Plan for a Fair, Safe, and Peaceful World

Here's something I quite like from the article "First step is to understand how capitalism really works" by John Courtneidge in The CCPA Monitor (Vol. 16, No. 6, Nov/09).

Seven-Point Co-operative Commonweal Action Plan to create a fair, safe, peaceful world

1. Co-operatives and peace - not corporations and coercion

Convert competitive, market-based activities into workplace co-operatives, and remodel monopoly activities as community co-operatives. Each co-op would demonstrably operate according to the Co-operative Values and Principles of the International Co-operation Alliance and, from the commonweal and the planet, would have respectful, time-limited co-stewardship of appropriate land and knowledge resources.

2. Not-for-profit banking and financial structures as co-ops - pre-distribution, not redistribution

Distribute the added-value/created-wealth from these workplace co-ops through nationally collected, co-operative corporate taxation, distributed into local, democratically-controlled Community Banks, and so make money and credit available for eco- and socially-responsible wealth creation, community development, and global care.

3. Step-wise abolition of money as access to needs - global co-stewardship for needs and care, not private resources for profit

Maximize necessary service provision (health, education, libraries, transport, and so on) on a co-operative, free-at-the-point-of-use basis: retaining money only as a mechanism for acess to discretionary purchases.

4. Fair, Guaranteed Incomes - Near equal/Equal Income for all

Introduce guaranteed fair income for all, within upper and lower brackets: based upon a liveable, fair Citizen's Income, and so do away with the need for direct and indirect personal taxation - income tax, sales taxes, and so on.

5. Abolition of for-profit money - An end to usury/riba, and of banking as global warfare

Abolish money-lending and credit-creation for profit, and so operate banking as a community-controlled, co-operative public service.

6. Regulated international relations - An and to global exploitation through financial speculation

Reintroduce international exchange controls, a Tobin Tax, etc., as necessary.

7. All our sisters our brothers, and all our brothers our sisters - One is all, all as one, all in one

Make capital grants (not loans) to developing countries.

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