<div>Some might be interested in this exchange on Equality, Democracy and Immigration on the Campaign against Immigration Controls list:</div>
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<div>Mark:<br></div>
<div>I agree equality is key, and thanks for the links. For me equality must start in the place where we live, so that decisions about expenditure, use of resources, and work issues in a community are made by everyone, with equal input, with delegation rights to the 'higher' levels of administration (ie regional, national, transnational and global) ie towards a genuine egalite. For those that answered me off-list, that is what I mean by 'Zapatistan'; government from below. In other words, a decentralised, direct democratic, community focused political economy. For a union to form around these ideals.. this will need to be in the form of.. policy demands to create the conditions for an alternative, parallel, democratic economy (so ordinary folk have a choice of how to live - either as individuals in the consumer capitalist society or alternatively as workers in collaboration with others in the parallel economy of newly sovereign communities) to take properly take root, either where they live, or in other parts of the country. And this union must of course operate, or at least begin with aim for a transnational campaign. </div>
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<div>In effect this will be a different model of the means of production, and if supported and left to its own devices I believe it will produce a completely different, democratic culture which will subvert the old one. Workplaces will become democratised because of the example set in local communities and new, intentional communities around the country. A democratic 'Other' to corporate globalisation will be born and if it stays true to the vision of a world without fixed national borders, but with local communities all pursuing their own earth and humanity friendly agendas, seperately but equally then it will transform globalisation from the bottom up. </div>
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<div>For me equality in this sense has two meanings, first between individuals so that all are equally entitled to have their voice heard and deliberated on in horiozontal collaboration with others, but also second between communities so that all get an equal place in the post-capitalist democratic world order, equal say in the direction of national and global policy, and an equal share in global / national tax redistributions for each local budget. </div>
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<div>I want to go on and speak in more detail about how all this relates to borders and an end to immigration controls, but time precludes me. </div>
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<div>Best wishes </div>
<div>Mark</div>
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<div class="gmail_quote">2009/9/15 B:
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<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid">The answer to this outfit (and it's mentioned on their website, although they don't seem to know what it means) is equality. As in: everybody being treated the same, and nobody having more than anyone else without good reason.<br>
<br>For all the burgeoning, current interest in equality (and the catastrophic health and environmental costs of inequality) it's amazing that nobody is, yet, demanding equality plain and simple. Perhaps we are all too steeped in the idea that it is perfectly right and proper for rich people to be bigger, healthier, happier, and live longer more interesting lives than poor people ...<br>
<br>Anyway - my modest proposal (bearing in mind that we must avoid the trap of Equality in One County, which the Ws of E would probably find quite adventurous enough) is:<br><br>A maximum wage as well as a minimum wage; adjusted annually so that they converge in (let's say) 2015 (to allow those with weighty responsibilities time to sort themselves out).<br>
<br>I THINK this could be done globally, if the wage is calculated in terms of ability to subsist (in some places, one can subsist to some extent without money, or much money).<br><br>It would be vital to replace the restrictions on the movement of people with restrictions on the movement of wealth and natural resources - which would have to be under democratic control.<br>
<br>There are a couple of early discussion papers on this at:<br><br><a href="http://www.equalitywhen.org.uk/" target="_blank">http://www.equalitywhen.org.uk</a> (from a meeting I organised in Oxford two years ago).<br><br>
... and there is more at:<br><br><a href="http://www.equalitytrust.org.uk/" target="_blank">http://www.equalitytrust.org.uk</a> - Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett's organisation, launched with their book "The Spirit Level" earlier this year. They only promote "more-equal" arrangements - perhaps so as not to frighten the horses - but their data have utterly radical implications.<br>
<br>All the best,<br><br>B<br><br>At 23:40 +0100 14/9/09, Mark Barrett wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid">There is a spectre haunting us, alongside a resurgent BNP and the bust ups in Luton, Harrow and elsewhere we now have the formation of the English Workers Union (see their key aims at <<a href="http://www.workersofengland.co.uk/key_goels.htm" target="_blank">http://www.workersofengland.co.uk/key_goels.htm</a>><a href="http://www.workersofengland.co.uk/key_goels.htm" target="_blank">http://www.workersofengland.co.uk/key_goels.htm</a> ) <br>
<br>Surely now is the time to develop our own Zapatistan union, for real democracy, from below in each locality here in the UK, but also at the same time everywhere else in the world, and for a linked set of policies (that would allow the dismantling of immigration controls) to create the conditions for a cultural shift here (away from the capitalist mode of production) and for the proper economic and political development of other nation states. So that migration becomes predominantly for reasons other than economic, allowing the countries in question to keep many of their best people currently lost to the rich north.<br>
<br>Comrades, it's time</blockquote></blockquote></div></div></div></div>