A possible future, or, is this progressive enough for you?

[AzJames73]

planetc (2,135 posts)

A possible future, or, is this progressive enough for you?
I have been following political discussions during the 2016 campaign, and realized that there was a bloc of people who thought of themselves as "progressive," even more liberal than your garden variety Democrats. So I thought it might me useful to outline a truly progressive vision for the future.

My plan involves completely scrapping the notion that any human being can own land, which is the founding principle of capitalism. The most people could do in this progressive plan would be to rent land for a period of time for a specific purpose, like farming it, or building vehicles on it, or living on it. People cannot "own" land: if anything, the earth owns us, just like giraffes. The earth has been reminding us of this truth recently, as pollution generated in the U.S., or China, or India travels freely anywhere the winds blow. A "country" as we call it, has always been a hunk of land whose borders could be defended by a government or other ruler. The earth doesn't care who we imagine the ruler to be, it circulates storms and pollution everywhere. We won't actually have countries any more, but territories flavored by historical traditions, a Canadian territory, a U.S. one, and certainly a British one. Since everybody in the world would have enough to eat and a job, and since borders would have disappeared, the need to defend them would also disappear. On the whole, I think this plan gets reid of war, too.

In this vision, there would remain an economic system which would allow for exactly the same useful activities that capitalism allows: provision of food, medical care, trade, and the exchange of ideas and innovations. But this economy wouldn't be based on money as we know it, but on hours worked by real people. There would be two kinds of hours worked: community hours, and personal hours. The community hours would be owed to the community to sustain vital functions: grow food, cook and distribute it, care for the elderly, and providing transportation to people who need to get to and from their jobs. Community hours would take approximately half your work day, and the other half would be devoted to working for personal hours, the accumulation of which would enable the other side of the economy to function. With your personal hours, you could buy a nice guitar, or materials to make a beautiful hand-knit sweater, or lipsticks and volleyballs and toys for children. The community fours would guarantee that every adult would have useful work that obviously supported the community; personal hours would allow for the pursuit of personal dreams, like writing songs, playing in rock bands, designing your own clothing or a computer app to make the common life of your community function better. Rather than pieces of paper whose value everyone agrees on, the economy would be based on the value of the hours you've worked. It would be possible to become relatively "rich" in personal hours, but the tendency would be to save up to buy a particular good or service, which would plow your hours back into the economy.

This system doesn't so much tinker with capitalism, as replace it with something much more earth-friendly, and people friendly. I think we are all equipped with imaginations, and that we have gotten too used to imagining small changes to monolithic systems. Why not imagine something really new, really different, and seriously progressive?

Dude, put down the bong 

https://www.democraticunderground.com/10028954990

[freedumb2003b]

When I was 16 I got all excited about this idea of "hours" as a unit of purchase.  Then I turned 17.

People who want to be paid based purely on effort ALWAYS have the lowest value possible per hour.

[CC27]

F off DUmmie.

[BadCat]

Hey planetc, I have a vision too.  Of you with a .338 calibre hole in your forehead.

[thundley4]

The most people could do in this progressive plan would be to rent land for a period of time for a specific purpose, like farming it, or building vehicles on it, or living on it.

This has already happened right here in the US, DUmmie. Just try not paying property taxes on land and see how long you get to keep it. 

[jukin]

This DUmmy should head down to Venezuela or over to North Korea, No... Zimbabwe or South Africa. Thye think the same way. It has really worked there too.

[67 Rover]

This DUmmy should head down to Venezuela or over to North Korea, No... Zimbabwe or South Africa. Thye think the same way. It has really worked there too.

Well Venezuela is well on their way to this DUmmies utopia after having confiscated a GM assembly plant recently.

[SVPete]

Hey planetc, I have a vision too.  Of you with a .338 calibre hole in your forehead.

Are you sure that would have any effect?

[BlueStateSaint]

Are you sure that would have any effect?

There would be a giant sucking sound heard for a microsecond, as air rushed into the vacuum created by the .338 Lapua round . . .

[Carl]

Sounds like the old Soviet system.

They never learn.

[SVPete]

Sounds like the old Soviet system.

They never learn.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pc4IFIXcDcs[/youtube]

[USA4ME]

"Yea, I remember when I had my first beer (chuckle)." - Steve Martin

.

[DumbAss Tanker]

Hey planetc, I have a vision too.  Of you with a .338 calibre hole in your forehead.

More pricey than he (Or whatever made-up pronoun applies) merits.

[jukin]

More pricey than he (Or whatever made-up pronoun applies) merits.

.22 up close and personal.

[98ZJUSMC]

Hey planetc, I have a vision too.  Of you with a .338 calibre hole in your forehead.

More pricey than he (Or whatever made-up pronoun applies) merits.

Practice, practice, practice...... 

if anything, the earth owns us, just like giraffes.

[98ZJUSMC]

Sounds like the old Soviet system.

They never learn.

Ukraine, Kulaks, Stalin ......... what could possibly go wrong?  Rest assured, though, they'll do it right, this time.

 

[Adam Wood]

So, someone got stoned and started watching Star Trek: The Next Generation re-runs.

[VelvetElvis]

.22 up close and personal.

Meh.
A cinder block would do just fine.

[SSG Snuggle Bunny]

It was so stupid it died a lonely death.

[Mary Ann]

Some brave soul dared to reply:

MichMary (275 posts)
1. Ooooookay. A couple of questions:

1) Who would the rent be paid to? You envision government withering away, so, who would collect those rents?

2) What would happen if the rents weren't paid?

3) If you rent the land to live on, and build a house on it, and then the "landlord," (whoever that may be) decides to evict you, what happens to the house you built?

4) Are everyone's "hours" equally valuable?

5) Is a surgeon's hours equal to the person who stocks the shelves in the grocery store/food pantry?

6) Is a half day 4 hours (half a current work day,) or is it 12 hours (half an actual day?)

6) If your heart transplant takes more hours than the surgeon's "half day," does he/she just leave?

7) or, will there be alternating "half days," so that someone else finishes up?

8) Does that system seem "people friendly" to you?

[jukin]

"The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries."
Sir Winston Churchill

I would completely agree but socialism does make a very, very, very, very few very rich. See Chavez's daughter as the latest proof for that.

For what is worth, I was in the USSR in 1988 to install a machine I had designed. It was hell on earth.

[Movie buff- The Sequel]

I'm guessing that theory came to him after listening to 'Imagine' (John Lennon's ode to idiocy, hypocrisy, and self- righteousness) while strung out on acid.
 His philosophy (Which he calls "Progressive," but sounds more like the opposite, like something that would move us backwards in pretty much every way) would go completely against everything the Founding Fathers stood for when they helped found this great nation of ours. Then again, he and his fellow DUmmies would probably see that as a plus.
Based on the ridiculous conditions of his little would- be utopia (i.e. All countries would supposedly be disbanded, yet there'd somehow be enough of a government control over things to dictate his idea of an "Hours"- based economy), I'm guessing one of two systems would form from it:
1. A completely oppressive, tyrannical government to regulate those conditions, having total control over every aspect of a person's life from cradle to grave.
2. A societal collapse which will lead to sheer anarchy and basically propel us back to either the Dark Ages or the Stone Age.

[SVPete]

...
1. A completely oppressive, tyrannical government to regulate those conditions, having total control over every aspect of a person's life from cradle to grave.
...

Ala Yevgeny Zamyatin's We.

[ADsOutburst]

Sounds like the old Soviet system.

They never learn.

I wonder if it's that they never learn, or if they really do want to wreck everything, and won't stop until they succeed.

[I_B_Perky]

planetc (2,135 posts)


<bunch of nonsense>

Oh geez.  Look dummie... Planet C is not far enough away from here for the likes of you. You need to inhabit Planet ZZZZ.

Or off yourself cause you are too stupid to live.  Either works for me.