Mr Cameron, are you co-opting a narrative linked to centuries of revolutionary sacrifice, struggle and elite betrayal?Like the electorate, I am angry with politicians and would like to see ordinary people taking control. But this can’t happen through state and market solutions, because these institutions are created BY civil society, not the other way round. To develop a ‘big society’ and turn the country around government must let people create their own ‘state’, and marketplace, on their own democratic terms. And this principle applies everywhere, and not just in the UK!
Wealthy career politicians are famously detached from real life, but at street level libertarian politics are done each and every day, in liberated space; on the bus, via community land trusts,
squatted social centres,
on-line social media in the average family home or other, egalitarian grassroots enterprise. A completely different kind of society can be built around these models, but what’s needed is an inclusive,
constitutionally-literate grassroots recovery plan, but I see nothing in the mainstream agenda, 'Big Society' or otherwise to take us there.
First, Parliament must sanction by law a new constitutional settlement, based on the carving out of autonomous spaces for ‘Governing Assemblies’ in every neighbourhood. These spaces would take the form of neighbourhood buildings, henceforth to be
community owned in perpetuity free of taxation but with general upkeep, heating and lighting costs to be borne by the state.
Second, GAs require
participatory budgets sourced from general taxation and to be spent according to the new constitutional rule-book. This says that GA processes must always be based on radical equality through real, democratic decision-making. Meetings must be widely advertised, open and transparent and must always use horizontal decision-making to seek full consensus. Without this, decisions cannot go ahead and this must be enforceable in a court of law.
Third, Parliament must accept the constitutional right of each GA to create its own market, by granting licences in the area and thereby its own revenue. GAs could, for example chose to licence or own a local street market, or charge for parking in the area, and thereby derive income. GAs can then choose through due process what local services to provide. The local area would be defined around
commonsense neighbourhood/shared amenity boundaries in contrast to the gerrymandered boundariesdrawn by electorally-minded politicians.
Fourth, GAs would be empowered to disburse benefits, as decentralised job centres. In exchange for providing goods and services, or work as an apprentice, for hours proportionate to benefits received, GAs will ensure claimants get to chose work in collaboration with a community of their choice. Unemployed people would thereby freely contribute to a new, flourishing local culture while also helping themselves; perhaps by starting setting up a new business, or helping run the neighbourhood crèche, or planting fruit trees along the local street, or putting a colourful mural on a concrete wall. This reform would spell an end to economic inactivity for claimants, building self reliance through community support, but without coercion. Communities would compete with each other for labour, by offering different opportunities and a positive cultural outlook. Currently,
150 billion pounds are spent annually on social security.
Fifth, GAs should have a democratic banking function. Mega-banks should be nationalised and decentralised, and the inflationary
monetary system reformed. Monies can then be passed from the central bank to GAs to be lent direct to local green businesses to help produce the new, decentralised culture.
Sixth, local schools must be reformed to connect with the wider community, and to embrace community learning. Older residents (retirees for example) will happily offer vocational training and mentoring skills, while the process of working out future care for our elders can be developed by the community.
A trade learned with the support of the community can provide economic security and a sense of self worth for life.
Seventh, the tax system must be reformed, to reduce the deficit and help pay for the new political economy. Increasing land values are created by the whole community and therefore should not be privatised, as many eminent politicians and economists (from Ricardo to Churchill) have noted. Phasing in
Land Value Tax (LVT) would mean big land owners must start paying rent as tax to the state, which would bring down land prices, ensure land was used or sold but not hoarded and finally end boom-bust property speculation. According to the
Law of Rent, it may also mean an eventual rise in wages, as increasing wealth could no longer be put into property. LVT could be phased in to help bring down the deficit, while income and sales tax (on low carbon items) could be reduced to zero.
As Phillipe Legrain argues in this months Prospect and the FT, a land tax is the only fair way to bring Britain’s finances back into line. So, if the Tories were truly reformed, Mr Cameron could show this by taking on the land-owners.
Desperate politicians facing an election like talking about giving power away, and in the run up to his electoral coup David Cameron asked us to join the Government of Britain. But those who actually, officially work for the Government of Britain are paid to do so and get to exercise real executive power. Is Mr Cameron proposing to pay us Parliamentary expenses and banker-style bonuses to play our part? Or offer us real, constitutionally guaranteed political power? ‘Fine words butter no parsnips’ as the saying goes..
