Saturday, September 20, 2014

After the Scottish Referendum - making Westminster democratic
John Courtneidge  20 September 2014

The big constitutional change I'd like to see concerns the membership of the second chamber:

    - to one based on direct randomly-selected democracy: one member per constituency, selected at random, serving for three-year terms, with on-third retiring annually.

   - with, as one major task for it being an annual recommendation to the elected house on a Fair Incomes Policy.

   - namely, i) the level of a guaranteed income scheme and ii) a maximum multiplier of that for paid-work income.

That would:

   a) operationalize/implement the message in The Spirit Level (that - greater- income equality is the ordinate public and ecological good), and,

   b )would institute the freedom to be responsible

     - by virtue of the Living Income for All/Living Citizen's Income: which would, i) break the link between paid-work (in l'economy social) and existence, and,  

    ii) allow, for example, voluntary participation in l'economy solidaire: (such as participation in that reformed second chamber: as above), to produce:


Is what we are trying to achieve!


Span the world with friendship
Equality + Equity = Fair

I hope this helps.

For all, the best = equally! = co-operatively!

john

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Thursday, September 18, 2014



 Co-operation or war - you decide!

Span the world with friendship!

Capitalism or Co-operative Sustainability* - you decide

John Courtneidge 18 September 2014

 

Co-operatively Connected!
The International Co-operative Alliance logo
Practical co-operation = many minds and hands are better than any of us alone (ie alone, exploited and forced into unnatural competition)!

I'm away at Labour Party conference on Saturday until next Thursday - and my copy of Molly and Richard's book ( Richard Bickle and Molly Scott Cato
' New Views of Society - Robert Owen for the 21st Century') is on its way.

Best - in and for co-operation - for the Common Good!

It's an ICA Principle 7 thing!

(see the ICA Statement in the papers at www.interstfreemoney.org and at www.ica.coop )

john

*ps Blog: www.sustainabilitynotcapitalism.blogspot.com for a blogged archive.

Hope this helps!

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We are all sisters and brothers
- see Point 7 in the plan for Co-operative Socialism!


New ICA logo

Worth considering!
Co-operative Socialism- on the map!

A 1995-ish version of a plan for Co-operative Socialism



Page 2 of a 2014 version of a plan for Co-operative Socialism
Page 1 of a 2014 version of a plan for Co-operative Socialism

Saturday, September 13, 2014

Stress, neuro-active molecules, equality needed - quickly!

John Courtneidge
14 September 2014

Elsewhere I've made a mistake:

I see that I'm incorrect: in that I hadn't added in the Helen Fisher/neuro-active molecules material in the following 2008 item:

The Co-operative Movement:  Emotions, Personality and Politics

http://www.interestfreemoney.org/.../Emotions....

So, Googling

"Helen Fisher" serotonin dopamine gives, for example, her 18 Jan 2009 interview: http://www.elle.com/.../helen-fishers-personality-test-3234

Gold (Helen Fisher's 'Builders) - serotonin

Orange (Helen Fisher's 'Explorers') - dopamine

Green (Helen Fisher's 'Directors') - testosterone

Blue (Helen Fisher's 'Negotiators') - estrogen(s - there are three).

(ps The London edition of 'Metro' for Friday September 12, 2014 notes, on page 23:

'New clue to risk-taking'

   "A gambler's decision . ..  influenced by dopamine . . . Canadian researchers said. Dopamine signals increase when risky choices pay off."

pps I haven't found that academic reference - and to know how well it was peer-reviewed - no snarkiness, there, I just don't have access to the literature . . .)

Now:

This fits to Helen Fisher's personality/neuro-active molecules/receptors analysis (above) which, cross referencing to the True Colors labels (see in the True Colors test - in the photos at 'my' FB page):

And:

As an added pair of points:

   a) Both testosterone and the estrogens are steroidal molecules - on the same biochemical pathways as cortisol - the stress hormone.  This suggests that stress influences the right-balance of these two sexual hormones.(explore from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steroid)

   b) Both dopamine and serotonin (if my memory serves well) are amines.  My peroxide/free-radical researches (sadly interrupted by Margaret Thatcher, et al,'s destruction of the academy - through the power of money) dabbled briefly in the free radial chemistry of amines and free-radical oxidation to amine oxides.

My suspicion is that stress involves oxidative, single-electron transfer, free radial pathways which, again, will mickey-around with natural balance of these amine neurotransmitters.

Again, the above is an example of cross-disciplinary (wholistic) speculation which, in the absence of funding and time for me to explore, with others, the appropriate*reliable* literature, needs others to take up.

However, a certainty is that reducing stress, but increasing income equality (see The Spirit Level and The Equality Trust web-site www.equalitytrust.org.uk0 by implementing the plan for Co-operative Socialism (see in the papers at www.interestfreemoney.org - thx Mary!) is the task that we *must* undertake - quickly!

Just as Jesus taught us!

For all = the best! = equally! = co-operatively!

john
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As a final postscript - I understand that Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett are writing a sequel to The Spirit Level on the psychological effects of inequality.

I eagerly await it!

Using the four-quadrant map, my suspicion is that the stress associated with greater income inequality (and greater economic inequality, generally) effectively 'pulls up' the centre of this four-quadrant map, so that each personality type (and recall that we are all mixture of all four, with a centre-of-gravity in one) so that  the four psychotic behaviours (eg narcissism for the Oranges/Explorers) result.

Those four psychoses seem to relate to the four 'Out-of-esteem' behaviours that Carolyn Kalil explains in her book, 'Follow Your True Colors to the Work You Love':

Green: "bitter sarcasm or cynicism"; "immobilization by analysis": page 81

Blue: "wallow[ing] in self-pity", "overly involved in helping others": page 67

Gold: "melancholy, pessimistic and inflexible", "inflexible . . . black or white thinking"; page 93

Orange: "quick-fix addictions", "violence": page 105

I've placed images for these pages on 'my' Facebook page.

I hope they help!

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Tuesday, September 9, 2014

The Chemistry Bit - introduction

John Courtneidge

9 September 2014















This is the age of subtle relationships - hence the power of the key book, The Spirit Level (see The equality Trust website www.equalitytrust.org.uk

There are strong parallels in this to the evolution of our understanding of chemistry: the earliest chemical knowledge was that of strong interactions (ie chemical bonds in minerals, metal, ceramics, etc: ionic and metallic bonds).  Then we learned about chemical forces within molecules: covalent bonds - often as strong as ionic and metallic bonds, but based on sharing electrons, sometimes unequally, rather than appropriating them, as in ionic bonds.

Finally, in the last century we started understanding (under-standing, in awe), the chemical bonds *between* molecules: hydrogen bonds, dipole-dipole interactions, Heitler-London forces.

As that century ended, we (I included) started to look at the role of entropy in directing chemical events: reaction rates, etc.

Sadly, the neo-loberal governments of that time abolished funding for such research - world-wide - in advance of the neo-conservatives ushering in The Age of Stupidity (look, for example at the recent dumpster-ing by Stephen Harper's neo-con government, in Canada, of scientific libraries.

Time for us, outside the monoversities' faux-academy, to help educate our younger generations.

Before it's too late!

Monday, September 8, 2014

Capitalism = Blasphemy, Theft, Rape and Murder.

John Courtneidge

8 September 2014

A while ago a Facebook friend asked that I write about my view that capitalism is, "Theft, Rape and Murder."

First some definitions:

1) I take capitalism to be an economic system that relies on private (ie not state or municipal, or other) ownership of economic resources/the means of production/means of human survival and the use of those resources for private income and accumulation.

Note that I restrict the discussion of capitalism, here, to the economic sphere - while I leave the philosophical and religious spheres (eg that capitalism ignore 'the Creator present within the Creation', as one aspect of the latter and the concepts that, for example, economic resources (or anything) can be owned, or that personal advantage is possible or that accumulation is socially-permitted - and that the two aspects, one passive, one dynamic of ownership and use, may be actively promoted via 'education', training, the law and other forms of concept propaganda.

2) Secondly, I see four economic resources that are not-human economic resources.

Namely:

  a) Land (including frozen land such as buildings, roads, ports, etc) as encompassing solid, liquid, gaseous and not-tangible aspects - fields, the sea, the atmosphere, the electromagnetic spectrum, etc) - which use provides Rent.

  b) The Law (ie human, 'socially' or sectorally-determined 'rules of permissible and not-permissible' modes of behaviour) - of which use provides interest and other forms of 'permissible' theft.

  c) Knowledge (ie frozen knowledge in the forms of tools, machinery, equipment, etc and non-tangible, but possibly written-down knowledge such as patents, agreements, business 'know-how', 'intellectual property', etc) - from which use flow profits (often distributed as share-holder Dividends.

Finally,

  d) the 'ownership' of Position, the ownership of which provides higher-than-average paid-work incomes (usually in the forms of salaries, perks, fees, bribes, etc)

Note from all this that I consider that capitalism encompasses the ownership of economic resources not only by individuals, families, tribes, corporations, etc, but also states, municipalities, etc and not-for-profit entities such as co-operatives, charities, churches,  cults, trusts, etc.

So, to:

There seem to be (at least) two possible ways at this: history and personal.

1) History

  A) Theft:

In terms, say of history, let's take English history as indicative:

The events of 1066 in England and of the subsequent conquests (thefts) by the Norman empire surely are thefts - appropriation by violence.

Subsequently, the Law was stolen - say by Henry VIII's Act of 1545 'In Restraint <sic> of Usury' - which unilaterally 'legalised' usury in England (and thus made interest charging and receiving 'legal' in England for the first time), or the invasion in 1680 by William and Mary (on behalf of the City of London) that created, via the 1684-established Bank of England, fractional reserve banking - by which money is created as interest-bearing debt).

  B) Now, as to Rape:

Rape seems to me to be an act of violence, often with penetration.  How else would you describe, say, the ecocide of the whale populations, the Atlantic Cod populations, the Canadian Tar Sands, Fracking, mining, generally.

  C) And, finally, murder.

While Theft and Rape both leave the victims alive (albeit dramatically harmed), murder is the ultimate 'appropriation of the victim's future'.

How else might you call wage-slavery, or debt-bondage, or the Highland Clearances, or the ethnic cleansing of western Ireland in the 840's or of the Beothic people in Newfoundland, or of the Acadian expulsion (Le Grand Derangement) . . . ?  All are the murders of the futures that the victims might have chosen.

And 1914-18 and 1939-45 as the deliberate murders of millions of (mostly men) the unemployed - just to keep capitalism going.

2)  Finally, the personal:

We came, each one of us into this world 'owning' nothing and we depart (thanks be!) with nothing.

Thus, what-ever we 'have' has been placed into our hands - by Thieves, or taken ap - and self-appropriated -  from the commonwealth/The Creation by ourselves or placed in our hands by God.

In the former case, where's the justification for receiving stolen goods? In the latter, God hands to us economic resources in order to make our contribution to 'the wellness (rather than illness) of all'.

And to 'His' glory.

So, rather than capitalism ('ownership and use for advantage' - Theft, Rape, Blasphemy and Murder) I prefer the concepts of time-limited, socially-agreed 'Co-operative Care-ship', underpinned by a Living Income for Everybody - so that we, all, can make our greatest contribution to the wellness of all.

Hope this helps!

ps The above leads me to the plan for Co-operative Socialism - in the papers at www.interestfreemoney.org

Best = for all! = equally! = co-operatively!

john

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Tuesday, September 2, 2014

The origin of TRIP-Up

John Courtneidge

2nd September 2014

My Friend, Jon, asked: 

"Where does the TRIP-UP item come from ? "

Here's the history:

TRIP-Up is an extension of two terms that a fellow Friend and Socialist, Jeffrey Blay* told me on a trip to Milton Keynes, way back in the 90's

(*Our Friend is an even! older democratic socialist than me! - he was given a long-service award at the last London Labour biannual-AGM at Stratford Town Hall in ?2013?) :

So, the first:

   'Let's get RID of capitalism'

(RID = Rent, Interest, Dividends - Dividends being Profits shared out to share-holders)

And, the second:

   'Capitalism RIP'

RIP - Rest-in-Peace': Rent, Interest, Profits.

I added the 'T' (for Theft) since that's what the 'ownership' of economic resources is (even 'ownership' by state or municipal government) and the 'Up', since higher-than-average pay for work seems to correlate with jobs where 'a position of power' is 'owned'.

The evolution of 'that which has been stolen/is owned' is now:

  Rent - from Land (and Frozen land - buildings, roads, ports, etc - to exact Rent);

  Interest - The Law (to exact Interest - usury was outlawed until Henry VIII first legalised it - in England - in his Act of 1545 'In Restraint of Usury')

and

  Profits fro the Theft of Knowledge/Data/Information  (both frozen (embedded in tangible things like tools, machinery, etc) - and fluid/non-tangible/virtual (patents, know-how, etc ie, nowadays, 'intellectual property'),

This suggested that somethings was being owned to provide higher-than-average pay for work: and hence that theft of 'position' (as above).

Now, all this is at variance with our Theology (of The-Creator-present-within-the-Creation / immanence / panentheism) and with what Jesus taught (as render to us).

Hence Co-operative Socialism/The Fair World Project

There's more in the papers' section at www.interestfreemoney.org - key title words are Jesus, Quaker and CCPA Readings.

Thanks for asking - I hope this helps!

For all = the best! = equally! = co-operatively!

john

ps Try as I have over twenty+ years I haven't found a book that says this TRIP-Up this in this way (I wish there was!) - lots do parts . . . except Jesus!

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Monday, September 1, 2014


Why Britain's Establishment is unjust and unsustainable

And the solution!

John Courtneidge 1st September 2014
(Please, also, see my comment and 'TIP-Up analysis', below. Thx!)

Owen Jones' new book, 'The Establishment: And how they get away with it' is available on 4th September:

http://www.penguin.co.uk/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0,,9781846147197,00.html

There is a Pre-publication Channel4 piece:

http://www.channel4.com/news/why-britains-establishment-is-unjust-and-unsustainable.

Now . . .

Readers might know that I use a (2% - 10% - 88%) economic/social/power analysis (rather than Occupy NY's 'We are the 99%' - which implies that it's only the owners (thieves) of economic resources that are 'the problem').

Two points:

The TRIP-Up* analysis points out that the 10% (all in round figures) that are paid higher-than-average incomes (usually salaries, perks, enhanced pensions - the Up unequal pay part of TRIP-Up) form the establishment's Praetorian Guard (and often, oddly, have jobs with names starting with the letter P).

* TRIP-Up = Theft, rent, Interest, Profit and Unequal-pay for work

More-over, the 'owners' (Thieves) of economic resources collect different sorts of unearned income as Rent, Interest and Profit (ie the RIP part of TRIP-Up).

And each of these groups *hates* the others - the land-owners (land Thieves) hate paying Interest to the Law thieves and Profits to the businesses that supply them with machinery, fertilizers, etc.  and of, course, those two groups hate paying Rents to the land-Thieves, etc.

And, they all *hate* paying taxes to employ the Praetorian Guard - the Up families . . .

Hence the push away from Corporation Taxes and Income Taxes - towards unfair, Indirect Taxes like Sales Taxes, User-fees, etc,etc.

So, the solution?

Economic equality and income equality.

For more, please see the five CCPA articles 9in the 'CCPA Monitor Readings on Co-operative Socialism') in the papers at www.interestfreeoney.org.uk

ps - I recommend that you read the last of those five articles first.

Hope this helps!

Best = for all! = equally! = co-operatively!

john

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