[Campaignforrealdemocracy] Democracy & Full Employment

[Mark Barrett]

Hi everyone

As it's been reported in the press this week that a quarter of the UK budget
is now being spent on benefits, could we please have some list discussions
about how this money might be harnessed to create a really democratic
society, or to use the phrase previously embraced, greater local sovereignty
(LS)?

I've sent this message to the three lists above as I've found them to be the
most fruitful in terms of discussions on the topic of building a just
society. If anyone has any other lists they can recommend for this end, pls
let me know. On this subject please can people hit reply to all so that all
three lists can take part in any debate that ensues?

*Benefits & Productivity*

For me this is the next stage of productivity in the industrial economy, the
pursuit of a really democratic culture with full employment, freely chosen.
So I had this idea that people could do a few hours work each week - what
one colleague has dubbed a 'mini-job' - in return for payments. Say, an hour
for every £10-15 they receive. Key thing is that this work should be chosen
BY the recipient, in collaboration with a local community of their choice,
so that the work allows the individual to do what they would rea;y like to
do rather than have the state force something on them as is the case with
neo-liberal workfare programmes now being experimented with. Obviously these
kinds of decisions would need different, decentralised benefits
'purse-string' structures - essentially a breakdown of the currently
unwieldy and wasteful nationalised benefits programme into a really
democratic, ie each local community owned, public service. Of course there
will be lots of questions about how this will work in practice, which is why
I am posting about it now, but for me the huge benefit (sic) in this is that
it will allow state expenditure to be directed towards the development of
locally based creativity, community fabric building, green jobs, real
democracy, individual and collective entrepreneurialship, and a re-embrace
of the dignity of work. It will also allow people to wean themselves
off benefits as they develop new skills, improved CVs, greater self
assertion and confidence, not to mention the huge health benefits in terms
of tackling isolation, depression, social breakdown at the root. It will get
people off their backsides but not Tebbit "On Yer Bike" style, rather Rumi
"Let the beauty that we love be what we do"..

The way I see it, alongside the present economy, communities should be able
to compete with one another for labour, by simply embracing a cultural
stance. A mixed economy, two parallel economies inteplaying with one
another rather than this monoculture of labour everywhere competing for
capital, or else the indignity of the dole.

Here's the story about 186 billion benefits.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/5962510/Unsustainable-social-security-spending-equal-to-a-quarter-of-goverments-budget.html

Thoughts anyone?

Love
Mark
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