(Twelve-minute read)
Workers of the world, good news! You have been rebranded as “stakeholders”
Stakeholders for a cohesive and sustainable world.
At the moment this is like believing that your Aunt Mary is you Uncle.
In other words, everything is going to change when the Coronavirus disappears.
What I find somewhat amazing is that the current coronavirus pandemic has created this eureka moment of enlightenment.
To be brutally honest receiving a round of applause for your heroics is all jolly good but before we learn how to identify the values of others, we should make sure that we understand our own values and that is that the value of everything from the smallest ant to the very air we breathe is all interconnected.
It’s not one of the enduring green mysteries of all time.
Its called treating people decently and valuating the world we live on.
Up to now too many at the top whether it’s in government or industry seem incurious about the realities of life for people lower down the valued charts.
Valued workers thanks to COVID-19 is all the rhetoric across media. BEFORE THE CORONA VIRUS IT WAS ALL ABOUT austerity working for a miserable PAYCHECK.
NOW IT ALL ABOUT CONTRIBUTING STILL ON A MISERABLE MINIMUM NO CONTRACT WAGE TO THE GREATER GOOD OF SOCIETY.
(60 percent were ALREADY struggling to make ends meet each month.)
When all the employee costs are subtracted from the employee’s assets, the remainder is the employee’s value.
Now it appears that we are rethinking, what work is done, how it is done, and by whom. After we get back to living this will be more than an interesting question.
In the profit-focused world while people demonstrate their values every day the sense of purpose up to now has been overlooked and underpaid with the basic living wage reflecting this elusive, and, perhaps, somewhat arbitrary value.
There is no doubt that there is going to be not just a recession in the economies of the world but a depression.
This is not just because of the pandemic, that will leave vast groups of citizens jobless but also because of robotic automation and climate change.
Even Donal Dump ( the climate changer denier) has recognised this by breaching the American dream of making oneself rich without government assistance.
Last month U.S. lawmakers agreed to send direct payments to citizens as part of its historic $2 trillion stimulus package. Most Americans will receive cheques of up to $1,200 for an individual earning up to $75,000 a year, with an additional $500 per child.
Cash is the best thing you can do to improve health outcomes, education outcomes and lift people out of poverty. It’s the only solution to an economy where “a small group of people are getting very, very wealthy while everyone else is struggling to make ends meet. Meanwhile, hedge funds have got their dancing shoes on.
With automation, a depression of global magnitude and now a pandemic, not to mention climate change a guaranteed income is inevitable.
All are destroying the employment market therefore citizens should have simple, straightforward financial assistance that minimizes bureaucracy.
Universal Basic Income. Universal Basic Income (sometimes called Unconditional Basic Income, Citizens Income or just Basic Income) is a proposed economic system in which all adults within the economy receive a guaranteed basic income irrespective of whether they have a job or not.
The intention behind such a payment is to provide enough to cover the basic cost of living and provide financial security.
It would cost less to administer such a program than with traditional welfare and the payments could help stabilize the economy during recessionary or depression periods.
(The unprecedented fall in GDP, investment, consumption, and economic activity will cause lasting scars on the economy – higher debt, business closures, permanently lost income, and new barriers to global trade will cause a prolonged economic downturn.)
It would remove the problem with existing welfare programs that keep people “trapped in poverty.
The argument against it is if everyone suddenly received a basic income, it would create inflation.
Most would immediately spend the extra cash, driving up demand. Retailers would order more, and manufacturers would try to produce more. But if they couldn’t increase supply, they would raise prices. Higher prices would soon make the basics unaffordable to those at the bottom of the income pyramid. In the long run, a guaranteed income would not raise their standard of living.
It would be too expensive. It could remove the incentive to work.
However, it is important to remember economies are adaptable. No matter how bleak the situation is, human resourcefulness can help economic activity bounce back.
How would a universal basic income be funded?
Larger-scale basic income initiatives could require central banks to create new money, as they did for quantitative easing programs after the 2008 global economic crisis.
It is remarkable that in postwar Britain the support for those living in poverty was closer to average earnings than it is today. This is the very simple fact that lies behind the record levels of personal debt, rising use of food banks and increasing destitution that we see in the UK.
( Who needs Trident replaced at an expected cost of £31 billion. Another £10 billion has been put aside to cover any extra costs or spending over the estimate.
Who needs HS2 at an estimated cost of £106bn.
Who needed two new aircraft carriers with a price tag of £6.2bn.
How needs to spend 2% of GDP on defense
Who needs a new Hinkley when most countries are going green.
Who needs Brexit which is already around £130bn cost to the economy, and a £70bn cost still to come: )
Of course, a whole new system would take longer than the urgency of the coronavirus situation requires.
However, the virus is exposing many of the flaws in sick pay and wider welfare system that leave people financially vulnerable when ill. Universal Credit is clearly not suited to the urgent support needed by many.
With as much as 80% of the population of the world liable to be infected means that planning for the long term will be necessary. Until a vaccine is developed.
The coronavirus epidemic could last until next spring even a year is entirely plausible. In this context that the question about the organization of human society post-COVID-19 becomes relevant and urgent.
Before I continue at this point it might be best to face the truth and confess ignorance for what the year or years ahead might bring.
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No longer can we afford a lackluster attitude to the poverty of the majority, while a few enjoy a decent quality of life.
An increasing concentration of political power and financial elite has up to now influences the rules by which an economy runs.
The need for shared prosperity and security requires co-ordinated national and global response. If not we could be looking at leaderless mass responses that will serve no one.
When this Pandemic is over corporate priorities will revert, recalibrate their priorities, but for the rest of us, the ramifications of all of this apart from the tragic loss of lives (Coronavirus kills on an average of just 18.5 days) must go where no man has gone before.
Regardless of how health care is funded, all countries face similar challenges – namely, how to meet the rising demand for services and transform care in response to an aging population and changing patterns of disease. This is leading to increased pressures on services and funding challenges in countries around the world.
It’s currently unknown what exact procedures would be given to a patient with suspected COVID-19. And, depending on your symptoms, you could have a quick 15-minute visit to urgent care or an urgent visit to the ER — not necessarily both.
In the USA Coronavirus testing might be free, but the hospital trip may set you back thousands.
Depending on where you are the average cost of COVID-19 coronavirus patients may reach more than $20,000.
It all comes down to what treatment and what medical coverage you have.
Paying people a living wage and convincing them that you are listening to them is not the current UK Living Wage is £9.00 an hour. The current London Living Wage is £10.55 an hour.
Salary is a fixed cost, which may increase annually as an employee becomes more valuable to the employer.
Your organization’s workplace values set the tone for your company’s culture, and they identify what your organization, as a whole, cares about.
The average cost for burial is £4,321.
We all have our own workplace values these values must come to life.
Remember that we human race has never been able to eradicate any disease except smallpox, let’s hope that out of this one we eradicate inequality.
All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.
The problem is that most people have no clear understanding of what civilization is or, perhaps as important, what it isn’t.
Wikipedia. According to this seemingly omniscient cyber-seer, civilization is defined most broadly as “any complex state-society characterized by a social hierarchy, symbolic communication forms (typically, writing systems), and a perceived separation from and domination over the natural environment”.
How many of us would fight for civilization if we thought that we were fighting for the increasing complexity of the state and its social hierarchy?
How many of the agrarians amongst us would fight for a civilization that defined itself as being separate from the natural environment and as seeking to dominate it?
How many of us would fight for incessant urbanization, centralization, and the passive domestication of ourselves alongside the domestication of other organisms?
How many of us had realized that being civilized was the willingness to make ourselves cattle in the service of increasingly complex social hierarchies?
How many of us thought that civilization was marked by the sort of “specialization of labour” that had reduced human work to that of a disposable cog in an increasingly large and complex mechanism?
How many of us guessed that civilization was defined by culturally ingrained progressivism and other supremacist ideologies?
How many of us perceived that taxation was civilized and that increasing taxation was therefore and presumably a mark of increasing civilization?
If this is civilization we would be justified in hoping that civilization would go to hell and that, indeed, we would be equally justified in believing that it was all too evidently going there.
However, it is still a helpful framework with which to view how humans come together and form a society.
All civilizations have certain characteristics. These include: (1) large population centres; (2) monumental architecture and unique art styles; (3) shared communication strategies; (4) systems for administering territories; (5) a complex division of labour; and (6) the division of people into social and economic classes.
Again according to Wikipedia, “civilization” is merely an ideological construct of the eighteenth century! It is not a reality in itself but an idea by which an irreligious and irrational “rationalism” can explain and explain away, to its own prejudiced satisfaction, the history of human culture.
This is how civilization is defined on the internet.
Is civilization worth defending?
Should we aim to conform to it so that we can be considered civilized?
Maggie Thatcher once said that there is no such thing as a society. How wrong she was
What is civilization? It is the conforming of the heart of humanity – equality for all.
Culture is everything about human society, i.e. it refers to the knowledge and features of a specific group of people living in a region.
Many forget that a culture is only as great as the rival cultures around it, and all history was written by the winners. So if we are to reinvent anything it won’t be civilisation, but the culture that makes us civilised that will have to change.
To do this we will have to ask what has been tried before and what the results were?
What resources are available, what new theories are there?
WE CAN’T CHANGE ANYTHING UNTILL EDUCATION/ HEALTH IS FREE FOR ALL.
WE CAN’T CHANGE ANYTHING TILL WE SHARE THE RICHES OF THE EARTH– FRESHWATER, FRESH AIR, GREEN ENERGY. ALL FOODS ARE NON-MODIFIED AND SOLD UNDER ITS NATURAL CONDITIONS.
WE CAN’T CHANGE ANYTHING UNLESS INEQUALITY DISAPPEARS. THE RICHEST 1% NOW OWN HALF OF THE WORLD’S WEALTH. THE GAP BETWEEN THE HAVES AND HAVE – NOT’S WHERE ONLY A FRACTION OF SOCIETY REAPS THE BENEFITS OF ECONOMIC GROWTH WILL HAVE TO BE TACKLED – THE BIFURCATED ECONOMY.
(Forty years of neoliberal policy means that wealthy individuals and large companies today have so much “surplus of capital” that they don’t know what to do with it. billions parkEed in tax havens.)
WE CAN’T CHANGE ANYTHING TILL RACISM AND RELIGIOUS BIGOTRY IS ABOLISHED
WE CAN’T CHANGE ANYTHING BY CREATING LOTTO MILLIONAIRES WHILE SLUMS EXIST.
WE CAN’T CHANGE ANYTHING WHILE THE ARMS INDUSTRY EXISTS.
WE CAN’T CHANGE ANYTHING WHILE SOVERGIN FUNDS EXIST.
WE CAN’T CHANGE ANYTHING WHILE PROFIT SEEKING ALGORITHMS EXIST.
WE CAN’T CHANGE ANYTHING TILL WE REALISE THAT EARTH COMES FIRST THEN ITS PEOPLE.
WE CAN’T CHANGE ANYTHING TILL WE ACT AS ONE.
WE CAN’T CHANGE ANYTHING TILL ALL WORLD DEBT IS WRITTEN OFF. TOTAL PUBLIC DEBT WILL BE IN THE TRILLIONS. WORLDWIDE, THE TOTAL MOUNTAIN OF DEBT HAS REACHED A RECORD AMOUNT OF 322% OF THE WORLD GDP.
WE CAN’T CHANGE ANYTHING TILL WE UNDERSTAND THAT ONE’S REACH MUST GO BEYOND ONE GRASP. THE CORONAVIRUS IS THE PERFECT TIME TO LAUNCH A NEW GREEN DEAL THAT IS AMBITIOUS ENOUGHT TO SAVE THE PLANET. NEVER MIND WORLD CONFERENCES TALKING ABOUT IT DO IT. THINK BIG. ACT NOW. TOGETHER.
WE CAN’T CHANGE ANYTHING UNTILL WE DO AWAY WITH DIVIDENDS AND REPLACE THEM WITH A BASIC LIVING INCOME.
WE CAN’T CHANGE ANYTHING UNLESS WE REFORM THE UNITED NATIONS REMOVE THE VETO AND TURN IT FROM A BEGGING SHOP TO A FULLY FUNDED ORGANISATION WITH A PERTUPITUAL INCOME FROM A 0.05% WORLD AID FUND. ( See previous posts.)
WE CAN’T CHANGE ANYTHING UNLESS WE CURBE CONSUMERISM AND MOVE TO SUSTAINABILITY. WE’VE CONSUMED BEYOND OUR MEANS FOR A GENERATION AND NOW THE BILL IS COMING DUE SUDDENLY.
WE CAN’T CHANGE ANYTHING WITH GDP AS OUR CULTURAL GOAL.
WE CAN’T CHANGE ANYTHING WHILE WE TOLERATE ZOMBIE BANKS. NO FEWER THAN 147 INDIVIDUAL NATIONAL BANKS CRISES ACCURED BETWEEN 1970 AND 2011 ACCORDING TO THE IMF. IT’S TIME TO PUT THE BANKING SYSTEM IN GOVERNMENT HANDS AND TO DISMANTLE CASION CAPITALISM.
My point is the pandemic and its aftermath will be super-consequential for how we live the rest of our lives. There will be implications across the board; for business, government, culture, sports and the arts, as well as behaviour.
It’s not too soon to think about that.
Smartphones have given us an always-on connection to the world’s information but history develops our researching skills and our understanding of human behaviour.
What we’ve done in the last generation is we’ve replaced normal human interactions and social capital with technology and money.
And we’ve done that with a deleterious impact on our health and our happiness because technology and money hijack our brains in a stronger way than slow, kind of boring conversations do and yet that’s our heritage.
Our culture is systems blind.
Monetary stability, public safety and all manner of civilised goals have grown too complicated and big. The idea of the trickle-down effect of the free capitalist market is no longer true it continually funnels things towards the top. It doesn’t speak to the bottom half of society now.
They say that the best things in life are free, that adage is only true if basic needs are covered. A lot of people are living paycheck to paycheck, week to week, month to month.
A universal basic income is the way to go.
A basic income that supports the bottom half of society with enough to pay for basic needs.
There is no doubt that many businesses that are booming during the pandemic will continue to thrive.
But we continue to look at issues like climate change or renewable energy or poverty and we don’t think of how everything fits together. And right now we’re lacking a map of how to go forward.
No matter how this all unfolds, the biggest thing that’s going to contribute to better futures is social nodes of communication and social capital.
WE CAN’T GO BACK JUST TO GO OUT AND HAVE AN ORGY OF CONSUMPTION AND BACK TO NORMAL WITHOUT LEARNING ANYTHING FROM THIS.
WE CAN’T ALLOW GOVERNMENTS TO BECOME AUTHORITARIAN. NOR ALLOW SOCIAL MEDIA NETWORKS TO REMAIN UNREGULATED.
It is already clear that in future we will look back on 2020 as a turning point, the beginning of a new era.
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