Search This Blog

Wednesday, October 9, 2019

MARKET SOCIALISM


MARKET SOCIALISM
SECOND Warning
  I am responsible for what I have written, not for what you 
think I wrote, or meant.  Simply stated, the opinions expressed herein, may at times resemble facts, therefore… always double and triple check before you let incorrect facts loose on the internet with millions of undisciplined minds on the loose.
         I believe it is a consensus that we seek, not confrontation, and I look for reforms that most can agree with.   
       The ultimate sad reality on earth is that there are billions of people living in misery on what was once a bountiful, clean planet.  It’s as simple as that.  Once it was ours and it will be ours forevermore if the working people wake up. Capitalism And Communism have failed and we need a new set of governing principles.
        Let me guide you around some of the seemingly intractable dilemmas of our modern era and offer solutions, and please be willing to contemplate new perspectives, because the 
voter/citizen/worker needs to lead now, and follow no longer. 



    COMPENDIUM

 
1/1/1  MARKET SOCIALISM 

   “ ....anarchy is the absence of coercion ....”
     The road to anarchy  will not be a chaotic anarchy as you’ve been led to believe, but anarchy as self-rule and managing ourselves in our various communities and keeping common local markets open for small business and household industry.  

Now that the rich have saved up trillions of dollars in hidden off shore accounts, we can use this stolen labor (profit)to create the Infrastructure Initiative  (II22) Envision something great for every one of us to use in the next 50 years in an expanded and expansive safety net, a beautiful and enduring hardscape and finally wildlife corridors for migrating wildlife.  We can create abundance AND create a new economic system.
One way to start  would be to sell half of our military bases,  the ones furthest away from American ports, and be there for our fellow citizens and any one we can. Friend or foe, we’re ready to help.  But closer to home, right?
The Republicans want to eliminate things we all own in common such as the National Parks, and so we need to put the languid and miasmic political will of the last 35 years aside, and let’s have a go at a New America.  It’s  time to roll ‘em up and get down to work to preserve our wild lands forever, and the last chance for you Democrats in 2020,  we'll have a third party otherwise.

We’ll be initiating the construction of a real infrastructure with immense areas set aside for barter and small business. Community spaces where the majority of us can set up our small business, or non-profit enterprise. Free spaces for all to use.  Not along the highway,  but in the rural areas that were abandoned when the interstates went in.  Giant parks for people to stay for free as they vacation and to accommodate those that are camping out in their cars.

This is not an outrageous notion once people realize we could have all this by simply taxing Walmart and Amazon, and  start penalizing the gangrenous greed of corporate America and its stockholder enablers. 
Put a cap of 500 billion on the military and have them explain how much their promised pensions and benefits will cost in the future like the GOP did with the Post Office.
In the much delayed, total infrastructure rebuilding program, there will be lots of work for engineers and designers, and good paying jobs for boots on the ground.  A real infrastructure for ALL OF US to have access to, AND a unifying coast to coast effort to show everyone in the world how it’s done.  Deconstruct this 700 BILLION dollar military that has brought peace to no one and power overwhelming for the Nazis running the United States.
There is plenty of money once people wake up to the illusion of prosperity that is capitalism. Why isn’t there emergency housing for natural disasters and tornado shelters in every vulnerable town? Where are the evacuation facilities for seniors and people with special needs during weather disasters? What about the many terrified people trying to survive an approaching hurricane?
We should create a country that cares for every one with a real infrastructure, with humungous rest areas on the highways for vacationers and people living out of their vehicles. Call it the INFRASTRUCTURE COMMONS, with lots of public land for recreation and small business commerce.                Taxing and demonitizing the corporate structure of Google Amazon Facebook and some others will allow the people to gain control of the people generated content. The Commons known as the Information Superhighway. 
       Clearly, large corporations were the only ones considered during the planning of our interstates, and we can fix that. Oil and Gas subsidies have to end so the alternatives can come online. Biodiesel is great for recycling restaurant oil and creating less toxic fumes and could compete with petroleum. 
I’m not going to complain without offering solutions of course. Taxing Gasoline at their source of production (the refineries) and taxing plastic at the site of their production will become a good income stream. Eventually, till we can complete the grid that will allow Americans to be free of government.  
              We can power and feed and rule without the monopolistic corporations and the coral colony of government.  George Washington said the government "should be like fire. A useful employee, but a terrible boss."
                      The people can use the government to create the structure that will make us less dependent on the government.  We don’t need more tolls and fees, what we need are pipeline taxes.  Duh, tax the rich, they wonder why we’re not!
I had been pushing the idea of a LUXURY TAX and I was happy to note a presidential candidate also suggesting this idea finally.  Unimaginable wealth has been accumulated, and like a rich harvest of fruit, we need to juice it and use it before it becomes a pile of rotting compost.
In contrast to most, I don’t think we should tax this years high income earners. These are the people who are doing the best in this current climate.  They’re doing something right. Tax total assets, once people accumulate more than 20 million dollars, the National Property tax begins. No one is earning that shit. 
        What do you think Mr. Libertarian, wouldn't it streamline government if we taxed ten people instead of a thousand?Everyone with more than 20 million dollars of equity, cash, stocks and precious metals would have to report to the government. Leave the poor people alone.
       Tax 1% of all assets the first year.  A One percent tax on total assets over 20 million dollars is a modest proposal. Side by side with eliminating corporate tax loopholes. We also tax businesses with more than 20 million in assets.  At the same time we can have our Progressive Senators and a re-animated Congress looking to eliminate corporate loopholes.  
This LUXURY TAX will go up one percentage point, per year, TILL THE NATIONAL DEBT IS PAID, AND OUR BUDGET IS BALANCED! Therefore, 2%  the second year. 3% the third and on and on.  Turning the pressure up slowly, it’s in everyone’s best interest to eliminate the national debt. Much of the national debt goes to banks and their usurious interest anyways, but then we can tax THEM and we keep the money flowing through the economy.
        No wealth will escape taxation. Instead of the poor reporting every asset and every detail of their life to qualify for indigent aid, and instead of every small business having to keep every receipt and burdened with regulations and a nightmarish tax system, we can leave the poor and middle class alone. 

Knock down all those toll booths and petty license fees, you’re holding up the working person.  28th amendment. Tax accumulated wealth till the national debt is paid.  I shouldn’t have to use capslocks to make my point. 
The lawyer/lobbyists  have hijacked the United States and they like to find every kind of way to make your life more expensive and inconvenient.  They will do whatever possible to keep you from accumulating any assets, while they amass their dragon hoards. There has been unimaginable damage to OUR countryside by thousands of pipelines that destroy nature, but enhance stock portfolios.  
      This will be just a start in our national recognition of who we really are. Americans are not heartless opportunists. Not the working people I've met!

Is it about energy and national security, or is it actually about profits and market control with  a government run by corporations?  Our global effort to keep the earth from getting poisoned, will be about curtailing the abuse that automobile, airplane and truck exhaust has done to the life that was on this planet.  Yes, keep it in the ground for the thousands of generations unborn. Step one towards Market Socialism is to smash monopolistic control of the markets.
Artificially low prices from resource thieves have undercut all competitors and destroyed the fine network of small businesses that were in existence up until WW2. Money didn’t grow on trees they joked after the war and Money was trees.  American forests stripped for Suburban Cheap Housing Project. 
Far too many of them. Drastic degradations of all the mini ecosystems that are part of bigger systems such as watersheds and forests. For instance, buying a beautiful forest to clearcut it has to be considered theft, but today is still considered "good business"  I mean come on, this has been going on for hundreds of years nearly all the ancient trees are gone! 
Capitalism has created an illusion of prosperity. Houses filled with priceless junk and “what am I going to do with all this stuff?”
‘Just get a storage space, Joe’
People hunger for battle with the oligarchs and the first thing we need to do is take out all the tax loopholes that are in place for the Oil and Gas Industry.  Then get ready to ride the scariest ride on earth, “The Vicissitudes of The Market.” It’s not even about global warming I keep insisting, but the pollution of everything. Have international no fly days so we can see the old blue sky return.
  Replace the whole withholding tax nonsense and its attendant bureaucracy with a federal Property Tax for all billionaires and billion dollar corporations. Create a global effort in all 200+ countries, to expose ALL THE  hidden income everywhere, so the wealthy have nowhere to hide. Let the mighty be taxed mightily as it's suggested in the bible.
 Go ahead, tell me why that’s ridiculous or impractical Mr. Libertarian. Taxing ten people instead of 1000 would certainly streamline government, wouldn’t it? This is where your basic income starts. What can be afforded, and the blessings of Liberty going to the destitute and homeless first.

the previously discussed Anarchy cannot last with the predatory fascists looming nearby and would never be permanent. Therefore, Market Socialism is the best economic system that can exist for the majority of the people for the majority of the time, because complete anarchy would leave a vacuum for fascism to fill. Market Socialism is a designation most people can be comfortable with as it alludes to the elimination of record-keeping for the small business markets. A market where the sole proprietor is Queen, because corporations are not people. Only individuals can be people.
 The new rules? Thwart the monopolies by taxing the rich till the national debt is paid.  That sounds like a good idea. Imagine 50 AOC’s (citizen legislators) walking in singing a verse of Joe Hill as they sign the tax the rich legislation.  They’d think it was a movement.
 A squad to be reckoned with in Congress should be arriving in 2020 that should be implementing a higher minimum wage for larger companies.  Give the family run, Mabels Diners of the world a chance again, and make these billion dollar corporations like Olive Garden feel the sting of   small business dignity and community connectedness.  Commonality and communitarianism. 
The service industry treats its hardest workers the worst. many workers barely attain minimum wage after tips are shared. People in the food service industry know what I’m talking about. It should be a crime.
         Looking to get weighed, the people step on the scales of justice.  There was exceptional service in America once upon a time, but the new modern corporation thinks it’s a person. In reality, it’s a puppet show with pompous old men cutting every corner possible with tech billionaires poised to run the world.  Heartless capitalists with unresolved childhood issues.
        Sam Walton created the work atmosphere where employees talking to each other is considered a waste of time, and after three warnings for unauthorized talking, the pink slip. You know, we need to bond with the people we work with, people need to talk. Arms and elbows always in motion for low wages and heartless management strictures. For most of the people I’ve worked with, Capitalism sucks. There’s no reforming capitalism. Chain stores and restaurants, have left millions of workers despairing to what has happened to service in America.   
             
        The Workers Revlution means to fight for a living wage for all of the worlds workers, and in the end, this world wide workers movement will inspire all future generations to persistently  maintain an equitable worksite, so the toxic tide of corporatism can’t creep back into our world again.
        This time we win. Profit is theft from the workers who produced the product and every worker in the world needs to understand this. The age of Piratical Profiteering is over if we want it to be. We hunger for battle. The workers are ready.
Self government is where Socialists AND Capitalists both fear to tread.  How do you do it with the super structure of excessive government that is already in place, and a placated public happy with the status quo of corporatism and are not aware of the child, slave-labor derived products such as chocolate? A billion working poor people around the world, making products for the entitled Lord Fauntleroy’s of America.   
Bioregionalism is one of the tools to break free of all the previous inhumane paradigms. Another concern of mine is the red and black, the communists trying to usurp another movement it seems. 
        Why are we still dragging (Marx)around? We got remineralization of the soil to be concerned about and carbon and sulfur rates accelerating and we have to drag around someone who did not write a single word about the environment?
Russell Means, for one, has some thorough earth loving things to say, regarding our world, and he is much more relevant to the modern worker. Particularly in regards to marx he points out, which is just more white privilege in his mind, and I agree.  Just more of that old white bullshit.
Didn't Karl Marx's mommy make his lunch and bring him antibiotics for his carbuncles? He could barely walk to the bakery by himself he was so feeble minded. (something someone told me privately, not sure if it's historically accurate) But it’s well known his children loved him, which is good enough for some people. But seriously, how about labor theory from a more recent activist?
          In the early 1900’s, Eugene Debs was a great socialist and ran for President from jail and got quite a few votes and was instrumental in convincing people they were worthy of decent living conditions and a safe, fair paying job.
 Recall "fightin’” Bob LaFollette,  Progressive governor of Wisconsin, who actually implemented Progressive ideals into action and reform starting in 1900.  He reportedly had no carbuncles.
One person to accomplish advances for workers was Cesar Chavez. Strikes for better wages at that time made the general public aware of the problem of underpaid workers.  



                    Are there are no other theorists for the workers revolution? Maybe someone who goes outside once in a while and recognizes an impending climate disaster? It turns out people don’t care and workers seem too servile today to demand better pay. Maybe the spirit has been beaten out of us. 
Why couldn’t American furniture makers compete during the 70’s? You don’t compete with 25 cent an hour workers in Asia, that’s why. Therefore, an important part of Market Socialism would be to boycott companies that don’t pay, not just a living wage, but a thriving wage, in any part of the world.  This is where boycotts can slay the giant.
We can't raise the minimum wage high enough here, till workers around the world make more.  Simple fact, prove me wrong. Just an aside here, but did you ever notice the most frantic recyclers are the ones who seem to be addicted to buying things online?
 American, European and Asian companies have enslaved a billion people who now live in poverty, abject or otherwise, making nifty products and priceless junk for people with white collar jobs.
         Sadly, it was American corporations that threw American workers under the bus by moving factories overseas. My dad worked at the Royal typewriter factory for 20 years and was a victim in 1972 of unemployment when the company moved to England for the low paid, desperate workers.  In the 80’s, they  moved to Asia for the extremely low wages there.


          It has been a pity that The Left is stuck on the chalkboard Utopia of communism, and some even hinged to its rapacious Stalinist sideboard. It's the Green and Black baby.                   Americans are never going to call themselves communists ... and 
I don’t care how many quotes of marx or “books I should read” you throw at me.         

       The Blue Green and Pink will become Americas largest demographic after the ' voter citizen worker '. 
       Pink, Green and Blue collar united as one. Unity without hierarchy for the workers. Let the white collar parasites push the wheelbarrows for the Infrastructure Commons and let unionized blue collar fix and build up America again. The solutions to most problems lay in the garages of America, not the boardrooms in the cities.
Companies abandoned America in the 70's in order to take advantage of the reckless breeding in India and China  and Bangladesh that created far too many people with its misnamed “green revolution”. In their desperate struggle to feed their children, these people are willing to work for 15 cents an hour, 15 hours a day.  How do you compete with that? You should be banning plastic products made with pennies per hour labor, not purchasing them.  Place a tariff on all plastic products and boycott companies who are not fair to their workers.
At least try to source your purchases, because boycotts will be swinging from the cleanup spot in the big game. The mouths of these lawyer/lobbyist/leeches move when they run for office, but nothing changes, so it’s up to Progressives, Greens and Independents to stomp on the accelerator of reform.  The DNC donkey is dead and rigor mortis is settling into the entire body politic.

Like Islam, it should seem obvious that extreme forms of Marxism will never work in this country. We have to make everything uniquely our own and that’s what people have forgotten.   America IS different but no longer exceptional, with the right wing coup eating us alive like a tapeworm. They purposely bog down Progressives with fruitless battles, that should never have been fought in the first place.
Mass corporate hegemony of the Republican/Democrat, Wall Street Power Structure continues to feast on the pavement pelts of small business Main Street. Ironically, a minimum wage for all will be the final nail in the coffin of small businesses. It has to be a progressive or escalating minimum wage. Ten for small business (under a million dollars of sales and income), 13 for medium(over a million) and 16 dollars an hour for billion dollar corporations.
I signed a petition for $15 an hour minimum yesterday and found out it is going to go up a dollar a year and that’s something to work with to create a small business revival. I would suggest capping a small business minimum wage at ten dollars an hour with small business being one that generates less than a 100,000 dollars in sales or income. Leave small business alone. Let people make 10 thousand dollars before taxation and let small business make 25,000
             American Progressives, Greens and Independents are poised to lead the world out of its miasma of greed, but this never ending, left/right tennis match (back and forth back and forth), has kept Americans distracted the last 35 years. Marx or Mussolini?  What will it be? The Left has to abandon Marx to gain any credibility with the American worker, that’s all I’m saying. On the right, the GOP is what Mussolini had in mind.
The billionaires have shown their hand, they’ve chosen Benito’s  corporate-run government and they don’t care if we all die and everyone knows it now.  They are stripping the earth without any regard to the 100 billion people that will be born on this planet during the next 5000 years.
The workers revolution will be inevitable once the Steam Age academics of Marxism have been replaced and Republicans have been deloused and deprogrammed from the brainwashing of Rush Limbaugh and Fox News.
           How do you like that? We need unionism, not Marxism. Marx is insightful, but not useful. Does he really have to be the face of socialism? A man who didn't work or bathe? People are not inclined to malign Marx online and I don’t know why not, I know I will get heat for my stance.

         I do know an American will never call themselves a communist. Sorry Tom and others, I’ve worked with a lot of people in three corners of this country and Americans will never call themselves communists. Never.




Down here in the underpaid working world we have adjusted in many ways to the vagaries of the market. Capitalism for the poor and socialism for the rich is the system we have.
Bankruptcy and foreclosure ?, aw too bad say the bankers who are gouging the American worker with interest. Should be a crime, used to be. Tens of trillions of dollars charged in interest by bankers to the detriment of American workers. 
For instance, in a world awash in excessive clothing manufactured by 25 cent an hour workers, we go to thrift stores now to buy much of our clothing in 2020/21. I buy three dollars shirts and pants on the regular and they are normally only nominally worn.  I got storm shoes and a nice pair of shorts for less than $5.  We go to Dollar Stores and church rummage sales and reliable second hand exchanges. We love bargains, but let the buyer beware with the guy that has the frozen shrimp in his trunk though, we all have our particular discernments.
The whole scene is changing from below.  There are more distribution sites from groups that are taking in food.   If you can turn over a ton of food with volunteer labor in thousands of sites, we can begin to lessen the reliance on government programs and eliminate as much waste as is practically possible. 
        The problem with the bush and t***p tax cuts for billionaires, was that the wealthy were theoretically supposed to step up with more charitable donations, and of course a handful have, but the dark heart of capitalism always says, “no thanks not today, the guest house needs new furniture.”
 

My point being is that we are drifting back towards buying locally sourced products again, Market Socialism, if we possibly can. We are buying hand made quilts for xmas presents. We buy reconditioned bicycles The over credentialed, over certified white collar world isn’t going to rule us with their stuffed and mounted academic validations forever. We can and are creating a Market Socialism structure.
  I would have each person exempt from taxation for the first 10,000 dollars of income, and $25,000 for small business.  In addition, we would lift the cap on social security from $106,000 to $ gazillion. Let everybody make a little money … for crying out loud, and give them food stamps if they need them and every person who has no permanent address but a social security number, a basic income. Make the Republicans fill the social security fund back up. Let the billionaires give back what they stole from the languid, complacent, servile, no longer unionized American. See how that works?
  Socialist Eugene Debs actually went shoulder to shoulder with the workers and spent nights in jail as needed.  Progressive ‘fightin’ Bob LaFollette, in his role as governor of Wisconsin in 1900, actually implemented Progressive Pro Worker ideals into action and reform.
           There are no other theorists for the workers revolution? How about someone who goes outside once in a while and recognizes an impending environmental disaster when they see it. People simply don’t talk about marx. I’ve worked in three corners of this country. To thousands of plumbers and gardeners and property managers and security guards and administrators and store managers and even homeless people I find sleeping in the bushes. Not a one of them talked about Marx. The working people don’t talk about Marxism, they talk about what is going on in their life.
The maids, the sandwich makers, the floor polishers, the CNA’s, your finishers your starters, the kitchen crew and clerical staff. Gardeners get around, we are usually the last to go onto a project  and people unload their problems. The ferry captains, the car washers turned computer techs, the vegetable growers and organic chicken egg producers. I can’t ever remember talking about marx, but we did talk a lot about unions. First I saw a union go in in 1975 and later we decried the disappearing unions in the 80’s.      
  America IS different and no longer exceptional with the right wing coup eating us alive like a tapeworm and we need more than Marx to stem the tide.   Small business has been destroyed and a minimum wage for all will be the final nail in the coffin of small business but we could have a cap for small business as I mentioned previously. Call it an apprentice wage.
         Progressives, Greens and Independents are poised to lead the world out of its miasma but the left/right tennis match (back and forth back and forth nothing gets done) Marx or Mussolini? The billionaires have shown their hand, and they don’t care if we all die and everyone knows it now.  They are stripping the earth without regard  to the economies of the future.
  Make a showcase for ending government intrusion of the market place with these market based community centers. Really, why can't I sell produce from my house? Land of the Free? It doesn't sound like it. We are strangling from an over-tweaked, law debilitated paralysis that destroys too many small businesses and keeps communities separated socially.  We are dependent on 8 companies to feed us, fuel us, fleece us and forget US. The four F’s.

 


No comments:

Post a Comment