The citizens fighting for fair compensation of the use of their commons should look at Alaska. The Alaskans consider their dividends from their commons their rightful share of the state’s natural wealth. They do not see it as a redistribution of wealth or as welfare. There is no stigma attached to the payments of $1,000 to more than $3,000 to all Alaskan residents including children.
Why is this not done in the rest of the U.S.? This type of money is what is needed to continually pump up consumer demand for the middle out, which can be spent immediately. Dividends gained from common wealth bypasses the tug of war between advocates of smaller and larger government. They require no new taxes or government programs. Once set up they are purely market based and because they send legitimate property income to everyone they can’t be derided as welfare. The payments could be set up by the Social Security Administration.
There are many ways and things that must happen to save the world and our workers and their families. We must relook at our unions to bring them back to full force. We must bring up wages for all low wage workers to at least $15 to $18 an hour. We also need free education or at least the money to pay for it without going into debt. There are ways; we just need people who think freely and honest leaders.
The money is there and the means are there. Also, remember a country, a community or a union is just as good as the people living or working there want it to be. It can be the best or the worse. It is all up to the people. Remember we all are very rich for we own the earth’s commons and self-organized commons are undergoing a renaissance today as one of the most robust alternative to contemporary capitalism.
We the people just have to start claiming and collecting and then use the commons for the good of all. Some of your commons are clean air, clean water, forests, fisheries, and even farmlands. These are some of our natural resources, but we also own man made commons, such as roads, airways, the skies used for travel, parks and many more. They ours and we should be paid for the use of them.
Yes, they are coming for us. Workers need to have one another’s backs because no one else will. Neither the broader labor movement nor the Democratic party are prepared to meet the urgency of this moment. So it’s going to fall upon the rest of us to mount a real resistance against Trump’s authoritarian takeover. We’re going to have to get our hands dirty. I don’t care if you have a good, well-paying union job and you are in the middle class now—if you see a worker being dragged out of his workplace regardless of how skilled the job and potentially taken to another country, you should be ready to be there for that worker. When I.C.E. shows up, gather around and shame them into leaving. It has worked in other places. America is sleep walking into authoritarianism, and if there’s anyone out there who is a member of a labor union that is safe—at this point— and doesn’t think this applies to them. Understand that they just haven’t gotten to you yet. They’re coming for all of us. There are ...
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