The Civilisationist 4.9 – UMHoW: What’s Humanity’s Silliest National Policy?

“Um, how would I know?  Anyway, how are we going to pay for the NDIS, ‘Closing the Gap’, the nuclear-powered subs etc. when our government budget is already in deficit?”
Subsistence-Income-Servitude (SIS)

All humanity’s Big Picture Socio-Econo-Enviro-[international/natural] (SEE-in) challenges devolve to Subsistence-Income-Servitude (SIS), which has 2 Disempowering components:

  1. Poverty’s direct suffering – for example, hunger & homelessness
  2. Poverty’s indirect ‘Coercion of Choice’, which contradicts the social-services’ goal of, ‘Agency of Choice’ – for example, a woman feeling forced to remain in an abusive relationship or an indigenous person preferring prison to ‘freedom’.
Universal Empowerment Infrastructure (UEI)

For a nation to be fully-civilised, it must possess Universal Empowerment Infrastructure (UEI) consisting of 5 ‘universal, unconditional & guaranteed’ RIDEH cornerstones:   

  1. [R] Universal Rule of Personal & Property Security Law
  2. [I] Universal Subsistence Income (USI)
  3. [D] Universal Liberal Democracy
  4. [E] Universal Education
  5. [H] Universal Healthcare.

[Note: the UEI cornerstones are an Industrial Revolution inheritance – i.e. our ancestors generated its Science, Human-Organisation & Technology (SHOT) foundation – and, as with all inheritance, it is ‘something for nothing’; however, this ‘something for nothing’ makes both nation and citizens better-off.  P.S.: without inheriting the Industrial Revolution, Elon Musk would have been an innovative subsistence-farmer.]

The reason we don’t have The USI is because no constituency – not even ‘The Champions of the Disempowered’ social-services industry – is demanding it.

The Global Search (continues)

The world most needs an ‘optimal-governance’ prototype.

Yet, globally, what political party – major or minor – is genuinely devoted to – i.e. their 1st priority is – optimal-governance particularly the Universal Empowerment Infrastructure (UEI)?

If you’re aware of one – whether in the 3rd, 2nd or 1st world – please let us know.

…

March 18, 2023

Hello

What’s human history’s silliest national policy?

While there are many candidates, the CDO suggests it’s Universal Minimum Hourly Wages (UMHoW).

[Note: UMHoW is distinct from other natural wage-negotiated-outcomes occurring between an employer and the enterprise’s paid-workers (including via trade-unions) because it’s ‘universal’, which means, rather than being specific to a firm, it affects the entire economy.]

UMHoW’s ‘Silliest’ Candidacy

First, while most policies at least have a pretence to solving/diminishing a problem, what is the Universal Minimum Hourly Wages’ (UMHoW) system’s rationale?

Does it solve poverty?

No – 21st century First World nations are still poverty-afflicted.

Is it efficient?

It thwarts business and significantly corrupts the economy – i.e. though since 1760, potential productivity has exponentiated around 10,000-fold (including, since 2013, more than doubling), most of our economy is wastage – i.e. it’s a Squandonomy – such that we are:

  1. From the expended resources, only extracting 2 to 10% of the potential benefit
  2. Disproportionately trashing our natural environment.

Does UMHoW deliver freedom and the Agency of Choice?

On the contrary, without even denting Subsistence-Income-Servitude’s (SIS) ‘Coercion of Choice’, it has conjured the phenomenon of ‘unemployment’, which constitutes an additional ‘Coercion of Choice’ dimension – i.e. it locks-out some from paid-work opportunities.

[Note: the Unemployed are ‘those who want paid-work at the going wage-rate but cannot obtain it’ and UMHoW is a ‘going wage-rate’ floor, which, therefore, creates unemployment.]

Thus, despite Schizonomists’ – i.e. ‘schizophrenic’-economists (ref: ‘The Coopetitionist 3.5’) – protestations such as the oxymoron, “Zero unemployment really means around 2% because”, according to them, “there is always frictional unemployment”, UMHoW is the only ‘spanner’ preventing perpetual (apologies for the tautology) 0%-unemployment-full-employment.

Unemployment is particularly Disempowering for those whose labour-market worth is below the UMHoW rate. 

That is, those with a comparatively low IQ, other disability, little education, little paid-work experience, loved-one responsibilities, less socially giftedness etc. are more likely to have a labour worth (to employers) below the UMHoW rate.

In Australia, UMHoW is currently $21.38 (in 2022, the highest in the world), which means if a person’s labour is worth say $15 to an employer, it doesn’t matter how desperate that employer is for a paid-worker, it is unfinancial for them to employ that particular person.

In this way, disproportionately picking on the already Disempowered, UMHoW is a national bullying ‘kick-em-while-their-down’ policy.

Second, given humanity’s Socio-Econo-Enviro-[international/natural] (SEE-in) catastrophes are spawning attempts to reharmonise with nature, in nature, is there anything like UMHoW?

On the contrary, UMHoW is akin to Frankenstein’s creation with no near-equivalent in survival-focused nature – i.e. an hourly wage is unrelated to citizen survival because:

  1. It doesn’t apply to those citizens without a job
  2. Its presence causes unemployment
  3. It doesn’t designate how many hours per pay period will be worked
  4. It takes no account of one’s dependents.

Third, given our need to pull together to confront our culminating perfect storm of exponentiating SEE-in catastrophes, is it unifying?

It’s divisive – i.e. it has bred the Band-Aid of non-universal/targeted unemployment-income-Welfare such that we have ‘the dole-bludger’ narrative including its racist and disablist offspring.

Fourth, because UMHoW is economy-wide, it’s a foundational perversion, which means it distorts every other policy – for instance, in Australia, it distorts the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS).

While the NDIS is, in principle, justifiable as part of cornerstone 5 (Universal Health), it’s corrupted by UMHoW’s ‘Coercion of Choice’ distortions – for instance, as mentioned, UMHoW makes it difficult for the disabled to find paid-work.

[Note: The NDIS is also corrupted by the USI absence, which means the disabled don’t automatically receive a citizen income and their loved-one carers aren’t automatically supported.]

The Optimal Solution: The USI-Reform

‘The USI-Reform’ eradicates:

  1. Both Subsistence-Income-Servitude’s (SIS) components of:
    • Poverty’s direct suffering
    • Poverty’s ‘Coercion of Choice’
  2. UMHoW’s ‘Coercion of Choice’ – i.e. unemployment.

‘The USI-Reform’ consists of substituting The USI for the 2 Band-Aids systems of:

  1. Universal Minimum Hourly Wages (UMHoW)
  2. Income-Welfare.

The USI-Reform is a PUSCHER-eradicator – i.e. it will eradicate:

  1. [P] Poverty
  2. [U] Unemployment (and Underemployment)
  3. [S] Stigma (‘the dole-bludger’ narrative)
  4. [C] Corruption
  5. [H] Harassment (‘mutual obligations’)
  6. [E] Paid-worker-Exploitation (i.e. citizens can say, ‘no’)
  7. [R] Excessive paid-workplace-Regulation.

Plus: while in Australia, The USI-Reform has a headline price of around twice the current income-Welfare system, unlike income-Welfare whose targeting’s distortions are ‘costly’, The USI-Reform (like Universal Education) creates a Return-on-Investment, which assists the government-budget – i.e. there will be a budget surplus and/or lower taxes.

That is:

  1. Tax-receipts surge due to efficiencies including from business unleashed, full-employment and the end of the gain-paid-work-lose-income-Welfare distortion.
  2. Expenditures decrease due to plummeting non-USI outlays in charity, law-enforcement, health (including mental-health), bureaucracy (i.e. Centrelink will be closed), natural-environment rehabilitation and, with full-employment, an end to public-sector jobs-for-jobs’-sake paid-work.

So, why do we continue infrastructurally Disempowering citizens – millions in Australia and billions worldwide?

While naivety, self-interest, politics, intellectual-laziness and ‘silliness’ are all part of it, possibly, most of all, it’s fear.

‘Losing’ UMHoW Fearfulness

First, regarding ‘The USI-Reform’, the greatest fear, which spans both Left and Right, concerns not Universal Minimum Hourly Wages (UMHoW) but The USI – i.e. the fear of others getting ‘something for nothing’ such that taxpayers are ‘taken for fools’ and ‘ripped-off’ – however:

  1. ‘All inheritance is something for nothing’
  2. As shown, ‘The USI-Reform’ will improve the government budget
  3. It will optimise our sustainable stability-prosperity.

Regarding UMHoW-specific-fears, particularly on the Left, UMHoW-sentimentalism is rife such that the fear of its ‘loss’ is, for some, almost akin to losing a family member.

That is, with UMHoW first implemented in 1894 (in New Zealand) and, according to the Wikipedia ‘list of countries by minimum wage’, currently, in 159 of 202 nations, it has mushroomed into being a psychological comforter.

In Australia, where the UMHoW-determining process occurs yearly, the most invested and relevant to it are:

  1. The Fair Work Commission (FWC)
  2. Employer groups
  3. The trade-union leadership
  4. Social-services elite
  5. Political parties.

Anyone of them (or a journalist – what’s the point of a free-press if it’s not earnest?) could kickstart the debate; however, their fears include:

  1. The new – i.e. ‘better the devil you know’
  2. Being first – i.e. ‘rocking the boat’ and/or looking ‘silly’ and losing face.

Regarding the FWC, certainly one of its exceptionally-learned paid-workers could act as a whistle-blower; however, their fears include being shunned by colleagues, denied promotion and perhaps losing their job.  Also, without UMHoW, their FWC ecosystem would shrink.

Regarding employer groups, their greatest fear relates to the flawed hypothesis of some citizens getting ‘something-for-nothing’ at their constituents’ expense.

The USI-Reform will be business’ greatest catalyst – i.e. it delivers:

  1. Significant labour-market deregulation
  2. Vastly lower taxes
  3. The security benefits of greater social-stability
  4. Lower mental-illness amongst their employees
  5. Better paid-workplace environments
  6. USI support to vulnerable business-owners including small-business owners and farmers
  7. An end to the gain-paid-work-lose-income-Welfare distortion, which, among other things, means it will be much easier for farmers to find seasonal workers
  8. Via an end to paid-work exploitation, the end of business being perceived as a societal ‘villain’ such that, instead, they will be confirmed as golden-egg-laying heroes, which will loosen the regulatory ‘monkeys from their back’ allowing a sharper focus on their enterprise.

Regarding the trade-union leadership (especially that of the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU)), they’re not economists so they probably fear what they can’t understand.

And, while Australia has 20,000+ economists who could potentially educate them, currently, most of these economists follow the Schizonomist-orthodoxy plus have a vested-interest in unemployment continuing because they are employed in counting, predicting, theorising and/or teaching as to it.

In addition, given, within the UMHoW-determining process, the ACTU leadership has the highest profile, it may fear the loss of kudos and, as with the FWC, the shrinkage of their empire and, perhaps, remuneration.

Yet, trade-union members will benefit from The USI delivering them, their partners and their adult descendants from Subsistence-Income-Servitude (SIS).

Potential trade-union member survey:

“Would you like an extra $20,000 a year (all paid for by efficiency gains), which will also make our nation more sustainably stability-prosperous, or not?”

Regarding the social-services elite, fearing losing their funding (whether from government or private donations), rather than focusing on eradicating systemic Disempowerment, many have become virtue-contortionists.

Certainly, they seem fearful of formalising a definitive Big Picture ‘Disempowerment-eradication narrative’.

Ask them what they want and they’ll reply with a plethora of sub-answers such as: ‘Raise the Rate’, ‘Close the Gap’, ‘social housing’, full-employment, safety for women & children, mental-illness professionals, alcohol & other drugs support etc.; however, their ‘solutions’ are unintegrated costly Band-Aiding and they don’t even attempt to suggest how a government can pay for it and still win an election.

Moreover, seemingly fearful of risking alliances (even if it means the Disempowered remain Disempowered), they have subordinated their goals to those of the ACTU – for example, ‘Raise the Rate’ and the all-but-traitorous ‘Job Guarantee’ (JG).

[Note: The JG is a government guarantee of full-time paid-work (at or above UMHoW) for anyone who wants it, which, while failing to eradicate SIS, is a transition-to-Communism mechanism – i.e. in order to pay for it and its bureaucracy, Government must tax the private-sector, which makes the private-sector less competitive, which means it will employ less people, which means more JG jobs, which means more taxation and so on until private enterprise is all but taxed-out of existence thereby resulting in Communism.]

Regarding political parties’ fears, in the case of Labor, it has a ‘something-for-nothing’ aversion (except for gifts, especially from the dead) but, most of all, politically, it fears giving the Liberals/National Parties their Holy Grail of significant labour-market deregulation.

However, as the party that delivered the 1980’s deal known as ‘The Accord’, if they also delivered the ‘Deal of the Century’ – i.e. ‘The USI-Reform’ – they would be unrivalled as having implemented the last 2 UEI cornerstones of Medicare/NDIS and The USI.

Regarding the Liberals/Nationals, their ‘something-for-nothing’ aversion is so intense, apparently, even the prospect of labour-market deregulation doesn’t assuage it.

Nevertheless, having trashed their economics’ brand with ‘Jobkeeper’ and other Covid wantonness, ‘The USI-Reform’ will, instantly, regain their credibility.

Regarding the Greens, they seem fearful of anything good for their environmental-‘archvillain’ known as, ‘business’; however, ‘The USI-Reform’ will ‘clear the decks’ on environmental-degradation because:

  1. With citizens freed from Subsistence-Income-Servitude (SIS), they can prioritise the environment
  2. Economic efficiency is awesome for the environment
  3. Its implementation will be the ultimate in global environmental leadership because, with its demonstrated success referenceable, that prototype will flow throughout the world.

Regarding the latter and the 3rd World’s population growth and land clearance, with The USI, citizens will no longer need to have large families for captive cheap labour and an old age pension.

Regarding the scores of minor parties (most of whom never electorally win whatsoever), perhaps they’re fearful of being relevant because this is a chance for them to make an outsized contribution.

In sum, in Australia, there are thousands with platform enough to kickstart the UMHoW and ‘USI-Reform’ debates yet, to this point, they’re captive to their fears, which means so are we. 

Conclusion

Universal Minimum Hourly Wages (UMHoW), as well as creating the ‘Coercion of Choice’ known as unemployment, is also acting as a bulwark against implementing the Subsistence-Income-Servitude (SIS) abolitionist Universal Subsistence Income (USI).

Thus, UMHoW is the world’s silliest policy.

Regarding our Socio-Econo-Enviro-[international/natural] (SEE-in) catastrophes, the government-budget-depressurising solution is ‘The USI-Reform’ of substituting The USI for both income-Welfare and UMHoW.

That is, ‘The USI-Reform’ will win our 4 SEE-in mega-wars via all but vanquishing the:

  1. Socio’s disempowerment
  2. Econo’s inefficiency
  3. International-enviro’s authoritarianism
  4. Natural-enviro’s destruction.

Accordingly, the world needs a ‘USI-Reform’ debate and, in each country, at least one political party to adopt it.

Thank you.

Best regards

P. Ross

Founder

The CDO