For my entire working life the conventional wisdom seems to have been that only a mug would pay their full share of taxes, and that it was every citizen’s duty to reduce their responsibilities in this area to a minimum. Those who succeeded in paying the least amount of taxes have generally been lauded as heroes.
Tag: UK
#OCCUPY the Ballot Box
The conundrum of the Occupy movement’s “missing list of demands” is the key to understanding what has to be done.
Protest in a democracy represents a conundrum. Do we want change or do we want to complain?
Who doesn’t realize that our modern world is not serving the majority of us? Probably not even 1% – do you know anyone? We all know the banks have gotten away with theft. We all know politics has been, and is being further, corrupted by money. It’s not difficult to understand that burning millions of barrels of oil into the air every day and dumping tons of man-made chemicals into our waters is affecting our environment detrimentally. Let’s not do ourselves a diservice: we all know that “things ain’t right, and something’s gotta change”.
Our predicament is not in dispute. The solution is.
The fundamental obstacle to a solution is complexity. The reality of our modern world is that it is complex: the banking system is complex, sovereign accounting is complex, the interdependencies of our environment are complex. To understand why writing down half the value of some debts in one of the smallest economies in the modern world could affect the political stability of the largest country in the world is complex; to understand why the largest country can’t just step in a fix that problem is even more complex.
There’s a perfectly natural resistance in the Occupy movement to adopting a “simple set of demands” because, consciously and unconsciously, we all understand that our predicament will not yield to a simple solution or short list of demands. Matt Taibbi, one of the most dogged and brilliant journalists on the financial beat, recognizes this even as he offers a short list of key changes that could be made to address the specific problems resulting from casino capitalism in our overweight financial sector; but, good as his list is, it does not address why we have an overweight financial sector in the first place.
The Occupy movement is a protest movement. It takes its name and its inspiration of the occupation strategy employed by the revolutionaries in Egypt this spring, and it is stirring the wider public to more open consideration of changes that seemed inconceivable only a few years ago. But the difference is that the Egyptians were revolting against a dictatorship and they could coalesce around the simple demand that the dictator be removed; in contrast the Occupy movement is almost exclusively active in wealthy democracies, and cannot reasonably demand the removal of a government chosen by the people a few years ago and available for replacement in a few years time.
The lack of a simple set of demands is not a purposeful tactic of the Occupy movement, it is the manifestation of an understanding that the problems are more complex than a simple list could address. Housing, healthcare, tax policy, the environment, social security, employment and inequality are all prevalent issues expressed in the Occupy protests, and such a broad agenda does not lend itself to a simple list of demands. The protestors can point to the simple manifestations of the problems in their lives, but they also know that any real solutions are going to be complex.
To move forward we need to remember that what appears as complex is in fact just lots of simple things seen at once. And while you cannot solve a complex problem with a simple solution, you can solve a thousand simple problems with a thousand simple solutions. This is the key to system change: it’s not one big solution, it’s a million small solutions.
Self-evidently: every aspect of human society has been created by us, and so it can be re-created by us. But we did not arrive here in one stroke, we are where we are as a result of the culmination of millions of small and simple decisions taken by people like us. When democracy arose it was the next vital step in enabling the broadest possible collective application of decision making to complex problems; and it lies before us now with the same urgent potential that drove its early advocates with such zeal. The short list of demands can be replaced with one: “Occupy the Ballot Box!”
We do not need anyone’s permission, we are not dependent on anyone else’s favors or attention – we are the ones who can bring about the changes we need, one decision at a time. We already have what the Egyptians in Tahrir Square died for: the right to select our own government.
If you support the Occupy protests you must take the next decision and vote for real change. If there’s no one to vote for, you must stand for change yourself – you don’t have to be perfect, you don’t have to know it all, you just have to care enough to be one of a million decision makers who will contribute to the long list of solutions. If you want to stand for election but need a broad platform that fills in and addresses the complex issues raised in the Occupy protests, take what you want from the Standards of LIFE and make it your own. We will vote with you, we will stand with you and we will bring change to our world together.
More money is not the answer
We need to occupy our communities and demand less money, rather than occupying corporate spaces and demand more money.
More money for banks. More money for governments. More money for small businesses. More money for social services. More money for everything – who could disagree with that!?
Apparently the US and the UK are so short of money that their central bankers have had to print trillions more just to keep the wheel of society turning. Banks whose capital base consists of nothing more than bits of paper have apparently run out of the ability to write more bits of paper and now need others to print paper for them. Whole nations that voluntarily gave up the right to print their own pieces of paper are apparently on the brink of collapse without someone else lending them more bits of paper.
This situation is evidently insane. The problem is NOT too little money! The problem is TOO MUCH MONEY!
We talk of not being able to provide for our old age security without money… horse shit! You’ll only need money if no one else will help you. We talk of unemployment, when there is evidently so much basic work to be done around us building and maintaining and improving our communities. We have come to conceptualize ourselves as living in a world of individual separateness in which transactions can only occur when greased by the flow of printed pieces of paper. But this concept does not withstand even the merest scrutiny, in fact it requires deliberate denial all the time. We all know that we are people, living with others and largely dependent on each other to get through any single day. We are dependent on each others good graces, compassion, empathy and generosity – even for the most basic restraint of not running us down with their car in the carpark!
We have not run out of money, we have just run out the capacity for money to substitute for reality.
The frail reality of the theater set we have built to act out our life-play in is upon us. Soon it must surely become too obvious to ignore: neither we, nor our world, are built from money. We are flesh and bone progeny of the earth beneath our feet, and “our world” is but a social construct designed by us to support our huge number.
Money has a role, an important role, but it is just a role in the wider context of our society. Enterprise is a natural aspect of human society, and business is a good thing. But lack of money and lack of economic activity are not what ails us – there isn’t enough money in all the world to fix our social disconnectedness. Money cannot be used to pay for everything, it is an instrument for the exchange of surplus value and if we try to use it as a substitute for the value of life it loses its value, and its role collapses. This is the lesson of our times: we must learn to see the reality of our mutual interdependence and lose the illusion of separateness that our plunge into industrial capitalism pulled over our eyes.
We need to occupy our communities and demand less money, rather than occupying corporate spaces to demand more money. When we start giving ourselves the right to live in the reality we are already in we will not need to protest others to give us permission.
Social Security is Serious Stuff
If you think that social security is the generous expression of care for others in a civilized society, think again.
This may come as a surprise to many Americans, even a few Europeans: a functional social security system is a vital underpinning for a capitalist economy. Without functioning social security, there is insufficient society to support a vibrant economy; social security systems actually catalyze economic activity, and the prosperity it generates.
There are other vital reasons for maintaining a functioning social security system (a basic social “safety net”): maintaining social peace, elevating confidence, satisfying our natural empathy and improving sustainability. But even without those reasons, our economy simply cannot prosper without social security. It’s serious business – social security is really important. It isn’t a policy “option”, social security is the imperative at the root of all the things we cherish about our peaceful and prosperous life.
In the face of massive debts and monetary instability, our “Total Economic Awareness” (TEA) delusion jumps up and we make the kind of mistake that everyone makes in a panic: we grasp for simplistic, obvious solutions. No money left: OK, stop spending it. That’s the kind of reaction you get to apologize for later, in your personal life (so long as you didn’t destroy something or do something unforgivable) but when you’re a sophisticated, modern society, that kind of reaction just won’t do. We didn’t come this far, or get to this point, without a lot of careful attention and wisdom gained from many experiences – we need to remember that, and cultivate the poise that allows us to make sensible decisions about serious matters at important moments.
The current fashion for degrading the social security of our societies, as a means of supporting huge debt burdens, is extremely dangerous and very short sighted. And this is happening just as we enter the times when climate instability is likely to test us all.
The reasons why social security is an absolutely essential foundation of our society include:
- Our social cohesion is fundamentally dependent on the maintenance of basic life services for everyone
- The health of our economy is dependent on broad economic participation, both as producers and as consumers
- Innovation requires risk taking, and social security encourages risk taking
- Situations and circumstances change: our societies and their economies need to transition as smoothly and quickly as possible
- The rule of law and the control of crime are dependent on broad participation by all
- The quality of our democracy is dependent on an educated, informed and involved citizenry
- Our ability to withstand shocks and natural disasters is heavily dependent on our social cohesion
Social security is not an optional, luxury expression of generosity, that we can afford to do away with when money is short. Social security provision is an absolutely essential, basic building block of a peaceful, prosperous and sustainable society – without it, peace, prosperity and our survival are all endangered.
How do we square that essential nature of social security, with the budget dilemmas and economic weakness of these times? To resolve this conundrum we must revisit what it is that makes up the essential nature of “social security”: it is the provision of personal security from the elements, hunger, sickness and depravation to each and every member of our society. This is not a monetary transaction, it is a social intention. We will not make our way out of this until we fully grasp the proper nature of social security.
In the Standards of LIFE we have modeled the impact of delivering social security as a set of universal services, and found that this not only fulfills the essential nature of social security, but has positive knock-on effects across the economy and budgetary process that address the concerns of fiscal responsibility and fosters sustainable prosperity. We must solve our budget problems, resolve the monetary dilemma and build sustainable societies, all at the same time – and the only way to do that is with the parallel adoption of universal services and micro-economics.
Read more and find out how to fix our problems without breaking our societies at www.standardsoflife.org.
Money Flows
Hot money flows will not save the bankrupt status quo.
This week two news stories pointed to an issue that, wish it were otherwise, demonstrate the need for fundamental system change. The first story regards the fortune amassed by the Mubarak family during their rule of Egypt and the second concerns the massive scale of the corruption afflicting Indian society. Read the comments after the Indian article to get a real grasp of how this kind of corruption affects the core of a society down to the smallest neighbourhood, and this story that reveals the extent of the theft of public property in Egypt.
Where do these trillions of ‘hot’ currency go? They go into banks in the Western industrialized nations and their lackey tax havens – these three components form a coherent whole, interdependent on each other. This is colonialism by corruption, and the citizens of the beneficiary societies are as guilty of complicity today as they were 100 years ago. If you live in the West, don’t feel bad about it: you’re as much a victim as the citizens of the new ‘colonies’, because the same institutionalized theft is robbing your neighbourhood of resources just as much, through tax avoidance.
Why is this tolerated? Well it’s not tolerated by those who can’t do anything about it, in Egypt and India; they are just in a state of powerless despair. It is tolerated by those of us who can do something about it, because we have been unwitting clients of the system. The availability and use of debt to finance our distracted acquiescence has been the magician’s move that has drawn our attention away from the true play that is being made. In this trick there is a fine balance that the magician must strike, wherein the audience feels like it is getting more than it deserves, without actually getting real benefits. Like any sidewalk hussler, when the opportunity comes along to really cream a willing punter, the escape requires all parties to feel sufficiently guilty that no one feels entitled to recompense. This where the citizenry of the West is: asleep at the table, engorged on the fake food served up by the chefs in the kitchen while they resell the real food out of the back door of the restaurant to their buddies on the black market.
What can be done about it? The complete reorganization of the banking system. Preferably a coordinated reorganization encompassing the US, the EU, the UK and Japan; but even a principled stand by one of those financial centers would put the cat amongst the pigeons enough to disrupt the system and lead to change over the medium term.
What are the consequences? Without the hot, secret money Western banks will not be able to generate the profits they do today, nor would they be able to support the same level of employment. The fall off in tax revenues and employment in the client states would have to be offset, requiring a fundamental reorganization of commercial and social infrastructure. The net effect on tax revenues to Western states might even be positive, as banks pay a smaller percentage of their profits in taxes than the individuals and corporations who use the banks to avoid tax would have to pay on their incomes if they were properly declared. Potential benefits to non-haven states would be massive improvements in social wellfair, but would only accrue if accompanied by a significant democratization of their political systems – that democratization would be much easier to achieve without banking system support for corruption.
When will this happen? When the balance of benefits to the citizens of the haven states falls below even. The citizens of those haven states have already assumed the burden of the 2008 bank bailouts, but they have accounted for that with debt, so the full reality of those costs have not yet been bourn. The “plan” is to meet those debts over the coming decade by leveraging the same financial colonialism and conjuring (the failures of which created the debts in the first place) so that the massive increase in the money supply (aka ‘printing money’) that was used to account for the debts can be matched to grown wealth. This plan relies on the perpetuation of the existing banking system, complete with inflows of hot, corrupt money from all over the world. This is why today’s Western leaders will connive, lie and obstruct as much as they think they need to to protect the status quo, because they do not know how to plan for or adjust to a fundamentally reorganized society – they are not evil, they are just clueless.
The troubles with the “plan” are already becoming obvious. First is that the wealth that is being created is being confined to very small slither of the populations of the haven states, and, in a superb irony, they are using the same financial corruption to avoid adding to the wealth of states they inhabit. Second is that the debts cannot be satisfied with the growth that is available, and must be supplemented by sucking more wealth out of compliant tax payers through ‘austerity measures’. Third, none of the first two plans is happening fast enough to stop the excess money causing inflation, further exacerbated by real increases in the costs of raw materials. These problems mean that the haven states will start, this year, to raise interest rates to combat inflation, and in so doing push the balance of benefits for their average citizen firmly into negative territory. 20% youth unemployment, rising basic living costs and a kleptocratic ruling elite are the perfect ingredients for a revolution – witness North Africa, January 2011.
In the next few years, as real social disruption develops in Western states, a serious debate will emerge around whether completely reorganizing our economic and social frameworks is actually any less disruptive that attempting to maintain the old status quo. If we desire a constructive process of change we need to start thinking now about how that reorganization can manifest positively – that’s the reason to read and contribute to alternative thinking like the Standards of LIFE.
What could have been… UK 2010 election results
If the UK had the LIFE PR election system in place the results of last week’s voting would have mirrored the desires and intentions of the people better, created a more effective legislative body and produced stronger leadership.
Of course, the UK doesn’t even have PR let alone a LIFE PR system. This left the average citizen trying to cast a vote that covered so much ground and met so many needs that they are to be commended for having made any choice at all. Faced with trying to select an effective local representative, choose a national direction and say something to the world, all in one vote, was a mighty task indeed. In the end many voted to keep out what they didn’t want. Hardly a model of effective democracy.
In a LIFE election the citizens would be casting one vote for a representative to the UK parliament/State Assembly. They would be able to pick from the same list of candidates, irrespective of where they live in the UK, and they would be able to select an alternative/second choice should their first choice candidate fail to muster sufficient votes to meet the quota. This would free everyone to vote for whom they truly wanted to lead their country, instead of voting for someone they didn’t want, and who wasn’t going to lead their country anyway, just to keep out a representative of a party they disagreed with even more strongly.
The UK State Assembly would have a maximum of 62 seats available [population/1 million]. Just over 29 million people voted so the quota for election to a seat would have been slightly less than 500,000 votes. On the face of it that would mean that Greens, who only got 285,616 votes, would not have had a single seat – but who knows how many people across the nation might have voted for a Green candidate if they knew that their votes counted? The BNP would have got a seat even though they got none in the May election, and UKIP would have secured 2 seats.
However all of the numbers are a little suspect because there was so much tactical voting and so little opportunity for the average citizen to truly express their intentions through their vote. Given the chance to choose a candidate who truly represented their views, citizens would quite likely have picked a much broader array of representatives to head up to Westminster on their behalf. Furthermore, with a LIFE PR system everyone 16 and older would have had a vote and those caring for others would have had their charge’s vote too – enfranchising the young, the old and the disabled.
So using the voting record from a flawed election to extrapolate what would have happened with a more perfect system is fraught with difficulties and anomolies, nevertheless it is interesting to look at. If nothing else if shows that the LIFE PR system is fair, effective and representative.
We will be posting a calculator model at www.standardsoflife.com that you can use to figure out for yourself how an election near you would have turned out if you had a LIFE PR voting system – post your results and comments at Topic – Voting.
Opportunity is knocking
Events have outstripped the establishment options.
78%. That’s the percentage of the electorate in the Norwich North that did not vote for the “winning” candidate in the last UK by-election.
So for every Conservative voter there are four others who don’t think that the Tories have the answers. We can do some basic maths here: the Conservatives won with 22% on a turnout of substantially less than 45%; that leaves 55% who didn’t vote at all and half of them is a little north of 27%. So if only half the people who didn’t vote, voted for an alternative… that alternative would have been the winner. Or, if only one in three non-voters voted and 10% of voters switched to the same alternative that would have been enough to win the election.
Add to that maths the fact that just under a third of all incumbent MPs will not be standing for re-election, and you have a real opportunity for real change.
Right now the economy isn’t even serving the minority, the population is aging, the country is committed to foreign wars beyond its means and the climate is heating up. None of these is addressed by the political choices on offer. Events have outstripped the establishment options.
It may be nine months premature to declare the death of Britain’s established political parties but it certainly demonstrates the opportunity. If a human baby can gestate from conception to birth in just nine months, surely a new politics can be born in the same time.
We want better. We deserve better. We can do better.
Reforming Westminster – from Guardian’s “Comment is (apparently not very) Free”
The following text was posted to the Guardian UK web site on May 21st in their Comment is Free section in response to a call for suggestions about how to reform Westminster. Within 18 hours the moderators had removed it; not sure why as it does not defame anyone, it is on topic and relevant and does not seek to promote any commerical enterprise.
In the spirit of really free comment, I post here the original…
So we’re finally ready to think about the alternatives? Good. Not a moment too soon.
For those seriously interested in this, I think you have to figure out a system that reflects the natural organization of people, not just in England but in the EU and everywhere else. The timing of this furore coincidental with the EU elections highlights the need for reform across a much broader spectrum than the UK.
There is a model for the kind of regional/national configuration discussed above, mated with a system of proportional representation that actually works; you can find all the details at http://www.standardsoflife.org/mlr
What you will find as you work your way through the practicalities of political reform is that it will require a (new) constitution with a bill of rights. These are not things which spring happily to the minds of many in the UK, but they are essential. Constitutions, necessarily, require a good deal of thought before they are adopted and so reforming the political system could take quite a while… unless someone’s been thinking about this for a while already, and assembled the basic building blocks of a constitution already that would work well in the UK, builds on the strengths of exisiting international law and could work within an EU framework… http://www.standardsoflife.com/Constitution+Template
One “trouble” with an enhanced system democracy is that it inevitably means that power is devolved down. The consequence of empowering people is that they are unlikely to be very happy with the top-down systems in place today, including the economic system. So that means that political reform will be followed (very quickly) by a (large) wave of support for reform of the economic and social support systems. Are we ready for that too? We’d better be. And it’s a wonderful opportunity too, this is the chance to humanize the economy and green our wealth creation systems – at just the moment when it’s essential that we do both of those.
So what is going to be the face of ecomonic reform that people are likely to demand once they have their new political voice? The end of abject poverty, the right to work for themselves, the availability of a more balanced life that allows for real living during our working lives, the removal of dole-based, means-tested poverty-traps? Probably all of those and some more! Luckily there’s a good model of meeting all of those needs while preserving the best elements of a market place economy that allows everyone to leverage their own ingenuity to make as much money as they care to while, at the same time, keeping the greater peace and prosperity of the whole society in focus too. Universal social services mated to a directly linked progressive tax system. Details at http://www.standardsoflife.com/material+infrastructure
The UK is the perfect place to do all this. Small enough to be able to, big enough to make it work and influential enough to spread the word and gain the cooperation and involvement of other nationstates.
The UK is a really hard place to do all this. Old enough to be attached to its traditions, young enough to be only a fledgling in real republican politics and sufficiently interconnected with Europe to inevitably attract remote as well as local resistance.
But this has to be done, the future of our planet depends on it. The only way to a sustainable future is through sustainable prosperity and that requires just the kind of democratic reform that is arising here. It may be hard but it’ll get easier once we start. Who’s for starting now? I am.
Andrew Percy
andrew@standardsoflife.org
Original post link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/may/20/political-reform?commentid=24a77007-811a-4fd0-8949-462653ba838c
I invite your comments freely !
Standards of LIFE 