A bit of a recipe for frustrated customers, but maybe it would do us good to chill out a bit instead of expecting everyone to be available at the end of a mobile close to 18 hours a day.
You reckon?
And you think it'd be good for unemployment and all the social misery that comes with it?
Let me throw another idea in the mix: How about exchanging labour taxes for higher resource taxes, and outlawing things like planned and perceived obsolescence?
The limits you have indicated for individuals seems so high that to me it seems it will have negligible effect even if people do respect the limits rather than find ways around.
Okay, so lower them. What number would you propose? How much can one person own? 10 million? 50 million? 500 million?
So welfare capitalism.
I don't know about what label to assign to it. I'm not talking about a monthly amount of money so people can continue their consumer lifestyle, as so-called freeloaders. I'm talking about a minimum on which to get by, and if people want something extra, they can decide for themselves how much they want to work, without having to end up in the position where they have no choice but to do mind-numbing work and get completely exploited, having just enough money to buy unhealthy, addictive stuff and feeling utterly miserable, making other people miserable too.
With a minimum income they can also decide to work 3 days in the week and provide some of their food needs through gardening. For example. Or they could be workaholics and work like crazy until they hit the wealth limit, after which they have to start using their brains and be creative.
Dependence creates power, power corrupts, corruption kills democracy. If you want a strong democracy you want as many independent people as possible. Not completely independent, but at least dependent on each other for providing basic needs, instead of being dependent on enormous, multinational companies that are legally required to be interested in one thing: the bottom-line.
> Working weeks reduced by half.
For everyone, including those that need to work longer to pay their mortgage and other debts? Or is this voluntary so people can choose to work longer (without overtime rate ?)?
If mandatory, they are allowed to write off debts or do they have to go bankrupt and lose most current possessions? Do businesses get any choice in this?
Not quite sure what you are expecting: Businesses to cut their opening hours or to employ twice as many employees or some combination or some flexibility allowed according to circumstances?
Implementing such measures in the system as it currently is, of course won't work. And if you want 100% perfect, waterproof plans before even contemplating them, things will stay just as they are.
Changing culture is difficult. How do you go about achieving such change?
By talking about it (like we are doing now), by denouncing the idiotic worship of the mega-wealthy and famous, by demanding a limit on how much one person can own, by showing the relation between the current culture and the bumping into limits.
Changing culture is difficult, but we do it by talking about it with each other, for a long, long time. Not by saying 'let's not talk about it, because it won't work (fast enough)'. And like I said, 'help' is on the way: Limits will continue to be bumped into, more and more.
This used to be solely a philosophical discussion on the right way to live, but now we get this concrete, physical aspect to it, where you can really point and say: Look, this financial crisis, it's ultimately caused by a system that demands infinite GDP growth, leading to this financial industry that creates ever more insane debt constructions, like subprime derivative package stuff.
Or: Look, top soil erosion, deforestation, obesity, ocean acidification, resource wars, etc, etc. are happening because Big X needs to maximize its profits because GDP must grow at all externalized costs.
Or: The Arctic is losing its sea ice because of AGW, because of excessive consumption, because of current cultural conditioning, because GDP must grow at all externalized costs. And if this BAU continues,
these could very well be the consequences.
This is one of the two reasons I set up the ASIB (and by extension this forum): show the limits, proven beyond reasonable doubt, and why we are bumping into them.
That's the only way this culture could change. By pointing out the problems, by explaining the possible consequences, by talking about the root cause of it all and what could be done to change things, setting an example in your personal life. And do it again, and again, and again. Like Frank Luntz said: "Repeat your message again and again and again: when you're absolutely sick of saying it, your target audience has heard it for the first time."
So there's your answer to:
Talking to root out the best ideas that can achieve more than others is excellent. Endless repetition that gets nowhere much less so.
Do you foresee a political party advocating such changes getting enough support to bring about such changes?
No, I fear not. You and I will have to do it, my dear friend.
I struggle to imagine this - too many people would be adamant that it would be extremely bad for all sorts of different reasons. I am not saying ignore it but chances of getting such policies implemented do not look good to me. Still worth trying to persuade people such policies are appropriate but it looks like a long slow struggle to me.
Indeed. But I can't think of anything better. And I have nothing else to do anyway (except for gardening and reading Penguin Classics).
I would suggest such discussion is more appropriate than just attacking ideas as delusional.
Hold on, I'm never quick to say someone's ideas are delusional. In this case, someone said my ideas were delusional. And then I said 'your ideas might be as delusional as mine, because we're both human'.
Don't think for one second that I think my ideas are brilliant. I'm well aware of the limitations of my knowledge and thinking. I will hopefully hone the whole thing as I get older and wiser, but it will never be perfect. That's why I need you and everyone in the world to enter the conversation.
Getting to high percentage renewables as quickly as possible seems to me to different from 'prolonging the party' and more in the direction of addressing the most direly urgent of the interconnected problems', the cause of AGW.
A green consumer culture will not solve anything, only kick the can further down the road. We need to do what Bob Wallace proposes, and thankfully a lot is already happening, but we need to do more to make the effect even more effective and lasting.