The Jobs’ Prioritisation Fallacy
‘The number one game in town is
growing jobs,
saving jobs,
preserving jobs,
and
creating jobs of the future.’
Christian Porter Australian Attorney-General May 31, 2020.
‘Regarding our exponentiating Socio-Econo-Enviro- catastrophes, focusing on jobs – i.e. paid-work – cannot save us and, on the contrary, condemns us.
Humanity requires:
- All 4 of The Universal Opportunity Infrastructure’s (UOI) cornerstones;
- An acknowledgement that society’s most important job is the unpaid-carer; and,
- An efficient exclusively demand-driven economy, which is devoid of any own-goal jobs-for-jobs’-sake component.’
The Citizen’s Dividend Organisation June 1, 2020.
June 1, 2020
Hello
Today, some questions came to mind …
Q1: Would there currently be riots in the U.S. (and elsewhere) if they had The Universal Survival Income (USI)?
Q2: If the U.S. had a complete fully-functioning set of the 4 Universal Opportunity Infrastructure (UOI) cornerstones:
- Universal Liberal Democracy;
- Universal Healthcare;
- Universal Education; and,
- Universal Survival Income (USI),
would their citizens still be seething?
Q3: Given the completed UOI would holistically ‘society before self’ (i.e. natural-morality) solve every nations’ Socio-Econo-Enviro- (SEE) challenges such that the remaining problems are manageable plus make us vastly more prosperous, what is stopping us implementing it – let-alone preventing it from even entering our conversation?
Q4: Why do our leaders and institutions favour societally-divisive class-warfare & identity-warfare mere-symptom-addressing policies, which effectively leaves Universalism as an eventual last resort?
[“We can’t have The USI because the ‘undeserving’ will get it”, shriek both the rich and the poor glaring at each other as, in a 260-year fit of mass global-suicide madness, we all defiantly quick-march towards the flames of our exponentiating SEE calamities.]
Q5: Notwithstanding the combusting globe and its vast Unnecessary Suffering, in one sense, isn’t The USI like a preteen dance where everyone shyly, anxiously and conservatively waits for others to venture first?
Q6: With Australia traditionally a progressive frontrunner, regarding The Universal Survival Income, The Lucky Country is absolutely strong enough to lead; however, is it bold enough?
Thank you.
Best regards
Paul Ross
Founder
The Citizen’s Dividend Organisation (Australia)
https://citizens-dividend.org/
https://www.facebook.com/paul.ross.798
https://twitter.com/paulross2
Humanity is being confronted by a perfect storm of Socio-Econo-Environment Catastrophes including:
1. Social:
a. Internal: mental illness, domestic violence, drug & alcohol abuse etc.
b. External: our weaknesses boost Democracy’s enemies, which is currently enhancing international rivalry such as with China, Russia, North Korea and Iran;
2. Econo: absolute poverty, relative income inequality, unemployment, homelessness etc.; and,
3. Environmental: ecosystem destruction, species extinction, human population explosion, plastic islands, climate change etc.
Hypothesis: This is due to a single foundational ‘Society-Individual Interface’ contradiction whose deleterious effects are cascading through every facet of society.
The relevant contradiction is the partial absence of the natural-morality-derived ‘Universal Opportunity Infrastructure’ (UOI), which consists of the four cornerstones:
- Universal Liberal Democracy – [In Australia] Yes;
- Universal Healthcare – Yes;
- Universal Education – Yes;
- Universal Basic/Survival Income (UBI/USI) – No, not yet.
The Socio-Econo-Environment-Harmonising Universal Survival Income (USI):
It’s not that it is the solution;
It’s that its absence is the problem.
The Taxpayer-to-Citizen-Transfer [Note: Unlike the Current System, this is not a ‘cost’ but a ‘transfer’.]Around $20,000 per year x 18 million (non-incarcerated in-country adult Australian citizens) + $5,000 x 4.5 million (children) = $386 billion (2018 figures).
This may be achieved by:
1. Reallocating $150 billion of the $175 billion Social Services budget (yes, we are already spending half of what we need), which still leaves $25 billion to top up pensions and disability payments;
2. Abolishment of the Tax-Free Threshold ($35 billion); and,
3. Insertion of a 20% full-breadth GST (no – it’s not regressive if the disempowered are net beneficiaries; also, the wealthy and multinationals’ capacity to avoid a GST is particularly limited), which results in $200 billion minus $60 billion (from the current 10% gap-ridden GST) equaling an additional $140 billion.
In addition to this $325 billion total, there will be massive human-capital, efficiency, societal-involvement and trust gains, which means, not only is the USI easily afforded, we will be, at least, twice as prosperous such that it will amount to a win-win-win in which all community segments – the wealthy; the middle-class; and, the currently disempowered – all win.
In the process, the economy will also be transformed from an ‘environment-destroying jobs-for-jobs’-sake’ ‘own-goal’ one to ‘an efficient production of goods and services we desire’ one.
Then, there is the massive permeating benefit of achieving full-employment.
That is, with everyone both taken care of and invested with the freedom to say ‘no’ to an employer plus the rectification of the present social-status premium on paid-work over unpaid-work, which will dissipate the stigma of not having paid-work, this means there will be a massive flow of power to the disempowered and working classes, which will result in a workers’ paradise.
Yet, this workers’ paradise will enable significant labour-market deregulation (i.e. everyone is already being looked after so, while we may continue to feel an emotional attachment to, for instance, economy-wide minimum-wages, in practice, there will no longer be a need for them).
And, this means our (pre-Covid-19) 5.7 million volunteers can get paid something and our young, elderly, relatively unskilled, disabled, unpaid-carers, 600,000+ unemployed and 1.1 million+ underemployed can, if they desire, get paid-work (or, more work) and, generally, there is full-employment such that ‘anyone who, at the going rate, wants a job, can get one’.
In addition, the USI will eradicate the current welfare-to-paid-work distortion where there is a disincentive to acquire paid-work because, in doing so, one loses one’s welfare.
Furthermore, full-employment will result in wages and conditions being bid-up.
And yet, business, as well as benefiting from deregulation, rather than having to tolerate the current crop of unhappy conscripts, will benefit from an army of volunteer workers, which given, with regard to morale and productivity, ‘one bad apple spoils the barrel’, will deliver massive productivity efficiencies.
This means our tradables’ sector – especially manufacturing – will roar back to life.
The Citizen’s Dividend Organisation’s Commitment:
1. Short-term (interim) – At the 2022 Australian Federal Election (unlike in 2019), at least one registered political party will have the USI as its signature policy such that the USI is an election issue; and,
2. Medium-term (end) – At the 2025 Australian Federal Election, the winner has a mandate for the implementation of a USI, which it then prosecutes.