Dear friends, all,
** 'Creating A Fair, Safe and Peaceful World' : a step by step
commentary: Part 3 (of 7) **
I hope all are having a peaceful time.
Here goes with a commentary on Part 3 of the Seven Point Action Plan.
Again, I hope that I don't burden anyone by doing so.
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Part 3 of:
'The Co-operative Way - A Seven Point Action Plan'
3) Maximise necessary service provision (health, education, libraries,
transport and so on) on a free-at-the-point-of-use basis, retaining money as
a mechanism for access to discretionary purchases.
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Commentary 3
A strong criticism of this action plan, quite reasonably, comes from those
people who see all for-profit market activity as fundamentally flawed.
This arises from the recognition that every for-profit market exchange
results from an inherent power relationship (the seller has, the buyer has
not) which delivers two 'hurts' - the buyer *has* to pay more than the
seller gives: the difference being the profit that the seller has to have if
she/he is to remain as a market trader.
The history of the past century has, however, shown that sectors of human
need can, really quite successfully, be delivered through
community-provided, free-at-the-point-of-use structures: public libraries,
public parks, public service health care, public service education and so
on.
Part 3 of the action plan develops, then, this notion: considering transport
needs as.probably, the next matter that is sensibly moved into the
'free-at-the-point-of-use' segment of our economies.
This could all be accommodated within the money recirculation method
outlined at Point 2.
I hope that this has helped.
hugs
j
*********
I hope that this has helped,
Your Friend in peace, equality and co-operation,
john
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The full 'Fair World Project' text follows: please share.
Thanx !
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*** Creating A Fair, Safe and Peaceful World ***
Can we consider that our shared goal is to create a fair, safe and peaceful
world?
If so, it seems that we need to transform the economic system in which we
live, so that:
o people, together, are in control of their lives,
o where all work for the long-lived benefit of all: caring for the
long-lived benefit of the whole global ecology, and all its inhabitants.
To find the way forward, we need to have strategies for the three core
features of present-day economics:
o ownership of workplaces and knowledge used for profit,
o ownership of land and natural resources, and their use for profit,
and
o the practice of money-lending for profit.
To be able to deal with these three, core aspects, we must, first, return
money to its proper use - as a lubricant of human activity, created by, and
flowing through, nationally-owned, democratic, public service banking and
financial systems.
With them in place, we can, then convert workplaces into appropriate
co-operative enterprises, such that each has respectful stewardship of land
and knowledge resources:
o ensuring that everyone receives a fair, guaranteed income,
o ensuring that proper stewardship of the planet is our central task,
This suggests the following Seven Point Action Plan:
The Co-operative Way - A Seven Point Action Plan
1) Convert competitive, market-based activities into workplace co-operative
partnerships and remodel monopoly activities as stakeholder co-operatives
(see points two and five for the funding mechanism to achieve this);
2) Redistribute the added-value wealth from the workplace co-ops through
nationally-collected corporate taxation, distributed into local,
democratically-controlled, Community Banks: and, so, make money and credit
available for responsible wealth creation and community development (and the
conversions referred to above);
3) Maximise necessary service provision (health, education, libraries,
transport and so on) on a free-at-the-point-of-use basis, retaining money as
a mechanism for access to discretionary purchases.
4) Introduce guaranteed income for all, within upper and lower brackets
and, so, do away with personal taxation;
5) Abolish money-lending for profit and, so, operate banking as a public
service (see point two above);
6) Reintroduce international exchange controls as necessary;
7) Make capital grants (not loans) to developing countries.
We hope this action plan gives us all a good basis for a practical, moral,
sustainable and co-operative economics.
Your Friends in peace, co-operation and equality:
The Fair World Project 13 North Road Hertford SG14 1LN (UK)
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (+44) 01992 501854
