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What's your kind of revolution?

The siege of London would take fucking ages as well, unless it was betrayed from within we would be looking at starving the CofL out.
 
littlebabyjesus said:
I did a thread a while ago on a citizen's wage. I agree with you that administering it could be done entirely through the tax system – I would do it as a form of negative income tax. Tax rates for earned income would have to be higher than you set them, though, I think.
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Missed this earlier.

The Citizen's income would be at a level of around £10k per adult and £5k per child, with children entitled to receive their child (or adult) income directly into their state bank accounts from the time they leave home or start in taxed work. That adds up to a cost of around £600 bn.Income tax would be designed to bring in around £150bn (as it does now) but with a more progressive structure and more bands. Excess private profits would be taxed as income, with a penalty of 50% for income derived from capital against which no debt is secured. The remainder would be paid by the state-owned pension funds, which would be the only source of borrowed capital for private industries needing to raise money by issuing shares. It would be part owner in any industry which needed to turn to it, as well as receiving pension fund contributions from employers and central government.

Other government functions would be funded by a Land Tax, designed to collect twice as much as income tax (£300bn), sales tax on socially or environmentally harmful products, and profits from the state banks which would offer good value finance for start-ups and small business expansion, receiving repayments in line with inflation and risk of default and dividends from their nominal share of the business. Once the loan is paid off, the state bank will continue to own 10% of the shares of the business and to receive dividends from excess profits and a share of proceeds from sale of the business.

The numbers work. I'd love kabbes to crunch them for us though. He'll spot all sorts of flaws in the plan, but nowt that he won't be able to fix.
 
DotCommunist said:
The siege of London would take fucking ages as well, unless it was betrayed from within we would be looking at starving the CofL out.
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There's plenty of fair-minded types in the City. kabbes is with us, and he is not alone in despising everything about what he does. There's plenty of lamp-posts for the rest. The government has been mistreating its security services left, right and centre so we can expect the traditional support from military and police to make itself known early on and offer a really simple choice for the key villains: repent, surrender your wealth, or face the judgement of the people in a trial which will last as long as there are citizens wishing to ask you questions and record their verdict.

Join us, or let the people decide your fate.
 
ymu said:
Other government functions would be funded by a Land Tax, designed to collect twice as much as income tax (£300bn), sales tax on socially or environmentally harmful products, and profits from the state banks which would offer good value finance for start-ups and small business expansion, receiving repayments in line with inflation and risk of default and dividends from their nominal share of the business. Once the loan is paid off, the state bank will continue to own 10% of the shares of the business and to receive dividends from excess profits and a share of proceeds from sale of the business.
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I basically agree with this. Ie, a big, fuck-off version of Germany's Landesbank, with all private alternatives prohibited, although I would allow autonomous cooperative banks too. However, there is one problem with the idea of pegging loans to the rate of inflation, which is that interest due on loans is a major driver of inflation – I would argue that it is the fundamental driver of inflation. Is there a new model that can do away with loans for interest altogether? Thinking about it, I do reckon this would be preferable.
 
thing is i'm just not sure whether this would be achievable under capitalism, since the countries which are more sort of "social democratic" than ours are also starting to make massive cutbacks, not on the same scale tho ... yet. i tend to agree with Lletsa when he's stated in previous posts that even a sort of pre-1979 type labour gov't making slight "reforms" wouldn't really be possible any more, and imo the only way some of the things that i would like to see in society would get put in place would be through a revolution. hopefully it could be achieved without much violence, but i have my doubts.

i don't know, though. to be honest i'm getting a bit disillusioned due to work-related exhaustion and i'd like some revolutionary optimism :cool:
 
The aim would certainly be to eliminate inflation, and to achieve a steady state of sustainable technology and stable trade agreements to supply our needs where we cannot be self-sufficient, funded by export with a compulsory balance of trade minimum of zero.

I'd allow both private and non-profit worker-owned banks to operate freely, in the absense of a stock market and limited access to existing capital. Transfer of shares would only be allowed via ownership by the state pension fund, which would buy any viable business or wind-up assets at market price, with other interested parties registered. The pension fund could then sell on its holdings to private individuals or companies or non-profit enterprises, but would require the approval of Parliament after a 3 month open public consultation. It would then be free to negotiate a sale at a time of its choosing, which could be many years hence unless the consultation indicated that private ownership would be preferable (expected to be common for a 'wants' based enterprise, to ensure there is plenty of room for the private sector in the areas it's really pretty good at). The entire financial and tax system is designed with investment in new enterprise in mind, ensuring that the incentives always point to creating new wealth in more efficient ways rather than holding income-generating savings in the form of shares in existing businesses.
 
Crucial to move away from the shareholder model, imo. Any business should be entirely worker-owned. No worker should be expected to work for a company that doesn't make them part-owners. That has to be a minimum for me, in order to transform our relationship to our workplaces.
 
frogwoman said:
thing is i'm just not sure whether this would be achievable under capitalism, since the countries which are more sort of "social democratic" than ours are also starting to make massive cutbacks, not on the same scale tho ... yet. i tend to agree with Lletsa when he's stated in previous posts that even a sort of pre-1979 type labour gov't making slight "reforms" wouldn't really be possible any more, and imo the only way some of the things that i would like to see in society would get put in place would be through a revolution. hopefully it could be achieved without much violence, but i have my doubts.

i don't know, though. to be honest i'm getting a bit disillusioned due to work-related exhaustion and i'd like some revolutionary optimism :cool:
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It's completely achievable. We have 90% support already. The only thing stopping the revolution is the belief that the revolution is impossible, or lies in some distant theoretical future. We're here now, and we have to stop this shit before it ruins us all. This is our land and we will run it for the sustainable benefit for all, and achieve full and fulfulling employment for all by dedicating all spare state capacity to training and the development of sustainable technologies.
 
littlebabyjesus said:
Crucial to move away from the shareholder model, imo. Any business should be entirely worker-owned. No worker should be expected to work for a company that doesn't make them part-owners. That has to be a minimum for me, in order to transform our relationship to our workplaces.
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The privately owned sector will have to compete with the non-profit competitors which will inevitably want to enter the market and who will get preferential interest-free loans from the state bank, contingent on rock solid business plans subject to amendment and review through open public consultation, informed by technocratic analysis and free business advice. The non-profit sector is just a private business which hands over all the profits to the workers and is run on a non-hierarchical basis with tasks being performed by those best placed to perform them. If private sector fatcats think they can compete on price or quality by grinding their workers into the ground and paying themselves obscene amounts, they're more than welcome to try. The non-profit model is more efficient in every way, so they will have to a good job of innovating if they want to survive.
 
Streathamite said:
The type of revolution I want - a worldwide revolution of the have-nots - will, I think, eventually happen, simply becuase capitalism cannot divest itself of its' ruling classes' greed, selfishness, callousness and myopia, and eventually (and exacerbated by dwindling resources) will simply push a critical amount of the planet's population too far. Then all holy hell will break loose.

I don't think people - here or anywhere can be simply written off as apathetic, selfish, lazy etc, or even disinterested in politics: I think they are frightened, 100% disillusioned with the western world's political classes, and in need of new ideas/ideals/inspiration. Which in turn WILL come from somewhere - they always have.

As for the timescale, I'm no nostradamus, but I think at some point about 100 years hence (thanks to peak oil) there will be a global societal breakdown
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If the cheap and easy to obtain oil is running out as fast as most predictions would have it, it will be a lot sooner than one hundred years hence.

Why do you think a global societal breakdown will lead to 'a worldwide revolution of the have-nots,' particularly if it's dwindling resources that brings it about? It's been the ability to exploit plentiful resources that enable us to have the luxury of thinking about such matters as revolution, as well as much else. Nine or ten billion people worrying about how to keep warm, fed and clothed (how to remain alive, basically) are not going to be pondering their ideal revolution. They'll take what they can from wherever its offered.
 
ResistanceMP3 said:
It's not that people are not capable interested in the closure/running of their local hospital/school etc, it's the lack of power/control that demotivates them. look at all the effort meetings debates and elections people put into footall, social life hobbies etc. people would quite readily redirect these effort if THEY were empowered I.M.E.
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I'm not saying people are necessarily incapable of running most things themselves. I'm questioning the idea that most people actually want to, because I see very little evidence for it, especially with the number of distractions contemporary society has to offer.
 
ymu said:
It's completely achievable. We have 90% support already. The only thing stopping the revolution is the belief that the revolution is impossible, or lies in some distant theoretical future. We're here now, and we have to stop this shit before it ruins us all. This is our land and we will run it for the sustainable benefit for all, and achieve full and fulfulling employment for all by dedicating all spare state capacity to training and the development of sustainable technologies.
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How did you come up with 90%?
 
LLETSA said:
In a situation where the dwindling numbers who are interested in challenging the capitalist system have never been so disorientated
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I don't believe that to be a case AT ALL; nor do I believe you have some special hotline into the thought processes and feelings of the 8 billion-odd people currently resident on this planet, such as to give authority to such a crass, simplistic assumption. It's positively dailymailesque, in fact
 
Random said:
Rather than focusing on what I want as an end set-up, 'my kind of revolution is about the process, how the changes are achieved and how they are defended. Which makes this a question of what we do in the here and now, rather than a series of demands, or a programme for a future society.

WRT final goals, I think it's unlikely I'd ever see a political system I entirely endorse established, but hopefully something that I'm ok with, and that's open to change.
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agreed, absolutely
 
mmm, to be serious for a minute- what we can take and hold. And that doesn't relate solely to material things. The discourse, political and personal, is stuck in this 80's dream world of ever expanding wealth that trickles down. two decades on and we still live that lie. The problem with benign revolutions is that they carry the seeds of their own destruction with them. I once heard a historian say 'History is not a story it is an inquiry'.

and it will be ctr.
 
LLETSA said:
I'm not saying people are necessarily incapable of running most things themselves. I'm questioning the idea that most people actually want to, because I see very little evidence for it, especially with the number of distractions contemporary society has to offer.
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This is bizarre.

The economic structure proposed in the OP wouldn't look very different, superficially, from what we have now. It would just encourage businesses to be run along cooperative lines, with profits being handed over to workers or re-invested.

One of my workplaces did introduce a flat management structure. Anarchic organisation in the workplace. Instead of senior staff doing management stuff they hated, it got done by committee, with every single member of staff sitting on at least one committee. The finance committee produced a massive surplus in year one just by managing the money well, meaning the H&S committee could get us all decent desks and the IT committee could finish upgrading the computers early and get us a poster printer. It meant everyone worked with everyone else in one way or another, and people could to some extent write their own job descriptions by choosing how much time to devote to their committee work, or to produce tools for the organisation as whole.

Are you saying people wouldn't prefer to work in a place like that, or that it wouldn't be more productive if they did?
 
LLETSA said:
I know; but there's a big difference between ticking a box every so often and having a life of permanent meetings, debates and elections. And these days it's so much easier to think fuck it and watch the telly or a DVD. Or go on the PlayStation.
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I think that powerlessness is what causes the feeling of wanting to fuck it all. "Learned helplessness" is the psychological jargon - if your attempts to have control over your life are constantly thwarted then you're likely to stop even trying. I know that you think that the distractions are what are preventing people taking control but I see it as exactly the opposite way - that a generation that has seen working class organisation smashed is reacting by turning inwards, quite naturally.
 
Random said:
I think that powerlessness is what causes the feeling of wanting to fuck it all. "Learned helplessness" is the psychological jargon - if your attempts to have control over your life are constantly thwarted then you're likely to stop even trying. I know that you think that the distractions are what are preventing people taking control but I see it as exactly the opposite way - that a generation that has seen working class organisation smashed is reacting by turning inwards, quite naturally.
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I think that's exactly right. I've been talking to everyone I possibly can about this shit for the last year - I go to Tesco's at 3am and interrogate the workers :D - and they all know what's going on, they just don't know what we can do about it. They're hopping mad, but they know Labour is no alternative, and bloody revolution is not part of most people's outlook, so they're stuck. What can we do when a million people hitting the streets of London fails to change anything?
 
Captain Hurrah said:
Blimey. Do you just chat, or harangue the night shift?
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I was promoting the March 26th demo. I don't harangue anyone - if you check, I reported on what they said, not what I told them.

The lovely lady who always takes pity on me and opens a till when I'm struggling with the self checkout couldn't get to London that day, and isn't on the internet but she told her kids and mates all about it. The guys who restock the dairy section were planning to get a couple of cars together and park up at Hillingdon to get the tube in. The guy on the dry boxes reckons Osborne's off his head if he thinks there's going to be any more jobs created when there's no money around and the girl sorting out the deli counter wants to know how she can keep her job if they cut her housing benefit.

The guy at the boatyard thinks they're off their heads if they think they can create jobs without investment. The BW guys who came round to tie us up again when someone reported our boat adrift want to know where these fucking jobs are that Osborne keeps talking about. One of them got made redundant with no notice, just told not to come back after the end of the month. They've no faith in the unions - talk a good game, get nothing. They said they'd look out for the Unison coaches heading from Brum.

We've got an army out there. :cool:
 
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