Maybe it is slightly off where this thread is going, but as you mentioned Switzerland cologne I thought I would mention it. My son-in- law changed his job from one in Belgium to one in Switzerland. He is a UK national and has a UK passport. His residence for tax purposes is France. He lives during the week in one canton in Switzerland, but the office which is close enough to walk to each day is in a different canton. The two cantons have different tax rates on income. His company provides health insurance that is valid throughout Europe, except he has been told that it will not provide cover after Brexit for the UK. He gets paid in Swiss Francs that he has to convert to Euros. As he still has interests in the UK he also has to transfer funds to the UK in sterling. Plenty of costs involved in these transactions. He had very good child benefits from Belgium, twice the UK ones, but the Swiss ones are almost the same as Belgium. The problems arise when he tries to get Belgium, France and the UK to agree that they are not paying these benefits. The UK just do not answer the requests for information. When he phoned England to ask for them to reply, he was told they were too short of staff to deal with it. Wait for six months and the requests would come to the top of the pile. He has registered to work in Switzerland, and with that can have his bank accounts, hire cars, and vote in local elections. After this ramble I suppose I am saying different societies do have the rules that they think suitable for themselves, but in this day and age when people do not live and work in just one country, more harmonisation not less is a good thing for the individual.
It's a shame you do not do bite sized chunks Col. I am always inspired to reply to your many points but my responses then become double the size. The easiest way would be to print your piece so I could respond a bit at a time - but that is not environmentally friendly !
I agree about the bite sized chunks - keeping things short is not a strength of mine. My laptop and internet connection are so unreliable that I always feel I have to get things out in one post in case it doesn't work a second time
I do not have a problem with hierarchies. Nobody is better or worse than another person but in life you sometimes need a ladder of authority. The armed forces are of course a good example of this but it applies to all large organisations - NHS, teaching etc etc. I see nothing wrong as long as you accept they are only relevant for the activity concerned. Your boss at work may be your pupil in sport. In life I have found a lot of people are much more comfortable in the role of worker bee but you do not believe this. OK. Every person has a talent - really? Everyone can do something - true but whether you class it as a talent tends to suggest it is better than another possesses otherwise it is just at best a competence. I do not understand why you oppose the honest worker philosophy - psychologically many people are shy or introverts and are happiest in a crowd. Electing bosses is not a good idea. You need the boss to be the most competent not the most popular. Changing coaches leads to instability - eg Watford. There is no need to tolerate human wastage in our existing society - in fact few people do. Even the Tories you dislike aspire to make everyone work!! OK - I can understand differences in attitude to how many possessions a person has. In fact though education can help in this regard. I can only eat so much, sleep in one bed, live under one roof at a time. So long as I have the necessities of life then why do I care if Richard Branson has so much more. Would I trade my life for his, or for Royalty - certainly not. If you honestly are happy with what you have then you are not concerned with what someone else has. That is only a problem in a world of scarcity when one person having too much prevents another from having the basics. But that is a different solution. I can live with a reduction in equality and in making sure everyone has the basic necessities of life in terms of food, clothing and shelter. I do not much like inheritance and would favour a society that uses death as a time to distribute possessions back to society - within reason. Money can simply be a convenient barter tool. Of course you can barter foodstuffs but how does a surgeon barter without "tokens". even your example would need a reckoning as I might not need fruit when I take my veg in. If you are saying that you can take as much as you like without putting anything in then we have a problem. Most people who advocate ending money do so because of things like interest. I believe Arabs do not permit interest - but instead have developed its equivalent by round about means. Unless your little world is on an isolated island then it will come into contact with others. In my thread I was thinking of a society that could apply to all - not just a little enclave. That is a hard statement to justify. It would take an expert who had studied such things to tell whether it is true. Sometimes competition will be forced on species; sometimes not. I do not believe you can make that claim. I can support these ideas more easily. To take our society and then to try to introduce certain elements that make it work "more nicely" is a good idea. However I do not see your ideas overall as workable on anything but a tiny scale.
Have you read the book by Aldous Huxley "Island". It describes a society which I think has a lot of the characteristics I think you would support.
Let me try to turn things on their head a little. What do I not like about our current society? It is probably lack of fairness, greed, envy and laziness. Those factors underlie a lot of our problems. Starting with the last. Nothing in life comes free. Everything comes from either your own work or that of somebody else that you acquire. It follows then that everybody should work. You have no right to take things from others. People who do nothing are parasites living off others -that is as true of the sons and daughters of the rich as to people on benefits. If inheritance were properly controlled nobody could live a life based on what their parents gave them. Equally nobody should expect strangers to provide their way in the world. Both of those are extremes that should be qualified. A child up to adulthood is entitled to be looked after. A person who through no fault of their own - long term disability or temporary factors should be able to draw on a kind society's resources. So long as there is a recognition that we must all do what we can do then problems would not exist. Envy is a problem for the individual. In the UK we are rich beyond the dreams of billions in the world. Our poorest are generally not poor absolutely but seem so relatively. If each of us were guaranteed basic food, clothing and shelter by the offer of employment where we could take it or society sharing (nicer term than benefits) for those who need help then we should be content. That we are not is simply because we are envious of what others possess. Yet in many cultures of the world there is little envy. In fact they regard people with possessions they do not use or need with disdain. No native American would admire another for having two teepees. (silly example but you can supply your own). Greed needs little explanation. People who accumulate for its own sake or to seem more successful or important than others are pathetic. There is nothing wrong with working a little harder to provide life's little luxuries - a meal out or a concert perhaps. But people who want dozens of cars, houses, jewellery and the like are insecure and would benefit from counselling. Lastly lack of fairness. A difficult idea. Yet if pushed most of us could say when we feel that something is not fair. A society that allows poverty and lack of care in illness or old age while encouraging others to accumulate wealth and pass them onto their children so that they can have an easy life does not strike me as fair. We seem to accept poor services for so many things - poor health, education, housing even lack of food and clothing while not taking enough from those who are perfectly capable to contributing more. I do not mean the easy targets like the fat cats etc but most people. it should be blindingly obvious to most that we simply do not raise enough in taxes. I am speaking now with the UK in mind in particular as I am aware many other countries have a more balanced - fair - system.
I know - so far nobody has spoiled this by attacking anyone else. We have thrown ideas out for comment. I suspect there are a lot of people put off by the nastiness of some other threads. If they were to post here with their ideas it would make this more interesting still
I think a key component is smaller community units in which there is a shared responsibility to each other and to the community as a whole...As units get larger, alienation develops with concurrent anti-social behaviour I mentioned some time back about a traditional ayurvedic clinic we did some work iwth in Bhopal India where the pay differential was a maximum of 3x between lowest and highest paid. A real cruncher this. The manual worker gets just that much more and the Doctor gets that much less. Of course perhaps a different economy is needed ??
I suspect the differentials may differ but I would not be surprised if society moved towards creating a multiple between maximum and minimum wages. The other day someone suggested that government contracts should not be given to any company where the highest pay exceeded 20x the lowest. Seems a high multiple - but like income tax - once introduced it could over time be refined. What I do like about such ideas is that it leaves free rein to pay bosses millions - but they then have to up the pay at the lower end too. I suspect many people would accept their boss getting £1m if they earned £50k.
Maybe we should work out how to assess the value of work. How do we decide that the one work should be paid more than the other ? Is it down to responsibility ? The numbers of years spent learning a job ? The price paid for the product ? In the end all work is dependent on work which has been done previously and so, I believe, cannot be valued objectively.
Supply and demand seems to be one method. Scarce resource is more valuable. If we all had the skills of Messi he would not be paid so much. That does not mean that you cannot artificially prevent someone being paid "too much"
First of all, thanks for this, Leo. It's been refreshing to read. For me, the concept of a society always feels artificial...an attempt to find common ground and principles where I don't see any existing. I think I live among a collection of individuals and I feel comfortable with some of their personality traits, attitudes and beliefs and decidedly uncomfortable with others. It's difficult for many people to live with ambiguity and I sense that various media are constantly struggling to find shape and form where none exists. It doesn't mean there aren't things around me I welcome...generosity, care, tolerance, intellectual curiosity...but to say I'd like a society where everyone exhibited these qualities all the time seems too vague for a question such as this thread poses. Perhaps I can argue for no more than wishing everyone questioned thoroughly what they do and do and why, everyone constantly told themselves the experiences and sensitivities of others are driven by different things from their own, that creating ideas and things is hugely rewarding and that no-one has found a more life-changing gift than love.
Thanks for the response Arthur. One question arose immediately - why should workers in a factory not be able to choose the most competent managers under an elective system - they would simply be judged, and possibly replaced, depending on their results. The other point is contact to the outside World (ie. outside of the community). Would a Capitalist World accept my Anarcho Communalist community, if it showed signs of working and actually influencing others ? Probably not. Can such systems coexist ? History does not look promising on this one, but we would try. I believe that we are not conditioned, like machines, to accept all aspects of this monster called 'globalization' (a polite word given to capitalism taking over the World). What makes us human is the ability to choose - in this case which aspects of globalization we are prepared to accept. There is already too much trade in the World, and, from an environmental perspective whole societies would be better off looking at ways of raising their self sufficiency - at least in all those products which can be locally produced. The question is this ? Which is the best model of ownership for my immediate environment ? Is it local collective ownership, local small scale private ownership (maybe in the form of family firms) ? Ownership as part of a global player where the decisions which affect my environment are made thousands of miles away ? Ownership by the state (again hundreds of miles away) ? Maybe everything belongs to the local lord - he is at least local, and likely to respect my environment, but I might have to doff my cap to him and you know I can't do that. The answer is local every time - preferably a factory or enterprise which has a cooperative model, or, at worst a family firm, where they share my immediate environment and are, therefore, more likely to respect it.
You do not make it easy to respond but write in such a way that it deserves responses. Workers could choose the most competent managers but I do not see much evidence that democracy gives us the most competent. I also would say that ownership will influence management and question why a worker would know who would be the best manager - does a footballer know the qualities to make the best football coach? I think a Capitalist world might accept alternatives that did not promise to threaten them. In fact if the "communal" system showed advantages it might be embraced - what tends to put hackles up is aggressive ideological rhetoric - a quiet "friendly" revolution might be very welcome if it solved some of the problems we all see around us. I can see that there are enterprises that would thrive on a local scale but there are many others. I cannot see how your model could produce the modern goods and services that people want. You might think we don't but having lived in a small local rural community and seen the sons and daughters of the locals hanker after a "better" life I know that the rural ideal has a limited appeal. Our local farmers knew they could not pass their farms on to their family as they just were not interested. In short I can see your model being appropriate in a small and limited way - but for society at large I doubt it.
I am not sure how big this model can become Arthur. The biggest concentration of Workers Cooperatives is in Spain. Discounting the Basque territory and Catalonia, where the concentration is higher, there are 18,000 in the rest of Spain, employing 300,000 people. This network has its centre in the organisation Coceta. The Basque coop confederation represents over 800 cooperatives and the Catalan equivalent 'Confederacio de Cooperatives de Catalunya' has over 5,000. In Catalonia they are mostly small, employing an average of 7 staff but are operating in many sectors - services, construction, industry and agriculture. In Catalonia there are listed as being 40 schools which operate on this basis. This model could easily be repeated in countries like Portugal, Italy or Greece where trust in the neo liberal model has collapsed. In the last quarter of last year cooperatives created 19,000 new jobs in Spain - not many for such a large country but impressive when the rest of the country is not doing so well. There is nothing to stop the Spanish network being able to cooperate with a similar network in France or Italy. I admit that Spain has had a tradition of 'social economy' for quite some time, which makes it easier there. Check out on the village of Marinaleda in Andalusia - found under Communist villages in Spain. Many others in the south will follow when they realize their life savings have gone - and mutual self help is the order of the day. Cooperation between such groups is the globalization which I want to see. The mantra 'Globalization is inevitable' does not have to be swallowed up in its entirety. What we have seen is a globalization of finances - my capital can fly like a bird (I would restrict this by the way) - but not a globalization of wealth, which appears to be concentrating itself. We do not even have a globalization of technology when only 5% of the World's population have ever used the internet. And of people ? We appear to be building walls everywhere, and labelling whole groups of people as undesirable. So where is this globalization ?
I think that is one of the problems with your concept. It might work on a small scale for people who want a simple life but I suspect it is a tiny minority. It does not in itself make the model invalid but makes it rather marginal. For people unlike you that do not really have a problem with hierarchies and can understand that a boss can be a "work superior" but is not superior in any other meaningful way then that is not a driving force. Most of the people I know have worked for other people quite happily. I also think most people - especially young people want something to look forward to in life. At my age I might be quite happy in a small rural community but I know none of my children or grandchildren aspire to that. To build a society for the future I would look for one that embraces size, global perspective and industrialisation using modern technologies. The trick then is how to have this whilst respecting both other people and the environment too.
In am not sure how big this model can become Arthur. The biggest concentration of Workers Cooperatives is in Spain. Discounting the Basque territory and Catalonia, where the concentration is higher, there are 18,000 in the rest of Spain, employing 300,000 people. This network has its centre in the organisation Coceta. The Basque coop confederation represents over 800 cooperatives and the Catalan equivalent 'Confederacio de Cooperatives de Catalunya' has over 5,000. In Catalonia they are mostly small, employing an average of 7 staff but are operating in many sectors - services, construction, industry and agriculture. In Catalonia there are listed as being 40 schools which operate on this basis. This model could easily be repeated in countries like Portugal, Italy or Greece where trust in the neo liberal model has collapsed. In the last quarter of last year cooperatives created 19,000 new jobs in Spain - not many for such a large country but impressive when the rest of the country is not doing so well. There is nothing to stop the Spanish network being able to cooperate with a similar network in France or Italy. I admit that Spain has had a tradition of 'social economy' for quite some time, which makes it easier there. Check out on the village of Marinaleda in Andalusia - found under Communist villages in Spain. Many others in the south will follow when they realize their life savings have gone - and mutual self help is the order of the day. Cooperation between such groups is the globalization which I want to see. The mantra 'Globalization is inevitable' does not have to be swallowed up in its entirety. What we have seen is a globalization of finances - my capital can fly like a bird (I would restrict this by the way) - but not a globalization of wealth, which appears to be concentrating itself. We do not even have a globalization of technology when only 5% of the World's population have ever used the internet. And of people ? We appear to be building walls everywhere, and labelling whole groups of people as undesirable. So where is this globalization ? I think that I stated in my last post that the idea of the Worker's Cooperative is not confined either to agriculture, or to a rural way of life. Any branch of the economy can be governed in this way. Also important is that those enterprises which do work along these lines form a network - like a 'community' in itself, although geographically dispersed. My acceptance of the worker's cooperative idea is,in itself, a compromise - I prefer the idea of communal ownership, because worker ownership is still a form of private ownership, though collectivized. Modern technologies are just as easily incorporated into the coop idea as any others. You are probably right in saying that my ideas are not cut out for the British working population - unless conditions arise such as in Southern Europe. The English are mostly content to be ruled, and then to grumble about the quality of that rule. Which is what we see now with Brexit. It was not the fault of Farage, Bojo, Cameron, the Tories or Ukip, or even of the media - it was the fault of the17 million people who voted for it, and also those who stayed at home. In the end you get the government you deserve. The average Englishman is not identified with his profession, or his firm - and is mostly happy to drop the role the minute work ends in the evening. People have told me that in Japan even the cleaning lady knows the finances of the firm where she is working. So these ideas of mine need a cultural and a social context around them. By the way, they wouldn't work in Germany either. But there is nothing idealist about a town, or region, having a development plan which fully utilizes local talents, and raises their resilience against global crisis's. At any rate they should be accepting that Co2 emissions are their responsibility, rather than waiting for national or global solutions. You can think globally, but you can only act locally.
"The average Englishman is not identified with his profession, or his firm - and is mostly happy to drop the role the minute work ends in the evening." The average German gets up early to lay his towel by the swimming pool? The standard of debate is slipping a bit here I think.
This is not meant in a derogatory way Theo, even though it may come over that way. In Germany even when booking a railway ticket I am invited to give my title - be it Doctor, Professor or whatever else. As if this were of any relevance to buying a train ticket. Germans will actually use their titles to excess, which I abhore. A Doctor is only a doctor when either in his surgery, or in some other field where that is relevant. He is not entitled to automatic respect outside of that function. In the UK. roles tend to be dropped far more easily when 'off duty'. That is basically what I was saying, although it came over as a massive generalization. Compared to countries like Japan - where workers identify themselves fully with their firms ie. you are a 'Suzuki' man, first and foremost, and, on the other hand the firm also pays for your marriage, your house and your burial, then the British relationship to their firms is much looser. Most workers in the UK. do not take their job roles into their private lives - ie. they try to keep a good life balance.
