A civilised request from Trev for you two gents to respond to.

I dont deserve your respect maybe, but Trev does.

A short answer is there is a recently formed economics working group at Occupy London which I believe is looking at economic proposals. They’re meeting this afternoon (Friday) at 5pm at the info tent to which anyone is welcome to come along to. No statement from this group has been put before the general assembly yet, but I think it’s fair to say various pre-existing proposals like a Tobin tax, democratisation of the City of London and the elimination of tax havens are all widely supported.

To give a more detailed answer, what unites the Occupy movement is a belief that the current system of government and economics is not working. It follows a participatory, consensus based process which uses working groups and open assembles with the goal of creating real, functioning democracy. Everyone has been busy creating a space where this can happen, so I think it is premature to expect detailed economic proposals after just two weeks. These need to come out of the process rather than being some pre-existing set of demands.

The mainstream media struggles to accurately depict the Occupy , in part because it’s not an ordinary protest movement and they don’t understand it’s about forming something new rather than just being a media spectacle, and in part because of it’s scale (over 900 cities worldwide!) and diversity. Characterising the entire movement as “anti-capitalist” I think is a huge oversimplification.

In my experience of Occupy LSX viewpoints range from the likes of “capitalism as we know it will imminently destroy the remains of social fabric and/or the planet”, through something like “we need a better more democratic, compassionate capitalism” to more specific positions about particular struggles. Through the working process we attempt to understand each other and move to a consensus about what needs to be done.

Conventional politics tries to tells us this can’t work, that tough choice have to made, it’s all too complicated for us to understand, the only system that works is voting for a compromise candidate every couple of years etc. This is all designed to perpetuate the current system. The achievements of the 15m movement in Spain, which is now supported by 73% of the population, and the high support for the Occupy Wall St statement are examples of what a participatory alternative process can achieve.

But to turn specifically to economics, yes our economies are extremely complex.
This complexity contributes to their instability and some (e.g., Ha-Joon Chang)
argue that the only way in which they can be made understandable, regulatable and thus stable is for them to be vastly simplified – only certain kinds of financial transactions permissible etc. I say this to establish that reducing the complexity of our economies is actually a good thing, and this certainly doesn’t mean subsistence living (the irony is the thing that will propel is back to subsistence living is carrying on destroying the planet in the way out current economy is!). There are also lots of arguments that the levels of suffering, poverty, stress, mental health issues mean that it must change.

The claim that “centrally organised/managed/directed economies have consistently failed to work over time” I strongly disagree with. The war time economies of the US, UK and Germany were all essentially centrally planned and produced massive increases in industrial output. During the 60s and 70s in the US and UK markets were tightly regulated and experienced record growth rates and relatively high stability (compared to the perpetual bubbles and crises of the past 30 years). The internal economies at the heart of the world’s mega corporations are all essentially planned economies, and many of them are actually doing fine (witness the record banking profits) while the market economy between them is in chaos (as in the catch phrase socialism for the rich, capitalism for the poor). I’m lead to believe the mixed economies of Yugoslavia did fine until the union politically fell apart after the death of Tito. Lots of other examples too, the Scandinavian countries showing the wheels not falling off if you don’t slavishly worship at the temple of finance capital, Iceland the consequences of what happens if you do, etc.

I’m not sure I exactly understand the the “value is given for work that is done”bit. Are you saying that the only systems which work are ones where the market prices goods and services and where there is a profit motive?

Re benefits culture, the goal is is ultimately to achieve less inequality in the society. As The Spirit Level book demonstrates, this has huge benefits for all. Some counties achieve this by having lower disparity in wages (e.g., Japan), some by higher taxes and redistribution (e.g., Scandinavia). Both can work. There are open questions about working hours, how to obtain full employment in highly industrial societies, whether we should instead be trying to create steady state economies, what the environmental implications of all this is and so on. In standrad poltical discourse this all gets dismissed as there being no alternative. Clearly this not true, and Occupy LSX has opened up a space where there is now a fantastic amount of debate, talks, discussions and film screenings about all of this. I encourage everyone of all viewpoints to come down and get involved.

Source: http://www.moneyexplained.net/?page_id=183

Monetary Reform

The Solution:

1. Government must retake the power to issue its own currency without debt and not leave it to a private bank cartel to have a monopoly on the creation of currency/money. Pay off the Debt with debt free Notes.
2, Abolish Fractional reserve banking. As the Debt is paid off, the reserve requirements of all banks and financial institutions would be raised proportionally at the same time.
3. Withdraw the UK from the IMF, BIS and the World Bank.
4. Control the amount of money in circulation as Guernsey do.
Thereby controlling inflation and not stealing our wealth through the stealth tax of inflation.

The bank of North Dakota already creates its money for the people without debt. Study them.

And thus the evil Debt based fractional reserve Money system will be no more and the people will be free from the shackles of these criminals.

We must not be confused about the problem and its solution.
The problem is the Power to create money out of thin air by a private corporation, and the solution is the abolition of this power, into the hands of the Government.
The bank of England is a private corporation.
Please, please educate yourselves on History and precisely what is going on.
It is a big scam, and the only way we can truly overcome these powerful wealthy interests is by truly UNDERSTANDING the whole scam.
Please visit my website where I have compiled all relevant information for the layman.
Watch the documentaries and videos to gain and understanding of what is going on, and how we are all being duped.
Knowledge is power, and we the people, once we fully understand the full extent of the SCAM, Will prevail.
I cannot stress it enough we EACH need to thoroughly UNDERSTAND exactly what is going on, I’ve been listening to the radio and TV and there is MUCH confusion over the direction and the message of the occupy movement. This needs to change.
Get CLEAR on the SOLUTION to the problem. The solution to the problem needs to be placed on a Monetary Reform page on this website.
You can find such a link on my website below.

Please watch the videos on the problem AND the proposed solution.
We ALL need to be clear on the message, and sing from the same hymn sheet!
Find the information on my website and all over youtube. http://www.moneyexplained.net

We shall prevail!
Educate yourselves.