Is democracy sustainable?

Democracy is such a high ideal, but unfortunately it produces, at least in many systems, people who want to be elected. One way they try to get, or remain, elected is to keep talking about jobs and more jobs. People hear the words 'more jobs' and they broadly think that's good, but no-one every really says they want to meet human needs better. That could and should involve there being less work to go round.

More jobs means, in the face of more mechanisation and automation, more consumption, and we're using up the planet's resources unsustainably. Following through this line of argument with a friend the other day, he opined that loss of democracy now is too big a price to pay and the despoilation of our planet is a regrettable but unavoidable consequence. If this is correct, it is rather despairing.

Why aren't there politicians saying that they want society organised so as to meet human needs as best they can. What's not to like? Are people scared that there won't be enough to go round, so we'll have to compete somehow, or is something more sinister afoot? The motives of the rich are pretty blatant. The government says "we're all in this together", while the media portrays people who get more for this year's bonus than some people will earn in a lifetime. "Together" usually has connotations of co-operation and a sense of fairness, but in this context we're all in the same heap - its just that some are on the top and plan on staying there.

If we want to reassure people that there is enough to go round, we need to know how much there is in total. Maybe this needs to be the first step towards a resource based economy.

Money circulation

With the big March against cuts last Saturday in London, I have been looking at people's arguments against cuts. It's surprising how there's a blind spot about jobs. Yes, we need to address human need, and the cuts are making that harder to do (at least that's what's argued), but people also argue that if you cut jobs, you lose tax income. The thing is that jobs in the public sector are funded out of tax income, so some of the tax spent providing public services comes back as tax paid by employees, in a weird cash back scheme. But never mind, because this all creates jobs for people to administer the tax, and most crucially of all keeps the money moving. It must not sit still because if it did we would see how fundamentally useless it is.

If all money magically disappeared, would we reinvent it, or we would we look at what we have to sustain us and work out how we can most efficiently use it (ie with the least amount of human effort)?

People must have jobs - ?

This is a councillor being quoted on a council's website:

"Breaking the cycle of unemployment where generations have not known work or wages can be very difficult. Apart from job availability, the barriers may be the lack of skills, fear of starting a job in a new environment, a need for childcare, clothing and perhaps social skills.

"If a suitable job is available, we want to help identify factors that would prevent a jobseeker from getting and keeping that work.

"It's important the cycle of worklessness is broken, particularly where children are concerned, so they can learn to embrace the world of work and aspire to a more varied future."


 Apart from the "aspire to a more varied future", this gets a big thumbs down from me. Let's not indoctrinate children to 'embrace the world of work' - at least not with our current understanding.


TVP/TZM approach (as I express it).

• What needs doing? (Only things that are socially constructive, and preserve and improve us and our planet for our continued existence as a species should be done.)
• Can it be done efficiently and sustainably by machine(s) / technology now, or in the future? If so deploy/develop the technology as soon as possible.
• What is left has to be done by humans, at least until the technology can take over. 

TVP/TZM thinks there will be very little need for human work in a technologically advanced resource based economy

G20 gets it all wrong

'At a G20 press conference, Brazil's finance minister Guido Mantega criticised the US central bank's latest QE programme. "The trouble with putting an extra $600bn into the US economy is that this money will not go into production, will not create jobs and neither will it boost domestic consumption.'

says http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11728504

1) Why should it go into production? Production of what? It matters what we produce.
2) So what if it will not create jobs? As a planet we need to prioritise our list of things to do, not just put more things on it.
3) "Nor will it boost domestic consumption.". Good. Apart from people that are malnourished, starving, or in abject poverty, we don't want more consumption. We don't want consumption for it's own sake. We've goyt a finite planet. We need to conserve and be efficient.