[Campaignforrealdemocracy] Ape Guidance, LVT, Real Democracy & Capitalism / What we're up against!

[Robin Smith]

How on earth does this study reveal that society has a natural group
size? This is a leap of faith as big as the one that claims that
poverty is inevitable, that the wealthy inherit their intelligence,
that full employment is unnatural, that morality is in the eye of the
beholder, that the truth can never be known. Smaller groups may or may
not be better in the end, but it has nothing to do with our genes nor
evolution.

The Times article is more neo malthusian claptrap. It is at the very
heart of our inability to gather the force required to deal with the
roadblocks preventing the advance of our great civilisation.

It assumes that societies operate with some direct and obvious
connection to our genes as if genes have some sort of sentient
personality. This is the same confused thinking that helps the less
desirable among us to convince the masses that poor people are born
that way or that poor people should be culled to prevent climate
change. When we all know intuitively that society "advances"  through
knowledge and justice. It does not "evolve". If it evolved genetically
then why have there been so many falls(Rome, China  etc) If it evolved
surely it would be a continuous process, ever increasing, never
declining.

This lack of intelligent thinking by journalists is one of the main
causes of the confusion around economic and democratic justice and why
they are both slipping from our grasp. The other source of similar
ignorance and stupidity is rooted in our academies. Ask yourself who
controls these institutions and all will become clear. Cui Bono ?

Deny these stories with all your might.

Brgds
Robin.





2009/7/11 Mark Barrett <marknbarrett at googlemail.com>:
> Thanks to Heather for letting me forward this with Stuart's initial
> question (see below) about reformist nature of LVT
>
> But also, some may be interested in the following from today's Times,
> The Great Ape Guide to A Great Reform Act: "The study of evolution, in
> particular of the social evolution of the great apes, has revealed that we
> have a natural group size — or to be more exact, a number of natural group
> sizes — which have taken us down from the trees and up to the Moon. Any
> system that is to work must follow our evolutionary nature.For millions of
> years, we evolved as primates in groups of 50 or so, which is still the size
> of a normal group of our nearest relatives, the gorillas and chimpanzees.
> Although we split from them about six million years ago, this group size
> persisted. It is found everywhere: small businesses, departments of larger
> ones, common rooms, military squadrons. It is a size people are happy with.
> You know everyone, you know what they do and how well they do it; you notice
> when they are not there....All that is required is a street representative
> for each group of 20 to 30 households, available to hear queries, complaints
> or suggestions, and calling occasionally to give information or warnings.. a
> tribe of 600 members is the largest possible natural unit of the human
> community...[need to] create city villages, areas of some two or three
> hundred households, electing their own village councils (the street
> representatives)... there is one other unit which has its genetic base in
> human evolutionary history. They put this last unit, the supertribe, at
> 6,000...The supertribe, the market town of a few thousand, is a number we
> have been happy with over the centuries. It can be self-sufficient in a way
> that a village of a few hundred cannot. Our cities are full of these
> potential market towns; 6,000 is the sort of number that can support a
> shopping parade, a school and all the services for everyday living. It is
> not that long — a few hundred years — since towns that size ran themselves
> with minimum help or interference from above. They still could...Six
> thousand may sound a small number, but a government budget of £600 billion
> means that such a group contributes and consumes £100 million a year. At the
> moment, each citizen deals separately with an absurd range of government
> institutions, whereas almost all of these transactions could be carried out
> at the offices of his city township. "
> .http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article6684542.ece
>
> Here's Heather's response:
>
> "..Most folk I know don't want to take responsibility for their own
> neighbourhoods or their own workplace.  Sadly, the capitalists have bought
> us off - they gave us a few more sweets and we lost the urge to fight for
> justice.  We have an example of a former NF person who got elected to
> Hounslow Council on the basis he fights for his local community.  He says he
> has reformed and is no longer racist and it appears he has changed but
> others will influence on seemingly innicent issues and then show their real
> colours (as has the BNP in wanting to sink the boat people).  I think most
> people are happy to step back and let others take control and then moan when
> things go wrong.  Surely we have the opportunity for local democracy with
> local government today - it is starved of money but there is no longer any
> call by local folk and groups to demand proper involvement in local issues.
> Those elected do not want to involve local people in getting their community
> group involved in decision-making.  In the '80s there was a strong move from
> and local government for people and organisations to take responsibility and
> get involved in decision-making in their community - to take responsilibily
> for providing community services with proper funding.
>
> I hope I am proved wrong and people do waken up and demand change.  Real
> democracy is something hard to achieve because so many stay in the
> background and their views are not sought or valued by the loudest.  I do
> not have the right to make decisions on behalf of others unless I bother to
> find out what it is they want and need and I have to go to them for that
> because they won't come to me.
>
> If we can make a start and change the system so that we all share our
> natural resource income in a fair and just mannner and in an efficient and
> sparing way that protects our natural resources for all of us and for
> generations to come, we will achieve something.  If folk could see that we
> are all part of nature and are all interdependent both in the world today
> and across time, then people will come to see that we should only consume
> what is necessary and what benefits all of us.  However, I think today's
> obsessions with consumerism, 'Big Brother', the adoration of 'celebraties'
> who are famous for nothing more than having affairs, spending a fortune on
> clothes and going to clubs etc has make the task  to bring about real change
> very much harder.
>
> Wow - that was a bit heavy for me on a Saturday morning!!  I might go an
> visit our Eco Village that has set up on a site by the Thames opposite Kew
> Gardens - it is one that Dave and I have been saying we should squat but
> never did.
>
> (Just in case you wonder who I am - I am Heather Wetzel but amd using my old
> name Allman for some of my politics again.)
>
> See you soon.
>
> All the best
>
> Heather
>
> (Wetzel / Allman or what ever takes my fancy)
>
> HEATHER ALLMAN - RESEARCHER
> "Transforming Communities"
> email: allman.heather at googlemail.com
> Sustainable Transport Policies . Public Finance with Social Inclusion .
> Affordable Housing . Economic Land Policies with Justice.
> www.LabourLand.org
>
>
> Hi again Stu
>
> Here below is Dave Wetzel's brief response to your question - "In respect of
> making land a key focus, I completely agree. Land enclosure is the basis of
> capitalism and dispossession. But a land tax implies retaining capitalism.
> "
>
> By way of supplementary, the way I see it, it's a way of
> nationalising/socialising land values without actually taking it from
> landowners at gunpoint. And, yes I agree other policies (as inferred by Dave
> and yourself) will definitely be needed in addition, in order to get beyond
> capitalism. This must include more than new tax and a ditchinf of some of
> the old ones, and must see a shift in actual control from individuals and
> corps to to democratic human collectives. But I do think this tax is part of
> what we need in mix in terms of showing the values we are for (the earth a
> common treasury for all, and a tax that reflects that) and how we are to
> wean ourselves off the old ways via practical application of a revolutionary
> agenda.
>
> But the shift in control part is defintely where I see more overtly
> anti-capitalist policies coming into play, and yes basically at heart this
> must be about land and freedom.
>
> So, according to the agenda Project 2012 have set out so; far buildings must
> be given over to/seized permanently by the people, in every neighbourhood,
> to be run as they see fit, and eventually with decision making powers,
> equivalent to functions of parliament, bank and even benefits distribution -
> all working on local democracy consensus basis - (benefits, for example
> mini-jobs so people can start doing 3-4 hours a week of what they want to
> do, in, and in collaboration with, a local community decision body (ie, some
> form of local people assembly) - this way communities compete for labour,
> and decide the character of their area through decisions about who to lend
> to (as bank), what to spend on (as local parliament) and who to employ
> through benefits system so we start creating  a community based, direct
> democratic political economy. And of course there is no reason why land
> can't also be ring-fenced for new intentional low impact communities to set
> up  all around the countr, in a reworking of the old monastic system / pre
> enclosure ( a kind of democratic anarcho communist re-enclosure with
> collective stewardship / ownership rights, security of tenure for
> environmental and human-social purposes..)
>
> All this raises more questions about how do you define a neighbourhood, what
> happens if the BNP types take over, what will happen to job market in
> corporations, domestic investment and much more besides. And all of this
> needs to be considered, (& much of it has) and then developed as theory
> aswell as connecting to mobilisation if we are to win power. Hopefully
> between us we can do just that in the coming years!
>
> I hope this of interest, have to rush out now so will leave it at that.
>
> All the best comrade
> Mark
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Dave Wetzel <davewetzel42 at googlemail.com>
> Date: 2009/7/11
> Subject: Re: LVT Question
> To: Mark Barrett <marknbarrett at googlemail.com>
>
> Hi Mark,
> Greetings from Harbin in China.
> I'm here to give a lecture in the Plenary Opening Session on Sunday 12th
> July of the 2009 International Forum on Urban Development and Planning
> organised by the People's Government of Harbin Municipality and the Chinese
> Government's Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development and other
> bodies including co-sponsors such as the Lincoln Institute at Peking
> University.
>  In haste right now so maybe the best I can do is to send you and Stuart
> Hodkinson a copy of the paper I have circulated in advance of my speech.
>
> nb Annual Land Value Tax or what I call LBC - Location Benefit Charge (an
> annual charge on landowners for the benefit they receive from the community)
> is a way of collecting land rent from all landowners. To introduce we could
> set it at say, only 10% of the annual rent but over a reasonable period
> raise it to 50% -the highest rate of income tax - and at the same time
> abolish or reduce many other taxes. (Perhaps raise the thresh-hold for
> income tax with a personal allowance of £30k so that nobody earning less
> than £30k should pay no income tax).  Eventually I would suggest that
> nothing less than 100% LBC should be adopted so that all of land rent is
> used to pay for public services and because it would make the economy more
> efficient (no valuable land kept idle by speculators, more urban farms and
> parks, less urban sprawl etc) we could not only easily afford to shift our
> economy to a more environmental approach but also pay a Citizen's Land
> Dividend to every adult and child.
>
> Stuart is right - LVT (or LBC) is not a panacea - it will not replace
> capitalism. Neither will it cure cancer. We will need other policies to
> achieve both - but I believe it is an essential step towards a socialist,
> green society in which local people and communities can take control. See:
> www.LabourLand.org  and for a non-socialist view of LVT www.TheIU.org
>
> China’s Gift To The World
> –
> .
> China is a growing super power. Her GDP expands each year at an amazing
> rate. The shift in the past 40 years from a communist, mainly agricultural
> economy to a communist-led, mixed public/private economy producing massive
> growth in industry has been nothing short of incredible.
> China has become the manufacturer of the world. Every child in the USA and
> Europe plays with toys and games that have been made in China and households
> have many goods that originated in Chinese factories.
> China is truly a global player.
> This expansion in the international arena has led to economic prosperity for
> China - at a price.
> The price is greater exposure to the World’s dysfunctional financial and
> economic systems where even in the so-called “prosperous West” (USA and
> Europe) - much poverty sits beside plenty, where many are left uneducated,
> where health programmes are often either unaffordable or do not match
> people’s needs, where many essential services (including much research for
> cures to illnesses) rely upon charities accosting people on the streets or
> advertising on TV for donations, where amid prosperity many people’s diets
> are inadequate, where it is common to find unemployed and homeless people,
> racial tensions are growing, where taxes on trade and incomes are far too
> high, crime is widespread and the prisons are full.
> The current world financial and economic crisis leaves China dangerously
> exposed. Chinese factories now face massive reductions in overseas demand
> for their goods and the whole economy suffers.
> It must be possible to improve upon a system that produces such dire
> results.
> This present crisis is a symptom of the failure of the capitalist mode of
> production. That is not to say that the free market exchange and trade of
> goods and services between individuals, companies and indeed between
> countries, is intrinsically bad. This trade where we each produce and
> exchange more of what we excel in (preferably in a sustainable way) can only
> benefit mankind.
> Local production for local markets is also a desirable way of reducing huge
> transport costs and many adverse effects on our environment. This should be
> achieved by releasing local economies to play to their own strengths and not
> by creating artificial trade barriers whether they are taxes, duties and
> custom charges on imports or artificial barriers, such as laws prohibiting
> certain goods for reasons other than genuine safety or for ethical
> considerations (such as the international trade boycott on South African
> goods during the apartheid period).
> It must now be obvious to all, that the current capitalist mode of
> production as practiced in the West does have a fundamental flaw. Many
> Government leaders are happy to just blame the banking and financial systems
> and seek regulatory controls on future lending. I believe that the current
> crisis is caused by a much deeper underlying defect than a mere
> banking/credit problem. The fact that this crisis is not unique, that it is
> a part of a pattern of a regular circa 18 year cycle of booms and slumps
> must surely indicate that we are all ignoring a fundamental truth. A truth
> as important to economics as the law of gravity is to physics.
> Could it be that because of its unique history, culture, politics and
> intellect – that China could not only develop an economic model that gives
> it some protection from the current and future world trade downturns but
> actually sets the agenda for other major and emerging economies to follow?
> The answer to this question has to be a resounding “YES”!
> Most economists failed to see the impending economic crash.
> This is like saying that most rocket scientists failed to see that they had
> to produce enough power to overcome the Earth’s pull of gravity if they were
> ever to launch a satellite into orbit.
> How can economists, the practioners of a science that does nothing but study
> the production and distribution of wealth be so ignorant?
> It can only be because there is a failure in their body of knowledge. An
> important factor that gets totally ignored, distorted or deliberately
> misconstrued.
> Ever since the dawn of civilisation, cities have always given people the
> opportunity to create surplus wealth. Craftsmen become specialised and hence
> more productive, trade increases, new tools are created, ideas are readily
> exchanged, knowledge grows and surplus time is devoted to the arts, sport
> and other cultural and leisure activities. As a city grows, people move in
> from the surrounding neighbourhoods. This creates a demand for space. Space
> for homes, factories, offices, shops, roads, railways, leisure activities
> etc. This growing demand creates a value for land. We call this land value
> “economic rent”. This value cannot be ignored. It exists as surely as the
> law of gravity.
> It is not the “rent” paid for the hire of a man-made item such as a building
> or hire car. “Economic rent” is the income that arises from land or natural
> resources. It is the value of the location of a building, or the extra
> natural fertility of a farmer’s field or the demand for a landing slot at an
> airport or the part of the spectrum used for mobile telephony.
> We all need land for our existence.
> To create man-made wealth – our food, clothes, homes, workplaces, transport
> etc we need three distinct factors of production: namely Labour – human
> mental and physical exertion, Capital – man-made wealth used to create more
> wealth and finally Land and Natural Resources. Without land and natural
> resources we can create nothing.
> The return to Labour is wages. And if I take your wages you become my
> slave.     The return to Capital is interest or profit. If I defer spending
> my wages and instead buy tools, then surely I am entitled to a return on my
> capital.                                  The return to Land and Natural
> resources is economic rent.
> So the question arises, who has the right, morally rather than legally, to
> enjoy this land value?
> In Western economies it is usually accepted that the owners of land have the
> right to collect the economic rent of land. But on what basis do these
> landowners make this claim? Did they build the planet with their own labour?
> Of course not! They and their ancestors have grabbed the land using
> strength, guile, cunningness, bribery and military conquest. They have then
> influenced governments to pass legislation that gives their “ownership” the
> force of law.
> In its constitution, China recognises that land belongs to all. But even in
> China the collection of economic rent is only partially addressed.
> One of China’s founding fathers, Dr Sun Yat-sen advocated the collection of
> economic rent. Karl Marx and Engels described how the rent of land should be
> used to pay for public services in their writings including “The Communist
> Manifesto”.
> Hong Kong has collected a part of economic rent for over a century. All land
> in Hong Kong is leased and the income used to partly meet government
> expenditure. Because of the nature of the leases and methods of auctioning
> them, not all the economic rent is collected publicly and a large part
> remains in private hands. But nevertheless they did manage to build a new
> Metro and a new airport from land values rather than resort to taxing trade
> or people’s incomes.
> If China adopted a policy for collecting all land rent, many advantages
> would flow. The value of buildings and other improvements would be ignored
> and only the location value collected. Taxes on trade or incomes could be
> reduced or even abolished. Economic rent could be used for funding
> infrastructure improvements which over time would add to surrounding land
> values and thus increase the public income naturally.
> Few entrepreneurs would pay to keep land idle for speculative reasons and so
> city land would be developed comprehensively, facilitating the use of
> communal services such as transport and avoiding the unnecessary spread of
> urbanisation into the surrounding countryside – urban sprawl. With towns and
> cities becoming more efficient, business growth would be sustained and the
> whole economy would become more efficient.
> The current world economic crisis originated in the USA with banks lending
> money to people on low incomes (subprime mortgages). It was only when land
> prices reduced that the world-wide banks had a problem and soft loans for
> land speculation in other countries also began to cause economic collapse.
> So the world needs to address the land problem as well as a banking problem.
> Collecting the economic rent of land is the way to do it!
>
> Dave Wetzel
> DaveWetzel42 at googlemail.com
> Tel: 0044 208 568 9004
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