What's your kind of revolution?

[weltweit]

There seems to be a lot of idealistic stuff on this thread ...

 

[_angel_]

Has anyone mentioned a citizen's wage yet?

 

[ymu]

no money, no wages, nationalise all property and business, free shops, free restaurants, free food, free housing, jobs for all. all under our control. what could be simpler?

Huge bureaucracy, five year plans, rationing, waste, compulsory jobs, compulsory hours.

Bollocks to that.

 

[ymu]

Has anyone mentioned a citizen's wage yet?

OP covers it.

 

[audiotech]

The 'free market' madness of planned obsolescence by cartels will go, so no more dumping of electronic waste in Africa. Ghana is becoming the worlds trash bin.

Due to shortages, there was the complete opposite of planned obsolescence in former communist states. For example in East Germany a fridge and a washing machine was made to last 25 years.

There are presently campaigns and a radical re-think of planned obsolescence - a revolution is underway.

 

[ymu]

This madness will go.

Oh yes. The whole of society will be focused on providing for needs as cheaply and efficiently as possible so we can all spend our time and money persuing wants in our increased leisure society. If a policy doesn't shorten the working week or raise the overall standard of living, it won't be passed.

 

[discokermit]

Huge bureaucracy, five year plans, rationing, waste, compulsory jobs, compulsory hours.

Bollocks to that.

yes, because it makes sense to base whay we do on stalinist russia. which had money, by the way.

actually it'll be less bureaucracy, planning to produce what we want/need, no rationing, less waste, far less hours.

 

[discokermit]

is there still profit in your model, ymu?

 

[ViolentPanda]

lbj, could you please fuck off with the yoghurt-weaving, patronising green shite. It might be your kind of revolution, but it's not one people are going to sign up to.

That's ever-so-slightly authoritarian of you!

We will rescue the economy with massive investment in sustainable technologies, buying up derelict properties and making them fit for non-profit rental, and building dense, sustainable communities where public transport can easily serve all needs, and subsidise rural public transport on an overall non-profit basis.

You can't tell people to reduce their carbon footprint. You can only give them better options than wasting money on owning a car.

So, fuck off with the preachy nonsense, eh? We need everyone to sign up to this revolution, not just a few hair-shirt genocidalists.

Call them "Malthusians". Calling them what they are is even more insulting than calling them "genocidalists".

 

[ymu]

yes, because it makes sense to base whay we do on stalinist russia. which had money, by the way.

actually it'll be less bureaucracy, planning to produce what we want/need, no rationing, less waste, far less hours.

Fuck's sake. I know the USSR was brilliant in many ways, but it wasn't perfect, and I'm a perfectionist, dammit.

Yes, there will be profit. And it will all be taxed as income unless it is reinvested in new capital. The profit will have to go to the workers because otherwise it goes to the Treasury, and incomes have to be more equal because there is a maximum wage and a reasonable minimum wage and an automatic safety net which acts as a massive tax rebate for everyone. Those on low incomes will have a negative tax bill, those on high incomes will pay more in tax than they receive in citizen's income. People with kids are guaranteed to be comfortably well off, if not rich.

There will be planning to make sure every sector is adequately managed, and any essential but loss-making industries will be taken into full or part ownership by the state. Worker-owned co-operatives will be eligible for interest-free loans and non-repayable grants from the state bank for setting up new worker-owned non-profit enterprises, and for worker buy-outs of failing private sector companies.

Set it up like this, and normal life is barely disrupted, but all the pressures are towards an economically democratic society where the workers decide how much different efforts should be rewarded. Income would become highly correlated with age and experience, and education and training would be available to everyone throughout their lives.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Call them "Malthusians". Calling them what they are is even more insulting than calling them "genocidalists".

I'm not a Malthusian. The likes of lletsa are Malthusians. But concern for sustainability and the desire to see it woven (using yoghurt if necessary) into any plan for change doesn't make you a hippy.

It actually is part of being a Marxist, if that is one's persuasion.

 

[Captain Hurrah]

yes, because it makes sense to base whay we do on stalinist russia. which had money, by the way.

actually it'll be less bureaucracy, planning to produce what we want/need, no rationing, less waste, far less hours.

It's either a 'nicer' form of capitalism, or Stalinism.

 

[ViolentPanda]

I'm not a Malthusian. The likes of lletsa are Malthusians. But concern for sustainability and the desire to see it woven (using yoghurt if necessary) into any plan for change doesn't make you a hippy.

It actually is part of being a Marxist, if that is one's persuasion.

I didn't say that you are a Malthusian, I was making the point that anyone who is "genocidalist" should be called by their proper name- Malthusians.

 

[discokermit]

Fuck's sake. I know the USSR was brilliant in many ways, but it wasn't perfect, and I'm a perfectionist, dammit.

it was well shit. i was being sarky.

 

[discokermit]

It's either a 'nicer' form of capitalism, or Stalinism.

what? having no money?

 

[discokermit]

Fuck's sake. I know the USSR was brilliant in many ways, but it wasn't perfect, and I'm a perfectionist, dammit.

Yes, there will be profit. And it will all be taxed as income unless it is reinvested in new capital. The profit will have to go to the workers because otherwise it goes to the Treasury, and incomes have to be more equal because there is a maximum wage and a reasonable minimum wage and an automatic safety net which acts as a massive tax rebate for everyone. Those on low incomes will have a negative tax bill, those on high incomes will pay more in tax than they receive in citizen's income. People with kids are guaranteed to be comfortably well off, if not rich.

There will be planning to make sure every sector is adequately managed, and any essential but loss-making industries will be taken into full or part ownership by the state. Worker-owned co-operatives will be eligible for interest-free loans and non-repayable grants from the state bank for setting up new worker-owned non-profit enterprises, and for worker buy-outs of failing private sector companies.

Set it up like this, and normal life is barely disrupted, but all the pressures are towards an economically democratic society where the workers decide how much different efforts should be rewarded. Income would become highly correlated with age and experience, and education and training would be available to everyone throughout their lives.

that really does sound like a bureaucratic nightmare. and it only makes things a bit more equal. my way makes everyone completely equal.

 

[Captain Hurrah]

what? having no money?

Both systems use it. So would have Trotsky, when he was out of his military uniform.

 

[SpineyNorman]

The likes of lletsa are Malthusians.

Is he? I mean I don't know the bloke but from his posts I've read on here it doesn't seem that he's advocating Malthusian solutions, more that they're pretty much inevitable given the current balance of power and the coming scarcity in natural resources. I'm not sure he was claiming that Malthusian solutions were the only way to get out of it, more that those with power will allow large sections of the population to die in order to maintain what they consider a minimum standard of living. It's not a position I agree with but it doesn't make him a Malthusian, does it? (It is possible that I have misunderstood the definition of the term though)

 

[Captain Hurrah]

He isn't.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

He's Malthusian in his deterministic idea that we're all fucked, that somehow that future of us all being fucked is inevitable.*

He's like John Gray. Same thing.

Depends how you define 'Malthusian', clearly. But that's what I mean by it. lletsa has a distinctly Malthusian sense of impending doom. And I think he would probably agree with me when I say that he is like Gray in that regard. Most of what he posts could have been written by Gray.



*not meaning to patronise, that is talk down, to everyone.

 

[frogwoman]

He's not.

 

[discokermit]

Both systems use it. So would have Trotsky, when he was out of his military uniform.

i don't know what you're on about.

 

[Captain Hurrah]

i don't know what you're on about.

Ditto.

 

[ymu]

I didn't say that you are a Malthusian, I was making the point that anyone who is "genocidalist" should be called by their proper name- Malthusians.

I like to use language that everyone can understand, not euphemisms for the well-educated.

 

[discokermit]

Ditto.

as long as i'm not the only one.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Whatever, you grossly misrepresented my posts.

 

[Captain Hurrah]

as long as i'm not the only one.

Or have a strop and offer them out. On the internet.

 

[discokermit]

Or have a strop and offer them out. On the internet.

that sentence doesn't actually make sense. i mean, what is the 'or' in reference to? is there a post to which this makes sense as an answer?

 

[ymu]

Whatever, you grossly misrepresented my posts.

Fair dos.

But I'd appreciate it if you didn't hijack the thread with yoghurt-weaving stuff. Sustainability can't be other than on the agenda, but the purpose here is to outline an economic democracy, of the people, by the people, for the people. No more workers and bosses, just specialists in their areas, whether it be childcare or rocket science, administration or technocracy, shifting boxes or managing shifts for your workmates.

 

[Captain Hurrah]

that sentence doesn't actually make sense. i mean, what is the 'or' in reference to? is there a post to which this makes sense as an answer?

I don't know to be honest. Maybe it's kind of like starting a sentence using words without a capital letter.