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<BLOCKQUOTE><FONT FACE="Verdana, Helvetica, Arial"><SPAN STYLE='font-size:12.0px'>Hello again,<BR>
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In response to Mark’s email below, I have always liked the idea of volunteers who live in their work place.<BR>
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These volunteers pay no rent and they have access to any food grown or funds raised by the building in which they are living to support themselves and each other with the basic essentials. These people might be teachers / trainers / gardeners / cooks / café staff, basically anyone who adds a service to the building.<BR>
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They are not expected to work a full week, enabling them to provide additional services elsewhere during the week to make further income for themselves.<BR>
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I am wondering whether there is a way I could link in my work with the East London vteam to profile a radical alternative volunteering opportunity for 16-25s that gives back to the volunteer in a non-monetary way. If anyone has any ideas, take a look at www.vinspired.com to find out more about v and get back to me.<BR>
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Best wishes<BR>
Sally<BR>
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--- On <B>Tue, 4/8/09, Mark Barrett <I><marknbarrett@googlemail.com></I></B> wrote:<BR>
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From: Mark Barrett <marknbarrett@googlemail.com><BR>
Subject: [allgendergroup] Democracy & Full Employment<BR>
To: project2012@googlegroups.com, civilisation@lists.riseup.net, campaignforrealdemocracy@lists.aktivix.org, allgendergroup@lists.riseup.net<BR>
Date: Tuesday, 4 August, 2009, 10:32 AM<BR>
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Hi everyone <BR>
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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)?<BR>
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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?<BR>
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<B>Benefits & Productivity</B> <BR>
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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"..<BR>
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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. <BR>
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Here's the story about 186 billion benefits. <BR>
<a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/5962510/Unsustainable-social-security-spending-equal-to-a-quarter-of-goverments-budget.html">http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/5962510/Unsustainable-social-security-spending-equal-to-a-quarter-of-goverments-budget.html</a><BR>
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Thoughts anyone?<BR>
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Love <BR>
Mark<BR>
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