The US and many other western nations are in a crisis right now with everything going on. They have told citizens stay home but have not canceled bills and have not provided income to stay home.
It seems we are on our own. Here’s something we can do if we don’t receive a UBI (or if we do). At face value these ideas are absurd but the sections below will dive deeper. Here are some ideas that are in addition to strikes and activism.
- Write each other IOUs. That’s it. That’s the entire solution. And continue as if it’s completely normal. If there’s no bailout, no money for costs. But if you want to do more…
- Give each other a monthly income using monthly income cards. Each card is loaded up with 2000-2500 value every month. It doesn’t carry over.
- Reduce rent or mortgages and bills to 1/4th to 0% of the monthly income value. Reduce or cancel rent and mortgages or use the rent value to pay home and auto maintenance or house keeping and landscaping.
- Democratize the workplace. Every employee gets a vote. No matter what we do it would be temporary and undone by for profit corporations. See Democratizing the workplace.
- We purchase or acquire land or property from the city, state or government to live on, building homes on for those evicted or wanting to help those evicted.
Let’s go over each one.
Writing I owe you
This is how you would imagine it would be. We give all of each other I owe you’s. And continue as if it’s completely normal. At face value this is absurd. I know that but it is done on a global level and past civilizations have done it.
We normalize it. Your grand parents did it. Your great grandparents did it. People would have credit. The gov does it. We do it indefinitely until it works out.
Can this work? When the bankers went on strike in Ireland the life continued as normal. The bartenders became the ad hoc bankers giving credits and so on.
As an example, Adam goes into a grocery store and picks out his groceries. He goes to the register and after ringing up the order the register clerk says, “cash or IOU?” He says IOU with dignity and the clerk pulls out a ledger. Adam says his name out loud and his phone number. The clerk writes it down, the amount of groceries and the date. Adam also pulls out a ledger and writes the grocery store down, the date and the amount.
If the clerk is wary he texts Adams phone number the amount Adam spent and Adam replies back confirming the transaction.
That’s the entire thing. There could and might be abuses. So the clerk could at the end of the day, enters the numbers and amount in the database. He can look up how much Adam spent per month.
All you have to do to make it work is accept it in your head.
Everyone continues to work their current work if they have it or if they leave work post it on social media notifying anyone looking for work.
UPDATE Jun 15, 2020: Here’s more details about this.
Rutger Bregman talks about the first time bankers went on strike. The local bar became “the bank” and the bartender was the banker. The town continued on mostly unaffected.
Here is a video about the strike (he doesn’t mention the “bartender bank” in this clip — I’ll try to find that one).
In related news, recently a local town decided to issue it’s own currency as it had done in the past,
Why a small town in Washington is printing its own currency during the pandemic
Giving each other a Monthly Income
While everyone is using IOUs we create income cards and income terminals.
Everyone would receive income cards with 2000 to 2500 value on it every month. The value on the card does not accumulate or go over the monthly value.
Every store would receive a terminal and individuals and small businesses.
As an example, Wendy received her income card in the mail and activated it. She went to the grocery and after ringing up the order the clerk asks, “Cash or income card?”. Wendy says, “Income card” and uses it the terminal. The balance is shown to her on the terminal. It should never be over a certain amount.
This technology already exists. Look at food stamps or look at gift cards.
Reduce Rent and Mortgage costs
Make all rent and mortgages and bills 1/4th of monthly income value (the 2000 — 2500) or make it free.
If using IOUs bills are 400 total.
If using income cards the cost is 1/4th the monthly value or free.
It becomes free if the property owner owns multiple properties (not a room in their home) and they complain about the monthly value.
All you have to do to make this work is say, “Rents are canceled, rents are reduced or are payable by income cards.” They’ve already done this in multiple states simply by declaring it.
Rents and mortgages last 2 years at most and go down each year and / or are used for maintenance (home and auto) and house keeping costs. The rents can go to paying everyone as house keeping or maintenance or not. The renter becomes part home property owner after 2 years.
Democratizing the Workplace
Every employee gets a vote. No matter what we do temporarily that would all be undone by for profit corporations. Every employee gets on board and goes to the owners of the company and says, “We get a vote on what goes on.”
Acquiring Land and Living Spaces
Western nations claims you have freedom but you’re not free if you are denied natural rights and access to the natural resources of the Earth. You don’t have freedom if you can’t say no to work.
Feudalism prevented the commoners from accessing the commons and punished them for foraging for food and shelter. That’s also called siege warfare and is illegal under international law.
A UBI is compensation for the loss of the commons but what is also compensation or partial compensation is access to the commons.
The Bureau of Land Management manages 640 million acres of land. That’s public land.
If the state blocks you from that they are the villains. It’s your natural right to have access to the Earth you were born on. No one created the Earth.
Every creature has a right to exist and to exist means having natural rights. The right to nature.
So in lieu or until a basic income is instated the restoration of the commons must be restored.
You’re not supposed to rent life. You’re not supposed to pay to exist. That’s not normal. That’s not natural.
The city and state are the people. We the people. We the people. We the people own the land and the taxes anyway. Like canceling rent, we the people simple have to declare the commons open.
Talk to the city, county and request land. Contractors all over the country are ready to build tiny homes or encampments.
The government could setup homes in ONE DAY if it wanted. It did that in the 1940s after World War II for returning veterans. They were not cheaply made homes either.
Alternatively, we setup a go fund me, or fund raising for land and purchase land for those who need a place to go.
Once there they work on improving the situation.
The details
What we’ve been doing in society has not been working. There’s no reason we can’t do this for the next year or 2 years and see how it works. There are some details to work out but all it takes is people participating.
Some solutions are a patch to what already works or is working. There are a lot of things working that don’t need to change and a lot that does. We can upgrade to the next version that builds on what works and fixes what doesn’t.
This is part 3 in a series of related articles. Read about what the Social Contract and what Death Capitalists are:
https://medium.com/@velara3/its-the-social-contract-that-maintains-society-56578c5227ac
