This blog is a response to a comment made on "Day 17: Starvation is Murder".
Thanks for a really interesting article and really highlights how possible it could be to eradicate poverty and the suffering that comes with it. I wonder if it would be useful to highlight which are public and private expenditures as public expenditure can be directed from one thing to another with policy and the amount stays the same as it come from a fixed source eg. tax. Whereas private expenditure is often individual and variable, for example if everyone stopped buying cosmetics everyone in the cosmetics and attached industries would lose there jobs, stop paying tax, take up welfare/services and so there would not necessarily be the same amount of money left to transfer to other more important things. Anyway I would be really interested to hear your thought on this
It would
make a difference in terms of where the money comes from -- public or private
expenditure -- as you pointed out. Though, within this blog I merely touched
upon one of the many aspects within our current economic system which reveals
the values we as a society place upon certain outcomes or goods -- which when
reflecting upon it, are quite irrational from a broader perspective when
looking at the current state of the world, and the abhorrent conditions many
find themselves within.
When
looking at the issue from a different angle, it does not really matter where
the money comes from (public or private), as the essential point is that we are
living in an economic system with distorted values. The expenditures listed,
reflect the dynamics between supply and demand which is one of the base
fundamental systems in our economy. The problem already starts right there,
where a person's demand is necessarily linked with their ability to pay for the
goods/services wanted or needed (and the fact that there's no differentiating
between a 'want' or a 'need' in itself is also problematic). This results in
skewed supply and demand curves which determine how much and at what price
particular goods and services should be provided -- as they only answer to the
demand/wants/needs of those who have money and does not reflect the needs/wants
from the whole population in question. This would then (partially) explain the
expenditure figures. If everyone's wants and needs were taken as a valid
demand, no matter what the state is of a person's income -- these figures would
be quite different and the various industries, sectors and markets involved
would then restructure themselves according to these new sets of values.
This in itself
is however not a complete solution, as now obviously those with low income / no
income still dont have the means of accessing the goods and services they
need/want. For this a system ought to be in place, where the Basic Income Grant
is a cool first point of implementation, to provide those people with a
disposable income. Such a system would however still not be a permanent
solution, as there are still so many other points in place in our current
economic system which would ultimately render this change ineffective -- yet
it's a good start to begin with.
The
solution that I propose is that of the Equal Money System, which is a more
broader encompassing perspective/solution to our current economic system (than
for instance the BIG porposal). You can read up about it here: www.equalmoney.org and feel free to join
the forum @ www.equalmoney.org/forum
for discussion.
