Dear Joel, friends and Co-operators, all,
Thanks in abundance for this.
I snip from the below:
>This all sounds great, but I'd like to know how you plan to accomplish
all
>this without resort to government coercion. How can you avoid a
>totalitarian government?
>
>Joel Dahlgren
This is a goodly question.
I think that a reply might include the *principles* of:
- continuously, actively decentralising power,
- continuously, actively reducing inequality.
*Practically* these objectives require an active, engaged 'citizenry' (not
the best word ? )
- This would be delivered by active co-operatives in all communities,
each delivering 'Annual Co-operative Audits.'
Significantly:
- I can imagine that reducing the 'work week' to four days (Monday,
Tuesday, Thursday and Friday)
and
- redesignating Wednesdays as 'Community Active-democracy Days'
would time-resource and, so, facilitate, this.
Did that help?
Thanks again for the question !
hug-e e-hugs
john
***********************
----------
>From: "Joel Dahlgren" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Subject: Re: The Co-operative Party: Aims and Objectives Exercise
>Date: Wed, May 24, 2000, 2:36 pm
>
>This all sounds great, but I'd like to know how you plan to accomplish all
>this without resort to government coercion. How can you avoid a
>totalitarian government?
>
>Joel Dahlgren
>
>>>> "john courtneidge" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 05/24/00 06:23AM >>>
>Dear Co-operators
>
>Here is the contribution from:
>
> The Campaign for Co-operative Socialism
>
>In response to the Aims and Objectives exercise of The (UK) Co-operative
>Party.
>
> ** We hope that co-operators and co-operative organisations will
>endorse, in whole, or in part, the suggested Aim and Action Plan **
>
>
>Our submission reads:
>
>"We should like to suggest that we adopt the Aim of:
>
> > Creating A Fair, Safe and Peaceful World.
>
>To achieve this, we hope that our Party will endorse, promote and implement
>the Seven Point Action Plan given at the end of this document.
>
>The Action Plan is based on the following analysis.
>
>If our, shared, co-operative goal is to create a fair, safe and peaceful
>world, it is clear 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.
>
>Accordingly, to find the way forward, we need to have strategies for the
>three core features of present-day, capitalist economics. Namely:
>
> o ownership of workplaces and knowledge used for profit,
>
> o ownership of land and natural resources, and their use for profit,
>
>and,
>
> o the practices of money-lending and credit-creation 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,
>
>and, that,
>
> o proper stewardship of the planet is our central task.
>
>This analysis leads to the following Seven Point Action Plan
>:
>
> > Co-operative Socialism - A Seven Point Action Plan
>
>1) Convert competitive, market-based activities into workplace co-operatives
>and remodel monopoly activities as stakeholder co-operatives: each,
>demonstrably, operating according to the International Co-operative
>Alliance's Seven Co-operative Principles,
>
>(see points two and five for the funding mechanism to achieve this);
>
> 2) Redistribute the added-value wealth from the workplace co-operatives
>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, through the
>stakeholder co-operatives referred to in Point 1, 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 and credit-creation 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.
>
>Sent by:
>
>john courtneidge
>
> (Member of Welwyn Hatfield Branch of the Enfield and St Albans
>Co-operative
>Party.
>
>Networking:
>
> The Campaign for Co-operative Socialism
>
> www.cooperatve-socialism.org )
>
>Home contact details:
>
>13 North Road Hertford SG14 1LN (UK)
>
>[EMAIL PROTECTED] (+44) 01992 501854
>
>**********************
>
>
