Capitalism & Community

.
The main theme of my writing is that every citizen should be entitled to a life sustaining dividend from their Common Share of the Nations resources. I still believe that Capitalism is the best economic system for America, as long as we preserve the democratic form of Government . But we must not allow the power and corrupting force of the Love of Money to destroy our concern for the well being of all our citizens.

We must make it possible for the least capable among us to contribute all that they can and will to produce goods and services to the whole. We must require the most capable among us to share a greater burden while reaping a greater reward in return for what they do in exploiting the resources of the Nation.

Their is never a moral reason to abandon any individual along the highway of life to death, while others living on that highway reward themselves with more and bigger homes and more and faster cars. While it is true that some are entitled to greater reward for greater achievement, others gain wealth from the privilege of ownership of productive resources.  The commonwealth derived from these resources belong to all the people equally.  A portion of these resources can provide the essentials of life [food, shelter, medical care, education] in equal amount to each & every citizen. There is no reason why our society cannot be both cooperative at the survival level and competitive at the reward level.

 Written  by William Hodge  3/23/2018

Money has no limit.

Money is like points in a Ball Game. There is never too few points. The score keeper always has enough points to score the game. As long as a Nation protects its Sovereign power to create its own currency there can never be a shortage unless a shortage is deliberately created to cause Deflation and Depression to benefit the hoarders of monetary capital. That is exactly what happened in the Bank collapse and that is exactly what the Radical Republicans are doing in their drive to impose austerity on Working People. They sure as hell are not asking for Sacrifice from the Wealthy. Their is less money in circulation now than at the beginning of the Great Recession.

There can be a shortage of labor that forces up wages in good times. The GDP bean counters would call that inflation. There can be stressed productive capacity in Good times that will inflate the price of goods and be call inflation. That too happens in Good times. There can be a shortages in resources that will push up prices in good times.

But notice that the key is that general high inflation occurs in good times when the shortages is in the ability to produce goods & services. Inflation is the result of shortage of everything except money. Austerity in times of high unemployment [excess labor] and excess productive capacity [idle factories& productive capital] is sheer insanity and no School of Economic Theory will change the facts that things will get worse - not better when you start laying people off.

When people are not working and roads are falling apart and bridges are falling down it is time that the Nation's Money Creating Score Keeper makes more money to put people to work. When we have a failing educational system and teachers are being laid off, it is time to create money and put them to work. When the nation is falling into third world dilapidation, it is time to make the money and restore our march into the Future. Money creation in time of need is not the problem. Money destruction to feed the Greed is the problem. Forget your Philosophy and do your math.

Revolution without Rifles.

I invite you to join us at our Community Facebook page.
https://www.facebook.com/Pax-Village-Voice-152998464720656/

The purpose of our movement to bring all citizens out of Poverty and create a Human Community that insures Liberty to all and a pathway to Achievement for all.

I am more of an Evolutionary  than  Revolutionary. You could call it a  Revolution without rifles.  I am a big believer in Thoreau and Gandhi and King.  I believe in change by Sitting down in the Face-of-Power and saying " I quit !  I will not live by your rules any longer. I quit cooperating with the system until the system hears my voice"

This is the Human Community I choose.

1. Every person[rich or poor] gets sufficient food to maintain health.
2. Every person[rich or poor] gets adequate shelter to protect him from the elements.
3. Every person[rich or poor] gets medical care to keep him healthy.
4. Every person[rich or poor]] get an education to allow him to be competitive in the job market limited only by his ability to learn.

We have the productive means.  We have unlimited money. We have a distribution system in place. It only requires a change in the way we create and distribute money to create a Basic Income for every person[rich or poor].  

We must not allow the Greed of the 1% to keep us trapped in a Wage-slave system  that uses poverty to bind us by desperation.   It is better to  tell them " Take your job and shove it "  It is better force them to fill their prisons with our bodies protesting in the street than  to let them create our own prison in our own mind  out of a sense of hopelessness.

We are hopeless and helpless only by choice.

Please join us at our Facebook Community Page  

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Pax-Village-Voice/152998464720656
 it is the Hub of our entire Social ntwork.

Conservative View of Government

                                                            In the Course of Time

We forget why we needed to be a Nation     .     

Right Wing Conservative Ten Commandments for Government.
1. Too much crime - eliminate policeman.
2. Too many fires - layoff fireman
3. Too much ignorance - close the schools
4. Too much unemployment - fire people
5. Too much hunger - eliminate food assistance
6. Too many homeless- close the shelters
7. Too many regulation violations - stop regulating
8. Too many accidents - eliminate speed limits and alcohol laws
9 Too little health care - eliminate medicare
10.Too many criminals & crazies with guns - Stop asking gun sellers to check on gun buyers.

Radical Conservatives believe that No Government is the best Government, Good Guys always beat the Bad Guys, and we don't need no stinking rules to tell the difference between Good Guys & Bad Guys.
copyright © William Hodge 2013  

Moderating the Superior Difference

                                     

 

It would be interesting to live in a Society in which all Goods & Services were distributed equally. Unfortunately, that is contrary to the Nature of Man. Even in our Prison Systems where things are most heavily controlled and every prisoner is suppose to have the same food, The same clothes, the same shelter, and medical care and all other thing provided by the system,  there is no equality. Some prisoners live very well with virtual freedom and most others are just Bitches.

Inequality is derived from the desire to compete for prize of power and the perks that accompany it. Even in a system design to be oppressive [but with equality] there are "some who are more equal than others".    There are also those who cooperate voluntarily to achieve a form of sharing with each other, because that too is in the nature of man. I would like to live in a world of equality but know that we can at best just approach that. Not even in a "Benevolent" Dictatorship is there a way to eliminate the desire of individual to compete for exceptional-ism [a Superior difference].

My hope is not to change the Nature of Man, but to modify it in ways that protect the lives of the many. If all men have sufficient food, adequate shelter, basic medical care, and the opportunity to acquire the maximum skills of his abilities, then all men would have the Freedom to say No to the oppressor who would withhold the basic elements of survival [food, shelter.....].   Only then would the Oppressor lack the power to force others to labor to the advantage of the oppressor. The most basic Freedom is Freedom from Desperation. Only then is there "Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness" available to the Common Person.

             copyright © William Hodge 2013 

Everyone cannot win the Race

In every race, There is one who comes in first and one who comes in last and the remainder follow a bell curve in finishing. But there can be no race if only one person is running. The point of this post is to make it clear that success is not the prize of everyone who works hard to be a winner. That is the nature of competition. The prize does not go to those who try but fall short.

There is another side to people who belong to the human community. It is cooperation. There are no winners or losers or personal trophies.There is just mutual sharing. Almost no single person is all one or the other. Both are useful attributes in the preservation of life. Both have a place in producing those things that are needed as essentials and those things that are exceptional and furnish the rewards for creating the competition that leads to efficient productive effort.

There are many stories of achievement by people who start from nearly impossible conditions. There are far more stories of people with "silver spoons" who achieved great personal success.  The overwhelming number of stories I know is about failure to achieve by those who worked as hard or harder than you and I and still never rose to any level of success.

The simple fact is that where one starts in the competition of life has a much higher correlation to where one finishes the Race than does how hard you work. The story of Rags to Riches is the exception that proves the rule of the advantage of privilege over poverty in the competition for exceptional-ism  .

That is why I am a progressive. I believe that Society has an obligation to every single individual to give them the essentials of life [food, shelter, medical care and all the skills the individual is willing and able to learn] that are necessary for a level playing field. That is where the cooperative nature of man becomes essential to the purpose of Community.

The business of Life is not exceptional-ism. Exceptional-ism is a tool to achieve efficiency in the task of Society preserving the opportunity of protecting each and every life. This is the reason that we live and cooperate in communities. It is the reason we institute Governance to compel all member of our community to do their fair share of providing for the needs of the Commonshare. Too often achievers prefer to expand their gratification of the competitive need of exceptional reward and defend greed by calling it personal freedom . 

True Freedom is to know that you will not be hungry and homeless or ill without care. It is knowing you have teachers to equip you with skills to achieve according to your best abilities. It is the right to escape from those who have the power to let you starve if you refuse to work at their command for their profit at their price.  It is the freedom not to be a wage-slave.  Only democratic governance of sufficient size and strength to protect you right to share the essential of life that have their source in the Commonshare of land, air and water can give you true freedom. Anyone trying to convince you that your Government is always your enemy is the person that seeks to be your master.

 Copyright © William Hodge 2013

Ideals of Self Government

We are still on the path from Declaration to Constitution to building a Free Nation of free people with equal opprotunity to contribut to the achievement of the ideal Human Community.



We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.

If any man is hungry, or homeless, or ill, or ignorant, it is self-evident that he has NO unalienable right to life. Any Society that fails to provide the protection of life for all of its citizens, fails to provide Liberty for the desparate . It allows the Pursuit of Happiness only for a select few and permits wage-slavery to be the fact for the many.

The Declaration of Independency from Despotic Rulers and the War of Revolution to fulfil the promise of that Declaration lead to a Government with a commetment to
" promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posteity"
The Founding Fathers did not incorporate the ideals of the Declaration into the Government our Federal Republic but it did institute a promise to seek a more perfect Union. We have come a ways but we have yet a ways to go. Let us hope we will not be bound to our past. Let us hope to move to a more democratic future with equality.