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The Responsibilities of a Government to its People, and their Social Responsibilities |
The present government's worldview is that all income is private, and in particular, that the government's income belongs to the government, only to be given to N.Z.ers in exchange for some good or service.
The government sees itself in the place of the 17th century authoritarian Crown, providing (with some obligations in exchange) a safety-net for those whose lives would otherwise be "nasty, brutish and short" (Thomas Hobbes, 1651).
Its 'stick and carrot' incentives are obliging people to compete against each other for the dwindling labour share of the economic cake.
A Code of Social Responsibility should be a social contract between the people as citizens and the people as subjects of a democracy in which the executive government is very much an agent of the sovereign people. (see Keith Rankin's: http://www.oocities.org/Athens/Academy/1223/krnkn_SocResp.html )
Thomas Paine (1797) insisted that the people as owners of their landed inheritance - the original public domain - had economic rights as a consequence of that property relationship, namely the birthright to draw individual income streams from that public asset.
In the same way a modern democratic social contract requires the people to assert ownership over their public domain and therefore of the economy that operates within it.
That means owning the constitutional apparatus, the public institutions, the natural and social inheritance, and the "nonrival goods" such as ideas that will drive economic growth in the 21st century.
To return to this "Code of Social Responsibility" questionnaire: I am particularly annoyed at the attempt to bamboozle me and most others.
The government people who decided on the blinkered, over-simplified:
Dr Gabriel Dekel's comments on the questionnaire (N.Z. Herald, 26 Feb,'98) back up my opinions. (Reporter Audrey Young:)
The so-called expectations in the booklet (for example, Parents should love, care for, support and protect their children) were social norms "with which we all agree," he said.
"Then there is the vast leap to a specific question which is the Government view of the problem area.
"In the professional terminology of survey design, this is a 'leading question'.
"It seems that: if you agree with the expectation, then you must agree with the narrow view of the nature of a specific problem, or that there is one solution to that problem," said Dr Dekel.
"If the design of the questionnaire was not innocent, it could look like manipulation to secure public support for Government philosophy and policy."
In contrast to recent (since '84) governments' views, I believe:
(1) that, on one condition*, any person in N.Z. should be free to do as much or as little work as they choose, and
(2) what they work at should be primarily their choice, un-influenced by whether and how much they're paid for it.
(3) The *condition is that all detrimental effects of the person's being alive (and effects of their actions in their "job", if any) must be
avoided as much as possible,
remedied (to 100%, even if this takes a lot of time, money and/or effort) when avoidance is just not possible, and
mitigated for any small amounts of detriment remaining.
It should be obvious that I favour a very different economy:
(a) almost everyone (in a stable N.Z. population) spending as little as possible, the minimum being $1,200 p.a., living in a shared, paid-for house; and
(b) financial activities being taxed sufficiently, to provide a Universal Basic Income (un-taxed) of $2,000 to $3,000 p.a. per person.
I am quite sure that (i) a Financial Transactions Tax plus (ii) GST (or other Sales Tax) plus (iii) Income Tax on Corporations and Individuals, would generate at least 3.8 M x $2,000 = $7.6 Bn p.a., even with paid jobs being voluntary. It may be necessary to double this total tax to pay for minimum sustainable maintenance of infrastructure, and some imported materials, like medicines and some electronic parts.Under the above regime, people would have far more time for social and family activities, and there would be far less social conflict, which I regard as having been exacerbated by the exploitation of the majority poor by the small minority of rich (and their government acolytes).
In the 1950s (and later) we had a reasonable balance between the three roughly equal sectors: government, business (and the economy in general), and the rest of society.
Most of the 11 Issues were then no problem: people themselves ("society") and business and government where necessary, all worked together for the good of New Zealanders.
It is crazy to run a country in a way that's designed to please outsiders (Trans National Corporations and their IMF, WTO and MAI). Our government has a Social Responsibility to us.
This is: http://www.oocities.org/Athens/Delphi/3142/GovtRespQnair.html