Now Comes The Necessary Part Ontario Edition

Nevertheless, and irrregardless of and notwithstanding that federal-provincial jurisdiction exists the actions that are necessary for the next Ontario government to take are the same as those the newly elected federal government needs to take. It’s the same electorate and the same Canadians and the same solutions that are required.

To that end I am simply annotating my recent blog post to establish its relevancy to the Ontario election.

Now Comes The Necessary Part

We can argue all we want over whether the election was necessary but what is definitely necessary is the government tackling the pressing issues of the day, issues that have been pressing for decades and in some cases since before Confederation.

Indigenous Reconciliation

This is clearly an area where the primary jurisdiction is federal but that does not change the fact that both the federal and provincial Crowns have been responsible for the encroachment on First Nation's Lands and the denial of their inherent rights. The Ontario government has a clear role to play in reconciliation, along with the people of the province.

The longest standing issue in Canadian political history is the plight (struggled over what language to use here) of the original inhabitants of North America and the effects of European “discovery” and colonization.

[Side note: I often think the dictionary should define “discover” as “stumble upon”.]

The recent discovery of 150 (latest count Canada wide 6,000 and growing) unmarked graves at an Indian Residential School in British Columbia has focused Canadians thoughts on the treatment of North America’s indigenous peoples from unfairly negotiated treaties to the lack of clean drinking water on reserves.

People are finally realizing that it was not simply a problem of a few bad people abusing a few children in a few schools but a systemic policy of cultural genocide (“take the Indian out of the Indian”) seen as, in the words of the Indian Affairs Department, the “final solution to the Indian problem”. The facilities included such high levels of neglect and abuse that the likelihood of dying in an Indian Residential School was slightly higher than the likelihood of dying as a soldier in World War II.

Of course the term school for these facilities is inappropriate. Schools have graduates, not survivors.

It is no wonder there are problems in indigenous communities when the destruction of indigenous families and culture was government policy for so long.

Governments have committed themselves to reconciliation but what will that be. From my euro-centric viewpoint I would see it as a new social contract between Indigenous Peoples and the rest of Canada, something that will have to be achieved by consensus. But it will be up to Indigenous communities to decide when reconciliation has been achieved as they are the only ones capable of judging that.

[Another side note: Until then the flags should stay down.]

Health Care

Health care is an area where the primary responsibility is provincial. Indeed the national health care program we have now was pioneered by Saskatchewan under provincial jurisdiction. There is nothing beyond political will preventing the new Ontario government from implementing the measures cited below as an example to the rest of Canada.

Public health care, or Medicare as we Canadians call it, was first implemented in Saskatchewan in the form of hospital coverage in 1947, followed by full health care coverage following the 1960 provincial election. Federally the Medical Care Act was passed in 1968, followed by the Canada Health Act in 1984 which affirmed and clarified five founding principles: public administration, comprehensiveness, universality, portability and accessibility.

However in the over 50 years since then the system has stagnated, indeed it has gone backwards with the federal level of funding decreasing over time. We need to finish building the system and we cannot wait another 50 years to do it incrementally. The government must act now to extend the system to include:

- at least 50% federal funding

- a family doctor for every Canadian

- full mental health care, including psychology services where medically necessary

- full long term care for those requiring residential care

- full prescription drug coverage

- full eye care coverage

- full dental care coverage

- full physiotherapy coverage where medically required

Climate Change

Combating climate change will require a myriad of policy decisions that involve both federal and provincial governments, The new Ontario government must move to address this in the areas under it's jurisdiction.

The first warnings of climate change and it’s effects were noted over 50 years ago and the warnings have become more dire year after year with governments responding with lots of promises but little real action. The irony of all this delay is that the longer we wait to act, the more drastic actions we have to take to respond to this crisis. Those against taking drastic measures should have been calling for us to take action sooner rather than arguing against taking action at all.

The idea of starting new fossil fuel projects at a time when we need to start phasing out fossil fuels is simply ridiculous yet it is treated as a serious option in industry and government circles. How drastic to we want the measures to have to be when we finally realize we have to take action before it is too late.

From an economic point of view there are a tremendous number of opportunities available in the renewable energy sector. Call it whatever you want but the concept of a Green New Deal may be the economic and environmental salvation of our future.

Inequality & Under-taxation

Inequality requires tackling the problem at both ends. At the bottom we need to bring workers income and wealth up. As most workers and jobs fall under provincial jurisdiction it is clearly the Ontario government’s responsibility to increase minimum wages and employment standards, the most important being to make it easier for all workers, especially those in the so-called “gig economy”, to unionize. Also it is well within the province’s jurisdiction to establish a guaranteed basic income to eliminate poverty.

At the other end of the scale, the overpaid and overwealthed, the province has all of the tax measures available to them that the federal government has to redistribute income. To the extent that the income tax system is harmonized with the federal system the province always has the option to do as Quebec has and separate it’s income tax system from the federal one.

Ever since the creation of capitalism there has been inequality because the system is designed to create and reward inequality.

However I have to say that during my lifetime (since the 1950s) it has become noticeably worse. One factor is that the wealthy capitalists have moved the means of production to low wage countries so that their portion of the rewards of labour has increased, while the jobs left behind in North America are lower wage jobs.

They have invented a whole new sector of the economy based on piece-work to avoid paying the existing minimum wages or providing employee benefits and they give it a snazzy sounding name, the gig economy, to try to convince people they are freeing them from wage drudgery and letting them be their own boss when in reality the corporation has more control over them than if they were unionized wage workers.

At the same time the taxation of corporations and the wealthy has declined, partly in response to corporate blackmail threatening to take more jobs elsewhere if they are forced to pay fair levels of taxation.

It is also because wealth equals political power and excessive wealth equals excessive political power and that power is used to enact polices that favour the wealthy.

Governments need to enact policies that are actually designed to serve working people and dedicated to their well being, policies that will counter inequality and under-taxation.

Let us start with decent minimum wages and labour laws designed to encourage and assist workers in organizing unions. Minimum wages should not be designed to keep workers just above the poverty line but designed to provide workers with a middle class income. Our economy has the money to do that it just requires a little redistribution from those with excessive wealth to the people that actually produce that wealth.

We also need a guaranteed basic income for those that for whatever reason are unable to be employed at any particular time.

We can increase employment by redistributing money from the private sector to the public sector via a tax on excessive income and wealth to provide jobs building public infrastructure and affordable housing for everyone.

As for taxation, we can start by raising the level at which people start paying income taxes and increase the amount of tax paid in the higher marginal tax brackets. We also need dedicated taxes on excessive levels of income and wealth. I would tax away all excessive income (above $1,000,000 annually and all excessive wealth (above $100,000,000) but I do not expect any government to go near that. However that leaves a huge amount of room for a wealth tax that will have little practical impact on the standard of living of the excessively wealth while providing great benefit to the common good.

This is not in any way proposed as a punishment but just a means for them to create a better country/world with no impact on their personal well being.

Electoral Reform

Ontario and the federal government currently share the same Single Member Plurality (SMP) electoral system. Both need to change. There is no reason Ontario cannot act first and set an example for the federal government and the other provinces.

Winston Churchill is often quoted as saying “democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms”.

Ever since democracy (“rule of the people” in Greek) was invented by they Greeks we have been looking for ways to make it less worst.

[Yet another side note: My Eurocentric education tells me democracy was invented by the Greeks but I would not be surprised if forms of democracy were being used in non-European cultures before then.]

The key to any democracy is the electoral system, how the people actually select the people to represent them in government.

The system we use now is Single Member Plurality (SMP), more often referred to as First Past The Post (FPTP), an objectively silly name. In Single Member Plurality systems the country (or other jurisdiction) is broken into constituencies and each constituency chooses a representative to send to the legislature. Whichever candidate receives the most votes becomes that representative. We use the term plurality because the candidate does not have to receive a majority of votes cast, just more than any other candidate.

The main benefit of SMP is that voters elect local representatives.

The main drawback is the elected candidates could possibly be the last choice of more voters than they are the first choice. Also theoretically a party could elect 100% of MPs with less than 50% of the total votes, though in practice a typical result may be more like 60% of MPs with 40% of the votes.

There are two main proposals to replace this system: Ranked Ballots (preferred by the Liberals but not in their platform) and Mixed Member Proportional (proposed by the NDP in their platform).

Ranked Ballots solves one of the problems of SMP in that it avoids the last choice of a majority of voters being elected as MPs or forming a government. It however will likely create an even less representative House of Commons based on voters first choice party preferences.

Under Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) a majority of Members of Parliament are elected in the same manner as SMP to represent defined constituencies. Then an additional number are selected from party lists in order to balance the percentage of MPs from each party with the percentage of total votes received by each party (often referred to as the “popular vote”) to form a House of Commons representative of the views of the total population. Under MMP there is usually a threshold of percentage of total vote required to be allotted seats, often 5%, to avoid radical fringe groups having representation. However if that threshold is met a party receives representation. But is not representation of all voters what democracy is about.

One of the main criticisms of MMP is that it is unlikely to provide one party majority governments (unless a majority of voters support one party). But is that not what democracy is supposed to provide, a legislature that reflects the will of the people. Would we not be better off if parties learned to work together for the common good rather than simply engaging in political posturing. By reducing the power of a single party in government you reduce the power of a single person (the majority party leader), and perhaps get back to actual representative government rather than the trend of effectively electing (even if indirectly) a dictator to rule over Parliament.

Changing our electoral system to a more democratic one, MMP, is the most important thing the government can do.

Conclusion

These are not the only issues of importance but ones that have not been properly addressed over decades and more. We need the political will to address them all now without the excuse that the solutions need to be implemented incrementally.

Both the federal and the new Ontario government need to act urgently on these priorities.

Towards a Green Social Democratic Economy

Background/Context

Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit.[1][2][3][4] Characteristics central to capitalism include private property, capital accumulation, wage labor, voluntary exchange, a price system and competitive markets.[5][6] In a capitalist market economy, decision-making and investments are determined by every owner of wealth, property or production ability in financial and capital markets, whereas prices and the distribution of goods and services are mainly determined by competition in goods and services markets.[7][8]

Social democracy is a political, social and economic philosophy that supports economic and social interventions to promote social justice within the framework of a liberal democratic polity and a capitalist mixed economy. The protocols and norms used to accomplish this involve a commitment to representative and participatory democracy, measures for income redistribution, regulation of the economy in the general interest and social welfare provisions.[1][2][3] In this way, social democracy aims to create the conditions for capitalism to lead to greater democratic, egalitarian and solidaristic outcomes.[4]

The Green New Deal is an ambitious plan for how we can eliminate poverty and create millions of jobs while tackling the biggest threat of our time: climate change. It involves massive public investment in clean energy, transit and climate adaptation work. But the vision is bigger than that: it’s about transforming our entire economy to be safer and more fair, and give everyone a better life. First proposed in the U.S., the Green New Deal is now spreading around the world. In 2015, we joined with dozens of movement leaders to draft the The Leap Manifesto, a 15-point plan for how Canada can decarbonize its economy based on principles of justice. We’re excited about the Green New Deal because it’s even more ambitious than the Manifesto, and it’s being backed by both grassroots movements and politicians.

The Failure of Capitalism

If you are part of the 1%, or perhaps even the top 10%, of wealthy people that call themselves capitalists you are probably wondering what the nonsense of the heading above is. Capitalism is working just fine for you.

But if you are not one of the owners of the means of production, but are the means of production, part of the masses that actually produce the wealth and services that our society depends on you see it completely differently. Indeed even the capitalists themselves are recognizing the market system as it currently works does not serve society and are rethinking the idea that corporations only duty is to shareholders profits and are suggesting corporations also have a responsibility to workers, customers and society. Or at least they want the public to think they have such concerns as a means of placating the masses to prevent the complete abolition of capitalism.

Capitalism unfortunately is based on a lot of assumptions and mythology which simply is not true. Shall we look at some of them.

 

If everyone acts in their own self interest the interests of the society will be served is one of the basic tents of capitalism. Unfortunately it is just a poorly presented justification for greed.

The market will ensure fair prices and wages and an effective distribution of resources to where they are most needed. Clearly not working.

What's good for General Motors is good for America, or more generically, what is good for the mega corporations is good for the country and the society. Has the laughter died down yet.

Competition will ensure the survival of the best ideas and most efficient implementation of them and the failure of the poorest. UNLESS you are too big to fail, then state socialism will bail the capitalists out with the workers money.

No one is too rich and there is no need for income or wealth redistribution because the earth has infinite energy and resources and infinite capacity for development and the environmental impacts that go along with that and there are no limits to growth. Everybody can become a billionaire if they just make the effort. The poor are just lazy. No comment necessary.

Need I go on.

Fortunately social democracy does not require, nor seek, the elimination of private ownership. It only seeks to build a fair society where everyone can contribute with a fair distribution of wealth.

Inequality

We have all read the statistics on wealth and income inequality. It seems unnecessary to repeat them here. But here are a few citations anyway.

The world’s richest 1 percent, those with more than $1 million, own 45 percent of the world’s wealth. (Global Inequality - Inequality.org)

Last year 26 people owned the same as the 3.8 billion people who make up the poorest half of humanity. (5 shocking facts about extreme global inequality and how to even it up | Oxfam International)

Billionaires in Canada have increased their wealth by $20 billion over the last year, says a new Oxfam report on global inequality. In the same time, the 4.5 per cent of the country's wealth held by the poorest half of Canadians remained static. (Obscene gap between rich and poor, says Oxfam | National Observer)

Since 1990, the richest group of Canadians has increased its share of total national income, while the poorest and middle-income groups has lost share. (Income inequality - Canada and world results)

Income inequality in America is the highest it’s been since Census Bureau started tracking it, data shows (The Washington Post)

I wrote this about excessive wealth in an earlier blog post, THE FIFTH COLUMN: On Inequality, Democracy and Taxing the Rich – A Modest Proposal.

So what is excessive income and wealth. There are many ways to measure that, many statistical, but I propose a simpler definition – the amount of wealth and income where increases have no discernible effect on ones way of life or standard of living, where the increase is simply not noticeable in one's day to day life. Let's be generous to the wealthy in determining such levels. I propose an annual income of $1 million dollars and total assets of $100 million as the level that triggers “excessive income and wealth”. Above that no one notices without reading their financial statements.

The thing about excessive wealth is that it makes minuscule difference to the recipients but could make all the world of difference to the poor and underprivileged and to society as a whole if used for the common good. I will not even attempt to list what all that excessive wealth could do if devoted to the common good of society .

But there is another side to excessive income and wealth – it is highly undemocratic. The rich do not cling to their excessive wealth because it makes a difference to their daily lives. They cling to it because it gives them economic and political power. It is not just a matter of economic inequality, is a matter of political inequality.

Democracy is based on equality, one person one vote. Economic power is political power. Excessive wealth skews political power so that the wealthy have more of it. Excessive wealth is inherently undemocratic.

The argument that the rich are simply smarter or work harder simply does not hold water (to use an expression). The extremely wealthy are in that position because of privilege or in a few exceptional cases just plain dumb luck. But there is no moral justification for such extreme levels of wealth and inequality, particularity when you take into account the amount of economic and political power that provides which negates any sense of democracy we think may exist in our societies.

Climate Change

This inequality is taking place in a time of environmental crisis. No need to go on and on about the scientific consensus here. Just a few citations for the record.

UNITED NATIONS UN Climate Change Summit 2019

Major Reports - Climate Change - A Global Issue - Research Guides at United Nations Dag Hammarskjold Library

Canada’s Changing Climate Report | Natural Resources Canada

Some people suggest the solution to climate change lies in the hands of a few big corporations. Others think it only involves moving away from fossil fuels. But in reality avoiding future environmental disaster requires a major remaking of our economy from one based on the concept of unlimited consumption, waste and growth to one based on sustainable living and sustainable development (remember that). We need to refocus our society away from the concept of increasing our standard of living, where standard of living is defined by how much stuff (energy and resources) we consume to one based on increasing our quality of life, where quality of life is defined by how satisfied we are with our life experiences, in effect by how “happy” we are.

Tackling Climate Change and Inequality: An Opportunity to Build a New Society

Too big crises at once. How do we prioritize our response. Fortunately we do not. This is indeed an opportunity to use our responses to both these crises to build a better society.

So let us first look at the so-called “elephant in the room”, the idea that actually doing something significant about inequality is an extreme radical idea that involves stealing the wealth of the mega rich.

Let us assume that we are in an economy where the richest people earn up to a million dollars annually, making more than 10-20 times the income of average workers and that the richest people could acquire wealth of up to $100 million dollars, 100 times what the average worker can save up in a lifetime. Then let us assume someone suggests that is not enough incentive for people to work hard and invest and we should change the system so the wealthy can earn unlimited incomes and acquire unlimited wealth gaining them the economic and political power that that brings with it. Those people would be called extreme radicals with crazy ideas. Rationally that kind of uncontrolled excessive inequality is the crazy radical idea that would undermine society, not establishing reasonable limits to inequality.

Tackling inequality will provide the political opportunity and funds to change our society to deal with climate change. We need to change the economic and political power distribution to do this and there will be economic disruptions and major economic change, which will be for the better in the long term.

How Do We Tackle Inequality

Let us look first at how we tackle the problem of excessive wealth (as defined earlier) and inequality.

Preferably we deal with this outside the tax system and only use the tax system to correct egregious behaviours that continue.

We must start with protections for ordinary working people. We need to start with a minimum guaranteed income for everyone, and not a poverty/subsistence level income but a decent middle class income that allows people to have a satisfactory quality of life.

Side note: Finland’s basic income is making people happier and healthier

When it comes to excess income we should set a societal standard that the gap between the lowest income and the highest income should not exceed twenty times within the society and ten times within any one organization. That leaves lots of room to reward hard work, education or risk taking.

On excessive wealth we hope corporations and organization revise their profit structure so it does not lead to excessive wealth, by reducing exorbitant executive salaries and increasing wages for the people that make the goods and provide the services that create the profits, spending more on making products and services better quality and reducing prices. The days when maximizing profits was the only corporate goal need to end.

There will, of course, be situations of such excessive wealth where drastic measures will need to be taken. They should include, where appropriate, simply transferring corporate ownership to workers co-operatives where the profits can be shared more evenly. They may also include the society, through government, taking ownership of enterprises and devoting the profits earned to the common good. In some cases corporate operations and practices will need to be realigned to better serve the needs of the society as a whole.

Where excessive income and wealth remains we will need to use the tax system to tax away any income over $1 million annually and any wealth in the form of assets over $100 million.

At levels below those that are extremely excessive we need to reform the income tax system reversing decades of tax reductions for high income earners and making it more progressive. We start with eliminating income tax on the minimum guaranteed annual income. Tax rates above that should increase progressively with new higher tax brackets at the upper end.

Corporate tax rates need to be brought back to historical levels before the massive cuts began.

What Type of Economy Do We Need

As we respond to the climate change crisis we must realize that the answer is not simply avoiding a catastrophe at this time by reducing our fossil fuel use and carbon footprint but avoiding future environmental disasters with an economy based, not on consumerism with it's inherent excessive consumption and waste, but on sustainability.

The 4 R's:

One guideline to this is the traditional 4 Rs .

1. Refuse: To refuse waste is often seen as a "radical" choice. As a consumer, the impact of refusing waste is a clear statement to the producer. This choice is a powerful one in that you refuse to take on the responsibility of waste and only wish to receive the wanted or needed product.2. Reduce: As you gain a better understanding of what waste is and the impacts it has on our natural, economic and social environments, reducing becomes a choice of consciousness. Reducing waste allows you to participate at any level.3. Reuse: Using conventional waste to divert it from the waste stream offers a broad spectrum of savings. From plastic containers to shipping containers, the reuse of a product introduces a second life cycle.4. Recycle: Though recycling is the last "R" in this though process, it has become the most commonly used element. Recycling is absolutely important in eliminating waste and will always be part of the ongoing process. Separating out recyclables from other waste is a responsibility that often lies with the end consumer. The problems that arise with recycling are usually the lack of knowledge and accessibility.

I would like to emphasize here that these are listed in priority order with the most important principle being saying no to environmentally unsustainable products and practices.

And “Reduce” has to be meaningful as we move from an economy based on consuming to one based on living.

For example, at a time when families are smaller why are houses bigger. A family of two adults and two children does not need a three or four thousand square foot house. A family with two parents and two teenagers does not need four automobiles. What happened to the family car. Appliances should be built to last twenty or more years. Even computers, tablets, smartphones, etc,. are at a state of maturity now that they do not need to be replaced every two years. When it comes to smaller items it is often the excessive packaging that is the biggest environmental problem. Why do we allow that when it harms the planet and adds unnecessary costs to both the producer and consumer. We simply cannot continue such a wasteful and unsustainable lifestyle. Clothing can be worn until it is actually worn out. These are just simple examples of how we can change our habits with little real impact on our quality of life.

Localism

I would add an additional, and perhaps most important, principle here – localism. A search of the Internet will find many different definitions of localism and environmental localism and political localism. Most of them relate to a certain degree to what I see as localism in this context.

One of the biggest users of energy and resources and contributors to climate change is transportation, and in particular the transportation of goods over long distances.

People make a great deal of noise over personal air travel. However there is a lot of good that comes with people visiting other countries, experiencing other cultures and getting to know other people. There is a also a lot of good to come from international conferences where people get together to try to solve the world's problems that can only be done face to face.

Certainly a lot of business travel, where people are simply travelling to airports and then to meeting rooms and only meeting like-minded people and only discussing internal corporate matters could probably be replaced with electronic communications.

But the big transportation waste of energy and resources (and carbon footprint) has to be the needless global transportation of goods that could easily be produced locally by local workers. There was a time when every town had a sawmill, a textile mill and a factory or two producing consumer goods and providing good paying union jobs.

Now most of our consumer goods are made in the same massive factories in China and most of our clothing comes from the third world. Capitalism is supposed to promote efficiency but when you add the amount of resources and labour to the cost of transportation to market, importing most of our goods from offshore is not efficient. The only measure by which this is profitable is the extremely low value we attach to workers in developing countries and on flags of convenience shipping lines. When you look at what wages used to paid for goods consumed in North America compared to wages are now paid for most goods consumed in North America it is pennies, or less, on the dollar.

But the environmental costs, particularly in terms of carbon footprint, are excessively greater than producing goods close to where they will be used.

Much the same can be said about food. There is a lot of energy and resources expended because we think we should be able to get anything we want from anywhere anytime. That was not even the case 50 years ago when many products were just considered seasonal. We don't need to just eat what we grow in our own backyards but we can adopt a more balanced approach to importing food. And we can certainly encourage more local growing of Canadian produced foods to reduce transportation costs and the related environmental impacts.

We need more than individual tokenism here but an economy built on these principles.

Community Infrastructure Building and A Green New Deal

Capitalism and the so-called free market may do a good job of maximizing short term profits but it needs tempering to serve longer term corporate needs and is a complete failure at serving social needs, often diverting funds to frivolous but profitable expenditures.

Regulations (including labour, environmental, and health and safety standards) can restrain some of the worst aspects of capitalism but only taxation can provide the funds necessary to fulfill our society's needs. This is why, as pointed out earlier in this post, we need a strong progressive tax system especially at the highest levels of income and for corporations.

As well as funding a social safety net in the form of a guaranteed annual income and universal health care and public education, not to mention police and fires services, defence and foreign policy, and on and on, taxation funds necessary public infrastructure.

Side note: Canada Should Be Spending $595 Billion More On Public Services Per Year

This is where the proposed Green New Deal comes in. By building sustainable public infrastructure the public sector can set an example for the private sector on how to do development that is not harmful to the environment.

The most obvious example is transportation which has a huge carbon footprint. Locally improved public transit and cycling infrastructure can reduce the use of individual motor vehicles considerably, even eliminating it's need for short trips. Development of electric transport vehicles, particularly rail, can make a huge reduction in the economic and environmental cost of delivering goods, especially when coupled with production facilities (factories) closer to the final consumers.

The improvement of water, sewage and waste disposal facilities has an obvious environmental benefit.

As well, moving to a more people focused society, as discussed in the next section of this post, will see the need for more educational, arts and community facilities.

And we must not neglect to include publicly funded housing projects to address the chronic need for affordable housing. Public housing projects will provide an opportunity to develop and implement more sustainable building techniques and build housing that has much lower ongoing environmental impacts.

Side Notes: Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design - Wikipedia and Canada Green Building Council - LEED Homes

We now know the best way to provide affordable housing is through co-operative or mixed income housing that does not ghettoize low income earners, Hopefully a guaranteed income at a decent middle class income level will make this less of an issue.

All of this will, of course, provide an employment benefit, increasing the traditional Gross Domestic Product (GDP) standard of living measurement and more importantly increasing the quality of life of the population.

What Type of Society Do We Want

This is the big question. Do we want a society based on people not stuff, living not consuming. But first this.

The Robots Are Taking Over and Taking Our Jobs

Since the first stages of industrialization to the assembly line and beyond to modern robotics there have been two scenarios for this trend. One dystopian. One utopian.

The current capitalist economy tends to be leading us to the dystopian model. As automation leads workers to be more productive, producing more per hour of labour, wages per hour are going down. Workers are earning less for producing more. This is because, unlike early predictions, increased productivity has not led to reduced working hours but to increased unemployment. At some point very few people will be producing a large number goods for a very small number of people and the whole system will collapse.

A New Society For A New Economy

“Whoever has the most stuff when he dies wins” is a reflection of our current capitalist society based on competition where the goal is to prove yourself better than other people by acquiring more stuff, which may include fame and status.

There is a another, more utopian model. The expression "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs” reflects a society where everyone contributes according to their ability and has their basic needs met, a social democratic society.

Such a society will produce our basic needs in the most efficient way possible, taking advantage of automation and robotics to free people from the drudgery of producing excessive stuff. We will produce less stuff because our lives will not be based on the status conferred by owning things.

People will still work, but hours of drudgery will be limited and everyone will be guaranteed a decent middle class income. Education will be at the forefront of society with most people serving as both teachers and students. Education, the arts and culture (including writing, music, theatre, movie, TV and video production, etc.) and recreation will provide meaningful employment. There is a huge opportunity for localism here with hopefully a better balance of funding and earnings for local productions compared to international corporate financed productions and so-called superstars earnings.

Connections with the natural world will be emphasized with resource extraction of the wilderness being replaced by sustainable recreation and forms of eco-education and eco-tourism. Sustainable energy sources will replace those based on resource extraction.

A society based on living a more meaningful life will reduce alienation (Side Note: Karl Marx’s Conception of Alienation) and build a sense of community and reduce crime and conflict. While the first stages of new society will allow for some inequality, people realizing they do not want to measure themselves by how much more they own than everyone else will lead to the gradual end of inequality. The lack of desire for the consumption of excessive stuff will put less stress on the planet's resources and environment and avoid future environmental disasters.

And finally Karl Marx and Jesus Christ will rest easily in their graves.

Postscript:

For those asking what about our democratic institutions. That is a completely different blog post. See: THE FIFTH COLUMN: On Democracy