The Coopetitionist 3.6 – The Economic Society of Australia (ESA) Poll

Coopetitionism

Coopetition: The fusion of Cooperation (first and foremost) & Competition (a treasured second)

– such as in regulated sport, democracy and a non-exploitative free-market economy.

Coopetitionism: The use of Coopetition systems (rather than Band-Aiding) to

“maximise citizens’ Coopetition-contributive self-actualisation”.

The Citizen Empowerment Infrastructure’s (CEI) 5 guaranteed and unconditional cornerstones:

  1. Universal Rule of Coopetition-maximising Law
  2. Universal Liberal Democracy
  3. Universal Education
  4. Universal Healthcare
  5. Universal Survival Income (USI) substituted for both:
    • Our current income-Welfare system
    • Universal Minimum Hourly Wages (UMHoW).

Coopetitionism Noticeboard

Songs:

  1. Waste by Zoe
  2. Power and the Passion by Midnight Oil
  3. Shadow Boxer by The Angels
  4. Vogue by Madonna
  5. Bat Out of Hell by Meatloaf RIP
  6. Rockin’ All Over the World by Status Quo

Play: Circling ‘That Which Shall Not Be Named’

Ita:  Well, you know – it’s all about fashion.  Some of the best fashion is at the op-shop – so, even if you’re homeless (and not filthy rich), it’s no excuse not to be cat-walking it.

Pete:  What do you think Sally?

Sally:  We need to raise Frankenstein – I mean UMHoW – I mean, um; it’s the gig economy’s fault and, anyway, $20.33 per hour is the bare minimum because workers can’t be somersaulted backwards over their lunch – after all, at what restaurant can you get a steak and a couple of frothies under $20.33?  Just thinking about it is enough to make the average hard-working Aussie puke.

Indigenous wheel-chair-bound woman CDO Supporter:  What about the minimalist set-and-forget policy of just substituting The Universal Survival Income (USI) for our income-Welfare and Universal Minimum Hourly Wages (UMHoW) systems?  Won’t that do the trick?  You know – 2 birds with one stone and no targeting, no argument, no delay, no bureaucracy, no fuss, always automatically there when it’s needed …

Rupert:  Now now – there’s a big global entrepreneurial media-acquisition leadership picture here – it’s called “Somethingism” and, as I always tell my boys, if they don’t ‘something for something’ toe-the-line then, like a Bat out of Hell, they’ll be out of the will – subscribe to The Australian to read about it.

Scott:  Whatever you say Rupert – everyone, be true-blue like Rupert and subscribe to The Oz.

Pete:  What do you think Sally?

Sally:  Comrades, just Put-in the Job Guarantee (JG).  With it, we can keep for good the ‘Raise the Rate 4 Eternity’ Kim-paign, create a great new ever-growing pipeline for union membership and shove it to bosses – bosses who don’t run unions that is – by taxing them ever more to pay for it so, eventually, we can Xi they’re completely driven out.  Raise, raise, raise!

CDO Supporter:  But, isn’t only The USI-reform a PUSH-eradicator?  Doesn’t only it eradicate Poverty, Unemployment (and Underemployment), Stigma (‘the dole-bludger’ narrative including its racist and disablist variants) & Harassment (‘mutual obligations’) (PUSH)?  And, entirely avoidable, aren’t these 4 no less than ‘crimes against humanity’?  And, how many Aboriginal deaths and how much other unnecessary misery have they, one way or another, separately or in conjunction, caused?  For example, Kumanjayi Walker.

Tim:  Hey Innes, how’s Covid been treating you?

Innes:  Oh, you know – good and bad – made great dollar but, these days, even transiting on the Lear, it’s super difficult taking the kids to Disneyland – wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy – but, as I always say, you’ve just got to roll with the punches.

Anthony:  Well, I’ve been saying for a very long-time now that what we most need is more jobs – did I tell you, starting even before politics – just out of nappies – my favourite radio station has always been Triple-J?

Pete:  What do you think Sal …

Carla:  We need to get up more distractions and use as many Band-Aids as possible – just stick ’em on, stick ’em on, stick ’em on … everywhere – one over the other; never mind – can’t have too many – the government can always buy more – after all, they’re the ones printing the money – Magic Money, yay.

CDO Supporter:  The USI will re-harmonise all our perfect storm of Socio-Econo-Enviro- (SEE) catastrophes – mental-health will improve, the economy will become efficient yet non-exploitative and both our natural and international environments will be such that we will no longer need to be concerned at either COP conference failures or Authoritarian-Illegitimates.

Philip:  Well, over the course of the next 36 months or so, the interest rates may need to be several points higher in order to stave-off a possible rise in the CPI, which may even affect the op-shops.

Anthony:  You took the words right out of my mouth, did I mention the Albanese jobs, jobs, jobs policy will be out soon?

CDO Supporter:  You know the Left is always correct except

Instantly, Anthony, Ita, Sally, Pete & Carla halt to lend their ears as, in unison, Scott, Rupert, Philip, Innes & Tim exclaim:  WhatWhat do you mean the Left is always correct?

CDO Supporter:  Yes, consistent with Coopetition’s first principle of ‘Cooperation being first and foremost’, the Left have always advocated that The Citizen Empowerment Infrastructure (CEI) cornerstones must be both guaranteed and unconditional.  That’s what they did with Universal Rule of Coopetition-maximising Law, Universal Liberal Democracy, Universal Education and Universal Healthcare – always guaranteed and unconditional – which they must have been right about because they’re all now bipartisan; however, there’s one exception.

Rupert:  Well, get on with it – I sense a story but time’s either money or the enemy and the press doesn’t wait.

CDO Supporter:  Well, while some may say “4 out of 5 ain’t bad”, they’re all interrelated, which means not having one detracts from all the others.  And, regarding the income cornerstone, somehow – actually, because guaranteed and unconditional wasn’t a conscious narrative – the Left veered off-track such that, instead of advocating for the guaranteed and unconditional USI, they went for UMHoW, which is why we have the interwoven fermented mess of Unemployment, Poverty, mental-illness, the current conditional income-Welfare system, the Gap, astronomical wastage, Environmental-destruction, Authoritarian-nurturing Division, a general proclivity for flawed-systems, which has shown itself in the pandemic, and, subsequently, Royal Commissions into Aged Care, Disability, Veterans’ Suicide, Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, Family Violence, Mental Illness etc.

Scott:  Ouch – as simple as that?  Yeow – meow, UMHoW!  Pity being ‘agile’ was Turnbull’s mantra; otherwise, inclusive of exploitation-eradication, labour-market deregulation and libertarianism, more than saving the furniture, we could re-invigoratively adopt The USI as our signature policy, campaign full-steam for a mandate, transform perceptions, wedge UMHoW-wedded Labor, decimate the rest and, in the greatest victory in Australian political history, win by a landslide.  ‘Scotty from marketing’ whatever – show us your legacy for the grandkids!

CDO Supporter:  If you just did that, it would help our mob more than The Voice and all other policies put together because it would mean we had frictionless access to everything non-Aboriginal Australia has – that is, no longer would we be sidelined and trapped in income-Welfare because there wouldn’t be income-Welfare and no longer would we be sidelined from the job-market because there would be zero unemployment and no longer would be corralled – like animals – into jails because we would possess the Agency of Choice.  Universal Empowerment helps Aboriginal people most because it’s not specifically for Aboriginal people and therefore it’s not discriminatory – that is, it helps Aboriginal people most because it helps all Disempowered including the disabled, domestic violence victims etc.

Pete:  What do you think Sally?

January 26, 2022

Hi

The Economic Society of Australia (ESA) is a peak body for economists, which is, potentially, one of Australia’s most valuable non-government organisations – i.e. potentially, it is one of the Super-Empowered institutions.

The ESA is:

‘primarily concerned with promoting discussion and debate of economic issues within Australia.’

In addition to publishing journals (like the Economic Record and Economic Papers) and holding conferences and seminars, as mentioned in The Coopetitionist 3.5, they regularly conduct polls.

Founded by Tom Chan and Buly Cardak, this poll is a tremendous initiative, which, should it reach its potential, could and should win them Australian honours.

The poll involves economic-related questions being put to a panel of some of Australia’s top economists (currently 70) who can be viewed at https://esacentral.org.au/content/905/poll-panellists.

Often these surveys are conducted in conjunction with The Conversation – a list can be seen at: https://esacentral.org.au/polls

Another of the mechanism’s tremendous features is that it is interactive with the general public – i.e. one can go to their site and where it says ‘Got an idea?’ https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe4kEwnAkrPlJwp4SdvuNKG8MVtTJdrfYwcD55WviHpfSOXzw/viewform plug in one’s question.

Unfortunately – Tom and Buly please don’t take offense – the topics sometimes lack inspiration especially given the society’s mandate of ‘promoting discussion and debate’.

For example, from the latest one – number 51 – question 1 (of 4): “The current combination of Australian fiscal and monetary policy poses a serious risk of prolonged above-target inflation.”

Some may say, “Using the poll in this way is akin to thrashing a pristine Lotus Evija along some rocky dusty pot-holed outback track”.

However, they would be wrong because, with us ‘all in this together’ in that we are all less than 17 weeks from the most significant Federal election in living memory (the next chance 2025 election seems far too far-away), the Tom and Buly ESA poll is still in unrivalled condition and, with just a modicum of tuning, can still take its rightful place at the centre of relevance.

Thus, in the public-interest of our nation’s future, The CDO is pleased to inform it has gained, at the ESA’s highest level, in principle agreement for a poll to be run on The USI.

And, notwithstanding our déjà vu of another organisation’s similar undertaking 3 years previous – only to renege (Univisionist 2.2) – since then, the world has shunted, the need for this debate grown infinitely more obvious and, this time, the organisation is one that is non-aligned & the individuals concerned are of good faith.

So, with the election imminent and the world yearning (so far, spectacularly, in vain) for a holistic narrative and non-Band-Aiding policy to address the source of our perfect storm of interwoven exponentiating Socio-Econo-Enviro- (SEE) catastrophes, The CDO hopes a suitably probing poll can be put to the panel in early February so the insights can percolate before political parties and candidates fully announce their policies.  In this way, voters will also be given as much time as possible to consider the multivarious implications.

In terms of the Big Picture narrative, The CDO is on record as stating such convictions as:

  1. The source of our perfect SEE storm is Indirect-Survival-Income-Slavery (ISIS)
  2. ISIS arose out of the Industrial Revolution when subsistence-farmers transitioned away from self-sufficiency to become income-earning factory-machinists, which meant they lost direct control over their survival needs
  3. The solution to our SEE storm only requires ISIS-abolition, which is directly – and, best – achieved via, in general, The Universal Survival Income (USI) and, in particular, ‘The USI-reform’.

[Note: ‘The USI-reform’ is defined as The USI substituted for both our income-Welfare (incWel) & Universal Minimum Hourly Wages (UMHoW) systems.]

However, as a new theory, we recognise the ESA would probably not wish to ask the panel such SEE-ISIS-USI contextualised questions as:

  1. Is ISIS the source of our perfect SEE storm?
  2. Would ‘The USI-reform’ be abolitionist regarding Indirect Survival Income Slavery (ISIS)?
  3. Will ‘The USI-reform’ provide an infrastructural – rather than a Band-Aid – source solution to all our perfect storm of Socio-Econo-Enviro- (SEE) problems?

Accordingly, The CDO proposes the following, still within target, questions:  Do you agree:

  1. ‘The USI-reform’ will be a PUSH-eradicator – i.e. it will eradicate Poverty, Unemployment (and Underemployment), Stigma (‘the dole-bludger’ narrative including its racist and disablist variants) & Harassment (‘mutual obligations’) (PUSH)? [‘The USI-reform’ is defined as The USI substituted for both our present income-Welfare (incWel) & Universal Minimum Hourly Wages (UMHoW) systems.]
  2. ‘The USI-reform’ will lead to massive labour-market efficiency and societal unity gains?
  3. ‘The USI-reform’ will lead to a vast rise in manufacturing that surpasses the plummeting need for the justice, mental-health and charity sectors?
  4. ‘The USI-reform’ will revitalise rural and regional Australia and depressurise its cities?
  5. With the eradication of Jobs, Jobs, Jobs (Triple-J) politics, rather than the economy being commandeered as a jobs-for-jobs’-sake paid-work mechanism, ‘The USI-reform’ will return our economy to ‘without exploitation, exclusively efficiently producing and distributing the goods & services we need/desire, which we cannot or don’t wish to produce ourselves’?
  6. ‘The USI-reform’ could be paid for (and then some) by
    • Eradicating the present income-Welfare system
    • Eradicating the income-tax-free-threshold
    • Increasing the GST to 20% and making it full-breadth
    • The resultant efficiency gains including the eradication of the obtain-paid-work-lose-welfare (i.e. welfare-to-work) distortion, the freer labour-market and savings in the justice, mental-health and charity sectors?

The CDO is sure such a poll will generate enormous interest.  Certainly, whatever the results, we commit to publish them.

Thank you.

Best regards

Paul Ross

Founder

The Citizen’s Dividend Organisation (CDO)

The Civilisationism Organisation (TCO)

P.S.: We will particularly appreciate hearing from any party, candidate or potential candidate in Australia who is supportive of, in general, Coopetitionism and, specifically, ‘The USI-Reform’.