Economics
The one expression that sums up a fair economic system, “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need”. Outside of a communist system of universal equal pay or the abolition of money, there will always be the relatively rich, the relatively poor and everyone else in the middle. People have different skills, vocations and aspirations. That means that economically you have an effect somewhat like a coffee filter or the distilation of oil. People find their own level at which they do best. I do not consider it fair that some industries are considered more prestigious than others. For example it is not fair that a highly talented nurse, craftsman, etc, should get paid less than an untallented person in a more prestigious job. Fairness is having people pay what they can afford to pay and not basing taxes on some abstract percentage that applies across the board, such as a flat rate income tax. I’m in favour of the democratisation of the economy, with large businesses being run as co-operatives. If a company goes into receivership, the workforce should automatically be given the opportunity to take over the ownership of it if they wish. Local services such as village shops, post offices an pubs should be community owned and run in instances where there is an absence of private publicans and shop-keepers. The existing system of publically funded healthcare should remain, albeit decentralised. The railways should be returned to public ownership. In the manner of mutualism I have no objection to private, personal property, as long as it isn’t used for economic exploitation.
Taxation levels should be set by local governments and the money spent at the source of taxation. Local governments should decide collectively decide how much money is needed at a national level, not the other way round. Council tax (tax on property) should be abolished and replaced with local income taxes that are graduated according to ability to pay. Capitalist governments please the wealthy elite so they can stay in office a few years more and now the free market has more say in politics than they do. National governments are being made redundant by their own economic policies, so we might as well reject the inherent authoritarianism of a national government and the greed of unrestricted capitalism. I think there is a case for internationalism. Workforces around the world are being made to compete with each other. Capitalism means that the gap between rich and poor widens as production costs (i.e. wages) are surpressed and profits rocket. We are divided against one another by ideologies and the capitalist system. Capitalist governments please the wealthy elite so they can stay in office a few years more and now the free market has more say in politics than they do. We hear so much about companies needing to be ‘competitive’ with India and China. Why should someone in this country have to fight someone in China for a job to line somebody else’s pockets? In reality the only way that would be possible is if they reduced the wages of their workers to those of India and China. Either they’d reduce the wages of the British workers to just above those of the Indian ones (a practical impossibility), or the Government would have to subsidise the companies for the total sum of the difference between the British and Indian workers – billions. Either way corporate profits indeed wouldn’t be effected, because either the British taxpayer or their workforce would foot the bill. Thus we see the inherent flaw of the global free market – profit, competition and unrestricted growth outweigh human needs. Of course what happens is that the businesses will often move to India and China or Eastern Europe, then sell their wares back to the West, where they’ve made thousands unemployed for a greater profit.
1. Big business would subsidised by the Government and 2. The Government should recoup the money by taxing the low-paid workers who work for the companies.
So in theory the Government breaks even, the companies make a killing and the workers get to subsidise the companies they work for twice over. Firstly by the companies taking more of their wages as profit and then them funding the companies through taxation.
It would also create a ‘race-to-the-bottom’ effect with workers working for less and less money in order to remain competitive in the jobs market. The result would be, as mentioned above, more workers requiring government assistance. Workers in low income jobs would probably pay little tax. They’d also require economic subsidies, so the argument that scrapping minimum wages would create more jobs, the new workers would boost the economy and they’d make up for the subsidies is a specious assumption. If the wages are below subsistence level the Government will have to continuously subsidise the low-paid workers and they might actually be better off on benefits if that is the case. They would get more financial aid and pay less tax if they were unemployed, so they might actually be better off not working at all. In other words being employed in such a low-paid job would afford them less spending money. In order for big business to boost their profits, everyone else must either earn less or be taxed more. The so-called ‘Trickle Down Effect’, where major industry’s profits ultimately benefit everyone doesn’t work in practice. What will happen is you’ll create more low-paid unskilled jobs and in the process widen the gap between rich and poor and reduce social mobility.
Gross Domestic Product is Deceptive
Overall GDP is not a good indicator of living standards and although GDP might well increase, wealth per capita would decrease. You are looking in terms of the benefits to overall GDP and more precisely the benefits to big businesses.
Flat Rate Taxes
The same goes for flat rate taxes: those who can afford to pay less pay more and those who can afford to pay more pay less. All highly inpractical and inherently unfair.
Politics
Politics should be decentralised and administered chiefly at a localised level, such as a county. These local councils would be fully elected by the electorate and would deal with all matters within their county, free of our current central government imposed laws. They could then pass laws and set taxes according to the needs of the people they represent, rather than what central government tells them to do. Police constabularies would maintain their current county and metropolitan basis. However, although I’m in favour of decentralisation, certain umbrella functions are desireable such as healthcare and transport networks. Foreign relations would also be a national matter. In a bottom-up system, a national parliament should be made up of a confederation of local councils as well as representatives of national interests.
A Refomed UK Parliament
A national parliament representing a confederation of localised governments should be composed of two elected Houses and an executive branch (the head of state), as is currently used in parliamentary democracies. Both Houses should be fully elected. The Lower House would be composed of elected members from local councils who represent the views of their constituents, free of party doctrine. For this reason I would prefer a party-less political system. The number of representatives per local council would be in proportion to the number of people in that county. The Upper House would be composed of the elected representatives of trade unions, co-operatives, the different faiths (including atheists and humanists), non-government organisations such as charities and experts (scientific, medical, techinical, etc) in vital fields. The Judiciary would be independent of both Houses. Existing Members of both Houses would be able to apply for their own jobs, but only within the above categories. The head of state would be independent of all other political groupings and their powers constutionally limted to whatever Parliament sees fit. Their role would be as a arbitrator within Parliament (in the manner of the Speaker), with the official role of opening and closing Parliament with its consent and agreement. I have no preference as to whether the Head of State is elected by Parliament, by direct vote or is hereditary, as I have no interest in a top-down government or a powerful Head of State. The Head of State should have as limited powers as is practical and the real power should be in a fully elected Parliament. If a republic is desired, the Speaker of the House of Commons (in the UK’s case) could adopt those powers currently invested in the Monarch.
The Environment
Without the environment we have nothing. That’s it. I really cannot understand people who think that making money – small pieces of paper and metal or their non-existent electronic representations – is more important than the future of the planet. Without going into the many different issues that effect the world’s environment, I believe that human activity should be geared around a sustainable future with the reduction or eventual abolition of any practices that harm the planet. There already exist plenty of off-the-shelf technologies that can help prevent further damage to our environment. However it appears that consumerism and capitalism conspire to prevent such alternatives being used to the degree that they should be.
Monotheism
Religion is a awkward topic and to simplify matters I shall stick to the monotheistic religions. My own personal feelings on the existence of God are essentially those of St. Augustine of Hippo – viz God existing within and without of time and space and bound by neither. Science works within the framework of the natural world, therefore anything deemed ’supernatural’ and not ahering to scientific principals is beyond the remit of science. Mathematics for example is a concept not found in nature. Numbers and equations are the means by which we quantify the world in which we live in, but there is no such thing as a ‘1′ in nature. You can have 1 of something, but that is not a ‘1′ in itself. As God is a supernatural entity if viewed from a religious or scientific perspective, science can neither prove or disprove its existence not more than it can prove the existence of numbers. Science is therefore not a good means of disproving the existence, but is a very efficicient means of giving natural explanations to things that were once considered supernatural or claimed to be the work of God. I am somewhat uncomfortable of organised religion in practice, with it largely discouraging free thought and often enforcing certain beliefs and values. However as this is not true in all cases I’m not totally opposed to it per se, but believe that it should have no political role whatsoever.
Nationality
There are negative and positive divisions of humanity, you cannot pretend that the positive ones don’t exist or that they shouldn’t. Patriotism is inherently a positive division, but with the potential to be perverted into a tool to brainwash the masses, i.e. nationalism. I look at identity as being in many layers. At the top you are a human being, then working downwards we may identify with religion, nationality, ethnic group, state, county, town, family, then finally you. I love the world, but there is a big gap between ‘me’ and the ‘whole world’, so I find it best to do it in stages. For example, aside from being a human being you will have closer ties with people with the same or similar language, religion, nationality, class, etc, simply because they are culturally closer to you as are their life experiences. It’s a matter of taking it one step at a time really and each step brings you into a larger community of people. The only difference in each step is that the closer they are to you the more they are likely to have in common with you. That doesn’t make them better or worse, just different and something to be celebrated. We are after all individuals at a basic level. There are things that make us different from others and that make some groups different from other groups. Although I see many institutions has helping to maintain the existing status quo, some actually are useful as a shared point of reference within a community. It would be undemocratic to insist on abolishing those institutions that are culturally defining, merely because it’s ‘politically desireable’. Adaption is perhaps a happier medium than either keeping the status quo or outright abolition – horses for courses as they say. The most important thing to do is not to turn those differences into a negative ideology.
In Marxist philosophy the abolition of nationality is considered important, as it is seen as an artificial construct of the ruling clases. Whilst acknowledging the logic of that and the inherent belligerence of nationalism, it is important to remember that nationality is an important form of human social identity, ditto religion. There is a difference between removing destructive an artificial differences and imposing global uniformity, which leads to the slippery slope of abolishing diversity in toto. I would argue that nation states are the cause of the problem, the fusion of identity with politics, rather than mere identity in itself. It is the state which actually makes borders and enforces the divisions through force.
Superstates
I tend to view multinational superstates in a similar way to the dominions of an empire. Comparisons are often made between the USA and the EU in an attempt to prove the EU could work as a viable superstate as opposed to merely a trading block (the latter of which I’m in favour of). The difference is the USA is a nation with a comon set of ideals that is run as a collection of smaller states due to its size. The EU is becoming a state formed out of dozens of smaller nations that lack a shared identity in anything more than ephemeral terms and wishful thinking. An EU superstate would be closer to a multinational state like the USSR or Yugoslavia, both of which disintergrated due to internal nationalist demands. The British Empire disintergrated for the same reason and the EU is riven with nationalism, as is the UK itself. Even Canada has effectively a dual nationality and the Quebecois are always threatening to leave. Most multinational states and empires suffer from internal nationalist divisions and as a reaction against such fragmentation become more centralised. The more nations there are, the more competing interests there will be and the more power has to be invested centrally. I really believe though that in the main multi-national states are really forms of empires. Tsarist Russia simply became the USSR – an empire turned into a republican superstate. The only time you have an exception to the multi-national superstate, is when Europeans have gone off and conquered a whole continent full of stateless nomads, sub-divided it and imposed a single national language, culture and values on it.
The USA went to war with itself over the issue of whether state or federal government was the master. The federal government won and was indisputably the master of the state governments. That happened in a country that has a largely uniform identity as a nation, but even then the issue of centralisation came to the fore. In multinational states and empires centralisation not only can result in the bloody suppression of individual national interests, but such suppression becomes continuous in order to maintain the state or empire. The USA didn’t have that as it was still the American nation and a liberal democracy, although there are of course those who did and still do view the South as a separate nation. Australia is another country along the same lines as the USA: a massive area inhabited by nomads, conquered by a people with a common language and national identity. The only way a superstate can be non-centralised is if a) you have a stateless area of land that is carved up, b) there is a single nation and c) you wipe out any existing people or at least take their lands off them.
Europe is more diverse at bedrock level than the USA or Australia. At their cores the USA and Australia have Anglo-centric values and codes with multiculturalism merely providing cultural diversity. Europe on the other hand has many different values at bedrock level, which are collectively regarded as European. However it would be somewhat pushing things to claim Turks, Swedes, Croats and Portuguese as being essentially the same people. Our shared history is almost entirely as a result of powerful nations conquering the weaker ones.
