only (if the culprit is in condition to do this) one to two MS (this will be made more precise in the next point) to the victim, with addition also of the costs of proceedings. It is clear that when is decided that the person presents danger for the society he may (and must) be retained in special correctional institutions, during the investigation and so on, but these are details for each concrete case; the medical institutions, anyway, are not observed as prison, though they have similar effect for the culprit; our unified measure does not eliminate the necessity of isolation of the culprit, but it is measured through MS, and isolation can be applied not only because of guilt, also when is ascertained danger for the society.
-->Let us see then, with some examples, what we have got. For example, murder of 30 years old citizen. Then the punishment has to be 50 MS, calculated as prison this makes 25 years, but if the guilty can repay something, with confiscation of his property, this period will be lessened, besides, the initially established years do not correspond to the really spent in the prison years (for various reasons), so that this gives about 15 years real prison. This is quite much according to the current views, but it is not that this does not happen in some countries, and here we come to the question of personal modification of the sentence, with what we will engage ourselves in the next point. But if the victim is 75 years old, for example, then the punishment will be 8 MS, or some recompense for the heirs plus 2-3 years of prison. You see that such strong dependence of the age is something new in the legislature, but there is quite much logic in this, and the bigger part of the victims are predominantly below or about the middle age, what outlines about 20 years of prison; besides, the age, although not explicitly, /_is_/ taken in consideration by establishing of the sentence (using this "from ... to ..." in the laws); and in addition to this, if it goes about murder with robbery, then the stolen goods are required to be returned (and if they are inherited then are taken back), so that this also adds a MS or two to the sentence, what shows that our idea is quite acceptable.
-->Let us take now an average bodily injury, severe -- 50 % of the value of the left life -- this will give half of the sentence in the previous case (according with the age). Or rape -- evaluated by the law for about 10 % (i.e. without severe physical injury), but the victim is 20 years old and this will give 1/10 of 60 MS or 6 MS, where the victim has all chances to receive a decent remuneration, as also the culprit to stay for 1-2 years in prison. Or road traffic accident -- the calculations can be similar, but with some coefficient of guilt, which can be in the limits of 1 to 4 %, for example, because is accepted that this is not premeditated murder, but it is not right to escape without any punishment; similarly in case of self-defense, and also for other alike deeds.
-->Now is seen already that we propose some *_set of coefficients_*, by which is /_multiplied_/ the punishment, so that to preserve the universal approach for establishing of the guilt, based on the age of the victim. These coefficients can be the following: a) /_level of injuries_/ -- from 0.01 to 1.0 by death; less than one percent we don't think is appropriate, but for each of the categories of cases mentioned in the laws are defined their own limits; b) /_guilt of the perpetrator_/ -- similarly from 0.01 to 1.0 for premeditated act (in particular murder); c) /_cruelty_/ -- from 0.5 to 1.5, where the one is for not shown cruelty, and 0.5 is for some humanity, according to the commonly accepted understanding (i.e. there exists, or must exist difference between murder with sleeping pills, or firearms but on the spot, or after torture and beating); d) /_conviction_/ of the jury -- from 0.5 to 1.0, where if it is less than 0.5 is established the coefficient of the reverse statement (for example, not guilty); such coefficient is high time to be introduced, because the binary assessment can give (and gives) very big difference, and at least 1/4 of the cases are based on circumstantial evidences where, quite obviously, can't exist complete conviction; e) /_modifier of CAs_/ -- coefficient in the limits of 2/3 to 4/3, i.e. allowing two-fold changing of the punishment, but centered around the one, with which the jury in the higher instances (if and when this is allowed by the law) can force its own view, diminishing or increasing the provided penalty according to its (i.e. their) own conscience; and maybe some other more.
-->This will reduce the qualification of the deeds to /_filling up of tables_/, but in this way the things will be made easier and more convenient for applying by everyone (including computerized systems, what is a matter of near future, at least on the lowest law instance), where using of computer tables will allow for all estimations to be done momentarily. By one proper voting of many CAs with various meanings (according with what was said in the previous point) the finding of the exact percent will be done automatically by the computer, or can be conducted voting for establishing of the necessary percent via binary division of the allowed interval of the coefficient in question. In this way both, will be considered the influence of various specific for the concrete case parameters, and also the laws will be possible to be written universally; the existing till now "from -- to" is very rough and in many cases erroneous; in addition to this it is important -- for various statistics and analyzes -- to know the estimations for each of the parameters, not only the "fallen from the blue" end decision of the jury. Together with this the unified assessment of damages or guilt allows also quite natural /_proportional dividing_/ of the punishment, when there are several accused /culprits, for which purpose is necessary, after establishing of the common amount of MS, to vote also for the part of the guilt for each of the accused. This will decrease the personal punishment when there are several accomplices, but if the damages and compensations are correctly calculated this is justified, and, in addition, will stimulate the offenders to reveal other persons who have taken part in the violation of the law, but are not yet known to the justice (i.e. also the "soaking" of other persons will be correctly done).
-->Generally saying, our approach is not at all new, where similar methods are applied for long time in various scientific activities, by making of diverse programs and planning of many activities, though it is new /_in the system_/ of jurisprudence! And it is new because the officers of this system set more on the emphasizing of their high position than on the transparency of their actions, on the divine mystery instead on the gnawing doubt, and so on. In many countries they even still wear wigs, in order to stress their "inhuman" nature, but we feel obliged to explain that the English "wig" comes from the well known ... fig, or rather from one single leaf of it (although it may be also wine leaf), because already since the time of Adam and Eve the people have masked their shameful places of the body with leaves of a fig tree, or, at least, have thought that have beautified themselves in this way (I may add that the ... figure, too, carries the same idea). Well, the author thinks that /_only the just processing_/ of lawsuits can beautify an officer of this system, everything else is only, as the Russians say, /_figliarstvo_/ (in order to use the same root), or buffoonery, tricks and frauds.
-->
==>*_3. Personal modification of the punishment according with the means of the guilty_*
-->
-->If in the previous point were some calculations then they were only simple arithmetic, which, anyway, is done, or was done when the laws were created. Here, though, we will present something that affects the mathematics learned in the higher school grades (9th - 11th), but what, still, is not higher mathematics, and it is forced to us by the very life, because even if someone thinks that the Court is an abstract structure and does not consist of people but of "vicars of God", it is quite clear that the accused or defendant is a common person, but at the same time the different defendants have different resources, so that one and the same penalty /_is not_/ one and the same regarding the different persons. In other words, we want to propose some /_personal filter_/, which must modify the damages or the compensation /_S_/ (in MS), to some personal punishment /_N_/ (also in MS, but from there reduced also to years of imprisonment), at least on the basis of some personal factor, namely: his (or her) living standard expressed through his income. As far as, however, under the capitalism everything is expressed in money then this single factor is practically universal.
-->Our idea again is simple but powerful and applicable for whatever diapason of punishments and for whatever income of the accused. It reduces mainly to this that extremely big punishments, which can neither be paid out nor served in prison, must simply be /_diminished_/, in order to become bearable. In our legislature there is not this paradox that someone may be sentenced to 273 years imprisonment, for example, but there is other wrong position --that he is prosecuted only for the biggest offense. Where we think that there must be made difference between the /_assessment_/ of the guilt and the personal /_punishment_/ (the very paying of the money and/or serving in prison). The assessment /_S_/ must be according to the explained in the previous point, and the personal punishment /_N_/, must be according to the means of the guilty. As universal measure for his financial abilities we accept *_his average yearly income_* (*_PI_* for short), calculated on basis of the last five years, accepting (i.e. legalizing this), that everyone is in condition to pay out /_up to one PI_/, but not more than two PI, in more special cases, or by wish of one of the parts, and everything left is changed with years of imprisonment. In this way we get quite /_natural_/ transition between the two till now used measuring units (money and prison), where many money are automatically converted to years of prison, but the very notion "many" depends on the guilty!
-->It remains the most important thing -- to explain how exactly will happen this modification of the punishment. Well, it is clear that it must be such that to decrease the big punishments, or to flatten the curve of penalties in direction of bigger values, but in what way? Now, the most natural way is to use some *_exponent_*, because this curve is massively met in nature, by our sensitive organs (it is reacted in "times" of change, not in percents), and is widely used in various technical and scientific situations. Because far from all readers (more so jurists) are familiar with similar mathematical questions, let us stress that this is /_the smoothest_/ mathematical curve (it has unlimited number of derivatives and all they are the same!), so that is has not "fallen from the blue" but is invented (in the exact mathematical sense) for the reason that the practice requires it. Though there are no obstacles to be applied also the vulgar method for checking of its smoothness -- when one moves a finger on it then it curves but has no "bulges".
-->Good, we have come to the exponent, yet we will use not exactly it but its inverse function, called logarithm, about which all have at least heard, and especially the decimal one, as more natural for the people (where that one, which is called "natural", isn't quite natural for the common people). Our goal is so to flatten the curve of punishments, that /_by value of 10,000 MS to remain only 1,000 MS_/, i.e. to diminish it 10 times there, but /_the one_/ (1 MS) /_to be left on its place_/! Here we enter in more and more complicated matter, but we shall make efforts to explain it simple, although even if it remains not much clear there is nothing dangerous in this, because it goes only about some /_motivation_/, and it is not at all necessary for it to be included in the legal documents -- it is just given a formula which has to be applied. So, and if we come now to logarithmic scale, then the logarithm of exponent becomes straight line, so that we have to draw a line through the point (0;0), because log\10|1 = lg1 = 0 (the logarithm of one is always zero, no matter what is the base of the logarithm, which here is 10), and the point (4;1), because lg10,000 = 4, and lg10 = 1, and we want exactly 10 times decreasing in this point. Then this line will have angular coefficient of slope 1/4 and therefore its equation, if we return to the normal scale, will be lg y = 1/4 lg x . If we now remove the logarithm we must apply antilogarithm, or to raise 10 (the base) to the power of each of both parts, what gives10 /lg y|= 10 /1/4 lg x| , but 10 /lg y| = y , where on this number /_y_/ we must /_divide_/, in order to have the desired effect. So that by damages /_S_/, for the punishment /_N_/ on the changed curve we will have (1), what for /_S_/ = 1 [MS] will give, really, lg1, what is 0, and then 10 to the zero power, what is 1, and /_S_/ divided to 1 is again the same. But if we take /_S_/=10,000, then lg10,000 = 4, multiplied by 1/4 gives 1, 10 to the first power is 10, so that /_S_/ will be divided by 10 and this will give 1,000; respectively for /_S_/=1,000 we will receive (after calculations) 177.828, what will be the modified punishment corresponding to damages of 1,000 MS; for /_S_/=100, will have /_N_/ = 31.623; and for 10 MS -- will have /_N_/ = 5.623 MS.
-->
-->/_S / (10/(1/4 lg S)) = S*10/( -1/4 lg S)_/ (1)
-->/_N = S / (10/(1/4 lg (S/D))) = S*10/ (-1/4 lg (S/D))_/ (2)
-->/_N = S / (10/(1/4 lg (S/D))) = S*10/ (-1/4 lg (S/D)) = S*(S/D)/( -1/4) = S/( 3/4)*D/( 1/4)_/ (3)
-->
-->Only that the curve will be such if the flattening preserves the point 1 MA, but we said that we want this to be not the minimal salary though the /_personal_/ yearly income, i.e. PI, which we will mark as /_D_/. So in this case this, what we must do, is to change so the logarithm, that it to become 0 by /_S_/ = /_D_/ (i.e. for /_S_/ = /_D_/ the argument of the logarithm to be 1), and respectively to give 10 by /_S_/=10,000*/_D_/, and this means that we shall in the argument of logarithm take /_S/D_/ (but the first /_S_/, by which we multiply remains the same, because we continue to measure the damages). So we obtain the formula for punishment (2) . Before to give one table with some of the values of the curve /_N_/ let us turn your attention to one not much desirable effect in this case: when for big /_S_/ the curve will be flattened and diminish, then for small values of /_S_/ it will /_increase_/, so that for damages of order of 1/100 of MS (or 12 levs at the moment) the punishment has to be about 30 /_times bigger_/. This follows not only from the reasonings in logarithmic scale, where we have straight line, but also from the character of exponent (and logarithm) which monotonously increase (or decrease). But there is nothing dangerous in these because there is one trivial solution: we apply our filter /_only for values above the personal income D_/, and for smaller values the punishment is exactly equal to the computed damages. The transition between sloping straight line and its curving by exponent happens by /_S_/ = /_D_/, and exactly this was our goal -- to correct only unbearably big punishments of the accused. The state of the affairs in table form is shown on Table 1.
-->As is seen in this table (which here, surely, does not look good, but then search me, say, on http://samlib.ru ) the formula can be applied in infinite diapason, including for guilt of companies, where the income of company for an year can be hundreds and thousands of MS, and here also is accepted that subject of payment are punishments to 1, and not more than 2, but mark, now not MS, but /_PI_/ of the person or company, what is entirely logical! The remained punishment is subject to serving in prison by the mentioned coefficient: half an year prison for one MS. This means that the entire punishment for wealthy persons /companies is bigger than for poorer ones, but this is correct, because by better way of life one has less reasons to commit offenses, and in addition to this if we are before 1 PI the punishment exactly equals the damages, only that will we be before or above 1 PI depends on the means of the guilty.
-->
-->N[MS]for || 0.01| 0.1| 0.5| 1.00| 2.50| 5.00| 10.0| 50.0| 100.| 500.| 1000.|
-->S h., D v.
--> 0.5|| 0.01| 0.1| 0.5| 0.841| 1.672| 2.812| 4.729| 15.811| 26.591| 88.914| 149.535|
--> 1.0|| 0.01| 0.1| 0.5| 1.0| 1.988| 3.344| 5.623| 18.803| 31.623| 105.737| 177.828|
--> 2.5|| 0.01| 0.1| 0.5| 1.0| 2.5| 4.204| 7.071| 23.644| 39.764| 132.957| 223.607|
--> 5.0|| 0.01| 0.1| 0.5| 1.0| 2.5| 5.0| 8.409| 28.117| 47.287| 158.114| 265.915|
--> 10.0|| 0.01| 0.1| 0.5| 1.0| 2.5| 5.0| 10.0| 33.437| 56.234| 188.03| 316.228|
--> 50.0|| 0.01| 0.1| 0.5| 1.0| 2.5| 5.0| 10.0| 50.0| 84.09| 281.171| 472.871|
--> 100.0|| 0.01| 0.1| 0.5| 1.0| 2.5| 5.0| 10.0| 50.0| 100.0| 334.37| 562.341|
--> 500.0|| 0.01| 0.1| 0.5| 1.0| 2.5| 5.0| 10.0| 50.0| 100.0| 500.0| 840.896|
-->1000.0|| 0.01| 0.1| 0.5| 1.0| 2.5| 5.0| 10.0| 50.0| 100.0| 500.0| 1000.0|
-->
-->*_Table 1_*. Forming of the punishment according to the income of guilty (in MS)
-->
-->Let us now take in focus two lines -- those for PI equal to 1 MS and for 10 MS. For 1 MS: if the guilt is for 5 MS we get punishment of 3.34 MS, where one is paid and the left 2.34 MS give 1.17 years of prison; by 10 MS is paid again 1 MS and the remained 4.62 MS give 2.31 years prison; by 50 MS (received, for example, for a "standard" murder of 30 years old victim) we have 18.8 MS punishment, from which after paying of 1 MS remain about 9 years prison (which is not properly to be lessened more than this -- for good behaviour, or by subtracting the weekends, or after the later amnesty, etc.); and by 100 MS (a cruel murder of young person can quietly give so much) the corrected personally punishment will be 31.62 MS, where in the prison is served about 15 years; and so on. While for PI (or /_D_/) = 10 MS we have: all damages up to 10 MS are paid (full retribution); by 50 MS we have corrected punishment of 33.44 MS, but paying 10 (or maybe even 20 MS, if this is financial offense) then in the prison will be served 12 (respectively about 7) years; and by 100 MS the punishment now becomes 56.23 MS and paying out 10 MS for the prison remain about 23 years.
-->In addition to this the correction will be different if we have several accomplices, because then their guilt will be less and will be paid out or served more fully. For example if the cited murder giving 50 MS is divided between two guilty culprits, say, with 60 and 40 percents, then we move to damages of 30 and 20 MS, which (this is not given in the table) will give punishments, by one, this time /_average_/ income of 2.5 MS, respectively 16.1 and 11.9 MS, so that it turns that the first will serve 6.8, and the second 4.7 years in prison; at the same time, if he were one person with the same average income, then for 50 MS we get corrected punishment of 23.64 MS, and if he pays again 2.5 MS (but only once, and when there are two persons it becomes twice more), then for him remain to serve 10.57 years imprisonment, what is more than for each of the both previous persons, but less than their sum. In the next table (Table 2.) is given in more details the proportion money [MS] and prison [years], depending on /_S_/ and /_D_/.
-->
-->N m/p for || 0.01| 0.10| 0.50| 1.00| 2.50| 5.00| 10.0| 50.0| 100.| 500.| 1000.|
-->S h., D v.
--> 0.667|| 0.01| 0.1| 0.5| 0.667| 0.667| 0.667| 0.667| 0.667| 0.667| 0.667| 0.667|
--> - || 0.0| 0.0| 0.0| 0.118| 0.565| 1.177| 2.207| 8.163| 13.95| 47.44| 80.02|
--> 1.0|| 0.01| 0.1| 0.5| 1.0| 1.0| 1.0| 1.0| 1.0| 1.0| 1.0| 1.0|
--> - || 0.0| 0.0| 0.0| 0.0| 0.494| 1.172| 2.312| 8.902| 15.31| 52.37| 88.41|
--> 2.5|| 0.01| 0.1| 0.5| 1.0| 2.5| 2.5| 2.5| 2.5| 2.5| 2.5| 2.5|
--> - || 0.0| 0.0| 0.0| 0.0| 0.0| 0.852| 2.286| 10.572| 18.63| 65.23| 110.5|
--> 5.0|| 0.01| 0.1| 0.5| 1.0| 2.5| 5.0| 5.0| 5.0| 5.0| 5.0| 5.0|
--> - || 0.0| 0.0| 0.0| 0.0| 0.0| 0.0| 1.704| 11.559| 21.14| 76.56| 130.5|
-->10.0|| 0.01| 0.1| 0.5| 1.0| 2.5| 5.0| 10.0| 10.0| 10.0| 10.0| 10.0|
--> - || 0.0| 0.0| 0.0| 0.0| 0.0| 0.0| 0.0| 11.719| 23.11| 89.01| 153.1|
-->
-->*_Table 2._* Usual splitting of punishment on money (I row) and prison (II row)
-->
-->By the way, the proposed formula can be written also in another form, using non-integer powers, something in what each good school student in the last (or but one) year can convince himself, (3), but this changes with nothing the things, because the non-integer powers are, anyway, calculated via logarithms. This form seems a bit simpler in regard of the writing, but is pretty mysterious if we try to perceive its meaning, and because of this we explained the primary form. Something more, instead of decimal logarithms we can use also natural ones (with base of the Neper number /_e_/), but then we have to raise the same /_e_/ in power, not the ten, in what we can convince ourselves if we start in the above formula from right to left and substitute before the third "=" 10 /lg| with e /ln| . But, at the end, these are equivalent formulas (like, say, win and gain) so that let us not diverge more.
-->Another moment is the question with confiscation of the property that can be taken from the accused, if he (she) has such. This is done /_before_/ the personal correction of punishment, so that if via his property he can diminish the common amount of damages /_S_/ this will reflect on his sentence. Maybe it must be specified also the establishing of his PI -- this must be done based on the families (commonly living persons), because not everybody earns alone his income. But if the person is separate family, and has no permanent income, then it has to be taken to be 2/3 of MS (where this must be also the minimum acceptable value at all), because such is the tendency on the West for various social payments. If, on the other hand, there is no available data (say, he was imprisoned, or abroad and can not show documents for income, etc.) then has to be accepted that his income was 1 MS. We have also not specified when the money must be paid (in MS) -- whether before or after entering in prison, if this should happen. We think this must happen up to 5 years, but in view of various reasons it is not suitable to subtract from them the years in prison (this does not matter for suits against companies, but also for physical persons is not special problem, it the convict can find the money -- were is via withdrawal from an account, selling of property, collecting of rent when he is not living in the home, borrowing money, etc.), so that they run from the moment of ending of the suit. During this time the person can be free (and then to spare from his salary) or imprisoned, but if after elapsing of this time he has still not paid the money, then he must serve also this sum.
-->
-->That is one of the ways for bettering of the work of Courts, for achieving of real assessment of damages (or quite close to the real one, in case of inflicting of physical damages and death), bur also for justified punishment, in accordance with financial abilities of the person, and in addition also for one easy unification of the jurisprudence in the entire world. There are ways, if there is desire for bettering of the situation.
-->
-->October 2001
-->
-->*_-- -- -- -- --_*
-->
===>*_IN OVO E VERITAS (or "Egg Economy")_*
-->
-->In the interest of truth, the idea of this material is not of the author but is borrowed by Mark Twain, from his book "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court", but well -- that's the purpose of classicists, to learn from them. Though, on the other hand, the things are creatively applied, and, besides, to Mister Samuel Clemens, most probably, someone from the ancient people has suggested something, because the egg is a thing at which people since deep antiquity have wondered, and for that reason its name in most of Hindu-European languages is just ... an exclamation, like for example in German it is /_das Ei_/ (read 'ay' like in "mine"), in French it is /_oeuf_/ (i.e. "oh", what is similar to the Latin /_ovo_/, what is near to Russian /_ogo_/, what means "ah"), the English "egg" has to be something like "eh" or "yeah", in Russian it is "yaytzo" (what you would have written, I suppose, as "iaitzo", but in many European languages it will be "jajtzo"), what is some "ay /yay" (obvious exclamation), in Bulgarian is nearly the same ("yaytze"), and so on (where in Sanskrit it was /_aksha_/, what is again "ah"). Naturally, here it goes not about etymology, but about economic usage of the egg as a coin, yet from the exaltation about it to the idea for such usage, the way is not very long, so that, if the eggs have not become spoiled so fast, they would have been long ago /_used_/ as units for exchange. But the idea is still actual (and will be such for a long time more), due to the fact that, despite the enormous power of contemporary technologies, the eggs are still not synthetically produced, and even if they were synthesized this would have hardly changed significantly the situation, because artificial diamonds exist long ago but the price of natural ones has not fallen.
-->So that, let is imagine that there existed such money unit -- one *_ovo_*, which is equal to the price of one egg. Then, expressing with it all products we will have one *_constant_* for each time, as also *_universal_* for all countries, price! However simple this idea can be, it is very convincing and for that reason we have created here one table with the basic foodstuff and other products, adding also the salaries in different periods of our newest history, as also for one Western country (Austria), which will be used for comparison. On the basis of this table (in two parts, for it does not fit in the page) we can draw interesting conclusions, so that let us begin (the order is not important). (Remark: Here also if you don't like the form here then search for me on Russian sites, say, at http://samlib.ru, where everything look good.)
-->
-->-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--> || BULGARIA 1988 || BULG. 06.1999 | %/'88 || BULG. 06.2000 | %/'88||
--> || egg(lv) 0.13 || egg(lv) 0.08 | || egg(lv) 0.12 | ||
--> || us$(lv) 0.98 || us$(lv) 1.80 | || us$(lv) 2.10 | ||
--> || egg(us$)0.133 || egg(us$) 0.044 | || egg(us$)0.057 | ||
-->-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-->TYPES OF PRODUCTS || levs eggs || levs eggs | eggs || levs eggs | eggs ||
-->-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-->chicken egg (1 pc) || 0.13 1.0 || 0.08 1.0 | 0%|| 0.12 1.0 | 0%||
-->fresh milk (l) || 0.30 2.3 || 0.50 6.3 | 171%|| 0.80 6.7 | 189%||
-->white cow cheese(kg)|| 2.60 20.0 || 2.00 25.0 | 25%|| 2.50 20.8 | 4%||
-->white sheep cheese(kg)|| 3.60 27.7 || 3.00 37.5 | 35%|| 3.60 30.0 | 8%||
-->cheese good (kg) || 5.00 38.5 || 4.00 50.0 | 30%|| 4.50 37.5 | -3%||
-->minced meat (kg) || 5.60 43.1 || 3.40 42.5 | -1%|| 3.00 25.0 | -42%||
-->meat with bones (kg)|| 5.60 43.1 || 4.00 50.0 | 16%|| 4.00 33.3 | -23%||
-->meat fillet/tenderloin(kg)|| 7.00 53.8 || 6.00 75.0 | 39%|| 6.00 50.0 | -7%||
-->sausage fresh (kg) || 4.00 30.8 || 2.80 35.0 | 14%|| 3.20 26.7 | -13%||
-->sausage dry (kg) || 7.00 53.8 || 5.00 62.5 | 16%|| 5.00 41.7 | -23%||
-->sausage dry spec.(kg)|| 12.00 92.3 || 10.00 125.0 | 35%|| 11.00 91.7 | -1%||
-->sugar (kg) || 1.00 7.7 || 0.65 8.1 | 6%|| 0.90 7.5 | -2%||
-->flour (kg) || 0.60 4.6 || 0.50 6.3 | 35%|| 0.60 5.0 | 8%||
-->bread good (kg) || 0.48 3.7 || 0.65 8.1 | 120%|| 0.70 5.8 | 58%||
-->sunflower oil (l) || 1.60 12.3 || 1.50 18.8 | 52%|| 1.50 12.5 | 2%||
-->butter (125g) || 0.72 5.5 || 0.70 8.8 | 58%|| 0.75 6.3 | 13%||
-->margarine (250g) || 0.50 3.8 || 0.55 6.9 | 79%|| 0.60 5.0 | 30%||
-->chocolate usual(100g)|| 0.80 6.2 || 0.60 7.5 | 22%|| 0.80 6.7 | 8%||
-->biscuits usual (300g)|| 0.40 3.1 || 0.50 6.3 | 103%|| 0.50 4.2 | 35%||
-->tomatoes season (kg) || 0.40 3.1 || 0.30 3.8 | 22%|| 0.40 3.3 | 8%||
-->potatoes season (kg)|| 0.60 4.6 || 0.50 6.3 | 35%|| 0.40 3.3 | -28%||
-->onions (kg) || 0.50 3.8 || 0.30 3.8 | -2%|| 0.50 4.2 | 8%||
-->oranges season (kg) || 1.20 9.2 || 0.90 11.3 | 22%|| 0.90 7.5 | -19%||
-->bananas season (kg) || 1.80 13.8 || 1.40 17.5 | 26%|| 1.40 11.7 | -16%||
-->coffee average (kg) || 18.00 138.5 || 8.50 106.3 | -23%|| 8.50 70.8 | -49%||
-->coffee on street(cup)|| 0.40 3.1 || 0.20 2.5 | -19%|| 0.25 2.1 | -32%||
-->newspaper (pc) || 0.05 0.4 || 0.25 3.1 | 713%|| 0.40 3.3 | 767%||
-->letter domestic || 0.02 0.2 || 0.18 2.3 | 1,363%|| 0.18 1.5 | 875%||
-->ticket state bus transp.|| 0.06 0.5 || 0.25 3.1 | 577%|| 0.30 2.5 | 442%||
-->petrol aver.qual.(l)|| 1.00 7.7 || 0.70 8.8 | 14%|| 0.90 7.5 | -2%||
-->cigarettes filt.Bulg.(pac)|| 0.80 6.2 || 0.60 7.5 | 22%|| 0.60 5.0 | -19%||
-->wine usual (btl 0.7)|| 1.40 10.8 || 1.40 17.5 | 63%|| 1.40 11.7 | 8%||
-->beer stable(btl 0.5)|| 0.60 4.6 || 0.45 5.6 | 22%|| 0.60 5.0 | 8%||
-->conc.spirits Bulg.(0.7)|| 4.20 32.3 || 2.80 35.0 | 8%|| 2.80 23.3 | -28%||
-->---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-->minimal monthly salary|| 160.00 1,230.8 || 61.00 762.5 | -38%|| 75.00 625.0 | -49%||
-->average monthly salary|| 350.00 2,692.3 || 190.00 2,375.0 | -12%|| 220.00 1,833.3 | -32%||
-->---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--> *_Table 1A_*. Comparing of basic products and services for different periods in eggs.
-->
-->------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--> || BULG.06.2001 %/'88 || AUSTRIA 1993 || BG.'06 || BULG.06.2008 ||
--> || egg(lv) 0.14 | ||egg(a.s.) 1.75 || || egg(lv) 0.20 ||
--> || us$(lv) 2.30 | ||us$(a.s.) 11.50 || || us$(lv) 1.30 ||
--> || egg(us$)0.061 | ||egg(us$) 0.152 || 0.08|| egg(us$)0.154 ||
-->------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-->TYPES OF PRODUCTS || levs eggs | eggs ||shillings eggs|| eggs || levs eggs ||
-->------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-->chicken egg (1 pc) || 0.14 1.0 | 0%|| 1.75 1.0 || 1.0 || 0.20 1.0 ||
-->fresh milk (l) || 0.80 5.7 | 148%|| 11.0 6.3 || 5.0 || 1.40 7.0 ||
-->white cow cheese (kg)|| 2.70 19.3 | -4%|| not not || 20.0 || 4.80 24.0 ||
-->white sheep cheese(kg)|| 4.80 34.3 | 24%|| 75.0 42.9 || 35.0 || 7.00 35.0 ||
-->cheese good (kg) || 5.00 35.7 | -7%|| 100.0 57.1 || 40.0 || 9.00 45.0 ||
-->minced meat (kg) || 3.20 22.9 | -47%|| 50.0 28.6 || 35.0 || 5.50 27.5 ||
-->meat with bones (kg) || 6.00 42.9 | -1%|| 50.0 28.6 || 40.0 || 8.00 40.0 ||
-->meat fillet/tenderloin(kg)|| 7.00 50.0 | -7%|| 70.0 40.0 || 50.0 || 10.00 50.0 ||
-->sausage fresh (kg) || 3.00 21.4 | -30%|| 36.0 20.6 || 25.0 || 5.00 25.0 ||
-->sausage dry (kg) || 6.00 42.9 | -20%|| 80.0 45.7 || 50.0 || 10.00 50.0 ||
-->sausage dry spec.(kg)|| 12.00 85.7 | -7%|| 110.0 62.9 || 90.0 || 18.00 90.0 ||
-->sugar (kg) || 1.00 7.1 | -7%|| 14.0 8.0 || 8.0 || 1.60 8.0 ||
-->flour (kg) || 0.65 4.6 | 1%|| 12.0 6.9 || 6.0 || 1.20 6.0 ||
-->bread good (kg) || 0.75 5.4 | 45%|| 20.0 11.4 || 7.0 || 1.30 6.5 ||
-->sunflower oil (l) || 1.70 12.1 | -1%|| 13.0 7.4 || 10.0 || 3.20 16.0 ||
-->butter (125g) || 0.75 5.4 | -3%|| 11.0 6.3 || 5.5 || 1.20 6.0 ||
-->margarine (250g) || 0.60 4.3 | 11%|| 5.0 2.9 || 4.0 || 0.80 4.0 ||
-->chocolate usual(100g)|| 0.90 6.4 | 4%|| 5.0 2.9 || 5.0 || 1.30 6.5 ||
-->biscuits usual (300g)|| 0.50 3.6 | 16%|| 10.0 5.7 || 4.5 || 1.30 6.5 ||
-->tomatoes season (kg) || 0.50 3.6 | 16%|| 5.0 2.9 || 3.0 || 0.80 4.0 ||
-->potatoes season (kg) || 0.45 3.2 | -30%|| 2.5 1.4 || 3.0 || 0.60 3.0 ||
-->onions (kg) || 0.50 3.6 | -7%|| 5.0 2.9 || 4.0 || 0.70 3.5 ||
-->oranges season (kg) || 1.00 7.1 | -23%|| 7.0 4.0 || 8.0 || 1.20 6.0 ||
-->bananas season (kg) || 1.60 11.4 | -17%|| 11.0 6.3 || 12.0 || 1.60 8.0 ||
-->coffee average (kg) || 8.50 60.7 | -56%|| 60.0 34.3 || 70.0 || 12.00 60.0 ||
-->coffee on street(cup)|| 0.25 1.8 | -42%|| 8.0 4.6 || 3.0 || 0.40 2.0 ||
-->newspaper (pc) || 0.50 3.6 | 829%|| 5.0 2.9 || 4.0 || 0.80 4.0 ||
-->letter domestic || 0.22 1.6 | 921%|| 5.0 2.9 || 2.0 || 0.55 2.8 ||
-->ticket state bus transp.|| 0.40 2.9 | 519%|| 20.0 11.4 || 4.5 || 1.00 5.0 ||
-->petrol aver.qual.(l) || 1.40 10.0 | 30%|| 10.0 5.7 || 8.0 || 2.30 11.5 ||
-->cigarettes filt.Bulg.(pac)|| 0.60 4.3 | -30%|| 35.0 20.0 || 7.0 || 2.40 12.0 ||
-->wine usual (btl 0.7) || 1.70 12.1 | 13%|| 15.0 8.6 || 10.0 || 2.40 12.0 ||
-->beer stable(btl 0.5) || 0.60 4.3 | -7%|| 8.0 4.6 || 5.0 || 0.90 4.5 ||
-->conc.spirits Bulg.(0.7)|| 3.20 22.9 | -29%|| 55.0 31.4 || 30.0 || 6.00 30.0 ||
-->---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-->minimal monthly salary || 85.00 607.1 | -51%|| 11,200 6,400.0 || 800.0 || 220.00 1,100.0 ||
-->average monthly salary || 250.00 1,785.7 | -34%|| 25,000 14,285.7 || 2,000.0 || 460.00 2,300.0 ||
-->---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--> *_Table 1B_*. (cont.) Comparing of basic products and services in eggs.
-->
--><> The first thing that can be seen is the *_significant rising in prices of subsidized earlier products_*, which in this manner are well outlined. These are not only milk, milk products, and bread, but transport and communications, where the percentages of increase to the base of 1988 are placed between 400 and 700, and even more. (These are percents for the changes, i.e.: (cur_year - 88_year) / 88_year * 100, all in eggs.) The table is not very precise, so that in it are not present many communal expenses (central heating, electricity, water, etc.), but there the prices are now also drastically increased, because for one two-room flat (about 60 sq.m. -- and the curious thing is that you call this /_one_/-bedroom flat, you do not count the common or sitting room thinking it is always included, but we count every room) the central heating earlier was somewhere around 15 lv per month (i.e. 120 eggs), and now it costs roughly 80 lv (i.e. about 570 eggs, by the prices of 2001 of 14 cents), and everything suggests that they will rise even more, taking into account that one bus ticket was earlier half of an egg, now it is three eggs, and in Austria it is 10-12 eggs! Like we this or not, is another thing, but how the transport, so also the electricity, central heating, phone, etc., /_must_/ rise in prices from two to four /_times_/, for us to become an acceptable for Europe state. When earlier the "Party and Government" said that to every citizen are accounted approximately /_thousand_/ levs per year as social consumption funds we (including the author) have thought that these are just "soap bubbles" and that these money use the nomenclature cadres in their holiday homes. Yeah, but it turned out that the things were not exactly such, and nowadays we become more and more convinced in this when the time passes.
-->
-->*_<>_* Together with this insufferable for the population rising in prices of basic for sustaining of life products and services, it turns out that *_a number of excise goods have significantly decreased in price_*, so that a pack of decent domestic cigarettes, which were earlier about 6 ovo, is now 4, and on the West it is about 20! Or if instead of pack of cigarettes one could earlier buy, say, 2.5 liters milk, then now he can buy about 700 ml, what gives a proportion of 3.5 times. But the proportion of cigarettes to milk, which was earlier 2.7 times (i.e. 6.2/2.3, in eggs), was not at all anomalous, because, according to the column for Austria, it is 20/6.3 = 3.2 times, and surely around this varies this proportion in England, in USA, in Germany, and in other countries. This means that now (in 2001) the excises in Bulgaria are very low and they must rise two - /_three_/ times, in order to try to get us nearer to the countries with normal economies. Or take also the proportion of 100 ml raki or vodka to a half liter of decent beer -- before the democracy it was around one, now it is 0.6 (and here we are not speaking about tin cans, which are sold mainly on the West, because by us they are nearly one lev and for them the proportion will become 0.4), and on the West it is also about one (it can be compared also the proportion of one bottle raki to one bottle beer, and it was before 32/4.6 in ovo, where the same is the proportion in Austria, too). What means that there are many indicators, according to which we were before like the normal West countries, while now we do not stay so.
-->
-->*_<>_* It is interesting also that the *_prices on products, which are obvious import_* for Bulgaria -- like bananas, oranges, chocolate, coffee, and others -- are now a little (in year 2001 about 70 %) fallen according to the totalitarian situation, but nevertheless they still *_remain about two times more expensive_* (in ovo), *_than on the West_*, what says that, despite the Board, our currency is not exactly the same like the Western one. Similar is the situation also with the petrol, but there the prices, before and now, are more or less the same (in eggs), only that they are a bit (at about 30 %) higher than on the West. Coffee on the street (in cup), however, which was earlier roughly 3 ovo, is now about 2, and on the West it is between 4 and 5 ovo, what is to be explained with our misery, of course, because otherwise nobody would have drunk coffee on the street (for your information, a cup of coffee, espresso, is made using 5-6 g of coffee, what, if calculated by retail prices, plus 10 g of sugar, comes to about 5-6 our cents, i.e. less that half an ovo, but it is sold now on the street for 25 cents, while it must be about 60-70 cents).
-->
-->*_<>_* Well, there are various *_exceptions and anomalies_*, like for example the white cheese, from which people eat mainly the cow one, which on the West is not at all sold (for nobody would have bought it), and due to this the prices on milk by us are still abnormally high, i.e. they are nearly the same as on the West, but must be about 30 % cheaper, so that when our people begin again to eat mainly sheep white cheese, then the things will normalize. Similar is the situation also with the fats (sunflower oil and butter, primarily), on which there is increased demand, that rises their prices (on the oil even higher than on the West). Peculiar is the situation with the meat, because it must be also cheaper than on the West, but it is a bit more expensive, and before (I suppose it was not subsidized earlier) it was also a bit more expensive. At the same moment, however, the minced meat now turns to be cheaper than on the West, and than in totalitarian times, what is easily explained with the fact that we give the prices on packaged minced "meat", that, really, must be taken in quotes; anyway, it is normal that the minced meat is about as expensive as meat with bones, for it has not bones, but is also not from the best places of the animal (but this does not mean that it has to consist only of tripe, gristles, and fat). Anomalous is the relationship of various kinds of meat (we give here some average price between pork and veal), where now, because of the mad cow disease people on the West increase the consumption of birds and fish, while in Bulgaria -- of pork, which meat, as on the West, so also on the East, is considered for second quality meat.
-->
-->*_<>_* But if we now cast a look at the *_salaries_*, then it comes something "bloody and muddy" (as we in Bulgaria say), because in 1988 the minimal salary was 1,200 eggs, and the average about 2,700, while now (in 2001, after the instituting of Currency Board, which as if should have bettered the situation by us) the minimal is 600 ovo, or /_twice worse_/, and the average is 1,800 eggs (if one can believe this what is given as average, as far as in all normal countries, and also in Bulgaria earlier, the average salary is approximately 2 - 2.5 times the minimal, and by us now it turns to be more than 3 times), where at the same time the figures for Austria (to say nothing about USA) are, respectively, 6,400 and about 14,000 ovo, i.e. in the minimum we are at least ten times worse, and in the average /_only_/ about 8 times (most probably due to our imprecise calculations, otherwise it must be again ten times), than in Europe, for which we continue to "sharpen our teeth" but it is hardly probable that our "parachute will open" soon! If some of you have doubts about the potency of ovo, then you can compare things in US dollars, where the minimal salary in USA is about 1,200 US$, but in a month (and the scholarships of students and the pensions are between 700-800 US$), while in the same time in Bulgaria in the middle of 2001 it was only 40 US$, what gives entirely discouraging comparison, and for that purpose people on the West do not compare real prices in some standard currency (say, in US$), but use the so called /_purchasing power parity_/, computed with some money basket). Well, our proposition to use the ovo is just one maximally simplified purchasing parity (or basket).
-->
-->*_<>_* Another moment, on which we want to dwell a little, is the situation in *_summer of 1999_*, when the things (at least in regard to the salaries) as if have looked normal, and we till now have avoided these numbers and glanced only at the year 2001. But this is not because our UDF (Union of Democratic Forces) has so much "entangled" the matters with the introducing of Currency Board that later everything worsened (well, it /_categorically_/ has messed everything, for we have introduced the Board in the most unsuitable for us time and by very bad for us rate of the dollar, but the author speaks enough about this in other materials), but because in this column the calculations are made by price of the egg of 8 cents and it stayed at this level only a pair of months, somewhere about the time of truncation of the zeros of our lev (and there has even been a moment when it was 6 cents), while later it jumped up twice very fast. So that the prices for the summer of 1999 have still not settled themselves, where the right relationship is seen in the next two measurements in the middle of 2000 and 2001 years.
-->
-->*_<>_* In addition to this we deliberately give the *_prices only for the time of summer_*, where in winter the situation worsens, as a rule with about 30 percents, i.e. all prices jump up at about 30 %, but by unchanged salaries! This, surely, is entirely unjustified, because neither before in Bulgaria, nor on the West, the prices in winter change more than with about 10 percents (if we do not have in mind tomatoes, or bananas, for example, where, naturally, exist seasonal prices) and this is another manifestation of our "phenomenon" of market mentality, for the reason that the Bulgarian is just /_afraid_/, and as a result of this he hoards goods for the winter, as a result of what the prices grow up. This is a twice bigger perversion (I beg for a pardon from the readers for the expression), because the expenses of a family in the winter, quite clearly, grow with 40 to 50 percents, mainly due to the unbearable communal expenses (i.e. central heating), but also to the buying of warm clothes, winter shoes, more and powerful food, and so on, so that if he has less money for feeding then the food must become cheaper. Yeah, but /_not by us_/, because we are Bulgarians?! And, really, the pigs are killed chiefly in winter, so that exactly then they must be cheaper, and the harvest is gathered, so that many kinds of lasting food (beans, potatoes, onions, bread, sunflower oil, etc.) must become cheaper, and the chicken grow in poultry plants and are fed with forage, so that there should be no difference between summer and winter prices of the eggs, and similar things. Likewise it happens when some holiday comes and people rush to buy "chow" -- in the normal countries the merchants lessen the prices (not because they are big humanists and think about the people, but because when the turnover is increased they can win enough also by lower prices), while by us exactly then the prices rise (not because our merchants are "worse" than the Western, but because only then they are in position to lead normal business, for the reason that /_the Bulgarian buys either expensive or nothing_/!). Little by little the things normalize, in the season of making of winter preserves and pickles the prices now don't jump so drastically up as, say, 4-5 years earlier, so that one can hope that after 5-10 years we will have not more winter and summer prices on the basic foodstuff.
-->
-->*_<>_* Interesting seems also the question with the *_price of bread_*, compared with that of the flour, and also with the West, because earlier the bread was cheaper than the flour (compared per kilogram), now the prices by us are practically equal but the bread is a bit (on 10-20 %) more expensive, and on the West the bread is normally /_twice more_/ expensive than the flour. And mark, that the point here is not that one bread must be approximately one US$ (!), judging by the Western prices, because in our ovo, as you see, there are not such drastic differences at least in the price of flour (it is always somewhere around 5 eggs, and even by the totalitarianism was so, where on the West it is about 7 eggs), so that our phenomenon of /_cheap_/ bread is not so easy to be explained with this, that we eat more bread and because of this sow more seeds. It is rightly to say that we eat more bread because it is cheaper than the sausages, for example, not /_because we prefer_/ to eat bread instead of meat, because in Austria, as it is seen in the table, a kilo of fresh sausages equals only /_two_/ kilo bread (20.6 to 11.4 ovo), while by us this proportion is four to /_five_/ times. Hence, for one thing, meat by us is more expensive (maybe because we have not enough calves and pigs), and for another thing, the wheat turns to be cheaper (maybe because it is warmer by us than in Austria). But, still, our question is such: why the bread by us costs as kilo flour, and not twice more expensive? Well, the answer is similar to the difference of proportion of coffee in kilograms to a cup of coffee on the street (or beer in bottle to beer standing on the street)! In other words, the bread by us is only a little more expensive than the flour, just because we are too poor to allow ourselves to pay more, and also because of the absence of VAT on bread (but not on buns, pies or cakes, for example). So that it is clear that the bread must rise in price at about 30 percents in ovo (has only come the next increase of the salaries -- for to was how it to recompense!).
-->
-->*_<>_* And now let us look at the *_prognoses_* for, say, five years ahead, i.e. for the year 2006 (the column "Bg.'06")which is tied with our calculations mainly by this, that the egg must become 0.08 US$, and even better 10 cents/*. Some things will rise, and another -- fall, in ovo, of course. Look at this column more precisely because it pretends on some unchangeable prices, but in accordance with the conditions in Bulgaria. It is clear that we will strive to the West, but only /_if we can_/ afford this, and, most probable, slowly and gradually, because we have, still, foreign masters (the Board, but also various /_pro-Atlantic_/ structures and politicians) in our country, who will watch that we will have no big slumps anymore (but, well, whereto more than this?). Only that, mark this, this will happen in ovo, not in levs or dollars, so that even if our salaries, by the help of some magic wand (tsarist scepter, maybe?), jump up two times or more, there will be no "sweets" for our people! If one thing rises up in price another will fall down, but the egg will remain on its place, though, in a long run, it will try to /_grow_/ until reaches the Western level, i.e. about 20 US cents (because there it will also rise a little with the time). Well, it will be some difference when we go abroad (but now who can afford this anymore? -- in any case hardly more people than under "Bai Tosho"). And something more: this slow movement will be not just moderately slow, it will be some /_crawling_/, first to the level of totalitarian years, then to the level where we /_would have_/ been, if we have been as before, then to the level of the West from the time when we have begun to want that by us it was also like in the West, thereafter, and this will certainly last for ever, to the level in this moment in which we will be in that time! At present we are, more or less, at the level of stagnation years, only that now on the bottom of one /_deep hole_/, and in those times on the crest of one /_small pool_/, if one may say so, because the former stagnation was the peak to which the misunderstood communism could have led us, and the current one is the bottom, to which can lead us the misunderstood capitalism! One reasonable estimation of the moment of reaching of our level of former years is at least 10 years more, but maybe also the whole 20, and for reaching of the Western level of standard (and this according to their sources) we will need somewhere about 35 to 50 years (from the moment of beginning the transition, but this on condition that the West will stand still, yet it has not shown such inclinations till now.
-->
-->[ * From the point of view of 2008 (as far as the author can recall) this, in general terms, was confirmed, in the sense that the eggs were about 14 cents and the dollar has fallen up to about 1.60, what gives 0.087 US$ /egg. Also the prices were in the given limits (if one multiplies them by 0.14 in order to convert them in levs). With the dollar the things may not come out very good, because it has fallen mighty by other reasons, but in ovo we hardly have made mistakes. Look also the P.S. about the added in 2008 column, although then we became confused because of our entering in the European Union. ]
-->
-->Well, this is all, dear readers. The truth for us is not in the democracy, or in the free market, or in the private property, or in the "swimming over the Atlantic" (for /_nato_/ in Latin means to swim over, and that is why such abbreviation was chosen also for the Atlantic Pact), but in one tiny and insignificant egg. So that, here is an advice from the author: /_keep at your home hens laying eggs_/ and you will live good. If you have no place for them but have central heating then put one cage in the drawing room, on the table before the TV set (or even behind it, or above it) and feed yourself a pair of laying hens there (cock may be kept one for several neighbours from the entrance of your building). The egg is the purest protein, and we are protein creatures, so that we can not do without it. If, on the other hand, you have disconnected your central heating (as is said that nearly 30 thousand people in one only Sofia have done), well, then you at least will save money for eggs, because, by the prices in winter of 18 cents for an egg, and by on the average 90 levs for heating in month, this gives whole /_500 eggs per month_/ for central heating, or by 16.67 eggs daily, and exactly so many eggs (to reveal one secret to you) make /_one kilogram eggs_/ per day! If you have so many money, that can freely allow yourself to break by 17 eggs each day, only in order to live comfortably in your home, then this means that you have no need of laying hens. People on the West have not such need. In Bulgaria before was also so, but with the coming of democracy ...
-->So, with the coming of democracy, it is high time for us to understand that *_not the democracy leads to wealthy way of living, but the good standard of life leads unavoidably to democracy_*! It was so 25 centuries before in ancient Athens, it becomes so also since 18th century and to the present day all around the civilized world, it happened so in Bulgaria, too, when we rejected the totalitarianism. So that -- less democracy but more eggs for the people!
-->
-->October 2001
-->
-->*_P.S._* The columns for 2008 were added later, but we have attached them to table 1.B. for greater convenience. Here not only the dollar continues to be with abnormal rate, but it happened also dry year, and we have again become "dumbfounded" with our entering in the European Union, and have decided by old habit that everyone must "pull the blanket" to oneself and boycotted the price policy of the Board, in result of which is observed the next (unjustified) rising of prices, or another shocking therapy (for they, our people, behave only when shocks are applied to them). In any case, by eggs of middle (M) size of 0.20 lv and the dollar on the average by 1.30 lv we have now 1 ovo = 0.15 US$. But otherwise out tendencies, by calculations in ovo, remain, because, for example: the milk (on the average) is 1.40 lv /l or 7 ovo (where it was 5.7 in 2001, and 6 and a bit more on the West), the white cow cheese is about 4.80 lv. or 24 ovo (against 20 from the prognosis for 2006); the cheese is about 9.00 lv or 45 ovo, the bread by 1.30 lv for a kilo (not 800 g.) is now 6.5 ovo, the sunflower oil is exceedingly high by 16 ovo, the coffee is 60 ovo per kg, on the street is 2 ovo, the cigarettes on the average are 12 ovo, the raki /vodka (0.7 l) is 30 ovo (as you see we are catching up with the West); the beer is 4.5 ovo, et cetera. The minimal salary became 220 lv or 1,100 ovo, and the average -- 460.00 lv or 2,300 ovo (what is again less than under the totalitarianism, and about 7 times less than in Europe). And other comparisons.
-->
-->2008
-->
-->*_-- -- -- -- --_*
-->
===>*_OH, 'MANCI, 'MANCI -PATION!_*
-->
-->There are so many things that can be said /_against_/ the emancipation of women that one just does not know where to begin. Because it has started not in some Muslim country, or in Bangladesh, or Rwanda-Urundi, to give some examples, but in countries like America, England, France, et cetera. And also not a pair of centuries, or even more, before, when also according to the American constitution the women have had no rights to vote, but roughly before a century -- and since that moment it goes as if from top to bottom (used as modification of "more or less", which in Bulgarian is built like "up or down"), if we do not take this tendency for historical necessity, to what we shall return at the end of the paper. And this means that once more time the people (more precisely, the women) are doing not this, what is necessary, but that, what /_can_/ be done in the given moment.
-->Only that some things that can be done (say, to stick one's finger in the nose, with an apology) is not always good to be done, right? And then, when this was necessary to be done, they have not done it -- for a number of historical, but to a great extent justified for its time, reasons. This "liberte", you see, is a double-edged sword, on which the humankind from ancient times cuts itself (as we continue to cut ourselves on our democracy, but the author speaks amply on that matter on other places). So that
=>*_the done not in its proper time emancipation at least does not give much honour to the women,_*
-|if the notion of honour by them is understood in emancipated sense, not in the olden religiously-sexual meaning. And, in addition to the harming of their reputation, this is also /_quite silly_/, because they have won nothing with the emancipation, but have definitely lost many things! For example, they have lost the respect or veneration from the part of men about this, that they are the weaker gender, or the more beautiful half of humankind, as have lost also the privilege to sit at home and not to include themselves in the not very pleasant competitive work in the society, and similar things.
-->And this about the "weaker" gender becomes more and more understood by many people, because, if one does not count the extreme burdenings, the women are more endurable than the men -- on stresses, on insufficient feeding, on monotonous work (which becomes the bigger part of work in one high-technology environment), and as to the life span they beat the men at least with 5-6 years (and according to the statistical data for Bulgaria with whole /_seven years_/, or with /_10 %_/, because for 1999 the average life expectancy for men was 67.6 years, where for women -- 74.6). Then this about the more beautiful half of mankind is not very actively popularized, but it is true, i.e. it is right that the /_men_/ are more beautiful, looking in a wider period of time, not only between 15 and 25 years, roughly speaking. And this is intuitively perfectly clear to the /_women_/, because they are those who use at least five times more cosmetics than the men, and when something (or someone) is really beautiful, then this thing does not need any additional corrections (what proves your word "make up", which is, in fact, French, /_maquillage_/ -- to add something, to correct).
-->And the possibility for one of the family to sit at home and take care about the children, prepare the food, and make what one only likes in his or her free time, is a thing which begins nowadays to become main desire for the people in the current-day dynamical and stressing competitive society. If a pair of centuries before this might have been dull and boring then now, with all the media, including the Internet, everybody just dreams to sit at home, but there are not many those people who can afford this, for one must earn ones living. But before the emancipation the women have /_sat_/ at home, where now they can't anymore, or then don't want, to do this. And in the same time it is well known, at least on the West, that if one eats where one finds (in snack bars and taverns, or else buys ready-made food), alone washes his (or her) clothes, cleans his rooms, etc. (or pays to somebody to do this for him), than he spends practically as much money as for /_two_/ persons. Even only by buying of food, if one has enough time to tour around the shops, one can economize at least 10 %, and all this is money. Similarly with the housing, the difference between such for one person or for two is not big. Well, if the women have worked as before in the field, or have looked after the animals, then the things might have been different (but how many are those who work in the field nowadays?). But exactly then, when the women were really quite overloaded, exactly at that time they have not raised their voices, for there was no emancipation then, but now they just lose -- because the latter is in effect.
-->Though this about the families begins little by little to become old, because according to Bulgarian statistics the total coefficient of divorces is 0.20, what means that on five marriages there is only one divorce. But this is only for the moment, where the tendency is such that in very near future (say, after 20-30years) we will come to three marriages on one divorce, then to two, and to even less. Already in the moment in many countries and regions (in the big towns) such proportion exists, So that
=>*_the family comes down from historical stage,_*
-|as /_direct consequence_/ of the emancipation! Because, really, the sexes are only two (and this is hidden in the very Russian word /_pol_/ meaning gender, because, if one begins to think about this, there is also the word /_polovina_/ but shortened to the same /_pol_/ and meaning half), and if both sexes have equal votes then exactly in the /_half of the cases_/ would have been impossible to achieve consensus, and without consent what is the reason of this artificially set in society limitation of freedom of the individual (be it man or woman)? Let us not doubt that the family institution (or marriage) was /_introduced by men_/ (for in the antiquity, when it was justified, nobody has asked the women), but predominantly /_in the interest of women_/ (for they are those who want to keep some man for themselves, where the men, as a rule, prefer to tour around from woman to woman like the bees visit different flower pistils). But then to what this reduces? Well, it reduces to this, that
=>*_the women simply cut the branch on which they are sitting._*
-->And in this case we must ask ourselves: but why are they doing this? Well, because of the euphoria of freedom, else there remains only the possibility that they have not much brains -- choose the preferable for you variant. Because equal rights mean also equal obligations, isn't it so? For example, that the women, too, do military service, or work in mine shafts, or pay their bills in restaurants, or have to pay alimony in case of divorce, or receive pension on equal with the men age, and similar things. This, that /_the men_/ have not yet emancipated themselves, does not mean that they will not do this in a near future! Like for example: that by divorce the children, when they are boys, were given to the father, and to the mother only the girls, what is entirely natural, at least after the age of three (but also earlier, because the mothers who breastfeed their children can nowadays be counted on fingers, and to lead his child to a kindergarten can also a father). Roman law has established that the children were given, as a rule, to the mother, but there was not emancipation at those times, and if it exists now then the law can be changed. And that the mother also must pay alimony and see her children (if they are boys -- but such is the secret desire of each mother) once in two weeks for a pair of hours. Well, if that is what she wants, and if the father agrees to bring them up, then there is nothing bad in this, but what will she gain from this is not at all clear, because the women, at least up to the present moment, have not expressed such wishes.
-->And in general, what is this emancipation? Well, this means, of course, freeing (from the yoke -- although now not existing -- of the husband), but usually this is understood in the sense of equality. But to speak about equality there, where "dear God" has created the biggest inequality between individuals, is at least silly! We can speak about /_equal rights_/ of men and women, what is quite logical and normal thing. A pair of centuries before it might not have been normal for a woman to learn in a university, but this was because the universities were something like monasteries, and what will do a few women between hundreds of "monks" (not that the author can't imagine what they could do, but for those times this was something highly sinful)? Or also another now anachronism: according to the rules of Islam the women received twice less inheritance than the men, but then the women were bought and for that matter was natural that the men received more inheritance for to buy more brides, and why should be given more money to a woman when she, anyway, would not have dared, in those times, to buy herself (another) husband? So that, to cut the long story short: the woman must have equal rights with the man in the labour process. Well, and why not? What man will object that his wife goes to work, when she "craves" to do this? And why not in the sports, too? But this not only in chess and artistic gymnastics, also in wrestling, boxing, weight lifting, at cetera. Yeah, but /_together_/ with the men, not in separate categories! For, when there will be equal rights, then let them be really equal, not only on words. And do you know what will happen then, when (and if) a real emancipation of women comes in effect? Well, it will happen so, that
=>*_the real rights will allow to prove the inequality of different sides!_*
-->Because nothing else simply can be proved. Well, not always, for there are known examples of women rulers, shown themselves not worse than the men, though then nobody has spoken about emancipation. Even nowadays in the business and politics there is very good place for the women, for various reasons. The role of the manager, or the "magic of ruling", is not always clear, and for that reason exists rulers, and /_hidden_/ rulers, or, hoping to make the things more transparent, let us speak about: /_tactical_/ or operative ruling, on one hand, and /_strategical_/ setting of the goals, on the other. The tactical ruling, as a rule (not denying the exceptions), is normally to expect to be work of men, while the strategy, very often, can be performed by women. This is so because also in the family, if we make such division of the functions, we will come to the conclusion that
=>*_the tactician is the man, while the woman is the born strategist!_*
-->What concerns this question our people say that the man is the head but the woman is the neck, and this corresponds to the truth because the woman, most often, knows /_only to require_/, and the man must know how to do it (it is not her business, right?). So that in that sense it is entirely admissible for the women to occupy ruling posts, and this is done in a number of companies, where are many women managers. This does not necessary mean that her intellectual level must be higher than that of the other men whom she commands, but for the strategist the tactical ability is not necessary! It is especially praiseworthy the entering of women in the politics and public relations, because there the point is not so much in the higher intellectual level, as in the softness of ruling, as far as the firm hand, particularly in democratic ruling, has many disadvantages. At least, due to the traditional relations between the sexes, one (be this man or woman) will hardly refuse to comply with the wishes of a woman than of a man, if strong compulsion is not applied. Alike is the situation also in many scientific areas, where the wide inclusion of women is justified, again not because of some higher intellectual capacities, but for the reason that, in the era of technologies, more and more scientific activities become monotonous, lose their creative character, and as consequence of this become quite accessible for the women and even are performed /_better_/ by them, because men are not much capable in doing routine things.
-->So that the author does not at all state that the woman must not take part in the social life on par with the man. She can and she must!
=>*_But only in the social life, /_not_/ in the family,_*
-|because, as we have said, the sexes are only two. Now, if they were 17 (or something of the kind), as it were according to Kurt Vonnegut on the planet Tralfamadore, then the emancipation would have positively been justified also in this form, in which it is spreading in the recent years.
-->And there is another moment, which no emancipatess or emanci/_stess_/ (or, maybe, emanci/_patka_/ or even emanci/_patiza_/ in Bulgarian -- but mark that the noun /_patka_/ or /_patiza_/ there means ... goose) will admit, but surely thinks so: the question is not at all in the equality or having of equal rights, but /_exactly on the contrary_/, i.e. in the inequality, only that as ruling of the women or neo-matriarchy! The author's opinion, a priori, is this, that at least 90 % of all emancipated women don't want to be equal with the man, but that they ruled over the man, what now is not good. This is not good not because the author is a man, but because this will put, according to the English, "the cart before the horse", and it happens exactly so in many emancipated families, and soon after this the marriage is dissolved.
-->In the human history has existed matriarchy but this was in deep antiquity, i.e. when the society was pretty primitive and/or the life was very hard. But what has the level of development to do here? Well, it has to do because of the strategical role of the woman in the family, and the creative one of the man. The woman (or the feminine individual, also between the animals) is who stays closer to the harsh reality, to the life, because she gives it, even, I beg to be excused by the young women, to the animal. She is the most conservative sex, for the simple reason that her biological function is to /_preserve_/ life in the next generation. This is long ago known in the sciences and there is no need to dwell more about the matter. While the man (i.e. the masculine exemplar) is the creative individual, who must not only prolong the life but modify and enhance it with the use of genetic code, and also via the upbringing of generation. Even the sex of the child is established by the father, where the mother plays very passive role. These are naturally settled things and we can not (at least for the moment) run away from them.
-->OK, good, but what follows from this that the man is the creator and the woman is the "preserving container"; what has this to do with the matri- or patri- -archy? Well, the point is that when the existence and survival of the generation is endangered, and from here of the whole gender or kind of species, is quite normal that the conservative sex takes the command, that it requires and gives orders; while in times when there is no such danger, but instead of this creative evolvement of gender in the posterity is necessary, then the man must take the command. Pure and simple, isn't it? That is why matriarchy has existed in underdeveloped primitive communities, but today, naturally, would have been anachronism. In current times the human race encounters no danger of extinction but on the contrary -- of overpopulation.
-->A propos, about the overpopulation. It turns out that there is another moment, emerged synchronously with the emancipation, and it is high time for the people to mark the relation between both things. What we mean is
=>*_the another boom of homosexuality,_*
-|be it among men or among women. Today the question is not about, let us call it, traditional Islamic or, generally, by hot climate, homosexuality, nor about compulsive such (in army conditions, or in boarding-schools), but about the modern tendency for homogeneous sex, which, if we give credence to some Western authors, has not yet reached the half of the population, but is moving toward that. And this is impossible not to be related with the emancipation, although not in a direct way! But why? Well, if a given man (in addition to being of the weak sex) cannot command at least his wife (because at his work this is not possible for the majority of men), i.e. if he isn't the boss even in his house, neither he has chances to look after the children when the divorce, which now becomes a rule, comes, then why should he at all conclude marriage? If the matter is in having sex, then why not to practice one, /_really_/, based on equal rights sex (because it is not at all necessary for the homosexuals to be specialized in masculine or feminine role, they can perform /_both_/ of them), or even if he is not set under equal conditions and he is that who plays the role of woman, then why could he not be commanded (sexually, but in the usual meaning, too) by somebody of his own sex? And the same is true also from the point of view of the woman, with this only difference that she is not weak gender, but also in many cases would have preferred to stay under the command of individual like she herself, and not under entirely different one (which, according to the women is good only to ... piss on the toilet ring).
-->So that is how the things stay with the non traditional, but with tendency to become such, sexual practice. And the sex quite easily will become such after a half to one century, for the reason that in this form of sexual relations at least the result, i.e. the posterity, is entirely separated from the pleasures or feelings, by the simple reason that there is /_no result_/ at all! But there are feelings, and they are even /_stronger_/, because there is no other hidden goal, no care about the posterity (unless they decide to adopt a child for them), no strong differences between the partners. All in all, perfect harmony -- only that this is against the nature. But whatever this may be we must be aware that we are moving in this direction, and will be moving until the emancipation walks in seven-league boots. Though, as our folks say, there is no bad without some good (or as the English put it, there is blessing in disguise), because the homosexual sex is the only /_effective method_/ for restraining of birth rate.
-->Well, if we look so at the things, as at a historical necessity, then maybe the emancipation will turn out to be positive phenomenon, or, rather, will be neither positive, nor negative, but /_unavoidable_/ phenomenon, Then the birth rate will diminish, and the family will dissolve itself. And this is pretty real danger after a century, because till now the emancipation reduces chiefly to "exertions" on part of the women, to wishes to prove the unprovable, but it may become provable when (and if) the extrauterine conception becomes common practice (and one home /_incubator_/ will cost, approximately, after coming in mass production, about one dish-washing machine). Because, see, the woman is not equal with the man not for some other reason but in view of her biological destination as birth box -- or putting it more nicely: the woman is the /_mailbox_/ of the man to his posterity --, and if this her function moves in background, as it happens after the climacteric age, or is before the sexual life, then there are no other limitations that may hinder her to become equal with the man in her makings! In other words:
=>*_nothing hinders the woman to become equal with the man, except this, that she is a /_woman_/,_*
-|and if she does not insist on the second thing there are no obstacles for the first one. The point is in this, on what the woman insists? If she insists on the maternity and the family then she /_must_/ be against the emancipation, or at least against the massively accepted in the moment understanding of the question; but, on the other hand, if she wants to make career on a par with the man, then they are not the men who will interfere with this -- only that she will not be then a woman, at least in the classical meaning of the word.
-->It is, so to say, even so, that the woman is, in some sense, /_more suitable_/ than the man for making of career, because, as shows the last word , i.e. the relation between the professional career and the stone quarry (and in Bulgarian both words are written exactly the same), it consists mainly in scattering of the others with elbows, like stones on a slope of the mountain, i.e. in bright antagonism to the others and dissatisfaction with them -- something opposite to the collectivism. But the man, as a rule, is a "herding" sex, he is that who likes to gather in groups -- be it to watch football, be it to go hunting, or to war, or in the club and the pub, and so on. While the woman is that who chiefly /_hates_/ her rivals! Well, the things are not so idealized (neither is this something bad or good -- this is just natural setting), but such simplification is useful for understanding of the general case, which is reduced to this, that: /_the man does evil deeds out of love, and the woman -- good deeds out of hatred_/!
-->And in our case she would have been the ideal careerist. Maybe not exactly ideal for to be really /_ideal_/, but, still, quite suitable for the sphere of production. While at the same time the man could be also very good host and father, if this has to be done, and with the advantage that if he happens to become free of work he can make something useful at home -- either put new wallpaper in the apartment, or make a greenhouse in the garden (if he has the latter), or will begin to teach alone his children, or will make cheaper purchases than the wife, or something else. So that all depends on the goals and tasks. If the families disappear as social units, how the tribal communities have disappeared, and if each individual (be that man or woman) will be in position to bring up the allowed to him or her one child (for it is clear that some time this thing about the one child on a parent will become a law, in order to stop the population boom, which has begun primarily two centuries ago) in his or her home incubator, then there are no problems for the both sexes to have equal rights in the productive, and in every other (when there are not families) activity.
-->Even in the moment are needed very little efforts in the legal procedure for establishing of optimal equal rights for the man and the woman -- the mentioned dividing of the children by the parents, the question with their naming, about the inheriting (by this dividing), and some other small items. Under naming here we have in mind that the family name is still established by the father, but there is also second or middle name. And here the decision in extremely simple -- when we have three names (as it is now almost everywhere, but if there are two names a third one can easily be added), then it is possible for the second to be mother one, and the third to be father one, where this can be the family name for the corresponding parent, but it may be decided also entirely free by this parent. Or else, if we insist that each parent has obligatory some own "property" -- because at the children, at least when they are little, is looked exactly in this manner -- then it is possible that all names are established by one of the parents (and he or she will, eventually, form the other name in accordance with the other parent) depending on the sex of the child, where it can be established also before the birth (or "hatching"), or even ordered under the artificial insemination. The questions are not difficult and they can be quickly solved, and if this has not /_yet_/ happened then this is only because, at least on the West, people do not yet look seriously at the emancipation, because it is not very consecutive (how it could have been expected when it is feminine invention), and hope to preserve the families (at least for as long as it is possible). Besides, the men have not yet raised voices about real equality, because they hope that the women will "kick" for a spell and then come to reason that it is time to stop this, as far as, as is said, they will not jump higher than the head. This is the cause why the things are not yet settled, not unwillingness on part of the men to give to the women equal with them rights, because they are given to them long ago (at least for a pair of centuries).
-->In any event, the problem is complicates and full with social disturbances and the author's advise is not to hurry much in this hasty time but to rely more on the proved for centuries forms of patriarchy and monogamous marriage. If we will introduce something new then let us thing seriously about it before, not in post factum.
-->
-->April 2002
-->
-->*_P.S._* Maybe it is worth adding in the end that the things have evolved pretty fast and according to the population census for 2010 in Bulgaria from all newborn children a bit more than the /_half_/ (55 %) are such who earlier were called "unlawfully born" or illegitimate, and now are called "extramarital". It turns out that the men (for, who else?) have thought better and have begun to apply the simplest decision, because if there is no official marriage then there can't be a divorce and dividing of property. This suits the men, for lack of other alternative, they live together with a woman, pay as much as they can, and does not deny their paternity; more than this, in such case the very women are more endurable (is supposed), when nobody attaches them to some "macho", i.e. they are, de facto, free. The children this, surely, must not suit, but as far as they have no basis for comparison, and when the other children are in the same conditions like them (or their parents already live separately), then they do not disagree much. The women just reconcile with this, when they want to have children, but, I don't know, I think that if I were a woman, I would have been uncomfortable with this, I would have been ashamed to live so like the animals, and also to return some 4-5 thousand years back in human history; I would have tried to find some better solution (similar with the proposed in other materials variant of concluding of marriage for some preset period, with established in advance dividing of the children and attaching of each child to one of the parents, and with other details). The word is given to the women, for they are those who boycott the Roman law.
-->
-->*_-- -- -- -- --_*
-->
===>*_WHAT WE WANT TO TELL THE WORLD? (About Bulgarian symbols and the spirit of Bulgarians)_*
-->
-->What we want to tell with
=>*_our coat of arms?_*
-->Because there were no lions on our lands for thousands of years, i.e. already before the establishing of Bulgaria, and in remote geological epochs there might have been also dinosaurs but this isn't important. Usually as national symbol on the West, though also on the East, i.e. in Russia, is chosen some eagle -- with two heads, to make it more interesting, or as twice all-seeing (or, as the children say: for you to ask and me not to tell you) -- but this is not only mighty (resp., cruel) animal, it is also a bird which flies high, hence, stays above all the others. Well, the lion is mighty animal, but it is ... hmm, you know that this is a Hebrew symbol! And even today in some temples in Baalbek can be found stone frescoes with images of lions, but they are from the times of early Christianity and in such case inherited from the Jewish religion. There, surely, in ancient times were deified what only not animals (the Chinese dragon, for example, or Arabian ibis, or the bull, becoming later golden calf, and others), and also all possible combination of parts of humans or animals (the six-armed gods of Buddhism, the Greek centaurs, the Greek-Arabian harpies, and many other Arabian, Indian, and different divine beings), so that why not to choose for oneself also a lion, which is proud and strong animal before which one must simply bow down? Yeah, it is so, but this, that the lion is symbol of one not numerous eastern nation -- the Hebrew one -- is hardly accidentally, because he, the lion, is quite calm (if he is fed and nobody pulls him by the tail), and from the family of cats, right? One such charming little lion-cat can be symbol of weak people, but who extremely want to be strong -- like a lion. And as far as we are not numerous nation -- approximately /_one per mil_/ of the population on Earth -- so we eagerly want to wave our flag (or waggle with the tail, when someone stronger than us makes us angry), so that isn't it this, what we want to tell the world?
-->Because: proud animal, yes, but how much proud it is? What if it is unreasonably proud, ah? Because the unreasonable pride, for which the Russians have single word, "/_gordinya_/" (where the usual one is /_gordost_/), is one of the Christian sins, which is very subtle sin (if we use this now grown old variant of the error -- "/_greshka_/" in Bulgarian, where the sin is /_greh_/ //_griah_/), exactly because the sin /error isn't explicitly antisocial at a first sight (even at a second one), isn't like to desire the bride of your neighbour, said as an example (what also can not be a sin but just a pleasure, if she wants the same, and her husband, respectively, lover, in addition to this does not disagree to change from time to time his sexual partner, so that at least on the background of diversity takes some rest from her). In relation with the unreasonable pride is good to remind the very fitting Russian proverb: "The narrower the forehead, the wider the self-esteem!". And there is simple explanation for this psychological phenomenon, namely, that one must /_motivate_/ oneself somehow in the process of his activity, and this can be done in two ways: either through reasonable assessment of the situation, or via ... underestimating of all others and everything else. In other words: either realizing his insignificant position in the circulation of things in nature (what gives strength, not because his position is insignificant, but because knowledge and real estimation bring, by themselves, satisfaction and conviction), or refuting the right of others to live, as well as all reasonable arguments, except his personal (and unreasonable) desire.
-->In short: the smaller one nation is, the more prouder it feels, in which way, in accordance with the above-said, it only /_emphasizes_/ its insignificance! And we emphasize it, so to say, in two ways, because it was not enough for us to have one lion (which sufficed to our revolutionaries Vasil Levski and Christo Botev in the time of our Renaissance, yet not to out present-day rulers), but we have heaped up whole three lions in our coat of arms -- something like Christian Holy Trinity: lion-father (on the left, supposedly), lion-son (on the right), and a lion-spirit (in the middle), fenced in something like a shield, but it must be rather some bubble or pail, because a spirit cannot just stay free and by itself, he will dissipate and dissolve himself in everything, and in our case will not be seen on the emblem. Well, and on the top, of course, stays the crown, not necessarily royal, because our /_tsar_/-king was at that time in Madrid, but, still, some heavy state's crown. So that, it was clear that we (being small state, etc.) were bound to be very proud and plant a lion on our state emblem, that one lion is too little for us now, but two things (flowers, for example) are put only for the dead, so that we come to the number three, and four and more lions would have caused international precedent, and in that case would have been wrongly. Well, that is how the great Bulgarian (read also Balkan) decisions are born.
=>*_By the way, about the Bulgarians,_*
-|where this name, obviously, splits in bulg-, + -ari, only that -ar was popular suffix for building of plural in ... Tartar language (for example: /_aga_/ -- /_agalar_/, what means master, boss; this word exists in Turkish, and, hence, is known in Bulgaria, and in Greek /_agape_/ means beloved). But traces from that -ar exist in other languages, like German, for example, where -er is often used exactly for making of plural (/_Kind_/ -- /_Kinder_/, /_Wort_/ -- /_Wo:rter_/, etc.), and in Netherlandish, where the word "hill" is /_holm_/ (how /_exactly_/ it is in Bulgarian and Russian), and its plural was /_holmar_/ (and you must not doubt about the meaning of the /_holm_/ because they have there one very central "holm", which has grown to a town -- Stockholm). And the mentioning here of Tartar language is nor occasional because the thesis about out Tartar origin is more and more making its way in scientific circles. Well, this has not to be understood in the sense that we are heirs (of the precursors) of Genghis Khan, but we (i.e. the old or proto- Bulgarians) have proceeded somewhere from the Pamir and Altai region, around the Himalayas and Hindu Kush, have picked up something by the Kirghizs, Bolhars, Tartars, Mongols, Afghans, and others, and even -- what sounds unbelievable -- the phrase "I love you", which in Bulgarian is "/_obicham te_/" (and is not Slavonic for in Russia it is entirely different) in Mongolian was "/_bich-ham-te_/"!
-->And now let us return to the "bulg"-root, what must be pronounced not exactly so but with that vowel like in the English "bird" (let us mark it here as "aº"), and this vowel is liked much by us (though not by Russians, or Ukrainians, etc., note this), but also on the East (Turkish, Arabic, etc.), and on the West (like in English, though also in German endings like /_Lehrer_/, what is read as 'lehraº'), and there it transforms to Latin "u" (what in Slavonic alphabet is written with the same letter like your "y"), and it, for its part, has come from Greek upsilon ("y"), which sound is very "mysterious" and often is used there to modify the preceding letter, where they even /_don't_/ have our (and Western) "u" but write it with omicron + upsilon ("oy"), calling us now "vulgaros" (and in the old Greek "bulgaros", but if we were at those times). This, as we call it "/_big er_/", which, though existing in Russian alphabet, is not at all read in this way (it is used as you use the apostrophe in the words; although they have their "mysterious" sound "eri" which is modification of this "aº" to "i"), but in Turkish, using the Latin alphabet, it is usually written with "i". So that what means then this baºlg- /bulg- (i.e. what is hidden behind it)?
-->Well, probably the etymologists also do not have single view on the question, but looking as imitation this is some banging on a drum, rattling, or swelling /inflating, where we can cite some similarly sounding Bulgarian words, like: /_bulgur_/ (groats, peeled wheat), and /_bulamach_/ (trash, tasteless concoction), which are or Turkish origin, then Russian /_balagur_/ (clown, fair screamer), or /_balagan_/ (fair, noise), then German /_der_/ or /_die Buhle_/ (what now is given as beloved, but in olden times was used for imitation of copulation, hitting of a kind; to hit in Bulgarian, what is Eastern, is /_chukam_/, and this in jargon use is exactly your f#cking), and others. But here is also the ... ball, where bol- is a world root because the Russians say /_bolshoy_/ (big), the Turks /_bol_/ (much), the ball is German /_der Ball_/, but this is also the ball as dancing (where people rotate like balls), also our Balkan mountains (in the middle of Bulgaria, and from here giving the name of the whole peninsula, as something swollen or at least hard and straight like baton or /_baguette_/), then the French /_balcon_/-balcony, too, or German /_die Burg_/ (castle), because at least for the West r-l often mutually mutate. On the other hand, the bag or inflated bubble does not disappear, because there is the Latin /_volva_/ //_vulva_/ which has given all vulgar things, as something bred in abundance, what is exactly the Greek sounding of the name of Bulgarians. So that, like we this or not, but we are some fast breeding and vulgar tribe, or Balkan inhabitants, or ... ha, ha, empty bubbles or mere water (/_aqua nuda_/ in Latin, by the way)! It is not that we don't know what we resemble, but we were speaking here about what we want to tell the world, right? Well, nothing good we are telling it, alas.
-->Or then let us take
=>*_our national flag._*
-->This, that it is tricolour is clear, but what mean this colours, because we like, doesn't we, that everything ours has, an even deep, meaning. Well, the white colour is pure and good, the green one this is the fresh newly grown grass (or that maybe we are ... "meadows unmowed", ah?), and the red -- well, that's the point, that this colour must symbolize the shed blood in our battles for freedom, but in no case must have something in common with the communism and the fight against fascism, because we have renounced the communism, have directly scratched it out of our history, have torn that defamatory page and thrown it away. This surely is so, but here we, in author's opinion, were not enough consecutive in the total negation, have not acted entirely in the spirit of our UDF (Union of Democratic Forces). We should have at all taken away this red band from our flag and /_basta_/! But then, see, we have not done this for in that case we would have had "ducolor", what is simplification of our symbols and a kind of decadence, but also, having taken away the white colour, too, because it has another meaning, we would have remained with only the colour of meadow; or else, if we take away the "meadow", will remain only the white colour of mute surrender, what, of course, is true -- our people have already grasped this -- but it, somehow, is not suitable to declare in the open. And if they have asked the author in advance then he would have told them that it was necessary first to take away the green colour, together with the red one, and then, seeing us before one entirely white flag, we would have guessed that some other colours must be added.
-->And what colours, would you ask? Well, certainly it is necessary to have at least one blue band, because this is the colour of the sky and the sea and the blue blood (and the UDF, of course, but let us not make difference between blue and gray -- the colour of the "tsarist" party --, because from aesthetical, as also from political, point of view they stay in a good harmony), also the colour of the freedom, the democracy, united Europe, and so on, or, as it was sung earlier in one popular song: everything nice on this world is blue, even your precious eyes. And now, proceeding from the blue colour, it is more than obvious that the red one should not be present on our banner, for it may happen that we will again come near to the Russians, and this, God forbid, must never be done! Well, and what colours remain then? Of course green and yellow, there are no others. And exactly one light yellow, some such, a but like the colour of a young duck, but not to come close to the toilet colour khaki, for then the world may decide to think that we have pooped our pants -- I beg your pardon. Besides, the yellow and green these are colours-twins, they are such also in phonetical aspect, because in Russian they say /_zholtiy_/ for yellow, but this is the colour of the /_zoloto_/-gold (not "/_zholoto_/"), and the green one is /_zolotoy_/, and similar is the case in Polish, Bulgarian, and in other Slavonic languages. So that one good proposition for our national tricolour is: blue, green, yellow.
-->But we can approach the question in another way, so that not only to stress on the democratic-aristocratic blue colour, but also to exceed the limitations of the tricolour. The idea is simple (as everything told by genius) and it is the following: one blue band above (symbolizing the sky), /_another_/ blue band below (this time for the sea), and in the middle on the same width, but this time in vertical direction, to place one tricolour in yellow tinge beginning from left to right with light yellow (to the stick of the banner), then orange, and at the end bright red, which this time will symbolize not the shed blood but the rising (democratic) Sun, which gradually will warm us all. This will be, on one hand, tricolour, on the other tetra-colour, and even penta-colour, and nobody will have such banner, where our tricolour is widely used in the world (with some permutations of the bands). And the sky-sea introduces another, more profound, nuance, because ... well, because the world is a sea, i.e. the world is behind the seas and oceans, what is not only geographically right (2/3 of Earth's surface is occupied by seas), and not only etymologically correct (in Russian the world "/_mir_/" means both, peace, as in other Slavonic languages, and also our world, and the connecting idea between these notions is hidden in our /_more_/-sea or in the murmuring Latin /_mare_/-sea, by reason of ... well, the cause here is the name /_Vladimir_/, which in Russian means "ruler of the world" but in Polish is /_Valdemar_/, where the /_mare_/ is evident), and in addition to this the idea is entirely in the spirit of ..., ah, of NATO (what is abbreviation of North Atlantic Treaty Organization, but /_nato_/ as verb in the Latin means swim, swim across, so that everything is clear)!
-->Anyway, when we have begun,
=>*_to make propositions_*
-|then let us return to our coat of arms, because the lions, as we have discussed this, are not our national element, and let us try to invent something unique and suitable for one, as we eagerly wish this, "Balkan Switzerland", i.e. for a peaceful Balkan country with nice nature. If this has to be some "beast" then why mandatory predator and not something humble and peaceful? The first proposition: ... /_St. Georgian lamb_/, which will be white on a green background (to remind us that this is early spring or the day of St. George) and with red boots and horns -- bleats itself quietly but when grows can also poke with the horns, and in the same time it is a tasty "chow", because the lamb is positively related with the ... hmm, with the fire! But the fire (/_ogan_/ in Slavonic, though for you in the Latin form of ignition) comes already from the Sanskrit, where /_Agni_/ (=/_Wahni_/) was the god of fire (and lamb in Bulgarian is /_agne_/, or /_iagne_/ in old Slavonic, or /_iagnionok_/ in Russian), so that now the fire also enters in our symbolic, and then the red colour will be that of the fire, and as to the question that this colour is good (no matter what the UDF thinks about) there is no necessity to convince ourselves, for the reason that in Bulgarian nice, beautiful is /_krasiv_/, or /_krasiviy_/ in Russian (in addition to the typically Bulgarian /_hubav_/, what might not be exactly Tartar word, but it existed also by the Germans -- /_hu:bsch_/), and which, obviously (for the Russians), comes from the red colour which for them is /_krasniy_/; and then: does it exist in the world such woman who does not want to paint her lips red in order to become "/_krasnaja krasavitza_/" (nice beauty)? And the relation of the /_ogan_/-fire with the /_agne_/-lamb is very rich on ideas, because this, being Sanskrit root, exists also on the West, in view of the mentioned English ignition which is Latin /_ignis_/ (a fire) or /_igneus_/ (fiery); and the /_agne_/ //_iagnionok_/ is /_agnus_/ (a. dei) in Latin, and the point here is about the very process of giving birth of new lambs, of something new, i.e. this is the idea of the ... bird phoenix, which rebirths itself in the fire! In other words, this is the incessant renovation via burning of the old. This idea is good and suitable also for the known "anti"-political power (i.e. the same UDF, which has issued for some years the newspaper just "Anti").
-->Another proposition: a nice industrious ... /_ant_/, standing on its hind legs like a real centaur! Or, for those who like multiplicity of equal images -- three ants with jointed forelegs and placed like in Mercedes emblem; or (for the communist-socialists): five ants connected in this way and forming only the rays of their star; or also (a new figure): six ants, placed along the sides of regular hexagon, plus one more in the center, raised "centaur-like" and looking to the right (surely in no case to the left!) with wings and crown (when this is necessary).
-->But who has said that on such emblems can be shown only animals? Some countries picture there trees, other leaves of them, third flowers, et cetera, or even just a circle in the middle -- the important thing is to have something unique, right? Well, a red rose is a very nice and unique for us symbol, and in regard to the colours it ties good with our present tricolour, but by known political reasons it and the socialism, as well as the whole Bulgaria, have become a /_causa perduta_/ (a lost cause). So that let us think out something else, and here is a draft for an unique coat of arms: two crossed like the letter "X" ... /_skewers_/, with threaded on them pieces of meat, mingled with pieces of pepper and onion -- all this can be in one colour, or meat may be red (preferably also beef, because /_kravi_/, exactly like our /_kravi_/-caws, in Sanskrit meant meat), onion can be white, and the peppers (supposedly hot, though this can not be seen) can be green. But it might be simpler than this -- just one fork with impaled on it /_kebapche_/ (resp. sausage) lightly curved at both ends! Can be added also drops of fat, but can be combined the skewers with the fork with this /_kebapche_/ in the middle. Then our message to the world will be ultimately clear -- come to us to have a good eating (not forgetting to leave your money by us, for we are in a big need of good currency).
-->But we have, or at least have /_had_/, also other symbols. It goes now about
=>*_the five-rayed star._*
-->By God, it is not clear what has made us to take it down from the turret of our former Party House, which could have quietly be again center of all parties (or at least of those included in the Parliament), and which is now part of our Peoples Assembly (our Parliament), at least as ownership. Well, the very building is part of the architectural center of Sofia and nobody has thought to destroy it (like the Mausoleum, e.g., but we have not denied ourselves the "pleasure" to burn it a little -- maybe with the idea of the /_Reichstag_/ in the heads, coming, by the way, at least from Ancient Greece, because: how better for somebody to become "famous" unless to put to fire some temple or symbol, or to defile it in some other way -- say, using paint or indecent inscriptions?), but the five-rayed star we have simply disconnected and heaved with helicopter. Yeah, but /_why_/? If the red colour was what has worried us the simplest thing was to repaint it blue. Or yellow, for such is, usually, the colour of the stars, or also make it neon-brilliant. It might have been made also with different colours for the rays -- for example, from bottom left and clockwise might have alternated: red, yellow, green (on the top), blue, violet; this, for one thing, would have been analogue of the rainbow, and, for another thing, the red colours would have been below, and it would have been also more motley. If we were bothered that this was symbol of another state, then there was not more such state, for the Russians have taken their own star earlier, and on their flag was the sickle and hammer, not the five-rayed star.
-->Well, probably we were not glad because of its five rays, but then why have we not first looked around to see how the things are in the world, in order to convince ourselves of what kind are the stars there? The Americans have not one but whole fifty stars on their banner, yet they are not at all troubled by this and even are very proud with their flag. There are also enough stars on the flag of United Europe, and they will become even more. And who does not believe that the stars have five rays then let him ask in the American Embassy, or let him (or her, surely) take one ten of "lions" (because our money unit is also called "lion", /_lev_/) and let him go to change them to five euro, and then sit and quietly look at them with magnifying glass. There is also the Pentagon, and it is, in fact, five-rayed star with cut out rays, i.e. exactly pentagonal figure or pentagram, and this symbol, used for keeping of evil powers away, comes from deep antiquity, goes via Ancient Greece and Rome, and is known on the whole West.. If you, occasionally, have not pondered why this is so, then can be reminded to you how many fingers and toes have people on their extremities, what is true for a big amount of animals (if some of them have not become rudimentary), and also about the petals of most of the flowers. It even our system of counting would have been with base five (and not ten), if this would have not increased too much the number of digits, and if people have not had two hands-stars. And this is symbol of power because the human hand (eventually fist, ah?) is symbol of human strength and might, but these are truisms. And also how many rays is /_thinkable_/ for a star to have? One, two, and three is impossible, four (square or rhomb) is much rough and has another semantic content, then comes five, the six is Hebrew number (meant as star), and so we come to seven, what is much more difficult to picture than with five rays, and about a bigger number there is no sense to speak, these can be only childish scrawls. So that the five-rayed star is such good symbol that there is just nowhere better! A-ah, if we have not liked that there was only one such star with five rays, then we could have placed on the notorious House a heap of stars more along the border of the roof, or at least two more smaller stars on the sides, but we have taken everything away. But then, we have taken it away /_exactly_/ for that reason -- that it was silly to do so!?
-->If only we, having taken it away, have thought a bit how to finish the turret of the building -- either with some horse-tail from the times of our Khan Asparuch, or some weathercock to show us whereto the wind blows (because that is, isn't it, what we are doing all the time, turn ourselves according to where from and where to the wind blows), or some helix or other composition symbolizing democracy -- two like the letter "V" splayed fingers, for example, would have been quite suitable to the corner position of the building (they, hmm, two bent fingers, with another one stuck between them, would have also been very suitable -- this time stressing on our thorny path to prosperity, but exactly in the center of Sofia such sign, thinks the author, wouldn't have been much fitting). But even a dozen of years after this euphoric inebriation of freedom (of ... pornography, criminality, corruption, possibility to turn off your stream heating in winter, or even to buy bread and cheese, or /_not_/ to buy, for there is not with what to buy, or to pay for you teeth and medical treatment, or spend hard earned money for the education of your children, and so on), so even after the coming of witty called by the people freedom/_volity_/ (I am trying to make new word as variation of freedom to unneeded frivolity, because in Bulgarian this is called /_slobodiya_/, where the freedom is /_svoboda_/), or /_anti_/-people's democracy (because if it has not existed earlier, and does also now not happen somewhere in the world, the communists would not have coined the term "people's democracy", what isn't at all Russian invention, as long as even in English is written "People's Republic", and China, for example, does not bow either to the Russians, nor to the Americans), so, well, even now on the top of this turret flutters only one banner and can be seen extremely clear that in the architectural composition something is missing. Well, maybe this is exactly what we want to tell the world -- that we also have something /_missing_/ (in our heads) and just like crippled things?
-->Or let us take also our
=>*_Mausoleum._*
-->Well, we have taken away the "mummy" -- the desecration of deceased in every possible way is even nowadays favorite people's "divertissement", especially in the Near East, so that, in what are we as population better than the people on those places? -- but more than five years the Mausoleum stayed scratched and covered with graffiti and used for nothing. And it could have been made there some discotheque, for example (say, "By Bai Gosho"), or then one good (and expensive) ... WC, which could have very well paid back the money spent for it, and each UDF supporter would have "died" with pleasure to take out there his "special device" and heave it; and even UDF supporter/_esses_/ would have been delighted to take down their slips and other undergarment, am I right? In general, if the best way to avoid temptation is to yield to it (for what reason the media throw up a heap of obviously indecent, but lucrative, things) then this would have been good decision, at least from an aesthetic standpoint (and this, that there are many people who find pleasure to sneer at the fallen -- well, that's their own problem, if they realize it, of course). But nothing of the kind have been done, and only when our "King" has emerged, only then we have cleaned up a bit before his windows (but he, the "poor guy", does not sleep there because ... well, the parquet creaked much to him and in this way distracted him of thoughts about national prosperity).
-->Similarly look out the things also in regard of
=>*_the communists and their greetings,_*
-|for it is true that the communists have annoyed us, mainly, with their extreme views at various questions, but is true also that we have done everything else, though not have rejected the /_extremities_/ as such! We, it may be said so, would have transferred the movement on the streets from the right side to the left one, if around almost the entire world would have not been accepted this, what was accepted also by the socialism called communism. We have abolished the death penalty, too, and the taxes on cigarettes, alcohol, and other excise goods, and the unpaid (in the moment of need) medical care, and whatnot, and now, little by little, return to the good old and proven) no matter that communist) view on many questions. But what is to be done, the people have always oscillated (and will oscillate) from the one extremity to the other, for the simple reason that the "golden" middle point is a notion which is very hard to be reached, and how one is to search for the middle when the only way to make career, or simply manifest oneself and show one's identity, is to find some (preferably new, or at least well forgotten) extremity?
-->But well, will say someone, where have been our political and other leaders, that they have not told us where is this middle point, and have left us instead to stray away like blind and knock with a stick, till we knock on some wall, sidewalk, or a tree (or do not hit hard our "mugs")? Ah, well, it is true that our politicians also oscillated, but it can't be said that we have not have some left-wing fractions (beginning with ASO, Alternative Socialist Alliance), or social-democrats, but in condition of democracy, i.e. when in general the citizens must choose their "herdsmen" (or "pastors"), we have simply not chosen whoever of the moderate in the Parliament (or the "Talking shop", if we translate this Italian word in Tartar, sorry, in Bulgarian -- and here in English). So that, not that our politicians are very good, but -- how one has asked so was answered to him, or else: *_/_according with the demos goes the -cracy!_/_*
-->The communists, definitely, have gone to extremities, and for that reason people on the West don't like them, but ... well, /_a la guerre, comme a la guerre,_/ and they have come to power exactly in conditions of war, so that a bit of rudeness, mildly said, was a kind of /_necessity_/. While our democracy has come in absolutely peaceful and quiet conditions and by us, thanks God, were no civil disturbances, but there were such in "Serboslavia", Russia, and in other places. Well, many ethnical Turks have first gone to Turkey and then returned in Bulgaria, but this were mainly because they (as also we) know their people and know how in Turkey usually proceed with different minorities, including Bulgarians, Greeks, Armenians, and other Christians, and have decided that we will behave like them (especially on the background of our five centuries Ottoman rule). Yeah, but we have not done like them and then they have returned, in broad lines, to us (at the expense of what later occurred selective emigration on intellectual and elitist principle, but this, as is said, is "from another opera").
-->Anyway, the author does not sing dithyrambs to the communists, but for them has existed extenuating the guilt /_idea_/ of social justice, what idea now we don't have (but in the broad world, say in: Germany, France, England, and also in the wealthy United States, it exists, though they do not call it socialism). At the same time by our democracy, hmm, but it is a /_reality_/ since 1991 (well, we have needed some time to abandon the habit to ... poke out the eyes of candidates on the posters, or to paint something to their mouths -- sorry, sorry --, but we were fast bored by this and have unlearned it), and if so, then by it can't be spoken about ideas /ideals, because in the capitalism (or the postindustrial society, if that's how you like it better) there is not at all any idea of justice, it is rude and brutal like ... well, like the very life!
-->Our democracy skids NOT because it is bad democracy -- there, surely, can always be wished something better and if this is not so to say that this is not democracy, but the truth is that this IS democracy, and if we don't like it then we behave so naive like when one little child, being spanked on the ... (well, you know where), begins to weep and cry: "Ah, you are not my mother!", but she /_is_/, still, his or her mother, no matter that she is bad in this case. So that our democracy is bad not because it isn't such, but /_exactly because it is such_/, as also for some other, mainly economic, reasons, but here we again switched to another opera. The bitter truth is that, however bad the communist not were (i.e. used only to swing the "whip"), they, still, if we have left them to continue to pull the carriage (well, after their dethronement and pulling down from the top in 1991-2, for the reason that, if you really like somebody and are worried about him or her or it -- be it a girl, or party, or football team, etc. --, then you have to turn your back to him etc. for some time, and if he etc. is a positive phenomenon then all this will be only for his etc. good, but if he etc. isn't such -- well, then it serves him etc. right), so that if we have left them to continue to reform themselves internally and again take the ruling, then they, surely, wouldn't have put "the cart before the horse" (as UDF has done, and later on we were forced to call the King, who isn't exactly our King, to pull us out of the mud, but he, too, meets with many difficulties, as you see).
-->But the communism wasn't isolated phenomenon only for our country, it has concerned (and still concerns) many countries, and some of them have coped easily with it (i.e. not more difficult than with the next economic crisis of the next period in development of capitalist state), where we still can not cope with it, and will master the situation only (well, not exactly as our folks say, when "our pattens give blossoms", but only) after one-two generations (of 25 years or so) after the changing of our "Bai Tosho". This is so, because one generation -- it can now be seen that it will happen so -- is necessary for to reach the average living standard of 1988 (for to be sure that this year has not fallen under the influence of the chaos of transition to democracy but only under the crisis of socialism -- because it also has shown that can undergo crises), and one more generation we will need to reach the level, to which we /_would have come_/ after two generations, if we have continued to go on the path of social-communism (or communal-socialism -- who knows what is better?), but this /_would not have been the same_/ socialism /communism, which was in the 90ies, in the same way as it was not the same like, say, in the 70ies, or the 50ies years, because, however centralized clumsy it was, it, still, evolved (and to the better).
-->Only that the curious thing now is that from all former socialist countries we have won more than the others from the communism, and from the Socialist Bloc (and we liked to use the strange word "camp" for this union of countries), for the simple reason that ... well, just because we were (and still are such, and who knows when we will cease to be) poor and left-behind Balkan (well, not Asian, like Russia, but it is not poor) country, and, in the same way as in a team of horses wins more the weaker horse (for the carriage pull the stronger horses), in the same way we also have felt better than all! Now, there were other poor countries, but they were not Slavs -- Romania, for example, who are Romans, although this is the same as Gypsy, but when we turn to be Tartars ("/_Tatari_/" in Bulgarian, and the same "/_tatari_/" in Romanian means ... ha, ha, this means to curse, i.e. to behave like Tartar, and similar meaning has also the Russian word "/_AraP_/", or also /_erepenitsya_/ what is to persist strongly, but maybe like an Arab), so there is no need to take offense on national themes. There were other Slavs (Czech Republic, Poland), but they were not so weak as us (for they are not on the Balkans). So that we have gained more than all the others from the "Camp" and from the "brothers" and /_exactly for this reason_/ we were the first who categorically rejected the communism. If one asks us, why, than we will meet with big difficulties to answer this.
-->And there is something more, purely terminological or etymological -- the standard communist greeting. If you have not given a thought to this moment then it is interesting to make one worldwide parallel. The Russian "/_tovarishch_/" means, in fact ... ah, that's the point! Because it must mean a stevedore, heaver, for the reason that it is derivative from the word "/_tovar_/" which means load, burden. And surely to say to somebody: "Hello, porter (or heaver, factotum), what are you doing? They load you and you heave, ah? And how is the lady porter? And the tiny porters? They load them, too, ah? Well, nothing to do, that's how they were born." -- well, this is not only funny, but also a bit perverse, don't you find so? But do not think that the Russians are inimitably perverse people because (let us remind you that) the communism has not originated in Russia but in the "navel" of Europe, and the literal translation of Western /_camerad_/ (in Spanish, resp. /_camerade_/ in French, and /_Kamerad_/ in German) is prisoner, convict, or person with whom you are together, but not in an usual room, in some small camera like the prison one, i.e. these are all "labour slaves".
-->At the same time ... well, that's the point, that Bulgarian "/_drugar_/", or Serbian "/_druzhe_/", are just synonyms of the friend (not in this English variant) or the another one -- this is German /_ander_/ (another), which is also old Greek "/_anthropos_/" (this animal who "/_tropaet_/"-trots on the "/_dromos_/"-path), and to have friends and buddies (where this word in its turn must come from the body) is the best thing in the world (if they only are real friends). The root of the /_drugar_/ comes from wide away in the time, because in the Sanskrit, according to the Buddhist mythology, has existed some /_Durga_/, who (she) was the wife of god Shiva (and she was known with this, that she has had many faces, which she alternatively changed), and if a wife is not the best friend (i.e. she must be such), be of a man, be of a god, then who else will be? This is also the idea that stays behind Russian "/_dorogoy_/", what is the same as your English "dear". Something similar to this relation of our communist greeting with some dear and nice thing can be found only by the Germans, where, together with their "comcamerist", existed also the word /_Genosse_/ with this meaning, where the root of the latter is hidden in the ... gene, i.e. this is a man with good genes (/_dieser Genosse nesiot_/-carries good genes!), one with whom you can feel only delighted (/_geniessen_/, /_genoss_/, /_genossen_/), to talk etc. (this idea is similar with the Latin /_casta_/ -- a good present from the gods, what has to be clear in the English because of the meaning of your "casting" of roles). So that it again turns out that we, the Bulgarians, have proven to be the most, sorry, stupid (or, maybe, to say "half-witted" will be less insulting?)!
-->And so on, where can be continued with analysis of our failures on the democratic arena (where we have tried hard to discredit this form of social government, which as an idea, but also from a psychological standpoint, is well-thought and works in many countries, though not by us), but here we have spoken about what we want to suggest to the world about us. Well, maybe the known in totalitarian times jocular slogan: "*_/_silly, but ours_/_*"! To succeed so admirably to discredit good ideas, so to entangle all the fibers, that even the very God, as is said, not to be in position to help us, to catch us on such, entirely naked, hook (that, for example, when the democracy comes to us we will at once begin to live like in the United States, yeah, but in the US the standard of life is high /_not because of_/ the democracy but *_/_in spite of it_/_*, for they have been also slave-owning country, and this at least several centuries after the slavery was abolished all around the left world; well, now we, really, live like in the United States, but like in those States of before a whole century, or at least half of it, and this in, say, Chicago), and on and on -- well, for this, certainly, big efforts are necessary (although not in the right direction).
-->Whether for this our Tartar vein is to be blamed, or this is common Balkan syndrome, we will not go in details here, but the facts are well to be seen and the world knows us already. As there goes one Christian saying that: when God wants to punish somebody He first takes away his reason -- so has happened also with us. Well, surely, this "birdy" which has "sucked our brains" was obviously with bright blue feathering (i.e. UFD), but then why have we yielded to it and have not said: "Disappear, foul thing!" remains again an open question. And in general, we are good people, but if somebody leaves us in small portions in the civilized world, in order to look around there a bit, and having seen what's what (or, as we say, "where the crabs are wintering"), i.e. what is the official propaganda of those in power, as also what the common people think, then we will cope easy with the things; but just staying in Bulgaria, no matter how many specialist from the West will come to teach us, we will never behave properly, for the simple reason that we are ... well, like concentrated sulfuric acid: it can be diluted, but slowly dripping same acid into the water, not vice versa! And it is clear that the young ones have oriented themselves there and are "diluting" themselves with the West as much as they want. But well, we will put up with the situation, because in this way we at least better the Western people with fresh genetic material (for, if it was not so, nobody would have occupied himself with us), so that we will again make some contribution to the world civilization (and population).
-->
-->Written by Chris Myrski in anno domini (and in the middle of it) 2003th
-->
-->*_-- -- -- -- --_*
-->
--> ...
-->