I think people need self-confidence and education in
critical thinking to be able to digest all information -
that should not be manipulated and controlled by
the establishment.
However, these can be acquired in a short time
as people are getting convinced more and more that politicians/
economists and other "specialists" are as vague about
their aims and predictions as the new age crytal ball
gazers. "Authority" is getting discredited.
at the moment - people without economic power
feel totally powerless and helpless having realised
that political parties which have enough money to win,
represent similar interests, - none of which
links to them.
Eva
>
> This has led to a puzzle that others as well as myself have not found an
> answer for and that is why the poor and disenfranchised cannot be enticed to
> enter more fully into the political process. Could it be that they/we often
> are made to feel that we are not peers? Let's face it, the poor, though not
> yet a majority, certainly represent a major block of voters. But most of
> them do not vote. Could it be the subliminal threat of whatever meagre
> livelihood they have might be threatened or is it that they don't have the
> time and resources to involve themselves?
>
> Would a Basic Income provide the self esteem and the stress reduction (that
> the poor constantly live under to deal with the basics of survival), that
> would allow the poor to begin to invest in the body politic as equals rather
> than second class citizens.
>
> Respectfully,
>
> Thomas Lunde
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Brad McCormick, Ed.D. <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> To: Thomas Lunde <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Cc: Future Work <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; Hi Kathy & Robert
> &Chelsea & Bree <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; Gregory Roche
> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Date: February 22, 1998 3:06 PM
> Subject: Re: FW - Some hard questions about a Basic Income 1
>
>
> >Thomas Lunde wrote:
> >>
> >> Brad McCormick wrote:
> >>
> >> where as Marx wrote -- albeit about the
> >> future instead of the past -- there is no longer the
> >> government of men but only the administration of things...),
> >> whereas we have devolved into aspiring
> >> to freedom *of* enterprise, i.e., to make more money as
> >> the summum bonum.
> >
> >Let me straighten out the bibliographical "gold" behind the
> >"scrip[t]". Marx wrote about a future (what he called communism),
> >in which the government of men would be replaced by the
> >administration of things. Hannah Arendt, in _The Human Condition_
> >wrote that, in the clasical Greek polis, there was no
> >government in our sense, because the
> >polis was a society of peers who
> >jointly shaped their social world as a space of peer "speech
> >and action" (my words: no leaders and no followers).
> >For the ancient Greeks, "representative democracy" would
> >have amounted to *an imitation of life*, in which the
> >most persons were deprived of the most important thing
> >in life: being a peer political actor.
> >Arendt also pointed out the difference between the
> >classical Greeks' valuing freedom *from* enterprise as the
> >condition appropriate to man (oops!), in contrast to "our"
> >idealization of the "animal laborans" and his (or her)
> >drive to maximize their freedom *of* enterprise.
> >
> >>
> >> Thomas
> >>
> >> What a lovely quote - thanks. One of the arguments to favour a Basic
> >> Income would be that it would not be political. It would be an
> >> administrative thing in which every citizen received a payment. You
> >> would not have to be poor to qualify. You would not have to be
> >> disabled. You would not have to be old. You would not have to have
> >> only one parent. It would just be a transfer of wealth - in some way
> >> - and it would be done without any criteria except citizenship and as
> >> everyone is a citizen of someplace, everyone would be guaranteed the
> >> funds for living their life.
> >>
> >> Marx is also prescient in noting that we have "devolved" into aspiring
> >> to a "freedom of enterprise" as the major rationale for living. I am
> >> searching for another rationale as compelling for providing a Basic
> >> Income for everyone while still allowing those of enterprise to
> >> achieve more. Can you tell me what that rationale is?
> >
> >The more I think about it, the more it seems to me that
> >a kind of "bounded" marketplace might be worth a try.
> >First, prohibit the renting of persons (no wage labor):
> >if anybody works on your project, they work with you
> >instead of "for" you (the "for" is telling there, in
> >connection with the Kantian notion of every person as an
> >end-in-themselves, rather than merely being-for-another's
> >benefit).
> >
> >Second, remove all the important business of life from the
> >vicissitudes of the market (your "Basic Income" would largely
> >accomplish that. *Then* let those persons who wish to
> >use their leisure to "make money" do so, under the watchful
> >eye of the society of citizens, who would have the
> >right at any time to intervene if this intrinsically
> >irrational behavior got out of hand and ceased to be
> >beneficial or at least innocuous to society.
> >
> >And, while we're at it, I would also outlaw "trade
> >secrets". No use of *withholding knowledge* from others
> >as a way to get one up on them.
> >
> >Some persons like to "go sailing" in their free time.
> >Some like to study [I've just bought a wonderful looking
> >book by Cornelius Castoriadis: _World in Fragments_!!!].
> >Some may wish to be couch potatoes. OK. Let them all
> >"be", and let the person with a passion for "enterprise"
> >pusue his or her dream too, *so long as they don't hurt
> >the others*!
> >
> >What is a good rationale for providing a basic
> >income to all? So that we can approach closer to
> >material instead of merely "formal" democracy, i.e./e.g.,
> >to a condition in which, if persons go to a workplace,
> >they do it because they want to rather than
> >because they are intimidated with an "or else"
> >(The "invisible hand" isn't really all that
> >different, IMO, except in terms of difficulty
> >in assigning responsibility...,
> >from the more visible strong arm of
> >personalized dictatorships...)....
> >
> >\brad mccormick
> >
> >--
> > Mankind is not the master of all the stuff that exists, but
> > Everyman (woman, child) is a judge of the world.
> >
> >Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> >(914)238-0788 / 27 Poillon Rd, Chappaqua, NY 10514-3403 USA
> >-------------------------------------------------------
> ><!THINK [SGML]> Visit my website ==> http://www.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/
>
>
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
