> I especially loved this part: "Who actually wants to be called an owner, > even if you owned a football team? Just the title owner is just so nasty and > disgusting."
Socialism aims to make us all owners. Who spreads hatred of socialism? Owners get to control things. Since we would like to have control maybe we should imagine that ownership will have a different nature when we are all owners. Democratic ownership and control will make today's justifications for disliking the small elite of owners will disappear. Only owners get profits. Once automation/robots are doing most work, profits will be the main source of income. Then, we must all become owners to have income. Classification is not understanding. The disgusting classification "owners" is preventing us from wanting ownership of the kind we need, or even considering it as a solution to many problems. Dislike of ownership is one key factor blinding the left to effective solutions. Another disgust that stunts the imagination of many people is disgust for government itself instead of those who control it. That disgust, directed to government in general, makes many people dismiss the possibility of using the government to protect the public interest, the weak, and the powerless masses; even though nothing else can or will protect them. Disgust with government in general is a victory for reactionary propaganda that makes the working class drop the tool they need most, a government in their own hands. To have a functional economy, unearned income must not be monopolized by a few people. Let's be very unfair to billionaires by blocking their monopoly of profit and control. If we owned the government instead of an elite owning it we could become unfair to that elite in a fair way. We could just tax the surplus income we now borrow. Why not let the government create all money instead of letting private banks create most of it. A 10% reserve requirement allows 90% of money creation to be by private banks. Why can't they just lend up to the amount on deposit? Some very rich people think it's fair for their banks to be allowed to create money. Talk about a giveaway programs! While monopoly media tells us over and over about the government "printing" money, not one word is said about who really creates most money. As owners we can just have and conserve wealth instead of consuming wealth to stay busy. The assumptions that wage dependence is both desirable and permanent make planet plunder seem necessary. Income from ownership will make quick conservation possible because we could just do the needed work then take a vacation. We could let organizational efficiency and automation grow and thus allow an additional big reduction in commuting. Conservation and robots will combine to make near full-unemployment permanent. Nothing other than a greater dependence on the unearned income of ownership to distribute income can ever come close to addressing our climate, pollution, and scarcity problems. Barry http://home.earthlink.net/~durable/ _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
