Social Debt and Social Credit

[nutronjon]

Can you all help me with this?

As Turtle said in the "What is in your garden" thread, gardening is good for us mentally and emotionally. A homeless, alcoholic has expressed interest in helping me with my community garden plot. I sure do need the help, and I know he loves giving people gifts, and will enjoy sharing food if we can grow enough to share. This could really help his social position with a church that has taken him into their fold, and very much contributes to his self esteem.

However, I am not just thinking of the homeless alcoholics. We are heading into hard economic times, and we need to do things a whole lot differently than we did during the Reagan administration! This time I pray we don't blame the victims of economic callapse for their poverty. Poverty during periods of economic callapse, is the result of lack of economic opportunity and lack of family and freinds who have the ability to help. Economic callapse requires social programs such as the ones Roosevelt started. If you want to argue against want I said- please start a thread for the argument. I really want to protect this thread for exploring a concept of Social Debt and Social Credits, and a Social System that better meets human need.

Social Debt is something we have because we enjoy the benefits of our civilizations. We have a good food supply, clean water, education, and all kinds of protection, like fire and police, and safety regulations, and legal recourse. We benefit from the infrastruction, communication systems and sanitation system and what? I am just working on this idea and maybe you can help me. What are all the things our societies provide that we benefit from?

I am thinking some individuals and some industries have a larger social debt, because they consume more resources and/or pollute more. One form of paying a Social Debt is money, but we should also be able to pay Social Debt with Social Credits.

Social Credit is something we should get for making a contribution to society, and these should be good for paying Social Debt or buying sociol benefits. Community service work is a way to gain social credit. So lets say my homeless friend can gain social credits by producing and sharing food. He could also get social credits cleaning liter in his territory. Volunteer work would be another way to gain social credits. And of course, people could buy social credits with money. So the industry that has high social debt could help pay for the operation of a social credit system.

Thinking on the homeless level, a social credit can be used for a place to sleep, a shower and razor blades, clean clothes etc.. People in jail could earn social credits to reduce jail time, or buy other social benefits. One way these folks could earn social credits is taking classes in citizenship, so our correction system has the potential of doing some correcting, but these classes must be voluntary, not forced on people.

[Tormod]

So is this supposed to function like a good old bartering system, but controlled by the government?

[nutronjon]

Originally Posted by Tormod

So is this supposed to function like a good old bartering system, but controlled by the government?

It could never happen on the federal level, because this level is too distant. Programs that provide government work, such a youth Job Core, can operate out of the federal government, but a barter system has to be local, and could be unmanageable in very large cities. Thanks for causing me to think about such things. However, let me explain why I think we need to think this through.

First, there are some people who insist paying taxes is the government stealing from them. So far, people posting here seem much more educated and civilized than in other forums I have experienced, but it can be a pleasant experience to count our blessing, and think about how we do benefit from our civilizations.

Also I had the Roman statesman Cicero in mind, and his opinion that it is our duty to accept government work. In ancient civilizations, people did preform service instead of paying taxes. In more recent times, pioneers didn't have a government to take care of all their needs. These people had to come together and build their own streets and court house, etc.. They were not subject to a governing body, but were their own governing body. So maybe we might ponder a different relationship with government, other than being subjects of government? During a period of economic collapse, a different relationship than being subjects, may be very important.

In the 1960's I thought poverty was a meaningful experience that I could never have. We could play at having the experience of poverty, but if we were born White and middle class, we could not actually have the experience of poverty. We could not have that experience, because we could choose to end the experience. It was clearly a choice, and poverty is not really the experience of poverty when it is a choice. I didn't even bother, but had a child and was buying a 4 bedroom home before I was 21.

The other reason we couldn't really have the experience of poverty, is our parents could bail us out of trouble. During the 1970 recession, our friends and parents needed help much as we did. Many had to file bankrupcy and were loosing everything.

I think our opinions are shaped by our experiences of affluence or poverty, much more than we realize. Both, those with affluence and those in poverty are afraid of loosing what they have, but they are experiencing this on totally different levels. At the high end, the force is towards isolation, so no one takes what we have. At the low end, the force is towards cooperation and sharing, because here we need each other in a big way! Maybe the other has nothing to give but understanding because s/he is having the same experience, but even nothing but understanding is every important to have when times are hard, because then at least, we are not alone. I learned I can endure anything if I am not alone, but when I am going through a hard time and alone, I become overwhelmed and dysfunctional.

The recession taught me, there is nothing meaningful about poverty. It destroys us physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. It destroys our families, and their opportunities in life. Coming to age 4 years into a recession is a terrible experience, because we can assimilate the young into the main stream. Being middle age and put on the unemployment line is far more devasting than people realize. These people may never again get high paying jobs, and their retirement will be dependency on low end Social Security checks, and if they loose their homes too, they are even less protected in old age. Economic callapse is worse than anyone can imagine if one has never had the experience. We seriously need to design a better way to handle economic collapse than we have in past. Barting when the federal government, state government, county and city have no money and must cut back services, and the citizens are loosing everything, including hope, is far better than giving up and doing nothing-but make things worse with cut backs.