Where freedom is protected

Mark Sumner of Daily Kos talks a bit about utopia. His words make me think of a world without a social hierarchy.

A utopia in the sense of a post-scarcity society, one where people’s needs are met, where opportunities abound, where freedom is protected, and creativity is encouraged.
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It’s my firm belief that we have everything we need to create a post-scarcity society, one that truly enables and encourages the achievements of every human being on the planet, while simultaneously protecting the nature of that planet as a biologically diverse, complex, and fundamentally living world.
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The fundamental inequality that keeps so many billions deprived isn’t an issue requiring some fundamental technical breakthrough, it’s a structural problem that arises from government and economic systems that were never designed to solve those problems. Instead, we created a system that is an inequality engine. Occasionally we feel guilty about it and hurl a tiny percentage of resources toward the problem. Which is followed by a round of back-patting. Then a round of making things incrementally worse. And then we wonder why the system that was designed to create inequality does it so, so well.

There are now a few ideas out there that will tackle the fundamentals of this inequality engine, some that have been around for a long time. There is the Accountable Capitalism Act drafted by Elizabeth Warren. There’s the Second Bill of Rights from Franklin Roosevelt (so not a new idea). And the latest idea is the Green New Deal that Alexsandria Ocasio-Cortez is promoting.

I’ve written about the Second Bill of Rights (nearly 10 years ago!). This bill of rights includes such things as the right to a useful job that provides a living wage, the right to a decent home, to medical care, a good education, and protection from economic fears.

Warren’s Accountable Capitalism Act would require corporations that have more than $1 billion in revenue to recognize duties beyond maximizing profits for shareholders. One goal is prevent corporations from trying to maximize short-term profits at the expense of worker’s rights and long-term corporate health.

The Green New Deal is a framework for how Congress should proceed. There are a lot of details to be added later. The Deal includes these provisions:

* Achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions in a way that is fair to all communities and do so by 2030.

* Create millions of good jobs with family sustaining wages, paid vacations, and retirement security along with union support.

* Invest in infrastructure and industry of the country.

* Secure clean air and water, climate resiliency, healthy food, access to nature, and a sustainable environment.

* Promote justice and repair oppression of the poor, low-income workers, women, indigenous people, people of color, migrants, deindusrialized communities, depopulated rural areas, the homeless, the disabled, and the youth.

There is then a long list of ways to achieve those goals.

Some conservatives, noting that last point, said Ocasio-Cortez should have stayed in her lane.

But Sumner wrote:

I’m supporting the Green New Deal because it’s not just a plan to help halt the destruction of climate change, but a plan that recognizes that efforts to address climate change while leaving intact all the systems that have created the problem have not worked. We can save ourselves. We can save the planet. But we can’t do one without doing the other.