R-evolution - to Capitalism, Transfromed

R-evolution - to Capitalism, Transfromed

18 March 2014

John Courtneidge

It seems that, judgiing from the publication of the book, photographed below, that our friends in the USA might be ready to consider the Co-operative Socialism variant.  

If so, I hope that the following short writing encourages them to find the essays on Co-operative Socialism in the papers' section at www.interestfreemoney.org.uk and  . . .

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Last week my friend, Jim, spoke of his preference for "Regulated Capitalism":

   

   "I just had a quick look at "interestfree..." I don't have the time to investigate this idea fully. However, I think back to the times I lent money to people and the troubles I had. (The most I was ever owed was $400.) Now, if anybody asks to borrow cash, I laugh uproariously in their face. If they persist, I get very angry. . . I know my experiences are small scale and I know that in our complex society, we need some way of funding people with good ideas however . . . My ideas about a new economic model, I call 'Regulated Capitalism." This would not require a revolution. . . My way of talking about economics is geared at changing the minds of young economics students and also debating with the people who are the problem now. . . Are you familiar with the way the US reformed it's economy beginning in 1938-9? Their purpose, of course, was to fight WWII, but it gives an example of what is possible in economics." 

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I replied to ask:

 - that he consider a change to an active adjective - so developing "Regulated Capitalism"  to 'Transforming Capitalism' - ie to 'Transforming Beyond Capitalism' .

Like Jim, I'm no fan of revolutions - they have always ended up a) with violence and b) with a new set of bosses replacing the old set of bosses, then there's a counter-revolution and the children of the old set of bosses replace the new set of bosses . . . think City of London/England.

Now, the transformation - r-evolution - involves first of all a mind-set change from 'What can I get?' to 'What can I give?'.  This seems to go through a 'What can I share?' first of all.

Next, we need a paradigm inversion (for 'How Rigid is Your Paradigm', please see that essay in the papers' section at www.interestfreemoney.org - it seems to be one of the two 'entry-level' essays into this - the Needs on is the other).

Anyway, that inversion is to see that ownership is wrong rather than right.  That way, the consequential 'unearned incomes' that flow from ownership (rent, interest, profit, higher-than-average-incomes-from-paid work ie RIP-Up in the TRIP-Up acronym, T = Theft = Ownership of economic resources) evaporate.

Now, unless we are led back, to become hunter/gatherers in the Garden of Eden, we will need to work to sustain ourselves.

And work is that opportunity to give; work is, as my friend Peter Challen says, love made manifest (which work, at present for 99+% of the population - even for the Queens, bond traders and other thieves - it's not!).

So, we'll need access to those economic resources - and that where the concept of careship rather than ownership and co-operative careship rather than ersatz careship = stewardship - comes from.

But, enough, for now.

So, thanks again, Jim - and for your vignette on lent money - what a piece of work debt, usury, rent, etc are!

For all - the best! - equally!

john

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The Right Chemistry: Life, love and chemistry

First Draft Hertford August 2003
John Courtneidge
Net-published 14 March 2014

Objective

To interweave a collection of commentaries about life, love and community, along with an introduction to, and development of contemporary issues in, chemistry.  With bangs!

Threads

Poetry, popular music (Beatles?), locations, history and personalities. Chemistry as experience. Home experiments?

Programme Theme Outlines

Programme 1: ‘What’s It All About Alfie?’ Life, love and chemistry

Atoms, air, fire.

Atoms, molecules, marriage, human relationships, co-operation, love.

Melting/freezing/change types

The Greek atomists and John Dalton. Lavoisier, Davy, and their wife. Greece, Manchester, London and Paris

Programme 2: ‘Out of Darkness, Light’: Planets, Water and Fire

Fish, clouds, emergence, evolution and paradigm. Volcanoes

Sulphur, sulphuric acid. Limestone, acid rain.

Programme 3: ‘You, me, we, us’: Community, life, co-operation

Boiling eggs, building people, proteins, DNA, hydrogen bonds, subtlety, music.

Programme 4: ‘Family, community’: The Periodic Table

Order out of chaos, entropy, Free Energy, predictability. Revolution and paradigm.

Gibbs, Bolzmann, Mendeleef

Programme 5: ‘Growing Up, Growing Wiser’

Change, complexity, truth and order. Reaction rates, equilibrium.

Bond breaking and making – growing up together, breaking up is hard to do.

The 18th Hole at St Andrews.

Programme 6: ‘Violence, War, Peace’: The Enlightenment

Electricity, atom Bombs, solar power

Faraday, Fredrick Soddy, Pliny

Metals, Atomic structure, ionic bonding, theft, money and profit.

Oil, coal, gas, cars, trams, WWI

Quantum mechanics, Rutherford, Heisenburg, Los Alamos, Hiroshima

Programme 7: ‘The Enlightenment Part II’: Awareness, Consciousness, Gaia

Silicon, communication, internets, swarming, co-operation, immanence, poetry, love.

Programme 8: ‘And let There Be Light’: Wholosophy and connectedness

Light/energy/matter equivalence Einstein’s equation. Max Plank, the Mystics.

Wave particle duality. One in all/all in one.

Photochemistry, helium and the sun. Fireflies. Organic peroxides, fire, human heeds. The planet’s needs. Food, photosynthesis, life, future.

"Affluent, effluent . . ." - Money, Chemisrty, Life - What next?

John Courtneidge

14 March 2014

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In a Facebook thread at the Green Left page, I used the phrase "affluent, effluent . . ."

Actually, there's a non-demonising point here and I apologise is I offend anyone with the "affluent, effluent . . ." pairing. 

Effluent (pollution) is the necessary co-production to wealth production: it’s a Laws of Chemistry (including the Laws of Thermodynamics) thing: the Second Law of Thermodynamics and the First Law of Chemistry thing( 'Everything gotta go somewhere' is a popular encapsulation of the latter ('Matter is neither created nor destroyed in a chemical reaction, simply changed from one set of relationships to another') while 'Shit happens' is a way of expressing the Second Law of Thermodynamics: That in *any* change any-where, the overall entropy (dis-order) of the universe increases.

Now, in a wealth-creating process, order is created locally, which means that disorder (either disordered low-temperature energy and/or disordered materials) in the rest of the universe results.

So a high-consuming individual/family or society is stacking up lots of ordered 'goods' - even short-lived ordered materials (like plastic water bottles, say) but at the expense of creating, in the wealth-creation phase (to say nothing of any later 'throw away’s) lots of pollution - effluent.

Thus the poetic pairing, 'affluent, effluent . . .' (an older, even more offending, but true pairing was due to the process of unearned incomes being distributed to the 'wealthy' in increments: 'the excrement living in increment'.  This demonisiation of the 'rich' - like the anti-fox-hunting slogan 'The unspeakable in pursuit of the inedible': no wonder that the politics of name calling gets out of hand!

Anyway, the not-human world operates according to those same Laws of Chemistry (including the Laws of Thermodynamics).  So, for example, photosynthetic life-forms (plants, blue-green algae - I'm no botanist, but am a chemist)  create local order (a tree for example) out of less-ordered materials (freely moving carbon dioxide molecules in the air, less freely-moving liquid water in the ground and, to a small extent, somewhat ordered minerals dissolved in the water.

Now, the overall process is, simplified, as:

Carbon dioxide + water + light (energy) -> carbohydrates (the tree) + oxygen  (read the arrow as 'Goes to give')

(BTW – my suspicion is that photosynthesis produces heat as well as another by-product, but whether that’s been shown to be true or not I don’t know.)

Now, the oxygen is a pollutant as far as the tree is concerned (and a dangerous one - oxygen is poisonous to living things - something that oxygen-metabolising things - like you and me - have to carefully control.  As does the tree: due to the following unwanted (as far as the tree is concerned reaction (for carbohydrate combustion: 'forest fires'):

Carbohydrates (the tree) + oxygen  ->  Carbon dioxide + water + heat and light.

Now, in a balanced eco-system, the sequestration (converting into 'tied-up' molecules like water - oxygen atoms tied onto/bonded with hydrogen atoms - and carbon dioxide: again a triatomic molecule of one carbon atom and two oxygen atoms) keeps an oxygen balance of about 21% of the atmosphere: enough for animals to breath and control, so that carbohydrates can be metabolised into energy (warmth and movement - and, I hope, sometimes a little metaphoric light: wisdom).

Now, all that is going on well in the Garden of Eden and, then, to cut a long story (about 15,000 years: which in global terms and even life-history terms is not a long time) we invented the super explosive, money.

Now, I'll shorten the description of explosives to say that they combine - often even in the same molecule, the fuel (like the carbohydrates of the tree) with the oxidising agent (the oxygen in the forest fire - or fire in the forest when controlled - as above).

Likewise now with money: money nowadays (and probably almost as soon as it was invented) not only lives a static life, lubricating human activities - wealth creation - but, once debt and interest had been invented, became a 'life'-form in its own right: demanding to be fed raw materials, energy - and human lives - to re-produce itself.

Now money has no limits, if we let it be so and so the wealth-creating process (as above) runs reckless - making the maximum effluent in the minimum possible time - the machine in the Garden goes wild, consuming everything - and everybody - in sight.

Such that earth's mechanisms - Gaia - can't cope and catastrophic change results - anti-wealth production (like war, for example).

So, why am I writing this?

Well, first, you will by now have appreciated that 'if we don't control money it will control us' - an old phrase that causes some of us to take the unsustainable route to managed capitalism (social democracy/fascism/Marxism) away from unmanaged capitalism (Anarchism/Neoliberalism/Libertarianism). Or to take the more-sustainable route - to replace capitalism with horizontalist, equalitarian, eco-integrated Co-operative Socialism (co-operating together as humans and co-operating with the rest o9f the creation as kindly as we can).

But, more so, I'm stumped.

Because the foregoing chemistry account should be the meat and drink (literally) of everyone: if we don't know how it works, how can we become responsible members of earth's com-m-unity?  Given our genetic ability to do so many bad! things?

And, yet, as much as I tried to promote a TV series termed 'The Right Chemistry' and as many TV series of toffs jetting around the world shows, the affluent creating (by necessity of their effluent lifestyles) amounts of effluent that Gaia can't cope with, dominate the Third Wave of Alvin Toffler's age of information.

Woe!

How Can We Help Make Progress?

John Courtneidge 

11 Mrach 2014

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In the articles in the CCPA 'Readings on Co-operative Socialism' (see http://www.interestfreemoney.org/papers/), I offer some thoughts on action: local as well as national/global.




Here I'd like to talk about a twin-track approach to political party politics.

The point is that a political party is set up to acheive what its supporters want - in large part, then, what its pay-masters want.

To take a case in point:

The Co-operative Party (of which I'm an active member in the UK, as well as being an active meber of The Labour Party - true Labour, that is, not the New Labour hijackers of Toney Blair, Peter Mandelson etc) was set up and funded by the Co-operative movement during the First World War - because the, then, 'National' government ( a coalition of the two capitalist parties, the Conservatives and the Liberals) were actively harming the Co-operative Movement.

So, back to Canada, just as in the UK, there is an effective a coalition of the two capitalist parties, the Conservatives and the Liberals - sure thay strut and blow but their objective (what their backers pay for) is the continuation of capitalism.

You might have seen Tommy Douglas's great speech on You Tube, 'Mouseland'.

Which brings me to the point:

The CCF was set up, initially, by poor(er) people, to advance the cause of poor people.

It largely adopted the democratic socialist approach of the Fabian Society - based in the London School of Economics in London, UK - which was to have a mixed economy of capitalism and government-owned monopolies (with a sprinkling of co-ops in the margins).

As it has turned out, this 'middle-of-the-road' approach meant - and means - that you end up as road-kill: clobbered bfrom both directions.

The CCF was attacked from both the bully left (the Marxist communists) and from all of the pro-capitalists (the Liberals, the Conservatives and their extreme wings, the Libertarians and the Social Crediters respectively - BTW the Social Crediters are an interesting story but that for another time).

And so the CCF fell away, to be rescued by the Unions as 'The New Party' - the NDP-NPD.

Now, as I understand it, there was one voice - that of a prominent co-operator - who spoke out and voted against the Fabian CCF plan.

For rme, Fabian-directed (and so-called democratic) socialism has run its course - we ended up being run by a new set of bosses and poverty and unemployment still existed in the 1950's, 1960's and onward - in the Fabian-inspired dream: the so-called Golden Age of Left-liberal John Maynard Keynes's economics (ie borrow don't tax) and Left-liberal William Beveridge's welfare state (or, more accurately, paid middle-class bullying of the poor - too strong for some? Ask kids who were caned at school, and families whose children were removed to residential/prison homes, etc).

So, here we are - with two choices - to either get our Labour/Co-operative/NDP-NPD parties back on the right (ie, left) side of the road - going in the true progressive direction - largely experiential, definitely horizontalist: producing income equality for all. Or, set up a Co-operative Socialist Party of our own to do these things.

Now, I'm much more for a variation/development of these: a twin track of pressing on the existing truely progressive parties from within (eg getting a Federal Riding association of the NDP-NPD to adopt a motion for Co-operative Socialism - as per the CCPA Readings document at http://www.interestfreemoney.org/papers/ - along with a single-focussed community-based political campiagn group outside, pressing for income equality - which, I guess, is essentially what NCAP is.

So, the work here - to build up NCAP numbers is so vital - and a focus:

= that focus being, perhaps, on presing the NDP-NPD or ?new party? to adopt (greater and permanaent) income equality as its main objective - with it committed to implementing a Living Income for Everybody as a base income and an income maximum, socially-determined annually, as the income more than which no-one should take/receive).

Sorry - it turned into a long reply!

Hope it helps.

Best - equally! - for all!

john

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Why I do this

Why I do this

10 March 2014

John Courtneidge

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Whether, again, Pope Francis said these words, I share them - if only to add that it's not the "goodness of those wielding economic power" that I hope to activate.

Rather, I'm clear that Capitalism is a system that impoverishes *everybody* - regardless as to whether their family is one of the 2% that own economic resources, or whether their family is one of the 10% of families that are employed by the 2% to oppress the 88% of families who are forced to be worked - to pay the higher incomes in the form of rent/interest/profit/taxes that are paid to the 2% and 10% of families I describe.

Thus, the plan for Co-operative Socialism isn't a 'grab back' from those 2% and 10% of families - it's a way of ensuring 5that eveyone has an income sufficient to live a decent life - and, so to havethe opportunity to make a contribution to the wellnes f all (ie the true co-operative common-wealth that provides wllnes of all - 'the co-operative commonweal'.

This is because our essential connectedness - the oneness/ the wholeness of all - means that the suffering of one is suffering for all - just as if you bang your thumb with a hammer, the pain goes throughout your own body and through the bodies of any who are aware of the hurt.  Harm hurts all - and it is income/economic inequality that creates the harm that is avoidable: to give us the strength to cope with the harms that are unavoidable.

Accordingly, the plan for Co-operative Socialism has no sense of demonising any-one, any family, any race, any nation . . . but, rather, sees the opportunity, now fully apparent to us in this plan, to act for the wellness of all - all humans, all not-human living sisters and brothers, planet earth, Gaia and God themselves: the wellness and wholeness of all.

So:

I hope that people will find time in their busy, often hurting, lives, to view the evidence that is the basis of the plan for Co-oerative Socialism (that greater income equality is good for everyone - see The Spirit Level book and www.equalitytrust.org.uk) and, for the plan for Co-operative Socialism via www.interestfreemoney.org.uk/papers/

And, finally, to find some way in which to join in with this work for the wellness of all, inall, by as best we can.

I hope that this helps!

Best - equally! - for all!

john

John Courtneidge

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Money - How it should be created - and how it should be used 

John Courtneidge Drafted January 2014, posted 3 March 2014
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At my Facebook page, my friend, Andre commented:

"Interest free money is a big thing...as in the central bank of canada should not be charging interest on public money....which I why the national debt has ballooned....its really a false debt."

People might know that my latest twenty years of working for peace started with the Campaign for Interest-free Money, in co-operation with a number of friends.

That work lead to the Forum for Stable Currencies.

In those early years, there was a continual battle over the following, as in my reply to Andre:

I replied:

Yes! the two money questions - a) how it is created in the first place and, b) how it is then used are central to helping create happiness and sustainability. As far as 'how' is concerned, Andre is quite right! Money should be crated by the community as interest-free credit (*not*!! as interest-bearing debt). And by 'community', the most sensible level of community for that (through our experiences with local money like LETS and supra-national money like the Euro and the US Dollar) is 'the nation state' - when that entity is controlled, democratically, by 'the community of all Citizens, for the benefit of the commonweal'.

The second point (about how money should be used - until we abolish it altogether/all-together!) is that, the economic mechanisms *have* - for peace and sustainability - to work in ways that continually narrow 'the gap' between all people in all communities - both 'the national community of all Citizens' and 'the global, co-operative inter- community of all Citizens': it's a 'Spirit Level' thing!

Woo-hoo!

 What Next After QE? - the Proper Use of Interest-free Money

John Courtneidge    3 March 2014

 On Facebook, a reader, Lloyd, posted:

   "We are suffering with "interest free money" QE. AND the 'bubble', like last time, is accounting fraud which needs addressing."

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This is a worthwhile comment, since it prompts me say that the first step of two has been made.

If you look at the Early Day Motions that we sponsored in the 1990's (see www.forumforstable currencies.org.uk as the parliamentary aspect of www.interestfreemoney.org), you'll see that we were asking for Parliament to:

    a) retrieve to the Bank of England the task of creating the money supply, but on an interest-free basis: which was what was done with 'Quanitative Easing' (not our term).

**However**,

   and here's the b) part which has yet to be activated,

we wished that the annual increase in the money supply* be brought into existence by the commercial banking system (under the approval of the government!) as intetest-bearing debt (ie the Fractional Resrevce Banking method that Positive Money actively highlights).

* (Note: which *has* to occur at present because the existing money in circulation almost completelycirculates as interest-bearing debt (or rent/interest/profit-seeking investment/debt) and the annual increasein the oney supply was (before QE)

So, our EDMs asked the b) part - which was to pass each year's added money supply into circualtion as interest-free credit:

  -  be for social (ie and environmental) purposes.

Now, of course, Lloyd is right in saying that, "We are suffering with "interest free money" QE."  -- *only* because the QE money (so far!) has *not* gone to social purpose:

(which, to be social purpose, *has* to reduce income inequality:

  - see www.equalitytust.org.uk and the book 'The Spirit Level')

- rather, than as happened in both the UK and the US - as a hand-out to the owners of capital-funded enterprises (ie to the 1 or % in the Occupy phrasing - to keep the 10% (in my 2/10/88% analysis) - those inpositions of (anti-) social power, so that they could (continue to) bully, bribe and brainwash us (as in JK Galbraith'stypology of social power in 'The Anatomy of Power'): so that social iniquity

  - including Lloyd's "the 'bubble', like last time, is accounting fraud which needs addressing":

( The subject of the movie 'The UK Gold, for example)

  - could be continued.

Note that 'be' in the last sentence - the conspiracy is to ensure that the conspiracy (the cons-piracy - the theft of the wellnes of all) is continued!

So, as Margrit Kennedy's book, 'Interest and Inflation-free Money' (now on-line as a PDF) points out: interest-charging (ie usury, a'riba: interest at *any* level and by what-ever cheviance - dodge or scam (like QE) - is applied on us (by us I mean all!).

Hope this helps: thanks! Lloyd!

For all

john

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IFM: Campaign for Interest-Free Money: Introduction
www.interestfreemoney.org
*Where we've come from* The Campaign for Interest-Free Money was launched on 28t...See more


Allof which followed form my sharing of Viv At's post (as below):


So, we need to be prepared with a plan - say, for Co-operative Socialism - it's green, it's equalitarian, it's healthy - I've posted it onmy Time line and its at www.sustainabilitynotcapitalism.blogspot.com and in the papers' section of www.interestfreemoney.org

Perhaps your Party Branch could endorse that planand forward it to its policy -deciding process . . . ?

Hope so!

For all, in all

john
Viv AtOccupy Economics [Lancaster UK]
He's undoubtedly right...

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/feb/24/recovery-bubble-crash-uk-us-investors