Thursday 20 November 2014

What is the Tragedy of the Commons? Authoritarian Propaganda.

The Tragedy of the Commons is mostly known as an economic theory regarding the over exploitation of common land leading to the destruction of its value - often presented as English peasants overgrazing the commons so leading to the loss of the entire grazing resource.

However this is not the most important lesson to be drawn from 'The Tragedy of the Commons'. The truth is that the English commons were not over-grazed to destruction - they were working just fine - but with the dissolution of the monistaries under Henry VIII the Commons that had been stewarded by the  People and Church were seized by the state/King and divided up among his supporters who went on to fence in the land, forming enclosures and banning the Commoners from using this usurped resource.

After the Commons has been appropriated in this way, the new 'land owners' did, indeed, over-graze them to the extent that commoners were excluded from using them and often starved. The land owners had also shifted their 'production' from corn to sheep, fleeces and mutton being more profitable than corn - but beyond the budget of the commoners - also contributing to the poverty and starvation of the masses. And later with the 'Corn Laws' (artificially forcing up the prices) leading to starvation among English plebs at the same time that the Irish plebs were starving from the potato famine.

The 'Tragedy of the Commons' has joined that body of 'fictional works' which often gets quoted as fact (Lord of the Flies is another example) when it is just a superficially plausible sounding story.

The real Tragedy here is that this fake, retrospective justification for the seizing of the commons from the commoners, leading to their poverty and starvation is accepted as truth, when it is just a revisionist fairy tale used to (falsely) justify the theft of the land of England from the English people to whom it truly belonga - in common.

We need to take it back - it is ours, it always has been and always will be.

Monday 17 November 2014

An MP who doesn't make their party/whip clear is deceiving you.

You have an MP for one official reason only - to represent you in the House of Commons - in debates, but most importantly in divisions (parliamentary votes).

This is they only thing they have unique privileges/rights to do - this is what they are paid for.

Everything else they do - charity work, community activities, etc it entirely their own business - they could do this whether or not they were an MP. They are not councillors, social workers, community activists - at least not as part of being an MP. Any such activities they do on their own account and should do on their own time at their own expense.

With this in mind - the essential right to vote in the House of Commons - the biggest influence on any non-independent MP is their party whip. The party whip works for the party leader, to force MPs to support the party/party-leader on parliamentary votes.

Any MP who does not absolutely and clearly show which whip they obey is deceiving the voter, and hiding the biggest potential conflict of interest they have chosen to accept.

It should be a legal requirement (if not already, under the trades description act) for all MP's to declare their party loyalty/whip whenever the represent themselves as an MP.

Sunday 9 November 2014

Arguments against Referenda - debunked.

The authoritarians in liberal clothing argue against referenda, but their arguments are flawed:-

1) Referendums are never about the question on the ballot - people vote one way or the other for all kinds of different reasons.

This is not an argument against referendums, it is an argument for more referendums - give people the referendums they want and they won't need to use the few they do get to 'send messages' about other issues, other issues that should have their own dedicated referendums!

2) Referendums never settle the issue - people just call call for re-runs.

Again this is not an argument against referendums, it is an argument for more referendums -  if the public mood changes over time (and why shouldn't it? we have general elections every 5 years to allow people to change their minds!), if the public mood changes over time just have another referendum! and do what the public now want to do - what is the problem with that?

3) Referendums are too expensive.

Democracy is expensive, war is expensive etc... but its the price of our 'system'.

But with more varied and more frequent referendums, there is every opportunity to establish infrastructure to make referendums much, much cheaper than they currently are.

Summary

Referendums are the first step to direct democracy and liquid democracy - they are a step that we must take.

Now which party support binding, public triggered, referendums? Oh thats UKIP.

Wednesday 5 November 2014

Two amazing ideas to be shot down - open fire!


Loads of people know how they would like things to be, the hard bit is working out how to get there from here... so I present ways of getting to two of the outcomes I'd like to see...

1) Citizens Income/Flat Tax - 'Casual Labourer'

Ideal: Everyone gets a fixed payment from the state - it replaces benefits for the unemployed, and replaces the tax free allowance for the employed. All income is taxed at a flat rate from the first £ to the last £ - see elsewhere hear abouts for discussion of this.

Path: Introduce a new employment status to go along side 'Employee/PAYE', 'Self Employed' etc... maybe call it 'Casual Labourer', if someone opts in they get a dedicated bank account - state pays fixed benefits into the account, all earnings are also paid into the account - 30% of all earnings deposited go straight to the taxman. Job done - as everyone opts in, other taxation regimes whither and die.

2) Insurance based healthcare.

Ideal: Everyone has insurance for their healthcare - when they need treatment they choose where to go for it (private, state, charity, commercial whatever) , the insurance co pays for it.

Path: Stop new migrants using the NHS - require that they have health-insurance and waive their tax/national insurance accordingly - private services will be created to service them. After (say) 5 years in the UK they can opt in to the NHS or keep their insurance based scheme. Then allow UK citizens to switch to the insurance based schemes too if they want. Job done - eventually everyone will have opted out of the state run medical provider.

Immigration is good for the EU economy - cut out and keep refutation #2

Supporters of migration always seem to argue for open door migration rather than closed borders. But noone is suggesting closed borders! The option proposed is *managed* migration. 

1) Migrants pay in more than they claim in benefits.

Some do, some don't. Open door migration means we don't discriminate between good and bad migrants.

2) Migrants are less likely to claim benefits than Brits.

So I should hope! Any migrant needing benefits should go home to get them from their own government.

UK has to carry its own needy, we don't need to import any more.

3) Most migrants work, so aren't here for benefits.

What about the unemloyed Brit who could be doing that job? We pay dole to a Brit so a migrant can have a job??

4) Migrants are more likely to be employed than Brits.

Well as we have kids, disabled, elderly etc and migrants tend to be working age, what do you expect? Its of no 'credit' to them its just expected for that age profile!

5) Brits won't do certain jobs.

If you pay min wage to a Brit they benefit by min wage. If you pay min wage to a migrant they get to come to the UK - use the NHS, get housing benefit, etc *as well as* the min wage. All UK work is more attractive to migrants from poor countries - the pay has little to do with it!