So, first of all, I’m a systems thinker. And I think globally. When I say the concept of profit must go, I mean every country and every value system. It’s pointless if only one country or a few countries do it.
Next, I said the concept of profit. If the boss-owner of the company is still insistent on pushing prices of goods up and paying the lowest wages he can in order to profit, that is still profit. And, yes, he can pay himself as much as he likes. However, once the concept of profit becomes illegal, there will have been a change in the general zeitgeist. The man in the street will be very aware of people who earn too much.
Remember the French and Russian revolutions. People will eventually turn on those who take too much of the cookie. That will be especially so as drought increase, food becomes scarce, floods become weekly occurrences, and winds wipe away cities at warp speed. Oh, yes, and where it becomes too hot and human kidneys begin to fail.
You’re right about the paperwork. The Brits are experiencing that right now. In fact, the paperwork of exporting to Europe has become so heavy that many are just giving up on exporting. Putting hurdles in the way does not stop anything completely. It makes it too difficult for most, and the few that get through do so at considerably more expense.
It's a start.
I stand corrected with regard to lithium batteries. I googled it and read the Volkswagen page. There are still problems, but not what I thought. That said, the manufacture of cars and personal car usage has to stop. More land is used for roads (apparently) in Los Angeles than for homes. Roads keep growing broader, and the tar that is used for roads prevents water from seeping underground and is contributing to flooding. Also, the mass of materials used in the manufacture of cars (metal and plastics) is not something the earth can afford – not if we want to leave something for our children’s children. According to what I’ve read (often), we are using materials up at a far faster rate than the earth can reproduce.
With regard to research, university facilities can be increased to allow for more research. Or perhaps government research facilities can be built. My point is that business should not be doing research, but if they want to, they aren’t allowed to patent it. The results of all research should be in the public domain so that no one individual or no one business can profit from it.
Business should not be in competition with other business. Business should always be local, and it should always be able to provide for the local community. I recall in the days when my late father was in business, I sometimes used to work behind the battery counter in one of the shops. It was quite normal for me to say, “I’m sorry, I don’t think that what I have will do as good a job as a product provided by Mr. Green down the road.” Twenty years after that, when I was in sales, if I told that to a client, I would have lost my job.
For the record, I am a dual South African/German citizen, currently living in Ireland, and who spent 11 years in the USA as a legal citizen. I left after that. It’s a dog-eat-dog country.
If it is so hard to sell a product that there can be no generosity of one business to another business, then, once more, we are in a state of over-production, where there are too few clients and too many products.
The carbon tax is bullarkey. The carbon shouldn’t be produced in the first place. If a business recoups the carbon tax in the price of the goods, what is the point? Business will just go on producing as much carbon dioxide as they like, and then charge the consumer for it. In addition, the excessive production of carbon dioxide is far from the only problem. Our seas are being over-fished (for profit), and our animal/insect life is vanishing as contractors build 2nd and 3rd and 4th homes and huge corporate blocks to provide yet more offices for business. Sand is vanishing because of the amount of concrete used for all of this.
Again, I am a systems thinker. I don’t care about political and economic agendas. To me, business is not necessary to survive as a species. This is simply how you have been socialized and educated. It’s the world you grew up in. What is necessary is production and distribution (an economy). How we design that system for the future is vitally important.
That system needs to take into account the wide diversity of human nature – the ones who are givers and the ones who are takers, the ones who are war-hawks and the ones who are peacemakers. I think it will take a great many people working together to design that system.
What I am absolutely convinced of is that for-profit business has no place in our future. It is a backwards, primitive ideology that has led to the destruction of our planet by playing on the negative traits of human beings.
Why would you love my story when it stands against everything you believe it? I'm autistic. i don't need flattery. :)
