Housing As A Right

Should housing be a right. That is the question. But the real question is what would that mean and how do we make it more than a token right but an actual effective right.

In North America we had this mythology that everyone could own their own home. That has never been true. The closest we have come is at the peak of unionization when unions brought much of the working class into the middle class. But then the capitalist owners of the means of production moved the means of production to low wage countries and left the auto industry as the remaining remnant of what was once an industrial economy. They then transformed the service industry to a piece-work model, much of it based on “apps” that pretended low wage workers were independent contractors not entitled to the protection of employment and labour laws. This returned us to a state where the dream of home ownership was limited to the wealthy and professional classes.

However this myth led governments to create tax advantages for home ownership that distorted the housing market leading it to be dominated by much larger than necessary energy wasting homes which contributed to the creation of urban sprawl.

So how do we create housing as a right for everyone.

If housing is actually to be a right then everyone one must have access to decent and properly maintained housing at an affordable cost. The private sector will not provide this.

North America needs to take a more European approach where public sector housing is not relegated to the poorest of the poor but is available to the general population. Funding needs to be provided to eliminate public housing waiting lists and provide necessary maintenance. Co-operative housing needs to be encouraged and facilitated with government assistance. Living in publicly provided housing has to be normalized rather than stigmatized.

Fortunately the solution to the funding problem is the same as the solution to all public expenditure programs. Society has the money, it is just improperly distributed through an economic and political system that has created excessive financial inequality. The answer lies in taxing corporations and the wealthy appropriately, especially the excessive wealthy.

The private sector can still play a role as long as they realize the slumlord model is no longer an option with affordable decent publicly provided housing available to everyone. And they must accept that with housing as a right no one can be evicted without somewhere else to go.

Imagining A Post Capitalist World

This is not meant to be a comprehensive analysis but an imagining of some of the features of a post capitalist world.

OK lets get this over with first. The first thing we will notice is the numbers we use to measure the success of a capitalist economy, GDP, GNP and economic growth will look bad. That is because the goals of the new economy will not be excessive production, consumption, energy waste and unsustainable growth. The new economy will be based on people not stuff. While our so-called standard of living will decline our quality of life will increase.

Because of higher minimum wages and a Guaranteed Basic Income everyone will have at least a comfortable modest life with adequate housing and all their basic needs met because there are enough resources to provide this when there is not excessive inequality and waste by the excessively wealthy.

Excessive inequality will be eliminated because of an aggressive progressive tax system based on the principle that everyone should contribute to the society/economy based on their ability.

Everyone, not just the very wealthy, will finally benefit from the use of machines to increase productivity and most drudge work will now be done by machines. The effect will be that everyone will have reduced working hours for a shorter period of their life. Work will no longer be a necessity to survive but something people crave for the fulfillment it brings to their lives.

Because of a societal decision all work requiring intelligence or decision making will be reserved for human beings.

Elimination of the exploitative capitalist practice of producing goods in low wage countries will see the elimination of excessive wasted energy transporting goods as most food will be produced within 100 kilometres of where it is consumed and other goods within 500 kilometres.

With increased time for themselves education will be an important part of everyone’s life and as with health care, treated as a public good and paid for collectively. Arts and culture, theatre and music, will be emphasized with the emphasis on local artists and productions (rather than overpriced “superstars”) as well as outdoor recreation.

Small businesses, where the owner earns his income by working in the business, will be encouraged and supported. For large enterprises, ownership and control of the means of production (factories, computer facilities, etc) will reside with the workers producing the products or providing the services, most often through co-operatives, except for public services like education, health care and public utilities where control and ownership will reside with the people through their democratically elected governments. All workers will have an effective, not just theoretical, right to join a union and bargain collectively.

The overall philosophy of the society/economy will be "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs".

COVID-19 Pandemic Reflections and The Next Pandemic

Well the pandemic is over, at least according to most governments, science and medicine not so much. So now it is time to look back, and to look forward.

Perhaps my biggest reflection is that governments, at least in Canada, did not receive the rational criticism for their failures that they should have. The media was intent on concentrating on the irrational response of the anti-science, anti-public health, anti-vaxer crew who were co-opted by the far right white supremacist convoy types in Canada. The left, on the other hand, felt so strongly the need to defend the principle of governments acting to protect Canadians from this deadly pandemic that they failed to properly criticize governments failures in doing so. Not that there was no rational criticism, but what there was was overwhelmed by the Freedumb Convoy Shitshow.

The biggest failure was in not being prepared, even though scientists and public health officials had predicted that pandemics would be commonplace in the future, along with not following the precautionary principle and treating it as airborne until that could be completely ruled out.

But the most egregious, and I would say unforgivable decision, was to not utilize the front line of our health care system, but rather shutting down the vast majority of family physicians’ offices pushing an even greater workload onto the overwhelmed hospital system. This was either complete negligence on the part of the health care system or a clear indication we don’t actually have a health care system but just a bunch of disconnected parts.

As far as messaging goes, we had the use of the language “social distancing” rather than “physical distancing” at a time when maintaining social connections was critical to people’s mental health. Along with that error in messaging was the message to stay inside, rather than stay away from other people, at a time when getting outdoors (with appropriate precautions) could be critical people’s mental health.

However, in the long run, if only coincidental, there is some truth to the arguments for “no more lockdowns” and “we have to learn to live with the pandemic”.

If and when pandemics become a normal part of our reality we will indeed have to learn to live with them and it will not be sustainable to completely shut down our economy and society everytime they occur. Shutdowns or lockdowns, whatever you want to call them, will have to only occur rarely and for short periods when necessary to get an initial grasp of what is happening. And they will of necessity have to be political decisions.

But living with pandemics does not mean ignoring them. It means taking necessary precautions, such as physical distancing, masking with high quality masks, extensive vaccination programs, and, at times, restricting the highest risk activities such as large indoor gatherings of people packed closely together for long periods, methods that have been proven to work and reduce the incidence and seriousness of the outbreaks and most of all save lives.

But most importantly it means being prepared beforehand.

The first step in being prepared is having a primary care system where everyone has access to a primary care physician. In Ontario everyone does not have access to a primary care physician so we urgently need to drain more family doctors, fast track the approval of foreign trained doctors to work in Ontario and increase immigration and training of doctors from abroad, along with increasing the number of nurse practitioners available. And, of course, not shutting the primary care system down during a public health emergency.

We also need to have a hospital system that is not running at over 100% of capacity during the best of times. How do we build in excess capacity without it being inefficient. By using that excess capacity. As it is now so-called elective surgery is ridiculously backlogged. But this elective surgery is not elective at all. What we call elective surgery is surgery for non-life threatening conditions. Knee and hip replacements, eye surgery and many other so called elective surgeries may not be life saving but they certainly can be life changing for many patients for whom they make life worth living again. We can then, in the case of a public health emergency, divert that capacity to save more lives during a future pandemic. Purpose built publicly funded and operated specialty clinics can be part of that solution, and can be used to treat pandemic patients separate from hospitals, reducing the risk of infecting patients in the general hospital population.

And, though it need not be said, when the problem is the lack of doctors and nurses adding profit into the system is not going to solve the problem, only add unnecessary costs.

It also should not have to be said that the lives of vulnerable elderly persons should not be routinely sacrificed to ensure the profit margins of private long-term care facilities, creating a situation where those needless deaths increase exponentially during a pandemic. Being prepared for future pandemics requires that all health care should be publicly funded and operated. Private profit has no place in health care because that profit always has to come at the expense of patient care.

The other need for preparedness is economic. During the COVID pandemic the government scrambled to implement makeshift assistance programs for those economically impacted by the pandemic, and though it helped many it was a very messy solution. What we need is a permanent solution that will not only deal with public health emergencies but also with the economic disruptions of a transition from a fossil fuels based economy to a sustainable energy based economy. What we need is a guaranteed basic income along with a fair progressive taxation system.

There is no justification for not being prepared for the next pandemic.

Left, Right or Centre – Explainer

In today’s age of populism, with ideology apparently dead, how do you now if you are on the left or right or in the centre. There are indeed some basic philosophical positions that determine if you are on the right, left or in the centre.

If you are on the right you believe in individualism and the free market. Individualism rules supreme and there is no such thing as collective rights. You believe in the mantras that “acting in your own self interest is in the best interests of society” and “what is good for General Motors is good for America”.

You believe that almost everything, except perhaps policing and the military, is done best by the private sector and that the profit motive is the best motivator of people. Competition is the best way to provide progress and create wealth.

You believe in inequality because that is the best way to reward intelligence, talent and hard work. The poor are poor because they do not work hard enough.

You believe in small government whose role is essentially to protect private property rights. You think of taxes as something an outside entity (the government) takes from you, you may even refer to it as stealing. You may also believe in unfettered free speech.

If you are on the left you believe in community. You believe that individuals are not completely fulfilled unless they are part of a community. You believe in co-operation and working together for the common good. You care for others and believe everyone deserves respect and human dignity.

You believe everyone deserves a decent life and all work should receive a living wage with employment benefits, especially decent pensions. You believe the level of inequality in our society is immoral and billionaires should not exist.

You believe government exists to serve the common good by providing public services efficiently and reducing economic inequality in society. You believe taxes are how we collectively spend our money for the common good.

You may even believe that we have a responsibility to contribute to society according to our ability and society has a responsibility to provide for our basic needs, including food, clothing, housing, education and health care.

Those of you who claim to be in the centre are probably actually on the right but you believe government has a role in reducing the worst aspects of capitalism and providing a social safety net for the victims of capitalist excesses.

Intuitive Lessons from The Pandemic – A Fantasy

This post is not based on comprehensive research or particular expertise on my part. Rather it is more what we would have called “common sense” before Mike Harris completely destroyed the meaning of the phrase.

We start off with the most obvious. We need a public health care system that is not overloaded to begin with. We can solve two problems here, provide pandemic readiness and provide timely life enhancing health care. We currently provide timely care for life threatening situations like cancer, heart surgery and emergency trauma but have created an artificial class of so called “elective surgery” we consider to be of lesser importance. This includes things like hip and knee surgery and replacements and many other types of health care that are necessary to allow people to live fulfilling lives. Health care is much more than preventing premature deaths. If we provided the necessary resources to provide all necessary health care without unreasonable wait times we would have the capacity to deal with a pandemic without putting peoples lives at risk.

Equally obvious is the need to bring long term care into the public health care system. Before the pandemic the horror stories of private long term care were well known even if the body counts were not as inexcusable as they became with the pandemic meeting the profit motive.

And still looking at the health care system, why did doctors offices shut down or become virtual during the pandemic when they should have been part of the response to it. Family physicians provide the first source of diagnosis for many serious illnesses like heart disease and cancer where early detection can be a matter of life and death. The system may respond quickly when these diseases are diagnosed but it does not respond at all when they are not detected. And why was the network of family physicians not used for pandemic testing and vaccinations.

And what of government policies. The big thing we got right was vaccines. In comparison to some jurisdictions to the south of us, all jurisdictions understand the importance and effectiveness of vaccines. The federal government did an admirable job of making vaccines available to the provinces and the provinces did a decent job in administering them. The main things Ontario could have done better was utilizing doctors offices and the school system to more efficiently get vaccines to the public.

As to the timely and appropriate response to the threat that is where we could have done better. We knew it was coming but we didn’t know what it would be like so it was a learning process. There is lots to criticize in hindsight but more importantly is learning going forward.

The biggest lesson was that internationally jurisdictions that put public health first and took strong, even drastic, measures quickly were able to get out of it faster than those that took half measures being more concerned with protecting the so-called economy than the public’s health. Having a provincial leader that considered himself a “businessman first” and by implication a Premier second did not help. We are still stumbling through in Ontario.

What is saving us is our sense of community. This works on two levels. On the personal level, it means in our personal behaviour, such as distancing, mask wearing and getting vaccinated, we base our decisions not just on what will keep us safe but also on what will keep our neighbours safe. This has made the big difference on how Canada has fared, compared to the United States, who arguably had better resources available to fight the pandemic.

The other level is the collective level, our collective actions taken together through our governments.

Here we are talking about three levels of government, federal, provincial and local, sometimes with differing philosophies and priorities. We really need to find a way to make federalism work better in these sorts of, not just national but international emergencies, climate change being another example.

If the pandemic has shown us anything is that individual action cannot replace collective action, and some things are just done better by acting collectively rather than acting individually. This is where we need to do better, particularly by strengthening our health care system and providing social supports. We are not financially prepared for the next pandemic because the political parties in power have chosen to go down the populist road of under-taxation thinking that would buy them votes. This is perhaps the most disastrous public policy position of the last half century.

Fortunately, because of that trend, there is substantial room to increase taxes to fill the void, particularly on that portion of the population that are excessively wealthy and under-taxed. This is a group in society that actually stands to gain more from collective spending by government than they can from individual spending by themselves. There is only so much you can spend on a wealthy lifestyle and the benefits of a better society far outweigh the benefits of people who have everything buying more everything for themselves.

We can be better prepared next time, and there will be a next time, but only if we choose to.

And the fantasy part – the belief that those in power will actually choose to learn these lessons and implement the necessary measures.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Is Charity Evil

We supposedly live in a major developed industrialized country which is one of the seven most advanced economies in the world, yet:

many people depend on charity to be fed and not starve,

many people depend on charity for a place to sleep so they do not freeze to death in winter,

many people depend on charity to have a place to stay to protect them from being killed by their domestic partners,

despite our so-called public health care system we depend on charity to fund major medical research and many of our public hospital are in permanent fund raising mode to provide the beds and equipment they need to provide that care,

even our public education system depends on charitable fund raising to provide such basic amenities as library books, as well as extra programs, leading to a class-based public education system depending on the wealth of the neighbourhoods schools are located,

and the list goes on and on.

Do we not have a social responsibility to provide these basic human rights to our citizens. Should we not be funding these basic human rights collectively through a progressive tax system.

Who really benefits from charity.

Certainly corporations use charitable donations not just for tax benefits but for brand image enhancement. The wealthy use it not just as a method of tax management but also personal promotion. But it no doubt also provides a way of easing one's guilt for one's greed.

What would it be like for society if instead of making tax deductible charitable donations corporations paid all their employees a living wage. What would it be like for society if instead of making tax deductible charitable donations the wealthy paid their fare share of taxes, including a wealth tax.

What would it be like if we did not need charity because we fully funded a complete public health care and education system from a progressive tax system where everybody paid their fair share.

What would it be like if we eliminated the need for charity by establishing a minimum wage and a guaranteed basic income that allowed everyone to have a decent standard of living.

What would it be like if we did not have charity because we didn't need charity because we recognized as a society that everyone had the right to a decent quality of life.

What is the role of government if not to ensure citizens have a decent quality of life.

Does charity enable government to shirk that responsibility.

Is charity evil.

Lessons We Must Learn From COVID-19 to Build a Better Society

Community is the key to the future. Those societies that are fairing best in responding to COVID 19 are those with a strong sense of community. America's dismal response is not just because of Trump, but also due to the country's overemphasis on individualism over community.

Our public health care system, part of our collective sense of community, was key to our response. It made our ability to control the outbreak possible. But it is still flawed and could not respond was well as it should have because it is underfunded and incomplete. We saw that particularly in the for profit long term care sector, measured in body counts. We must complete the system by extending it to prescription drugs, vision and dental care and most importantly long term care of the elderly and home care. We must eliminate profit from the provision of health care so that patient care and profits are never competing for funds. Most importantly we must realize that health is the most important priority for everyone and under-funding health care in order to promise lower taxes is in nobody's best interest.

Our economic safety net was the next most important factor in our successful response. Unfortunately we did not have a proper system in place to respond and the government had to respond with a series of patchwork measures put together quickly which, while it managed to avoid the worst of our southern neighbours problems, it still left the most disadvantaged, well still disadvantaged. That series of measures, as necessary as they were, increased both the deficit and national debt because the government, that has been under-taxing the wealthy for decades, did not have the financial capability it should have.

What we needed and what we need is a basic guaranteed annual income, and not just one to keep people barely above the poverty line but one designed to provide a decent quality of life for everyone.

We say 'we are all in this together" but we clearly are not equally in this together and never will be as long as we live in a society of massive economic inequality.

We talk about groups such as seniors being more at risk but in reality the biggest risk factor with COVID 19 is economic status. Those placed at highest risk, our so-called front-line heroes, those responsible for producing and providing our food and goods, are working in cramped and unsafe conditions, along with those working in high risk long term care facilities, are the biggest group of COVID 19 victims. And these are the people most susceptible to the economic consequence of COVID 19, often living from paycheck to paycheck. A few extra dollars per hour for a few weeks is not the solution.

We must deal with the economic inequality in our society by raising incomes at the bottom and reducing them at the extreme top end. CEOs of corporations who make their profits and fortunes from minimum wage earners simply do not earn the millions of dollars per year they are paid. They are paid that because of an unequal economic and political system. We must reform our tax system so that those that can afford to pay more do and those at the bottom pay less at the same time as we reduce the gap between the bottom and the top.

We need to raise minimum wages to a level that provides a decent quality of live and use the tax system to redistribute the wealth of the excessively overpaid. We cannot build the type of community and society we need on a basis of extreme inequality.

We also cannot build the society we need without concern for the environment it lives within and without addressing the challenge of climate change.

We need to build a new society, based on community rather than individualism, if we want to meet the challenges of the future and this includes a move from more individual spending to more collective spending. Fundamental change is required if we are to survive the challenges of the future and thrive within it.

Also of Interest:

THE FIFTH COLUMN: Towards a Green Social Democratic Economy

THE FIFTH COLUMN: On Inequality, Democracy and Taxing the Rich – A Modest Proposal

THE FIFTH COLUMN: On Democracy

On Inequality, Democracy and Taxing the Rich – A Modest Proposal

No doubt many raised in our capitalist society, where inequality rules and excessive incomes and wealth are seen as a right (and where even the NDP only proposes a measly 1% tax on excessive wealth), will consider this proposal to be radical but it is actually quite 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.

So what do we do with this excessive wealth so that it benefits society. We tax it away so that it can be used for the common good.

This sounds radical at first. But what do the wealthy lose in this proposal. Their standard of living and quality of life does not change. They only thing they lose is their excessive economic and political power, power that undermines our democracy.

Postscript

In taxing away excessive wealth we cannot just require it's conversion to cash to be paid as taxes. That would obviously be very disruptive to the economic system. Society (through the government) will take ownership of these resources in kind and in many cases maintain them while applying revenues from them to the common good. In some cases they may need to change the policies of entities that are not acting in the public interest or divest ownership of entities where that serves the public interest.

Also this proposal does not address all the problems with our tax system. For it to be truly progressive we need to raise the income level that triggers the payment of taxes and increase the higher marginal tax rates, including adding marginal tax rates at higher income levels (between $200,000 and $1 million).

On Free Trade

Even among left wing parties and progressive politicians trade is worshipped as the saviour of the world, but perhaps we should ask ourselves Is Trade Evil ?

After we do that we can consider the question of free trade and free trade agreements.

We need to seriously look at the so-called free trade agreements for what they are. They certainly do not guarantee free trade. What they guarantee are rights to corporations over sovereign countries with things like investor state dispute provisions that allow corporations to sue countries for passing legislation in the public interest that offends the multinational corporations rights to maximize their profits.

So what could real free trade look like. One option would be absolute free trade. Eliminate all tariffs and non-tariff barriers. Provide no artificial advantages to domestic products or corporations. Provide no, intentional or otherwise, advantages to foreign products or corporations.

Any goods could be sold in Canada, subject equally to any forms of taxation applied, regardless of country of origin, as long as the goods are produced subject to health and safety, environmental, and labour standards (minimum wages, collective bargaining and workers rights provisions, etc.) equivalent to those required of goods produced in Canada.

That would be true free trade.

Phasing Out Tobacco

A United States Senator has an interesting idea.

U.S. Senator Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., has proposed a tobacco-control plan that cuts to the chase and simply orders companies to get fewer people to smoke. With roots in the regulation of power plant emissions and the educational reform act known as No Child Left Behind, Enzi's idea is that government would set performance goals for tobacco companies to meet. Instead of conventional "command and control" regulation -- in which government regulators tell people what to do -- under "outcome-based regulation," government tells them what to achieve.

How would tobacco firms comply? They could raise prices, promote cessation aids, sell nontobacco competitive products or innovate in ways we can't imagine. What to do and how to do it is their decision to make.

Under the senator's plan, tobacco companies would be required to reduce their U.S. customer base by approximately 90 percent over two decades. At the end of that period, our country could be down to an incredibly low smoking rate of about 2 percent, an ambitious target. Companies that failed to meet performance goals would face whopping financial penalties, making it fiscally more attractive for them to lose smokers than to gain new ones.

So is this feasible and how would it be done.

The tobacco industry is very much like the oil and gas industry - it is a dying industry with an addicted customer base that will pay almost anything for the product. In both cases, one for environmental and the other for health reasons, they know they have to phase themselves out. The oil and gas industry also knows it has a limited supply of resources. Virtually every oil and gas company has established an alternative and renewable energy component to eventually replace it’s fossil fuel production, in large part from the revenues from higher gasoline prices that they know their automobile dependant customer base will pay no matter what..

The tobacco industry should do what the oil and gas industry has done - not react to it’s decline but be “pro-active” and plan for it.

The tobacco industry could use additional profits from higher prices that it knows it’s addicted customers will pay to move into moral alternatives to tobacco production and sales. Higher prices will deter new customers which will help it achieve its mandated goal, not to mention the fact that enticing people to become addicted to tobacco is about as immoral as you can get.

Governments should immediately remove tobacco taxation from the general revenue stream (Consolidated Revenue Fund) so as not to be dependent on a tax base that it is attempting to phase out. The funds could be dedicated to a fund to pay for tobacco related health costs that will eventually decline over time. Some of it could also go into incentive payments to tobacco companies that lower their sales faster than the mandated targets.

This would all be in addition to government regulations prohibiting cigarette advertising, sales to minors and smoking in public.

Blog Action Day for the Environment

Today is Blog Action Day for the Environment.

One can only wonder in amazement why there are still Global Warming doubters in light of the international scientific consensus and the recent recognition by the Nobel Committee that Global Warming is a threat to international peace and security.

The press would like to maker everyone think that there are two somewhat equal opposing scientific views here. But, just as in reality there is only one scientific position on whether the earth is flat, on whether gravity exists and whether we evolved or were created, there is really only one scientific position on the existence and the major cause of Global Warming - man.

One can only speculate as to what the doubters motives are because the ironic thing about fighting Global Warming is that, even if for some strange region the virtual consensus of the world’s climate scientists was wrong and the marginal fringe was right, fighting Global Warming would still be good for the environment and the economy.

The doubters are becoming increasingly marginalized, as groups such as the Canadian Council of Chief Executives and Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers support taking action on Global Warming.

Even capitalists are beginning to realize that without a planet there are no profits and that a waste-based economy is not sustainable in the long run.

There are profits to be made from increased development in the third world, but the planet simply cannot sustain development in the developing the world in the wasteful way it has been done in the developed world.

The developing world will have to develop differently than we have, and if we expect them to do that we have to change our habits and provide the technology to make that happen.

So what do we do to reduce the development gap in a sustainable way. The largest infrastructure factors are communications, transportation and housing.

In the communications area the developing countries are already skipping past the infrastructure heavy wired communications that we in the developed world grew up with and going straight to wireless technology (though wireless does have health concerns).

In transportation there is an opportunity for the developing world to avoid the North American reliance on the automobile by developing pedestrian and bicycle friendly cities and adopting a more European public transit focused approach to transportation.

In housing there is lots of room to make huge improvements in the quality of housing and water and sewage infrastructure without the excesses of North American society. Heating is the big energy eater in housing in the developed world. As most developing countries are in warm climates that is not a big factor. At least in the short term they may have to forgo the luxury of universal air conditioning.

As the developing world moves forward, we must also move forward. but in a different way than the past. The first thing we have to recognize that standard of living measured in the old fashioned economic way, how much we consume and waste per person, is not equivalent to quality of life. We can live much less extravagantly, particularly in terms of energy use, and increase our quality of life. Status, in terms of huge houses and automobiles that we do not need, will not buy us happiness.

North America can move towards less reliance on the automobile and more public transit, especially if we raise taxes on gasoline and put the funds into improved public transit. It has not destroyed European economies and it will not destroy North American economies.

In housing we can move from extravagance to comfort in our housing choices. The first thing we can do is remove the artificial tax incentives, such as capital gains tax exemptions on residences regardless of size or value, that encourage people to own bigger houses than they need.

As individuals we can start with our personal choices. Even simple things like changing light bulbs and buying energy efficient appliances, when done by increasingly large numbers of people can have a very significant cumulative effect. They also have an important indirect effect, because when we make these kinds of decisions we are also telling government and industry what our values and priorities are.

There are huge and sustainable profits to be made in developing sustainable products and technologies. Profits made from destroying the planet have an inevitable short future.

We are beginning to realize that we can change our way of living to a more sustainable one and increase our quality of life.

A green future is a long future.