Woe the (Neo-) Marxists!
Let's Get rid of Capitalism - by Tuesday!
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The
Campaign for Co-operative Socialism
A
Fair World Project
>>
For equality and ecology, peace, justice and co-operation >>
**
To help create a Fair, Safe and Peaceful world **
 |
| Co-operative Socialism - on the map - it's not Marxism! |
(See the excellent 11 minute You-tube RSA piece, ' by David Harvey http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOP2V_np2c0 and, for an explicit statement of the latter point, and the 22minute item - helpfully cited by Andy Conio- for the former.)
I look forward to Andy exposing his paper to us in greater length this evening, 29 November 2013, at 'our'/the Occupy LSX/Occupy London Economics Working Group..
For me, the matter is simple:
- capitalism is bad
- it is straightforward badness:
- based on three power mechanisms (bullying, bribery, brainwashing: Galbraith),
- to achieve one end (the continuance, in power, of those families in power)
- through their 'ownership' (theft) of the four non-labour means of production:
- land, law, knowledge and position
- and, that the replacement (of those five TRIP-Up 'economic' (sic) mechanisms: Theft, Rent, Interest, Profit and Un-equal Pay for work) is easily achieved.
All that is needed is implementation, not analysis.
Finally, its worth pointing to the parallel between alchemy and chemistry:
- for, say, fifteen thousand years alchemy evolved into a word-dense mystery, guarded by ineffective, often-deceptive, frightened and frightening magicians.
Then, along came Lavoisier and Dalton and all became ordered: chemistry replaced alchemy as a clear, accessible and applicable coherent set of knowledge: to the benefit of all (and the disbenefit of all, too! when it is co-opted by capitalism, etc).
Our task then is, I suggest:
- clarification and proposition about the problem (capitalism),
- clarity about the alternative, and,
- the highlighting of the ordinate metric:
- equality in all its aspects (vide 'The Spirit Level' and new equality-work being published by the academic community almost daily).
Hope that helps.
For all
john
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The
Campaign for Co-operative Socialism
A
Fair World Project
>>
For equality and ecology, peace, justice and co-operation >>
**
To help create a Fair, Safe and Peaceful world **
We are suggesting that the time has
come to help create the Global Co-operative Commonweal: a Global
Commonweal of Local Commonweals. A world, in other words, based upon
the evolving Co-operative, Values and Principles and Definition found
in the Statement on the Co-operative Identity from The International
Co-operative Alliance.
A values and political mapping,
suggests that Co-operative Socialism is found as follows: (* see
footnote):
 |
Co-operative Socialism - on the map - it's not Marxism! |
Centrally, we also suggest that the
concept of Co-operative Commonweal requires that we convert all
workplaces into appropriate co-operative enterprises, so that every
person, and every organisation, has respectful, time-limited
stewardship of land and knowledge resources, and that, thus, true
equality is sustainably created.
To do so, it is clear that we have to
transform the economic system in which we live, so:
o All people,
co-operatively and together, are in control of their lives,
o Where all
work is for the long-lived benefit of all: caring for the long-lived
benefit of the whole global ecology - and all its inhabitants.
This requires changes to the central
features of present-day economics:
o The ownership
of workplaces and knowledge used for profit,
o The ownership
of land and natural resources, and their use for profit,
o The practices
of money-lending and debt- and credit-creation for profit,
o Inequality
and insecurity of individual incomes,
o The
consequently created culture of rampant crime, fear, debt, and
insecurity.
Accordingly,
we work for each community to be in full, open, co-operative control
of its economic resources, ensuring that they are used for the
benefit of the whole of humanity, and for the benefit of the whole
global ecology, so that:
o Everyone has
the security of a fair, guaranteed income, and that,
o All
collective human activities are consistent with the Co-operative
Values and Principles, and that,
o Friendship,
care and stewardship with the planet is our central task.
>>This suggests the Seven
Point Action Plan for Co-operative Socialism - >>
- Co-operatives and peace, not corporations and coercion
Convert competitive, market-based
activities into workplace co-operatives and remodel monopoly
activities as community co-operatives: each co-op demonstrably
operating according to the Co-operative Values and Principles of the
International Co-operative Alliance, and with each co-op having
respectful time-limited care-ship, from the commonweal, of
appropriate land and knowledge resources, (See points two and five
for the funding mechanism to achieve this);
- Not-for-profit banking and financial structures as co-ops – Predistribution, not Redistribution
Distribute the
added-value created wealth from these workplace co-ops through
nationally collected, co-operative corporate taxation, distributed
into local, democratically-controlled, Community Banks, and, so, make
money and credit available for eco- and socially-responsible wealth
creation, community development and global care - and the conversions
referred to above;
- Step-wise abolition of money as access to needs – global stewardship for needs and care, not private resources for profit
Maximise necessary
service provision (health, education, libraries, transport, and so
on) on a co-operative, free-at-the-point-of-use basis: retaining
money only as a mechanism for access to discretionary purchases;
- Fair, Guaranteed Incomes - Equality of income for all - Pre-distribution not Re-distribution!
Introduce
guaranteed fair income for all, within upper and lower brackets:
based upon a liveable, fair Citizen's Income, and, so, do away with
the need for direct and indirect personal taxation – income tax,
sales taxes, and so on;
- Abolition of for-profit money - An end to usury/riba, and of banking as global warfare
Abolish
money-lending and credit-creation for profit, and, so, operate
banking as a community-controlled co-operative public service (See
point two above);
- Regulated inter-national relations – An end to global exploitation through financial speculation
Reintroduce
international exchange controls, a Tobin Tax, etc, as necessary
- All our sisters our brothers, and all our brothers our sisters – One in all, one for all, all as one, all in one
Make capital
grants (not loans!) to developing countries.
*******
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