THE PEOPLE ARE NOT A SPECIAL INTEREST
THE PEOPLE ARE THE ONLY INTEREST
I see nowhere in the Constitution anything about protecting the rights of corporations. I HAVE read much on the dangers of the mis-use of the power that corporations can manifest, both from the Founding Fathers and countless commentators since.
But, you say, the courts have found corporations shall have the same rights as natural persons. Well, I say, perhaps it's time to re-examine those findings in light of twenty-first century thinking about the rights and responsibilities of citizens, both human and corporate. Any twenty-first century thinking worthy of the name has to think about the nature of the social contract in light of the simple fact that there will never be enough jobs.
Why will there never be enough jobs?
Because, all of us together, laborers and thinkers and movers and shakers, have invented marvelous machines and robots to do the jobs for us.
We are, for the first time in human history, facing a world where humans can be freed of meaningless jobs. So this should be cause for rejoicing.
The reason we are not rejoicing is because we are trapped in a value system that says you are valueless without a job, if you can't feed your family, even if you are a good person. This value system ignores all other values save your value as producer of money.
How about a value system that says, You have value because you are. You deserve the basic necessities of life, a life with dignity, respect and meaning, because this is the inheritance left us by untold millions who labored to make this a better place, a place without drudgery. There is no shame to this, because we all share equally in this inheritance.
I will bypass for now the debate about just what constitutes the specifics of a basic life support allotment. It will be a managable debate, rife with detail, when the time comes for it.
People, freed of the anxiety and desparation of providing the basics, and freed of the stigma of valuelessness, would be free to find Work, something that engages their interest for it's own sake, or free to choose to sell their labor, get a job, in order to pursue some interest beyond mere survival. We would be free to understand the differnce between having one's work, that something to do that you'd rather do anyway, because it engages and excites you, and a job, which is something you do to get money, to do other things with. There are countless menial but necessary jobs, jobs a machine can't do, that people could choose to do, not out of desparation and it's load of shame, but because they want more than just the basics.
Those that choose to can be all they can be if they can: build a better mouse trap, invent a computer, or try to sell some useless gewgaw. Repair the machines, write a screenplay, whatever; go for it. Rise as far above where you started as you can, but give back accordingly to the society that nurtured you, that's got your back. You'll be taxed, if that's what you want to call it, because that back ain't cheap. But you'll be free, in a stable and equitable society that values your contribution. All we'll ask is that you do no harm to the environment we all share and respect the dignity and worth of your fellowmen.
So how do you structure an economy that values people for being, rather than doing, given that there is less and less to do to get money?
Markets arise to supply needs, they re not a means unto them selves. They are a tool. Capitalism has long since exhausted the profit potential of the basic comodities markets because the market is an efficient tool. You can only make so much selling groceries. Free up the energy of capital for worthier causes, and run commodities as a cooperative venture, a public service, cause we all gotta have certain things. Perhaps public production of certain commodities will make sense. Perhaps contracting production from commercial interests for other commodities will make sense.But in the realm beyond the basics, let capitalism and open markets flourish! An unsubsidized market, attempting to serve a public that is no longer maddened by the struggle to survive, will have to refine it's messages, and grow even more efficient. The Market will have to become aware of the needs of it's host and stop being parasitic, become a symbiote.
Divide it into a public and private sector. The public sector provides the basics to the population by organising cooperative efforts and by taxation of the private sector. The public sector operates as a cooperative venture; it is a given that this is not an arena driven by profit. Business knows that the basic commodity market operates on volume, and there is very little profit to be made in that realm anyway. The private sector also needs to be relieved of the burden of shame it carries for seeing the misery and distress of the people as opportunities to profit in the medical and insurance fields..The profit is in luxury and the desire market; those items that you can induce the public to buy, that the public really doesn't need. And in the money market, the renting of money to satisfy immediate desire that you induce with advertising.
OR: Maybe a direct cash subsidy would work better, but then you need a net for the fools. Whereas if you just get the goods themselves and they can't be sold, because everybody has them, you then have to get up and work for extras.
OK. This is a work in progress, and right now I'm looking at housing as a basic need and I'm not sure how we get there from here in that realm.
The basic starting point is: There will never again be enough jobs, and that doesn't have to be bad for us.
None of what I presented is especially original thought. This writing arises from thinking about conversations I, and many others, had back in the sixties, when the cybernetic revolution was just rising on the horizon, and people started thinking about the implications of machines doing more and more of the work. There was a guy named Watanabe that I read something of, among others, but because I actually was there, in the sixties, I can't remember ;)
The real work is philosophical. How do we change our consciousness of work and worth and value? Can we accept that it's all been paid for, that all of us, laborers, craftsmen and thinkers, movers and shakers, tinkerers and poets, have been building it for two hundred and twenty seven years, and have paid for it in blood, sweat and tears that we all have shed. Can we accept that this is our inheritance, that we would deserve it and that we would, without doubt, all be better off to see it go this way. Can we accept the freedom, along with it's responsibilities, to do what we want with our time, because whatever we do for the love of doing, rather than to make a buck, will make us all better for it having been done.
If we are talking about reshaping the democratic party, as well we should, we need some vision of what we might want to try to make possible, give us a sense of what direction to lean in, as we negotiate the future with our adversaries. Who are actually stuck on the same boat as all the rest of us. Too visionary? Have at it! Nuts 'n bolts? Let's tinker.