Improve the World
This thread is for you to describe your pet scheme for improving the world. We are looking for breadth, not depth. If you want to comment on a scheme in depth, start another thread.
(Maybe this should be in Heaven.)
I have one. Any action by the US congress (vote, resolution,. etc.) should have a single clearly stated purpose: no omnibus bills.
(Maybe this should be in Heaven.)
I have one. Any action by the US congress (vote, resolution,. etc.) should have a single clearly stated purpose: no omnibus bills.
Comments
All benefits are abolished. The stipend is the universal benefit, recovered from those who don’t need it via income tax. All prescriptions are free, disabled parking / mobility car / disability public transport passes / wheelchairs and other necessary equipment are prescribed.
+ Social Care, free at the point of use not means tested.
All MPs to be employees of the Palace of Westminster on a civil service payband. MPs office budget to be a per head formula corrected for the deprivation index.
MPs to receive universal travel warrant for UK public transport and national airline for any purpose for themselves and any first degree relative for any non-commercial purpose as part of their pay package.
MPs gifts to be managed on the same basis as the diplomatic service.
2. When it comes to MPs' pay, a proportion of MPs would be restricted to the equivalent of unemployment benefit, chosen at random. The proportion of MPs selected would match the current unemployment rate.
3. A global ban on anyone running for political office if they have ever been involved with any version of The Apprentice.
4. Appointment Brian Blessed and Dolly Parton as king and queen of the solar system.
Surely banning all advertising would prevent things like stores promoting special offers? And what about things like discounted travel tickets? Advertising those is still advertising. Not all advertising is manipulative.
With regards to the second, I don't see how it could be ethical to pay someone less for doing the same job as their work colleagues (I'm also not sure why you chose to keep unemployment benefit as it is rather than bring in UBI). I think it's more important than ever to try and recruit more working-class MPs and your idea would only put them off more.
How are you defining "benefit financially"? Surely anyone being paid for their work is benefiting financially...?
It also seems a bit presumptuous to assume that a political leader would necessarily know about a family member benefiting financially from it - it's not too far-fetched to imagine a scenario where the leader in question had no idea. Many of us are unfortunate enough to have untrustworthy family members - none of us chose our families.
Have services paid for by users, not advertisers. At the moment, users are the most heavily sold element of most "services", rather than the actual services themselves. This is the prime mover behind enshittification.
I like the idea of that...is there a way to stop business immediately hoovering up the stipend, in the way that student maintenance 'loans' are, in some cities, largely hoovered by the providers of accommodation? Central pricing would do it, but I have enough Polish friends to have an idea how that might develop...
Which reminds me, the only way of really improving things, is to literally ban billionaires. Outlaw, on a universal scale, the holding of wealth, however legally constructed, in excess of £10 million. This will break down a great many people and structures which have become ungovernable by virtue of being too big - not to fail, but to censure.
ETA: certainly as things are, the banning of the holding of wealth in excess of £10m would have the side-effect of radically reducing the power of social media and algoriithms,, as these are currently in the service of billionaires and other expressions of totalitarian corporate capitalism.
I'm all in favour of UBI in the sense of everyone having a basic income. I don't think a single flat rate would work though - a single parent with children has higher outgoings than a single person with no dependents, for eg. I don't see the benefit of a flat rate when not all people have the same needs even if mobility equipment and prescriptions etc is free. I would also be concerned about the loss of Housing Benefit (which for most people is paid by the DWP now) without some other way to make housing affordable.
Especially hoiho the yellow eyed penguins endemic to Aotearoa/NZ and some off shore islands.
They are critically endangered
What do I think could improve the world?
- Sustainable sustainability.
- Something that reverses the slide away from human-scale processes and practices to the anonymous Moloch Machine.
Corporate capitalism is red in tooth and claw. Globalisation has lifted millions out of poverty but comes at a cost.
Somehow we have to avoid the 'greed is good' juggernaut of the Money Men on the one hand and some kind of misty-eyed idealisation of an imagined medieval agrarian idyll on the other.
The Machine has largely left us deskilled.
We need a more excellent way.
I think if I had a magic wand I would remove all the effects of the Iran war and put in place investment and infrastructure that meant there was a much higher use of renewables instead of the many billions of dollars spent on war.
The other thing I would do, if it was possible without other adverse impacts, would be to conjour up forms of mass employment for young people in my area. I'm at a loss to know how it could be done but I feel a deep level of grief seeing so many struggling.
Of course they should be paid. And I don't have any real problem with them being paid reasonably well. What I am referring to is the situation where such people and their families gain financially from taking advantage of inside knowledge or by passing legislation that will unfairly benefit their own businesses. Trump is a prime example of this at the moment but by no means the only one. Political leaders must be there to serve all the people - not just family and friends. And when they fail to do so, it must be clearly stated that they are unfit for office.
And any credible political leader should make it clear to close family members (eg siblings & children) that they must not try and take advantage of any confidential information that they come across.
Maybe this is idealistic but that seems to me to be the point of this thread.
But for the time being, I’m in agreement with so much of what is already written here. If push came to shove, I’d single out @Doublethink’s first post.
No elections but plenty of expert advisors.
Nobody should be allowed more than two million pounds extra cash. All other money to be spent on public services.
All businesses should be mutual cooperatives.
Yes. And free transport for carers, nurses etc. This already happens in my son's state in Germany. The transport pass arrives in the post every year. He doesn't even have to apply for it. (He's a nurse). His uniform is laundered at work too, they have shower rooms for changing into it.
Yes.
Careful what you wish for we may be on the way to that point sooner than we hope.
AFF
So I think we should pay the people who do the most menial and supportive work the most money and graduate pay scales downward from there. The more your work contributes to the actual health and well being of your fellow human, the more you should be paid. Corporate directors should not be paid more than 80% of what a street cleaner, a hospital housekeeper, a nurse or a sanitation worker earns.
Also. Corporate managent should be modeled on the Rotary International model of government. I always said that Rotary was the best company I ever worked for, for no money. Members of the organization pay monthly dues in order to cover the salaries of executive oversight, and a portion to be held in trust for corporate taxes, and to invest in projects like R&D and capital improvements. Then all profits should be divided equally among the operational management and the workforce.
Also. Human capital should be moved to the other side of the ledger as a fixed asset according to the profit generated, to offset the wages disbursed. It should be a wash.
AFF
YES
Although I would also have compulsory voting from birth. Maybe from conception.
Yes! With sausages!
Chacun à son goût. (“To each his own taste.”)
Why not go the whole hog and have the tax year end on 31st Dec? It's what happens in Canada and I didn't see any problems with it when I lived there.
Otherwise I would apply Maslow’s hierarchy of Needs for all people at all times in all places, funded by taxation. Plus free public transport and education. Cooperatives to handle all enterprises including those in public sector because I believe that, rather than the command model is more efficient and effective. Really not sure how to structure the police and armed forces though, as they will regrettably be necessary.