Liberté · Égalité · Fraternité
“The French no longer want to live together … Communities in France are more and more facing off against each other and it’s getting very violent.”
Gerard Collomb (in 2018, upon resigning as the Interior Minister),
referenced by Charles Bremner, The Times, July 2, 2023
Le Monde’s riots-related-headlines July 4th, 2023 (7 days following the 17-year-old’s death):
- Riots in France: The appalling toll of days and nights of looting, fires, assaults
- French riots find echo in North Africa: ‘France continues to marginalize generations of immigrants’
- Riots in France: Macron visits police barracks in Paris to offer his ‘support’
- Riots in France: The minister [Olivier Klein] once again at the epicenter of urban violence
- Riots in France: Macron bases three-stage response on empathy, firmness and a moral jolt
- Young, motivated and hyper-connected: The complex profile of French rioters
- Riots in France: Violence continues to ease a week after Nahel’s death
- Faced with riots, suburban teachers are at a loss: ‘These kids were in my classes a few years ago’
- Mayors at the front line of the French divide
- ‘It’s as if the riots in France are happening in a political vacuum’
- Riots in France: Macron tries to distance himself from political bidding
- Macron’s diplomacy undermined by repeated domestic crises
- Riots in France: Following in Mbappé’s (French soccer captain) footsteps, athletes increasingly speak out
- Under what circumstances are French police officers allowed to use firearms?
- Riots in France: Appeasement is imperative
- Death of Nahel M.: ‘The only question that reappears violently, once the grief has passed, concerns the reasons for inaction’
- Death of Nahel M.: Responses to the anger and fear are needed
- ‘His death could have been theirs’: Why some of France’s youth identifies with Nahel M.
- Editorial: After the death of Nahel, political unity remains out of reach
Many articles yet none referencing the solution – i.e. ‘The USI-Reform’.
…
The Unemployed: ‘those who want paid-work at the going-wage-rate but can’t find it’.
While volunteers (in their millions) are welcome to earn 0.00 per hour, due to a ‘going-wage-rate’ floor – i.e. Universal Minimum Hourly Wages (UMHoW) [in France, €11.52] – we diligently manufacture unemployment when it shouldn’t even be a concept.
July 11, 2023
Hello
To our French readers, we not only feel your pain, we relate to it.
From Nanterre to Minneapolis to Alice Springs to … the symptoms of ‘The USI-Reform’-absence assaults our sensibilities.
‘The USI-Reform’ Solution
‘The USI-Reform’ consists of substituting The Universal Subsistence Income (USI) for:
- Universal Minimum Hourly Wages (UMHoW)
- Most targeted-income-Welfare.
First, ‘The USI-Reform’ clears-the-decks of poverty and unemployment – i.e. it’s a poverty-&-unemployment-eradicator.
[Note: 17,000 of the world’s foremost economists receive the CDO’s articles – if you’re an economist, we particularly wish to know your thoughts on this statement? Please reply letting us know whether you agree to be referenced.]
Second, with no poverty, ‘The USI-Reform’ also eradicates Subsistence-Income-Servitude (SIS), which consists of poverty’s:
- Direct suffering – for example, hunger & homelessness
- Indirect ‘coercion of choice’ – for example, a woman financially forced to remain in an abusive relationship.
And, with no unemployment, ‘The USI-Reform’ is a merit-based-empowerment-maximiser – i.e.: there is:
- Opportunity – all who want paid-work at the going-wage-rate can find it
- No Incomism – all receive The USI so there is no Subsistence-Income-related snobbery, which means the rug is pulled-out from under racism, sexism, disablism, ageism etc.
Also, unlike targeted-income-Welfare, any paid-work provides additional income without The USI being lost, which means there’s no ‘gain-paid-work-lose-income-Welfare distortion’.
In sum, our current system is infrastructurally Disempowering [which is also uncivilised]; however, predominantly unrealised, this has resulted in Disempowerment being confused for racism, which has led to ‘Black Lives Matter’ and other similar campaigns.
Thus, ‘The USI-Reform’ is a ‘liberté, égalité, fraternité’-catalyser – i.e.:
- Liberté from SIS, Incomism and merit-based opportunity-restrictions
- Égalité because all adult citizens receive The USI
- Fraternité’ because The USI and universal-employment-opportunity represents ‘we are all in this together’ infrastructure. [Civilian riots indicate pseudo-societies where citizens aren’t ‘all in this together’ and, on the contrary, feel neglected.]
[To social-service chairs, board-members, CEOs and policy-advisors, do you agree that if poverty & unemployment are eradicated then most currently Disempowered will be liberated? Please let us know.]
Third, because ‘The USI-Reform’ solves these problems, it also definitively solves all our other Socio-Econo-Enviro-[international/natural] (SEE-in) problems:
- Social-disempowerment – i.e. would the French riots have occurred if there was no poverty & zero unemployment?
- Economic-inefficiency [discussed below]
- International-authoritarianism [for instance, compared to the West, Xi & Putin will be uncompetitive please see below]
- Nature obliteration [i.e. via achieving social-stability, an efficient-economy and a diminished sovereign threat, regarding the natural-environment: 1) damage to it will drop 2) it can be fully prioritised].
There’s a near total (yet doomed) reliance on Science & Technology to solve our various SEE-in problems (especially our environmental ones via, respectively, better weapons and renewables); however, it requires optimal Science, Human-Organisation & Technology (SHOT).
[To those Big Picture thinkers (including in think-tanks), are there any aspects ‘The USI-Reform’ doesn’t address? Please let us know.]
Fourth, via business booming and non-USI expenditure plummeting, government-budget-pressure will be relieved to the extent taxes can be decreased and, via the ensuing stability, reformed – for instance, land and consumption taxes replacing most (or all) of the remaining income & profit taxes.
[To politicians, won’t ‘The USI-Reform’ make achieving your responsibilities infinitely easier?]
So, this seems to be solutional and yet there is a zeitgeist unwillingness to even discuss it.
[This idea has been circulating since 2018 mostly in Australia (but also amongst such globally esteemed institutions as The Economist & Chatham House) and, since June 2022, increasingly globally.]
One of the greatest concerns regarding ‘The USI-Reform’ is summed up as:
“Money doesn’t grow on trees so how will we pay for it?”
Economic-Inefficiency
A ‘preposterous’ statement:
‘Due to ‘The USI-Reform’-absence, First World economies are so inefficient that, for the resources they use, the prosperity produced is less than 1% of their potential.’
This means, the difference between the First World and its potential is comparable to that currently between the Third World and the First.
If this is even 2% true then the oceans should drip from our planet as tears because it means, though negligent rather than wilful, The USI-absence is the, thus far, most ruinous ‘crime against humanity’.
Nevertheless, the capacity of the First World to finance ‘The USI’ is doubted because the reform’s headline-amount is around 20% of an economy – for example, in Australia, the economy is around $A 2.3 trillion and The USI transfer would be around $400 billion ($20,000 per adult and $5,000 per child).
[This headline $400 billion compares with the current income-Welfare system’s cost of around $250 billion (including childcare subsidies, social-housing for the able etc plus the states’ & territories’ Band-Aiding).]
So, 260-years following the potential subsistence-transcendent-event known as ‘The Industrial Revolution’, with potential Science, Human-Organisation & Technology (SHOT) productivity innovations around 10,000-fold, we can only manage around 5 times a Subsistence-Income. [It should be, at least, 25 times.]
[The USI is an Industrial Revolution inheritance from our ancestors who traded-in subsistence-farming’s direct-control over subsistence-needs for technology- (including machine-) proficiency.]
While subsistence today (compared to that of c. 1760) includes extras such as sewerage, electricity, sturdier housing and, perhaps, also television and the internet, how can our productivity be so dismal?
While ‘productivity per paid-worker’ is a frequent focus, this doesn’t necessarily correlate with the economy’s productivity.
For instance, if a citizen previously took 8 hours to dig a hole then fill it back in yet now takes only 4 hours, while their productivity has doubled, the total benefit is still zero; moreover, many jobs are worse than neutral in that they create inefficiency – for instance, targeted-income-Welfare system employees are compelled into manufacturing mental-illness (both to others and, via conflict with fellow citizens, themselves) – which means any ‘productivity’ increase just results in more inefficiency.
In short, due to The USI-absence and that absence’s associated Band-Aiding, which includes UMHoW, targeted-income-Welfare, excessive business regulation and the jobs-for-jobs’-sake national-mission, which, in turn, means high taxes, inflation-mismanagement etc., we have a ‘Squandonomy’.
Ubiquitously, citizens know our system is wasteful; however, the magnitude defies comprehension.
Comparing the current targeted-Welfare system with ‘The USI-Reform’, the 2 systems represent polar paradigms.
First, technically, ‘The USI-Reform’ has far more overlap than currently – i.e. it is a transfer from taxpayers-to-all-citizens – which means there’s far less resentment – i.e. unitive rather than divisive, there’s no ‘dole-bludger’ narrative.
And, whereas the current system has large indirect-costs, ‘The USI-Reform’ has indirect-benefits akin to those of Universal Education – i.e. it’s not only self-funding, it exponentiates our prosperity including by having far lower bureaucratic costs because there’s no means-testing. [This is detailed in numerous previous articles.]
In this way, rather than “How can we afford The USI?”, it’s we can’t afford not to have it, which is why, despite our Science & Technology successes, we are having so many problems.
Lastly, it doesn’t matter which country leads ‘The USI-Reform’ implementation because, as with Universal Rule of Personal & Property Security Law, Universal Liberal Democracy, Universal Education & Universal Healthcare, once it’s demonstrated, others will follow.
Conclusion
‘The USI-Reform’ will address our culminating perfect storm of exponentiating Socio-Econo-Enviro[international/natural] (SEE-in) catastrophes so, regarding precipitating its discussion, what’s the missing X-factor?
Please let us know your thoughts.
Thank you.
Best regards
Paul Ross
The Citizens’ Dividend Organisation (CDO)