Showing posts with label capitalism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label capitalism. Show all posts

2024-02-23

The Election Issue That Dare Not Speak It's Name

What election am I referring to – whatever one is next in whatever jurisdiction you are in.

Yes I am talking about that which we dare not speak – the need to change our economic system before its ultimate collapse.

Karl Marx predicted the collapse of capitalism, and it was happening, only to be rescued by of all things socialism – the pooling of the masses resources to rescue their exploiters.

However unless we act to change the system we can only put off the ultimate demise of capitalism as we know it.

It is not so much private ownership or even profit that I am speaking of, although they contribute to the problem. I am speaking of something much more fundamental – the need to redefine what we consider to be a successful economy. The problem is we currently measure economic success as continuous and increasing unsustainable economic growth based on the continuous unsustainable exploitation of finite resources.

Capitalism also only values wage employment discounting all activities not done for a paid wage as economically meaningless, including the caring for children by parents and volunteer work or other unpaid creative work. How capitalism values work is also subjective and very fucked up, someone playing playing a game earning a million dollars a year contributes 10 time as much to the economy as someone earning 100 thousand dollars a year finding a cure for cancer. The actual value of work to society has no relation to the economic value capitalism gives it.

We also have to rethink our historic attitudes to what we call civilized and primitive. I was brought up within a society that taught that our industrialized societies built on dominating and exploiting nature were far superior to those “primitive” societies where people lived simpler lives in harmony with nature. Unfortunately our civilization is bringing our society and planet to the edge of collapse.

Capitalism has it’s religious tenets as well, the most revered being the belief (very much in a religious sense, being based on faith rather than evidence) that competition is superior to co-operation and promotes innovation.

The belief is if you have a problem and tell ten people to solve it, it will be solved faster if each person works separately inspired by the fact they will make a fortune if they succeed or become a bankrupt failure if they don't. Indeed under capitalist dogma money is the only possible motivator.

The rational understanding that ten smart people working together, and off of each others ideas, striving for the common good, will be more successful sooner than ten individuals working separately is simply capitalistic heresy. The idea that people might be motivated by something other than money is anathema to our greed based economic system.

According to theory competition is supposed to result in multiple campaniles competing for customers business resulting in the ones that provide the best value for money thriving. In reality we see that what happens is the most powerful (most ruthless) driving out the weakest in an increasing move to a more monopolistic economy, with a few dominant corporations that are deemed to big too fail and must be saved by the socialism of taxpayer funded corporate bailouts.

Whether it was the aim or expectations of it’s creators, the most important and evil result of capitalism has been the rapid increase of inequality to the point of immorality.

We have moved along way from the original promise of capitalism, if it ever existed, where entrepreneurs formed businesses to make products or supply services to customers at decent quality for a decent price paying workers an honest days pay for an honest days work, in return for a fair profit. Today’s corporations (with a few exception) are only in one business, maximizing shareholder profits.

And that is not serving the needs of society or the people.

The only real election issue (except perhaps where democracy itself is the election issue) should be what do we replace capitalism with.

2023-08-19

Imagining A Post Capitalist World

This is not meant to be a comprehensive analysis but an imagining of some of the features of a post capitalist world.

OK lets get this over with first. The first thing we will notice is the numbers we use to measure the success of a capitalist economy, GDP, GNP and economic growth will look bad. That is because the goals of the new economy will not be excessive production, consumption, energy waste and unsustainable growth. The new economy will be based on people not stuff. While our so-called standard of living will decline our quality of life will increase.

Because of higher minimum wages and a Guaranteed Basic Income everyone will have at least a comfortable modest life with adequate housing and all their basic needs met because there are enough resources to provide this when there is not excessive inequality and waste by the excessively wealthy.

Excessive inequality will be eliminated because of an aggressive progressive tax system based on the principle that everyone should contribute to the society/economy based on their ability.

Everyone, not just the very wealthy, will finally benefit from the use of machines to increase productivity and most drudge work will now be done by machines. The effect will be that everyone will have reduced working hours for a shorter period of their life. Work will no longer be a necessity to survive but something people crave for the fulfillment it brings to their lives.

Because of a societal decision all work requiring intelligence or decision making will be reserved for human beings.

Elimination of the exploitative capitalist practice of producing goods in low wage countries will see the elimination of excessive wasted energy transporting goods as most food will be produced within 100 kilometres of where it is consumed and other goods within 500 kilometres.

With increased time for themselves education will be an important part of everyone’s life and as with health care, treated as a public good and paid for collectively. Arts and culture, theatre and music, will be emphasized with the emphasis on local artists and productions (rather than overpriced “superstars”) as well as outdoor recreation.

Small businesses, where the owner earns his income by working in the business, will be encouraged and supported. For large enterprises, ownership and control of the means of production (factories, computer facilities, etc) will reside with the workers producing the products or providing the services, most often through co-operatives, except for public services like education, health care and public utilities where control and ownership will reside with the people through their democratically elected governments. All workers will have an effective, not just theoretical, right to join a union and bargain collectively.

The overall philosophy of the society/economy will be "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs".

2023-07-24

The stages of corporate social media

Corporate social media essentially goes through three stages.

The first is new, free and wonderful, lots of functionality, user friendly and free, or at least pretending to be free. It’s purpose is to build a customer/product base (as the customer is the product).

The second stage is monetization. The purpose is to make money so once the free loss leader period is over measures to create revenue are introduced. These are usually things the users can live with and are introduced along with measures to make the customer dependent on the product.

Once that is achieved we move into stage three, equivalent to the final stage of capitalism. We move from earning a fair profit to profit maximization with no regard for the user, the assumption being that by this time the user is convinced their very existence is dependent on the product, also known as the Facebook effect.

With the introduction of Brand X, EvilElon is clearly telling us he is moving Twitter into Stage Three as capitalism moves into it’s final stage.

2023-07-10

Should We Bring Back The Lord’s Day Act

No I am not going all religious on you This would be more of a Day for Humanity, a day that would not belong to the billionaires and millionaires but to the common people and the community.

This would be a day where all profit making activities would be banned except for activities necessary for essential public utilities and community and social services. Large scale profit making entertainment (including sports) would be banned except for local community based activities.

Perhaps most importantly all social media would shut down for the day and being constantly plugged into devices would be prohibited. Disable texting too and make people actually talk to each other

This would be a day for families of all kinds and the community to come together as people, not just as customers (or contacts), a day when our interactions with each other would not be transactional, a day that would proudly not contribute to the so called economy or the GDP or GNP.

A Day for Humanity, once a week.

2022-12-21

Left, Right or Centre – Explainer

In today’s age of populism, with ideology apparently dead, how do you now if you are on the left or right or in the centre. There are indeed some basic philosophical positions that determine if you are on the right, left or in the centre.

If you are on the right you believe in individualism and the free market. Individualism rules supreme and there is no such thing as collective rights. You believe in the mantras that “acting in your own self interest is in the best interests of society” and “what is good for General Motors is good for America”.

You believe that almost everything, except perhaps policing and the military, is done best by the private sector and that the profit motive is the best motivator of people. Competition is the best way to provide progress and create wealth.

You believe in inequality because that is the best way to reward intelligence, talent and hard work. The poor are poor because they do not work hard enough.

You believe in small government whose role is essentially to protect private property rights. You think of taxes as something an outside entity (the government) takes from you, you may even refer to it as stealing. You may also believe in unfettered free speech.

If you are on the left you believe in community. You believe that individuals are not completely fulfilled unless they are part of a community. You believe in co-operation and working together for the common good. You care for others and believe everyone deserves respect and human dignity.

You believe everyone deserves a decent life and all work should receive a living wage with employment benefits, especially decent pensions. You believe the level of inequality in our society is immoral and billionaires should not exist.

You believe government exists to serve the common good by providing public services efficiently and reducing economic inequality in society. You believe taxes are how we collectively spend our money for the common good.

You may even believe that we have a responsibility to contribute to society according to our ability and society has a responsibility to provide for our basic needs, including food, clothing, housing, education and health care.

Those of you who claim to be in the centre are probably actually on the right but you believe government has a role in reducing the worst aspects of capitalism and providing a social safety net for the victims of capitalist excesses.


2022-06-14

SocialCoin – The Socially Responsible Alternative to Bitcoin

 I am placing this concept in the public domain for anyone with the necessary technical skills to create the structures and necessary algorithms to implement it.

Wikipedia provides an extensive section on Bitcoin and in particular Bitcoin mining.

Essentially Bitcoin is created by an energy wasting computer process they call mining. The value (profit) is based on “proof of work” provided by the computer process and not by any product mined, as no product is produced in so-called Bitcoin mining. A computer algorithm determines the amount of value (profit) that accrues to the Bitcoin “miners:

So how does SocialCoin work. Mining SocialCoin involves utilizing energy, resources and labour to create social housing, But based on the Bitcoin model the value (profit) is not produced by the product created, so the housing created can be given freely to public or non-profit housing agencies, housing co-ops or directly to those needing housing. Like Bitcoin, the product created is irrelevant to the creation of SocialCoin. Like Bitcoin the value (profit) derived from mining SocialCoin is based on the work done and derived by a computer algorithm and accrues to the SocialCoin “miners”.

I challenge any economist to demonstrate that this concept is not as feasible as Bitcoin.

2022-04-23

How to Make Credit Card Purchases Safer – Banks, Are You Paying Attention

Do you worry about the security of your credit card information when you provide it to lesser known merchants to make payments ? Do you worry that the information you provide to well known major merchants could be stolen as their databases are hacked as seems to happen regularly ? Do you wonder why merchants need to have access your credit card information ?

What if when you went to pay for goods online, or using merchant point of sale terminals, you were diverted to your bank’s credit card site where you could make payment using a secure transaction and have the bank send confirmation to the merchant that payment was made, without having to provide any personal financial information to the merchant. For recurring payments like monthly service fees the bank could provide an ongoing confirmation that expires on a date set by the purchaser. Would that make you feel more comfortable and more secure ?

I refuse to believe that in this day and age the technology to do this does not exist and I refuse to believe that nobody has thought of this before. I can only wonder who profits from retaining the current unsafe and insecure system for making credit card purchases.

Banks and credit card companies, are you paying attention ?

2021-02-13

Build a Better City – The Ultimate Reality Show

The worlds biggest reality challenge - two groups of 10,000 workers in 100 groups of 100 each face of to see who can build the better city on two separate plots of virgin land.

The first group has each team of 100 competing with the other teams each trying to build a better section of the city as quickly and least costly as possible. No collaboration is allowed and absolutely no social engineering is allowed. Shareholder rewards is utmost. This is the free market group.

The other group, the central planning group, has all 100 teams meeting and planning together before working on their individual sections where they communicate all lessons learned to the other group. Social engineering is required and the groups are required to consult with the people that will be living in the city in the planning process.

Who will build the better city ? Will it be the capitalists or the socialists ? Will the result be Ottawa or Copenhagen ?

2020-12-31

Happy New Years

Community

My New Years Resolution for our society is to no longer worship at the twin altars of individualism and technology but rather to embrace the saviour of community.

From the industrial revolution to the high tech revolution we have deluded ourselves that technology would solve all our problems. While technology may indeed have made the lives of the wealthy better, those at the bottom see much fewer of it's benefits and I have no doubt that it has contributed to the growing inequality in our society.

Individualism has been just as disappointing a solution to our problems benefiting only a select few individuals at the top with very little benefit “trickling down” to the bottom.

The fact is our problems are not technological but social and require sociological solutions. We are at our best when we work together as communities to improve the lives of everyone. If we want to build a better society we have to build better communities that serve everyone not just the privileged few.

We could even call this “communityism” but that's a bit awkward sounding so instead let's just go with social democracy.

Postscript

Philosophically thinking about the meaning of life and how our lives are just a tiny speck in the space-time continuum and how if you are someone who believes in community you will realize the only rational reason for living is to make other peoples lives better, while if you are an individualist you had better just hurry up and acquire as much stuff as you can before your time runs out.

2020-11-14

Can America Be Saved

 I am writing this as a citizen of a world that no matter where we live are strongly impacted by whatever America does and whatever happens in America

America is celebrating but it will take a lot more than the end of the Trump presidency to save America. Trump promoted and encouraged, and even used the office of the presidency to legitimize the worst of America. The worst of America existed before Trump, was made stronger with Trump, and will continue after Trump. It's proponents may even become more strident.

Saving America will require government policy changes, legislative changes and even constitutional changes, but most of all cultural changes.

The toxic and partisan nature of American politics is not going away quickly or easily and the politicians are not going to solve America's problems. Toxic partisanship means ideas from the other side are rejected and fought against because they came from the other side and are thus seen as evil. In the rare case they may be seen as good ideas they are opposed rather than supported so the other side cannot take credit for them.

How are Americans to come together to solve their problems in this political atmosphere. I would propose a constituent assembly of Americans to propose solutions together. This assembly should be diverse, include all incomes, occupational groups and the unemployed, come from all regions, religions, including the non-religious, and include people of all sexual orientations and gender identification. It should also represent a broad variety of political philosophies while purposely not considering party affiliations in the choice of participants.

They should sit down together as Americans to find away to make America the country that it can be and their political leaders should commit to implementing the required changes no matter how difficult it will be politically.

Now I can stop here and say let Americans fix America, but being who I am I cannot do that without proposing some solutions for some of the most obvious and worst problems facing America.

We just came through an American election so let us look at that first.

Election day is when almost all elected American officials are elected, federal, state and local. Nobody talks about this but that in itself is a major problem for democracy. Voters are expected to be able to make choices about who they want to represent them for a large multitude of offices. Can they really absorb and analyze all the information necessary to make informed decisions. This system, I believe, encourages voters to just give up on deciding who to vote for and just vote a straight "party ticket", further strengthening the hold of toxic partisanship on America's political culture.

The other fact, strange to me and I suspect the rest of the world outside America, is that America holds 50 separate elections for federal offices each with separate rules. How can every vote be equal when there are 50 different sets of rules for voters.

And then there is the election of the President by the Electoral College where some states elect more than twice as many electors per voter as other states, not to mention the fact that the winner take all system means close to 50 percent of a states votes may not count at all in the presidential election if the parties are close in that state.

The Electoral College supposedly protects the minority from the tyranny of the majority but is that not the Senate's role where Senators elected by a minority of voters have a veto over legislation passed by Representatives representing a majority of voters. The Electoral College system is more akin to the Tyranny of the Minority. Everyone voting for President should have an equal vote otherwise the President does not represent all Americans equally.

We have not even mentioned the fact the elections are run and controlled by (state) politicians where gerrymandering, voter suppression and other shenanigans are considered fair game as long as you can get away with it. American elections are simply a power game with only lip service played to democracy.

Other countries do it differently. Elections cannot be fair if they are controlled by one of the parties seeking office. America needs to have an impartial non-partisan agency to control their elections, and for federal elections the rules must be the same for all Americans. America should look at the Elections Canada model, perhaps the fairest and most effective model in the world, that not only ensures elections are fair but facilitates encourages the electorate to get out and vote.

‘A crazy system’: U.S. voters face huge lines and gerrymandering. How Elections Canada makes a world of difference north of the border (Toronto Star)

Elections Canada says its system protects Canadian voters from U.S.-style drama (CBC News) 

And then we have the American justice system where we have a misguided understanding of what democracy means.

In a democracy the laws should certainly be written by the elected representatives. However the application of those laws and the adjudication of them is something that must be done according to those laws, not according to the whims of public opinion. The police and prosecutors should enforce the law as it is written and judges should interpret it that way. There should never be a conflict between doing the right thing and keeping their jobs. But this is exactly what making these positions elected positions does. It makes law enforcement and the courts a matter of political partisanship and public opinion where they should only be guided by law and fact. We see this extended to an extreme in the appointment process for the United States Supreme Court.

The United States must depoliticize the legal and court system if it wants to be a true democracy and it must reform the Supreme Court appointment process.

They would be wise to look at the Canadian experience where one cannot predict how Canadian Supreme Court justices will rule based on who appointed them.

Nothing separates America from the rest of the western world more than the violent nature of their society, and in particular American gun culture, which is somehow grounded in the Second Amendment, considered part of the United States Bill of Rights.

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed [Second Amendment to the United States Constitution - Wikipedia]

Oddly most Americans, apparently including their Supreme Court, seem to ignore the first part of that statement.

Why a clause providing a right to own the means of mass murder would be included in a document intended to protect human rights only the Americans can answer, but I suspect the answer would not be very convincing.

The most compelling argument seems to be that America has become such an irreversibly dangerous and violent and lawless society that it is a necessity for everyone to be armed. I prefer to retain hope that America need not be such a society. However, regulating and reducing gun ownership is an absolute necessity to eliminating American's crime and violence epidemic.

The rest of the civilized world seems to manage quite well by considering firearms ownership to be a highly regulated privilege similar to automobile ownership but America seems to believe it is still living in the era of the wild west.

Compounding the problem of the Second Amendment is the American absolutist approach to rights, which makes it not only impossible to properly regulate gun ownership but also makes it near impossible to outlaw hate speech or prevent terrorist white supremacist war lords from forming private armies and using them to intimidate other citizens, usually non-whites or non-Christians, not to mention their threat to democracy itself.

A charter of rights need not be absolutist, as clause 1 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms demonstrates:

1. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society. [Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms - Constitution Acts, 1867 to 1982]

I must say that the Supreme Court of Canada has done an admirable job in interpreting that clause in a reasonable fashion, without any sign of political partisanship.

We have looked at issues that have the most obvious legislative and constitutional solutions. We are not going to attempt to deal with all the challenges facing America today, including race relations, police misconduct, misogyny, sexual inequality, LBGTQ rights, Islamophobia, anti-science attitudes, and on and on. Most of these issues require changes beyond public policy, changes to the social culture of America.

But we would be remiss if we did not examine the two pillars that make America what it is, and I believe hold it back from what it could be, the worship of unbridled capitalism and individualism, coupled with an irrational fear of "socialist" ideas.

Interestingly enough U.S. News & World Report has just issued it's quality of life ratings and the top 10 countries are countries with "socialist" ideas.

Meanwhile, under American capitalism income inequality today may be higher today than in any other era. As an example, Amazon's Jeff Bezos made 1.2 million times the median Amazon employee in 2017.

Of course he receives that income because he works 1.2 million times as hard as the workers that actually provide the services Amazon sells. It has nothing to do with worker exploitation or predatory business practices.

Amazon is only one example of how American capitalism has come to work. America is a long way from the theoretical pretense of fair profits and and decent wages and working conditions.

American capitalism is inextricably intertwined with American individualism and the idea that not only can anybody, but everybody, can become a millionaire. There is no need for redistribution of wealth when capitalism can create an unlimited amount of wealth. There is no such thing as limits to growth as the earth has unlimited resources and energy and the planet has an unlimited ability to absorb the effects of unbridled industrial capitalism. All of this of course is what the experts refer to as bullshit but it drives the American capitalist philosophy because it is a simple answer to so many complicated questions.

It is this frame of mind that links capitalism to individualism and the idea that if everybody acts in their own self interests the interests of society as a whole will be served and the somewhat related credo that "what's good for General Motors is good for America". This is what enables so many Americans to put the interests of the wealthy and corporations before all else and explains why so many voters tend to vote against their own self interests.

It also explains the hesitance of so many in America, during this global pandemic, to make small sacrifices of individual freedom, like wearing a mask, for the sake of saving the lives of their fellow Americans and their willingness to simply disregard the advice of experts when it is inconvenient for them. Contrast that with other western countries where the sense of community is much stronger than individualism and the infection and death rates are much lower.

Electing a leader that does not depend on the worst of America for his base of support will certainly help but if America wants to solve its problems it needs to build a sense of community. America has massive problems that will require much more than people seeking to serve their own self interests. They require people working together for the good of the whole society.

It is becoming obvious that the measures necessary to fix American society will require a tremendous amount of political will and fundamental cultural changes. No doubt the usual political observers and experts will all agree that that simply is not possible. We know who failed to even try, but can the American people Make America Great Again.

2020-06-07

Why #DeleteFacebook

Not because Mark Zuckerberg is a self-entitled white-privileged frat boy who based Facebook on an app he developed called Facemash to rate students “hotness”.

Not because of Facebook’s Predatory Business Model that leverages users and their friends personal information to maximize profits.


And not because Mark Zuckerberg is a Trump enabler who either supports, sympathizes with, or fears the American President's power.

BUT because no corporation should have the kind of control over the amount of personal (and in many cases corporate and government) information and data that Facebook seeks to have for the sole purpose of maximizing profits, and no person should willingly give them that.

2019-12-03

The War Against Holiday Diversity

They call it the War on Christmas, but in reality it is just an opportunity for a few people to get apoplectic, or is it apocalyptic, about the fact that some people acknowledge that many holidays are celebrated at this time of year.

Proponents of the theory like to claim that we need to get back to the origins of the Christmas holiday, to the “reason for the season”. But of course, the actual reason tor the season is the winter solstice and the pagan rituals celebrating it.

This is of course because the Christians did not know the actual date of Christ's birth so they simply piggybacked on the pagan celebrations in the same way their Easter piggybacks on the pagan Ēostre celebrations.

If the Christians want to get upset with anyone taking over their holiday it should be the capitalists. The Christians only have one high holy day during the season, Christmas. However, the capitalists have several, seemingly celebrated, at least in North America, by many more people (or should we call them consumers as the capitalists consider them) than Christmas. They have Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and Boxing Day, not to Mention Black Friday Week and Boxing Week. And then there are the December 25th celebrations of the Patron Saint of Consumers, Santa Claus.

We live in a multicultural society. We should consider it a “blessing" that so many of us celebrate different holidays during this time of year and can share them with each other. There is no reason for one group to claim ownership of the season or to be offended by holiday greetings that are inclusive.

Seasons Greetings and Happy Holidays everyone.

2019-11-18

Towards a Green Social Democratic Economy

Background/Context

Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit.[1][2][3][4] Characteristics central to capitalism include private property, capital accumulation, wage labor, voluntary exchange, a price system and competitive markets.[5][6] In a capitalist market economy, decision-making and investments are determined by every owner of wealth, property or production ability in financial and capital markets, whereas prices and the distribution of goods and services are mainly determined by competition in goods and services markets.[7][8]

Social democracy is a political, social and economic philosophy that supports economic and social interventions to promote social justice within the framework of a liberal democratic polity and a capitalist mixed economy. The protocols and norms used to accomplish this involve a commitment to representative and participatory democracy, measures for income redistribution, regulation of the economy in the general interest and social welfare provisions.[1][2][3] In this way, social democracy aims to create the conditions for capitalism to lead to greater democratic, egalitarian and solidaristic outcomes.[4]

The Green New Deal is an ambitious plan for how we can eliminate poverty and create millions of jobs while tackling the biggest threat of our time: climate change. It involves massive public investment in clean energy, transit and climate adaptation work. But the vision is bigger than that: it’s about transforming our entire economy to be safer and more fair, and give everyone a better life. First proposed in the U.S., the Green New Deal is now spreading around the world. In 2015, we joined with dozens of movement leaders to draft the The Leap Manifesto, a 15-point plan for how Canada can decarbonize its economy based on principles of justice. We’re excited about the Green New Deal because it’s even more ambitious than the Manifesto, and it’s being backed by both grassroots movements and politicians.

The Failure of Capitalism

If you are part of the 1%, or perhaps even the top 10%, of wealthy people that call themselves capitalists you are probably wondering what the nonsense of the heading above is. Capitalism is working just fine for you.

But if you are not one of the owners of the means of production, but are the means of production, part of the masses that actually produce the wealth and services that our society depends on you see it completely differently. Indeed even the capitalists themselves are recognizing the market system as it currently works does not serve society and are rethinking the idea that corporations only duty is to shareholders profits and are suggesting corporations also have a responsibility to workers, customers and society. Or at least they want the public to think they have such concerns as a means of placating the masses to prevent the complete abolition of capitalism.

Capitalism unfortunately is based on a lot of assumptions and mythology which simply is not true. Shall we look at some of them.
 
If everyone acts in their own self interest the interests of the society will be served is one of the basic tents of capitalism. Unfortunately it is just a poorly presented justification for greed.

The market will ensure fair prices and wages and an effective distribution of resources to where they are most needed. Clearly not working.

What's good for General Motors is good for America, or more generically, what is good for the mega corporations is good for the country and the society. Has the laughter died down yet.

Competition will ensure the survival of the best ideas and most efficient implementation of them and the failure of the poorest. UNLESS you are too big to fail, then state socialism will bail the capitalists out with the workers money.

No one is too rich and there is no need for income or wealth redistribution because the earth has infinite energy and resources and infinite capacity for development and the environmental impacts that go along with that and there are no limits to growth. Everybody can become a billionaire if they just make the effort. The poor are just lazy. No comment necessary.

Need I go on.

Fortunately social democracy does not require, nor seek, the elimination of private ownership. It only seeks to build a fair society where everyone can contribute with a fair distribution of wealth.

Inequality

We have all read the statistics on wealth and income inequality. It seems unnecessary to repeat them here. But here are a few citations anyway.

The world’s richest 1 percent, those with more than $1 million, own 45 percent of the world’s wealth. (Global Inequality - Inequality.org)

Last year 26 people owned the same as the 3.8 billion people who make up the poorest half of humanity. (5 shocking facts about extreme global inequality and how to even it up | Oxfam International)

Billionaires in Canada have increased their wealth by $20 billion over the last year, says a new Oxfam report on global inequality. In the same time, the 4.5 per cent of the country's wealth held by the poorest half of Canadians remained static. (Obscene gap between rich and poor, says Oxfam | National Observer)

Since 1990, the richest group of Canadians has increased its share of total national income, while the poorest and middle-income groups has lost share. (Income inequality - Canada and world results)

Income inequality in America is the highest it’s been since Census Bureau started tracking it, data shows (The Washington Post)

I wrote this about excessive wealth in an earlier blog post, THE FIFTH COLUMN: On Inequality, Democracy and Taxing the Rich – A Modest Proposal.

So what is excessive income and wealth. There are many ways to measure that, many statistical, but I propose a simpler definition – the amount of wealth and income where increases have no discernible effect on ones way of life or standard of living, where the increase is simply not noticeable in one's day to day life. Let's be generous to the wealthy in determining such levels. I propose an annual income of $1 million dollars and total assets of $100 million as the level that triggers “excessive income and wealth”. Above that no one notices without reading their financial statements.

The thing about excessive wealth is that it makes minuscule difference to the recipients but could make all the world of difference to the poor and underprivileged and to society as a whole if used for the common good. I will not even attempt to list what all that excessive wealth could do if devoted to the common good of society .

But there is another side to excessive income and wealth – it is highly undemocratic. The rich do not cling to their excessive wealth because it makes a difference to their daily lives. They cling to it because it gives them economic and political power. It is not just a matter of economic inequality, is a matter of political inequality.

Democracy is based on equality, one person one vote. Economic power is political power. Excessive wealth skews political power so that the wealthy have more of it. Excessive wealth is inherently undemocratic.

The argument that the rich are simply smarter or work harder simply does not hold water (to use an expression). The extremely wealthy are in that position because of privilege or in a few exceptional cases just plain dumb luck. But there is no moral justification for such extreme levels of wealth and inequality, particularity when you take into account the amount of economic and political power that provides which negates any sense of democracy we think may exist in our societies.

Climate Change

This inequality is taking place in a time of environmental crisis. No need to go on and on about the scientific consensus here. Just a few citations for the record.




Some people suggest the solution to climate change lies in the hands of a few big corporations. Others think it only involves moving away from fossil fuels. But in reality avoiding future environmental disaster requires a major remaking of our economy from one based on the concept of unlimited consumption, waste and growth to one based on sustainable living and sustainable development (remember that). We need to refocus our society away from the concept of increasing our standard of living, where standard of living is defined by how much stuff (energy and resources) we consume to one based on increasing our quality of life, where quality of life is defined by how satisfied we are with our life experiences, in effect by how “happy” we are.

Tackling Climate Change and Inequality: An Opportunity to Build a New Society

Too big crises at once. How do we prioritize our response. Fortunately we do not. This is indeed an opportunity to use our responses to both these crises to build a better society.

So let us first look at the so-called “elephant in the room”, the idea that actually doing something significant about inequality is an extreme radical idea that involves stealing the wealth of the mega rich.

Let us assume that we are in an economy where the richest people earn up to a million dollars annually, making more than 10-20 times the income of average workers and that the richest people could acquire wealth of up to $100 million dollars, 100 times what the average worker can save up in a lifetime. Then let us assume someone suggests that is not enough incentive for people to work hard and invest and we should change the system so the wealthy can earn unlimited incomes and acquire unlimited wealth gaining them the economic and political power that that brings with it. Those people would be called extreme radicals with crazy ideas. Rationally that kind of uncontrolled excessive inequality is the crazy radical idea that would undermine society, not establishing reasonable limits to inequality.

Tackling inequality will provide the political opportunity and funds to change our society to deal with climate change. We need to change the economic and political power distribution to do this and there will be economic disruptions and major economic change, which will be for the better in the long term.

How Do We Tackle Inequality

Let us look first at how we tackle the problem of excessive wealth (as defined earlier) and inequality.

Preferably we deal with this outside the tax system and only use the tax system to correct egregious behaviours that continue.

We must start with protections for ordinary working people. We need to start with a minimum guaranteed income for everyone, and not a poverty/subsistence level income but a decent middle class income that allows people to have a satisfactory quality of life.


When it comes to excess income we should set a societal standard that the gap between the lowest income and the highest income should not exceed twenty times within the society and ten times within any one organization. That leaves lots of room to reward hard work, education or risk taking.

On excessive wealth we hope corporations and organization revise their profit structure so it does not lead to excessive wealth, by reducing exorbitant executive salaries and increasing wages for the people that make the goods and provide the services that create the profits, spending more on making products and services better quality and reducing prices. The days when maximizing profits was the only corporate goal need to end.

There will, of course, be situations of such excessive wealth where drastic measures will need to be taken. They should include, where appropriate, simply transferring corporate ownership to workers co-operatives where the profits can be shared more evenly. They may also include the society, through government, taking ownership of enterprises and devoting the profits earned to the common good. In some cases corporate operations and practices will need to be realigned to better serve the needs of the society as a whole.

Where excessive income and wealth remains we will need to use the tax system to tax away any income over $1 million annually and any wealth in the form of assets over $100 million.

At levels below those that are extremely excessive we need to reform the income tax system reversing decades of tax reductions for high income earners and making it more progressive. We start with eliminating income tax on the minimum guaranteed annual income. Tax rates above that should increase progressively with new higher tax brackets at the upper end.

Corporate tax rates need to be brought back to historical levels before the massive cuts began.

What Type of Economy Do We Need

As we respond to the climate change crisis we must realize that the answer is not simply avoiding a catastrophe at this time by reducing our fossil fuel use and carbon footprint but avoiding future environmental disasters with an economy based, not on consumerism with it's inherent excessive consumption and waste, but on sustainability.

The 4 R's:

One guideline to this is the traditional 4 Rs .

1. Refuse: To refuse waste is often seen as a "radical" choice. As a consumer, the impact of refusing waste is a clear statement to the producer. This choice is a powerful one in that you refuse to take on the responsibility of waste and only wish to receive the wanted or needed product.2. Reduce: As you gain a better understanding of what waste is and the impacts it has on our natural, economic and social environments, reducing becomes a choice of consciousness. Reducing waste allows you to participate at any level.3. Reuse: Using conventional waste to divert it from the waste stream offers a broad spectrum of savings. From plastic containers to shipping containers, the reuse of a product introduces a second life cycle.4. Recycle: Though recycling is the last "R" in this though process, it has become the most commonly used element. Recycling is absolutely important in eliminating waste and will always be part of the ongoing process. Separating out recyclables from other waste is a responsibility that often lies with the end consumer. The problems that arise with recycling are usually the lack of knowledge and accessibility.

I would like to emphasize here that these are listed in priority order with the most important principle being saying no to environmentally unsustainable products and practices.

And “Reduce” has to be meaningful as we move from an economy based on consuming to one based on living.

For example, at a time when families are smaller why are houses bigger. A family of two adults and two children does not need a three or four thousand square foot house. A family with two parents and two teenagers does not need four automobiles. What happened to the family car. Appliances should be built to last twenty or more years. Even computers, tablets, smartphones, etc,. are at a state of maturity now that they do not need to be replaced every two years. When it comes to smaller items it is often the excessive packaging that is the biggest environmental problem. Why do we allow that when it harms the planet and adds unnecessary costs to both the producer and consumer. We simply cannot continue such a wasteful and unsustainable lifestyle. Clothing can be worn until it is actually worn out. These are just simple examples of how we can change our habits with little real impact on our quality of life.

Localism

I would add an additional, and perhaps most important, principle here – localism. A search of the Internet will find many different definitions of localism and environmental localism and political localism. Most of them relate to a certain degree to what I see as localism in this context.

One of the biggest users of energy and resources and contributors to climate change is transportation, and in particular the transportation of goods over long distances.

People make a great deal of noise over personal air travel. However there is a lot of good that comes with people visiting other countries, experiencing other cultures and getting to know other people. There is a also a lot of good to come from international conferences where people get together to try to solve the world's problems that can only be done face to face.

Certainly a lot of business travel, where people are simply travelling to airports and then to meeting rooms and only meeting like-minded people and only discussing internal corporate matters could probably be replaced with electronic communications.

But the big transportation waste of energy and resources (and carbon footprint) has to be the needless global transportation of goods that could easily be produced locally by local workers. There was a time when every town had a sawmill, a textile mill and a factory or two producing consumer goods and providing good paying union jobs.

Now most of our consumer goods are made in the same massive factories in China and most of our clothing comes from the third world. Capitalism is supposed to promote efficiency but when you add the amount of resources and labour to the cost of transportation to market, importing most of our goods from offshore is not efficient. The only measure by which this is profitable is the extremely low value we attach to workers in developing countries and on flags of convenience shipping lines. When you look at what wages used to paid for goods consumed in North America compared to wages are now paid for most goods consumed in North America it is pennies, or less, on the dollar.

But the environmental costs, particularly in terms of carbon footprint, are excessively greater than producing goods close to where they will be used.

Much the same can be said about food. There is a lot of energy and resources expended because we think we should be able to get anything we want from anywhere anytime. That was not even the case 50 years ago when many products were just considered seasonal. We don't need to just eat what we grow in our own backyards but we can adopt a more balanced approach to importing food. And we can certainly encourage more local growing of Canadian produced foods to reduce transportation costs and the related environmental impacts.

We need more than individual tokenism here but an economy built on these principles.

Community Infrastructure Building and A Green New Deal

Capitalism and the so-called free market may do a good job of maximizing short term profits but it needs tempering to serve longer term corporate needs and is a complete failure at serving social needs, often diverting funds to frivolous but profitable expenditures.

Regulations (including labour, environmental, and health and safety standards) can restrain some of the worst aspects of capitalism but only taxation can provide the funds necessary to fulfill our society's needs. This is why, as pointed out earlier in this post, we need a strong progressive tax system especially at the highest levels of income and for corporations.

As well as funding a social safety net in the form of a guaranteed annual income and universal health care and public education, not to mention police and fires services, defence and foreign policy, and on and on, taxation funds necessary public infrastructure.


This is where the proposed Green New Deal comes in. By building sustainable public infrastructure the public sector can set an example for the private sector on how to do development that is not harmful to the environment.

The most obvious example is transportation which has a huge carbon footprint. Locally improved public transit and cycling infrastructure can reduce the use of individual motor vehicles considerably, even eliminating it's need for short trips. Development of electric transport vehicles, particularly rail, can make a huge reduction in the economic and environmental cost of delivering goods, especially when coupled with production facilities (factories) closer to the final consumers.

The improvement of water, sewage and waste disposal facilities has an obvious environmental benefit.

As well, moving to a more people focused society, as discussed in the next section of this post, will see the need for more educational, arts and community facilities.

And we must not neglect to include publicly funded housing projects to address the chronic need for affordable housing. Public housing projects will provide an opportunity to develop and implement more sustainable building techniques and build housing that has much lower ongoing environmental impacts.


We now know the best way to provide affordable housing is through co-operative or mixed income housing that does not ghettoize low income earners, Hopefully a guaranteed income at a decent middle class income level will make this less of an issue.

All of this will, of course, provide an employment benefit, increasing the traditional Gross Domestic Product (GDP) standard of living measurement and more importantly increasing the quality of life of the population.

What Type of Society Do We Want

This is the big question. Do we want a society based on people not stuff, living not consuming. But first this.

The Robots Are Taking Over and Taking Our Jobs

Since the first stages of industrialization to the assembly line and beyond to modern robotics there have been two scenarios for this trend. One dystopian. One utopian.

The current capitalist economy tends to be leading us to the dystopian model. As automation leads workers to be more productive, producing more per hour of labour, wages per hour are going down. Workers are earning less for producing more. This is because, unlike early predictions, increased productivity has not led to reduced working hours but to increased unemployment. At some point very few people will be producing a large number goods for a very small number of people and the whole system will collapse.

A New Society For A New Economy

“Whoever has the most stuff when he dies wins” is a reflection of our current capitalist society based on competition where the goal is to prove yourself better than other people by acquiring more stuff, which may include fame and status.

There is a another, more utopian model. The expression "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs” reflects a society where everyone contributes according to their ability and has their basic needs met, a social democratic society.

Such a society will produce our basic needs in the most efficient way possible, taking advantage of automation and robotics to free people from the drudgery of producing excessive stuff. We will produce less stuff because our lives will not be based on the status conferred by owning things.

People will still work, but hours of drudgery will be limited and everyone will be guaranteed a decent middle class income. Education will be at the forefront of society with most people serving as both teachers and students. Education, the arts and culture (including writing, music, theatre, movie, TV and video production, etc.) and recreation will provide meaningful employment. There is a huge opportunity for localism here with hopefully a better balance of funding and earnings for local productions compared to international corporate financed productions and so-called superstars earnings.

Connections with the natural world will be emphasized with resource extraction of the wilderness being replaced by sustainable recreation and forms of eco-education and eco-tourism. Sustainable energy sources will replace those based on resource extraction.

A society based on living a more meaningful life will reduce alienation (Side Note: Karl Marx’s Conception of Alienation) and build a sense of community and reduce crime and conflict. While the first stages of new society will allow for some inequality, people realizing they do not want to measure themselves by how much more they own than everyone else will lead to the gradual end of inequality. The lack of desire for the consumption of excessive stuff will put less stress on the planet's resources and environment and avoid future environmental disasters.

And finally Karl Marx and Jesus Christ will rest easily in their graves.


Postscript:

For those asking what about our democratic institutions. That is a completely different blog post. See: THE FIFTH COLUMN: On Democracy