For those who missed Part 1:
EXCESS AND POVERTY – TIME FOR A REAL CHANGE? Part 1
2. A Possible Solution
We hear constantly about the boom and bust economy. However, our governments never prepare for the bust years while the going is good. There’s a certain arrogance about British politicians which tends to mean that offers of outside help are sneeringly turned away. We’ve seen it happen very recently in the matter of the EU’s offer of funding for the growing number of food-bank dependants. I forget who it was, but he wrote that poverty is the forge of revolution. Revolutions tend to be bloody affairs and I would prefer to see the need for one avoided by means of a rational discussion of the alternative that Bellamy describes in his two novels.
In the last chapter I mentioned that this would involve insulating the private individual, capitalist and worker alike, from the fluctuations in the national economy. By doing this, the first thing that would happen is that poverty would be completely eradicated, except possibly as a lifestyle choice. The manufacturers of hair shirts and décor for hermits’ caves would not need to suffer a drop in demand for their products.
How could this be achieved? Simply by doing away with money in the internal economy and replacing it with an annual/monthly/fortnightly allocation of credit points. No matter who and no matter what they did within the job theatre, all would receive the same allocation. I know you’re going to automatically object to this by saying that a street sweeper probably doesn’t deserve to “earn” as much as a brain surgeon, but I ask you this: If we didn’t have street sweepers, how long would it be before we were knee-deep in refuse? What if we didn’t have people who were prepared to clean public conveniences or keep the sewers free of muck build-up? So is the brain surgeon really more important that his/her blue-collar supporter? I think not.
I want to highlight something that is vital to our economy here: Work. We have relied, since around the 1980s, on foreign companies to provide that work for millions of our citizens. At the moment, because our local authorities need to pay people money in order to maintain the services upon which those companies and the workers themselves rely, taxes are levied against both parties. Rates payable by the companies and local taxation paid by the workers who live in the areas where the work is available. When, as we see now, there is reduced demand for the goods produced, more people become unemployed, and the local authorities are forced to pay out a greater amount in local benefits, such as relief from local taxation and support for those renting their homes. Equally, national government finds that, from a reduced base of taxpayers, they are compelled to pay out more in the way of unemployment benefits so that people can at least try and keep the wolf from the door. It is, when you stop and think about it, a crazy system.
Now, please consider an economy in which the population did not use money, but instead received a credit points allocation. What would be the benefits?
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Companies would no longer be required to pay rates for the land upon which their plant stands;
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There would be no need to worry about a reduced taxpayer base because taxes would no longer be payable anyway;
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Anyone becoming unemployed would be able to volunteer for any other kind of work of which they were capable, in an industry that was not adversely affected by the slump;
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No-one would fall into arrears with, for example, gas and electricity payments
Now: If companies did not have to pay rates, what would that do to their overheads? In the case of foreign companies, Britain would become a very attractive place to set up shop and that would provide this nation with greater employment opportunities. Further, if the companies were not required to pay the workers any wages, because they wouldn’t be needed by those workers, the pay rate could then be negotiated by the government or a Central Management Organisation (CMO) acting on the government’s behalf. This country would become a veritable magnet for foreign employers.
There is a complaint being voiced among certain members of the working class, spurred on by the sensationalist gutter press, that benefits claimants are a drain on the tax revenues that they provide to the government. If no taxes were payable this complaint would be automatically negated and, as should be the case already, we disabled people – who have taken no little amount of unjustified stick from this government – would be seen not as a burden but as providers of employment opportunities for our more able-bodied peers. At a single stroke we could end a situation that has continued since Victorian times – that of school children having to act as carers for disabled parents. Better known are those adults who currently save the Treasury a king’s ransom every year by being sole carers for their disabled partners and children.
In a money-less economy the kids would be able to concentrate on their homework and the often physically exhausted adult carers could look outside for help at no cost to either themselves or the nation as a whole. Can anyone honestly tell me that that would not be a massive improvement on what we have today?
Over at P.L.E.B. we’ve been discussing this idea of credit points allocation in place of earning a wage. It hasn’t met with universal approval, and I think that may be largely because people haven’t quite gotten to grips with the idea of a money-less internal economy yet, but the majority seem to be in favour of it. At the moment though, we’re all what our government would refer to as being of “the left” and we really would like to see some of the other political viewpoints represented there.
The aim is not to undermine or oust the wealthy, although I can see a time when the system described would make so much sense to other nations that money would quickly become obsolete and replaced with a system of international budget balances. For the moment, the idea is to bring a sense of stability to those who have jobs that are becoming ever more precarious through a combination of money market tantrums, stock market rumblings and the ever-onward pace of technology, and to encourage more inward investment into the nation by foreign companies that would not be faced with a yearly pay round.
There is absolutely no question of trying to exploit the worker with this idea. The way that the system is described by Bellamy shows that, if it was managed properly, no-one would have to suffer any harm whatsoever. Supply and demand at high street level would be monitored and managed by the CMO – it would be their main task – to ensure that after a learning period, there were never gluts or shortages. With the ever-growing popularity of the internet as a shopping method, online ordering would become more and more the norm, with goods being delivered to the purchasers’ doorsteps.
In a society where money didn’t exist, and where all transactions were either between a business and a consumer, or between two consumers where a registration document was required (private car transfer for example) where would a drug peddler find a profit? In a society where everyone had the means allocated to them to buy the products of their choice, why would youths need to rob schoolchildren of their mobile phones?
Why issue a credit points allocation at all? Mainly to act as a brake upon those who would go daft and try and over-purchase items or food. There would be no need to do this, but when you’ve lived with almost nothing, the fear that it could somehow all be taken away at a moment’s notice becomes a very deeply ingrained and real terror. We could completely ELIMINATE poverty within our borders forever by using this system.
I hope you will join me again tomorrow for a little of the nitty-gritty that has surfaced from the group’s discussions so far.
