Skip to main content

Compensation for Commons

If you have a job that doesn’t pay enough to live on or to take care of your family would $5,000 or $20,000 extra for a family of four help if you received this once a year? This could be done in in the U.S. by charging rent for the use of our commons and for carbon taxes, financial transactions, intellectual property and technological infrastructure seeded with public money. Then there is also our natural resources, such as natural gas, oil, iron, gold, silver, copper, trees, water, clean air—all of these and more is considered sovereign wealth, which belongs to every U.S. citizen. Each citizen should have one share in America and receive each year dividends. Just like the corporations, which are using our commons for the most part free and it is time for them to pay up. This is what is done in the state of Alaska with its oil product. The citizens receive about $2,000 each a year as compensation. Most wage slave people here in the U.S. and around the world do not understand the concept of the commons and that they are the owners and should be compensated for the use of these commons, which have and are making the 1 percent of this world very rich and leaving the rest in the economy ruined. One out of every 21 people in New York is a millionaire, how did they get this money? There is a movement on this in some states in America and in some countries, but every wage slaves and the people who are retired don’t have jobs and all who are still in college should read the book, “With Liberty and Dividends For All” by Peter Barnes. This concept is not new, and Barnes outlines the concept and how it’s been underutilized. It started in the 17th century by Gerrard Winstanley, who led protests in England against enclosure and now in 2015, the time is ripe to consider this as the new economy for the 99 percent.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Time for an Offense

There are three phases of a general strike and unions must plan for one. Those three phases are: 1. general strike in an industry 2. general strike in a community 3. general national strike We need to move away from being on the defensive and move toward a good offensive. The American Federal of Labor (AFL) could not have held a general strike if it wanted to because they had thousands of different contracts that expired at different times of the year. This was done deliberately so that there is no consolidation of power for a general strike. Also, nowadays, there is no law agency that will support labor, except the National Labor Relations Board (NLBR), which has been under attack and in decline for years. This leaves the burden of change up to unions, and unless unions work together, little will change. We essentially have a combination of job trusts, which are not as strong as contracts, and the courts can break easily because the NLBR will be further weakened and essentially elim...

If Gompers Could Do It, We Can Do It

Labor must vote for the person who will support and vote for labor’s best interests. And in turn, labor members have to support those who are running for office who support labor unions and vote down ballots. Voting down ballot gives the person at the top more power to do what’s best for us. This includes elections for city, county and state positions, as well. If you think a four day work week is wishful thinking, remember workers had to fight for an eight-hour work day and a five-day work week. We, labor members and supporters, need to find people who can fight and win. We need to clean the Congress and Senate of the old Democratic guard who have voted repeatedly to hold the working class back while enriching themselves. This would rebuild solidarity in a magnitude greater than anything either party has seen or offered in the last fifty years. If we can bring about the change in the ruling class we can improve all of our lives. This would be the start of the end of the tyranny of the...

Shock Troops

Gerrymandering is the only legal form of voter theft. Workers, our long range plans should involve 1. crushing Citizens United; and 2. getting rid of the Electoral College. We have been trying to get rid of the electoral college since 1876, and we are still waiting for the revolt. Our unions need to start training some members to be our shock troops and if all unions would do this and work with our local Labor Councils, it would be a good start. Our members need to know our labor laws, local laws, and learn how to protest in the streets if necessary. The antiunion people like Trump, Musk and his billionaire friends work together to crush the working people and convince workers they’re doing them a favor and then use them as shock troops against unions and their workers. All union and nonunion working people must come together and work together to protect what we have now. Labor Councils have retired union members and they could work together to prepare to bring the movement forward....