7,453 Words to Save the UK: A Socio-Capitalist Manifesto Read online

services, trade and industry, and the military. There will be 3 people for each established post, thus allowing coverage for peaks, a normal working day that does not overwork them, and a guaranteed high quality service during periods of leave, training, Illness, etc.

  Secondary workers, numbering about 20,000,000, will be split into 3 work forces for public services, trade and industry, and self employed small business workers, each force being about of equal numbers.

  An adult education system would provide easily accessible and free courses in various trades or tasks to allow each secondary worker to become a multi-tasker, hence, they could vary what kind of work they do in each shift. For instance, 2 shifts may be for a local factory and the third may be a night as a paramedic. Such a system of employment and training would guarantee variation in life and give the secondary worker plenty of time off for life enhancement, spending time with family and going on to create their own work through, for instance, gaining income from a hobby.

  NEW HOUSING

  Begin a mass house building program consisting of good quality but prefabricated homes of a modular design which can be erected by a small team in a day. By being modular, the house can be expanded to include further or larger rooms, or reduced as entitled by numbers of persons in the household. Rent for each home would be 20% of their collective National Salary. Hence, a single person on £100 would pay just £20 per week for a home. With such a low rent, prices in other areas would fall, investment to big business would be slashed, forcing a move towards new business models, and everyone would find themselves with a living salary, with money spare for luxuries and lifestyle choices. In effect, poverty would be eliminated.

  The National Salary would cost approx £300b of the £600b economy. Rent would provide £60b of this amount. Each person would also pay 20% income tax (which would also reinforce the idea of duty) raising another £60b. The administration would also take 50% of transport and utility costs (new system identified below), raising another £60b. A further £60b each would be paid in a 10% profit tax by businesses and 20% wealth tax by those earning income from the £300b profits earned above National Salary. This would amount to £300b for the National Salary.

  NEW TRADE & INDUSTRY

  A P-ology Society Technology Division would be created to research into new means of providing manufacture (as previously stated), services, utilities and transport infrastructures, eco-friendly and aimed at making the nation totally reliant upon itself through management of its own resources.

  Essential to the system would be an integrated utilities (power, communications, water) and transport network (friction, movement and water flow should be tapped for power at every opportunity) connecting a new form of mini-city to manufacturing parks, distribution and agricultural nodes (more on this later), and smaller and more numerous ports and airports, the system designed for passengers and freight.

  This should be achieved by devising simpler, smaller (big is bad), eco-friendly technology that doesn’t need big systems support or huge investment, that is then fragmented by all the providers being small businesses licenced, and the network operated, by the new divisions of trade and industry below. The ideal technology could utilize hydrogen powered, ceramic engines (including a hydrogen infra-structure to support them), ground-effect transports, new methods of tunnelling (how is it achieved in nature?), non-petro-chemical plastics, tidal power, etc, most of which are already conceptualized but not in production as they would not be big business friendly.

  The concept of the mini-city would be an extension of the shopping centre into a multi-functional concept, integrating all methods of trade, transport hubs and public services centres (hospitals, universities, etc). Building one per constituency (approx 600 in total), they would utilize new building methods in terms of prefabrication, modular components and construction (can a building be planted, for instance, with roots instead of foundations?) and, virtually identical, they would then be the point of focus for local artists, sculptors and architects to redesign, making them an expression of locality.

  A new national internet would also be created (I like the name, Keyhole), which would be integrated with the world wide web, but also separate. As many services as possible would be handled here, including financial, social, communications and media. A new generation of solar-powered drones (replacing expensive satellites) and ground stations would be required to guarantee independence.

  All these systems would be created and placed in the hands of the following organisations and networks.

  BRIT CO

  Brit Co would provide all manufacturing output in the component form identified above, as well as the basic utilities and transport infrastructure, and would be owned by all through the administration, would be dispersed throughout the Nation in factory complexes and plants, and would be run by the required primary workers. Robotized wherever possible, secondary worker shifts would wherever possible be done from a console at home, thus allowing the disabled and home workers to contribute if they wish. With an On Demand system for smaller products, people would be able to program the manufacturing system to design their own products for themselves and for their own businesses, allowing the mass proliferation of new ideas, creativity, enterprise and products at the small level.

  Such a socialist collective industrial base failed in the past due to lack of innovation. Essential to Brit Co would be the absolute ban on designing or selling anything themselves (other than a National Production Plan to provide essentials in times of emergency). Innovation would come from elsewhere.

  THE 100

  The administration would cause the creation of 100 large entrepreneurial partnerships with as many as 10,000 entrepreneurs in total (plus a whole network of design partnerships). Competing with each other, this capitalist system would be free of labour or production costs through providing the business end of manufacturing, utilities, transport and commerce, thus utilizing Brit Co. The result would the most vibrant, ruthless and innovative form of pure capitalism ever devised, and the beauty of the system is that any failure would not affect the economy or industrial base at all. The only casualties would be those entrepreneurs who failed, their failure soon repaired by other entrepreneurs. Success would mean immense wealth from the 50% closed economy available after the National Salary is paid with £300b up for grabs by The 100 and small business and the organization below.

  The entrepreneurs would all appear on a table of success. Outside The 100, those small business people who are deemed to have been innovative and successful would be offered a place in The 100, the required number at the bottom of the table being kicked out. This system would allow a path to the very top for any innovative entrepreneur, regardless of idea or status. Even the entrepreneurs kicked out would simply go back on National Salary with a guaranteed home and start again.

  THE ESTATES

  All major land areas will be appropriated by the administration for the economic wealth of all. The result will be all raw materials and energy resources will become free, and no land will need to be bought or rented for business or public services from an owner. The previous land owners will be compensated by the creation of several hundred estates and a new financial sector which will be their entire preserve.

  The Estates will be responsible for organizing housing, agriculture (offering plots of variable sizes to farmers at no cost using tech as detailed below under the same system as small businesses), and they will keep major stately homes and other assets, now staffed by those on the National Salary and resources provided by Brit Co, giving them increased profit.

  They will also keep the bulk of the profit from the creation of many financial institutions including banking, mortgages, pensions and insurance which they will also run. The only profit they will lose will be from profit tax and a share of profit from mortgages equivalent to the amount of rent the administration will lose to support the National Salary as people buy their own homes.

  This new financial system will allow a thrivi
ng investment and small business base within the economy, allow for private pensions above the National Salary, and take any control of the financial base away from any entrepreneurial interference. It also works towards a separation of powers within the economy, as will be enhanced by the final element of the economy.

  REVERSE FEUDALISM

  The 100 will not be able to sell to the public. Rather, some 600 local trade centres will be created. Regulating enterprise at the local level, and through wider alliances with each other, they will protect the consumer and environment from irregular practices by The Estates, check quality and service from Brit Co and The 100, and provide, at a reasonable rent, facilities for local small business, including staff from the shift system of the National Salary. Those small businesses will provide their own designed products and services through reasonable loans from the financial base and made by Brit Co, or, and, franchises and agencies agreed with The 100. In addition, certain housing estates will be declared enterprise zones, where new modules can be added to a house to turn it into a business. The result will be a thriving capitalist economy at all