Introduction
"Socialism" means different things to different people. I take socialism to mean an economic system that puts economic and social rights, due to everyone, above individual rights and privileges. This is not, of course, to say that individual rights are unimportant. Some of the basic values I propose are:
(i.) Economic egalitarianism, full employment.
(ii.) Free access to social mobility-enabling services (like education).
(iii) Observation of basic economic rights (like health care).
(iv.) Strong organized labor institutions.
(v.) Observation of basic civil rights (like free speech).
(vi.) Limited market operation, subject to public regulation and egalitarian redistribution of the proceeds.
(vii.) Work and economic productivity should not be elevated above other important social and moral priorities.
(viii.) Implementation of all practical policies necessary to achieve these goals.
In contrast with some socialists, I believe that some degree of market operation may be perfectly compatible with an overall socialist system, so long as those who make outsized returns on their services or investments contribute their fair share to the public coffers and the income/wealth distribution is radically compressed. A 5:1 ratio from the highest paid person to the lowest paid person (after tax) strikes me as a sensible starting point. But more about that later...
So below I list 40 changes that some friends and I have come up with. I will explain, as briefly as possible, any proposal that requires some elaboration. Anyone who has proposed a change that I've forgotten or who has a new idea, please post it in the comments section. And if anyone would like to expand or suggest alterations to any of these proposals, please post that in the comments section as well.
As a general matter, if fellow bloggers would like to take issue with or expand upon some of these suggestions, please do so in the comments section. Create a new blog entry for affirmative suggestions.
1. Implement a Social Dividend Fund
The concept of the SDF is like Social Security with Teeth. We would allow the SDF to use its funds to purchase interests in private businesses (on a mandatory basis, i.e., the SDF could force corporations to issue to it new shares), fund it out of general revenues (instead of a regressive payroll tax like FICA), and pay out a dividend of equal amount to every citizen (on a monthly basis) who is (a) employed, (b) retired, (c) disabled, or (d) pregnant/raising young children. This would guarantee nearly everyone a minimum income, would allow for a higher rate of return, and would put public representatives on the Board of any business that the SDF chooses. This could be a force to encourage socially responsible business practices and could police corporate misconduct. It goes without saying that the SDF would have to have highly qualified investment managers and would require serious ethical safeguards to guard against corruption.
What about people who do not fall under categories (a)-(d)? How much would the dividend be? Keep reading...
2. Mandatory Unionization
One of the most disconcerting recent trends is the precipitous decline in private sector unionization rates. On the theory that all workers should have a collective voice in their organizations, we would require all workers to belong to unions (whether they think they need it or not, they ultimately will). Unions could compete for the right to represent workers by establishing records of successful representation. The strictest controls would be required to guarantee the integrity of union bargaining and elections.
For those who are concerned about running roughshod over workers' preferences, workers who do not feel that they would benefit from aggressive union representation could theoretically elect a "Do Nothing Union." This union would interfere minimally with management decisions and would presumably charge minimal fees. Maybe it could organize happy hour outings to further justify its existence.
Owners and management would be exempt from this requirement.
3. Universal, Single Payer Health care
Anyone who is paying any attention knows that our health care system is an international embarrassment. We spend between 2 and 3 times what any other country does on health care, yet our system ranks a pitiful 37th in the most recent WHO ranking. System costs skyrocket in the absence of drug price controls and collective price negotiation. Private insurers spend as much as $.30 of every dollar on duplicative overhead. People are at the mercy of arcane insurer restrictions and limitations on coverage, and often avoid medical attention until their condition becomes catastrophic. And even upper-middle income earners face the risk of total financial ruin if they need serious medical attention.
The solution to all this is for the government to operate a single-payer insurance mechanism. It would provide coverage, analogous to Medicare, for everyone and would cover all medically justified procedures and medications. Healthcare providers and pharmaceutical companies could continue to be private, but they would have to operate under the requirements of the government system.
4. Implement a More Aggressively Progressive Tax System
Along side raising revenue, the most important social function of the tax system should be to radically compress the income and wealth distribution, which has gotten out of hand since the Regan era (encouraging economic growth is a distant third in this era of material abundance). 5:1 (after tax) strikes me as a reasonable point to start the debate. This would require a drastically different tax system than our current one. Notwithstanding its graduated income tax rates, our current tax system hands out a massive tax subsidy in the form of far lower rates of tax for capital income, which is naturally concentrated at the very very top of the wealth/income pyramid. The result is that, as Warren Buffett observed, he pays a lower tax rate than his secretary. This is not fair and is not supported by any empirically established economic justification.
The basic characteristics of a socialist tax system should include high, graduated income tax rates, and should show no preference for capital income. Even more important, it should involve a small but significant and graduated wealth tax (or tax on net worth), and higher/stricter gift and estate taxes. Perhaps most important of all, the brackets should continue to increase to account for the explosion of the income of the highest earners. As it stands now, the highest marginal income tax brackets tap out at about $350,000 (for an individual) of annual income. The rates should continue to rise, significantly, for the private equity and hedge fund managers who take home >$100 million a year. The role of the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) would be replaced by the SDF explained above.
There is nothing inconsistent about imposing a significant consumption tax as part of an overall progressive schema. Such a tax could put a check on American overconsumption and could ease the environmental strains and macroeconomic imbalances that such overconsumption creates. It could also offset any disincentive to save created by the wealth tax. However, the rate would have to be carefully set in relation to the other tax rates to ensure that those with more resources pay a significantly proportion of those resources in tax.
Finally, businesses should not be able to deduct compensation past a certain amount from their tax liability as a compensation expense. The tax code currently has a provision that superficially looks like this, but the exceptions swallow up the rule. Let's get rid of the exceptions and give this some teeth.
5. Mandatory National Service
All citizens should be required to serve the public interest through a national service program. While a suitable program could take many forms, it should allow people to choose from many areas of service and should last somewhere in the vicinity of 3-5 years during young adulthood. I'm open to specific suggestions on what this should look like.
6. "Open Door" National Employment Service
Remember how I said that only the employed, retired, pregnant/childrearing or disabled should be eligible to receive the SDF? This is because every citizen should have the right to secure employment with the national service if they cannot find employment elsewhere (or even if they could but would rather not). They could not necessarily be given their choice of what to do, but they could always get a job with the national service.
This way anyone who is able to work can work, and those with little or no job skills could, in most cases, be trained to be able to work in the private sector if they would like to. The (regionally adjusted for cost of living) minimum salary would be set such that, when added to the SDF payment, it would exceed the poverty threshold of a family of average size. As a result, poverty would be almost eliminated.
In the unlikely case that someone is poor (i.e., no personal savings), is not disabled, but refuses to work, according to these rules he or she would not receive a dividend and therefore would not have any income. As I see it now, I would advocate some form of court supervision where such an individual would have to establish how they would subsist without breaking the law, and could be forced to join the national employment service even if they would rather not. But I may be convinced otherwise...
As a practical matter, the minimum salary in the public sector would probably force private sector salaries to observe that floor as well.
7. Free Higher Education; Free (and Better) Trade Education
This is pretty clear. Everyone should be able to get an education for which they are qualified free of charge. A well educated and highly skilled workforce benefits everyone. The educational system should also provide ample opportunities for those who do not wish to pursue academic studies, and would prefer to develop trade skills.
8. Abolish the Federalist System
Since the Civil War, social and economic conservatives have aligned themselves with the belief that states should have greater rights vis-a-vis the federal government. And for good reason. Even beyond our nation's ugly history of "states' rights" in the Jim Crow era, arbitrarily breaking up governmental units puts in place a jurisdictional competition dynamic for states competing for ever more mobile capital, leading to what many call the "race to the bottom." This leads to massive tax subsidies for large, mobile corporations and declining regulatory standards in other areas.
Federalism subjects smaller governmental units to corruption, interest-group takeover, and the politics of "good-old-boy" networks. It also creates a needless and largely duplicative second layer of government. How much cheaper would it be to simply have one IRS responsible for one federal tax code than to have an IRS plus fifty departments of revenue administering fifty different tax codes? The same goes for environmental and other regulatory bodies. Not to mention, the feds are almost always more competent, on the whole, than state regulatory agencies.
Federalism and the belief that the states, in and of themselves, represent something above and beyond a mere administrative unit also forms the basis of the current, demented, system of federal political representation. The result is that more populous states are underrepresented in the Senate and the Electoral College gives disproportionate votes to small states, and therefore some people's votes count for more than others'. This is fundamentally antidemocratic.
Moreover, federalism as it stands now is simply arbitrary. Just because the borders of
9. Unilateral City Annexation Rights
Notwithstanding #8, some administrative subdivisions will be necessary as a practical matter. There is nothing wrong with cities and towns having some say in inherently local matters (like deciding how much to charge for parking tickets or how much to set fines for letting your dog defecate on the sidewalk). And once most matters of policy of economic significance are set at the central level, much less is stake. Even so (and particularly if #8 is not completely implements), it makes sense for cities to have the unilateral right to annex their suburbs into their administrative unit, subject to certain standards regarding the economic interconnection of city and a particular suburb. For instance, if >35% of
Note: perhaps a more democratic and practical way of doing this is just by having an election in the city and the particular suburb, where all votes count equally. This would usually amount to a unilateral annexation right, unless the city itself is indifferent. But it has a more democratic feel to it.
10. Institute a Proportional Parliamentary System
This follows from #8 as well. If we are eliminating federalism because of its antidemocratic properties, the natural choice is a proportional parliamentary system (which is not subject to any unelected court review). In this scenario, parties would take up seats in the legislature in accord with their percentage of the national vote. This way additional parties that enjoy significant but minority support can play a meaningful role and Nader fans could stop helping Republicans.
11. Phase Out the Automobile, Radically Expand Public Transit
Cars are extremely dangerous to their drivers (car accidents are the #1 cause of death among people under 30), cause enormous amounts of pollution, encourage the segregation and geographic sprawl of residential communities, and are fundamentally inefficient in high volume situations. So it goes way beyond just pollution, and the electric car doesn't solve all the problems. With respect to the inefficiency of cars in high volume situations, think of a traffic jam and compare it to a crowded train. High volume causes logjams with automobiles because of the delay between when one car moves forward and when the next car follows it. The result is an inchworm effect that cascades over distance and leads to massive delays. In contrast, a crowded train does not move any slower than it ordinarily does.
Moreover, cars are not cost justified. I read that it costs twice as much to build a mag-lev train track as it costs to build an interstate highway (I'll look up the citation if anyone wants to call me on this). Only twice as much! The costs of car travel obviously also include the cost to individuals of cars, maintenance of the highway, gasoline, and accidents. Mag-lev trains move way faster, require little maintenance, are extremely fuel efficient, and almost never lead to accidents. We could travel way more efficiently for a fraction of the total cost.
12. Legalize Marijuana and Decriminalize Nonviolent Drug Use
It is just silly that in this day and age marijuana is illegal and alcohol is not. There is nothing wrong with reasonable marijuana use just like there is nothing wrong with reasonable alcohol use. And slapping it with a good-sized vice tax could raise some nice revenue.
With respect to all nonviolent drug use, imprisonment is an overly harsh and counterproductive penalty. On the other hand, in appropriate cases I would still advocate the use of court orders to require treatment. And I would still prosecute the dealers who exploit their customers by giving them substances that could seriously jeopardize their health and their livelihood. But I'm sure some of us will disagree on this.
13. Convert All Armed Services into a (i) a Peacekeeping/Humanitarian Force and (ii) a Counterterrorism/Law Enforcement Force
There is simply no need for the very most advanced line of stealth bombers or fighter jets. Who cares if another country develops a better fighter jet? We have the so-called "Atomical Bomb." No one will mess with us. We could save gobs of money by just abandoning the military's anachronistic desire to accumulate new toys. Note: the fact that anyone at all has nuclear weapons is itself a problem. We can tackle that later on.
On the other hand, there is still a lot of need for a force that can go in and help restore public order and peace in war-torn countries like the
14. Public Education Reform
The current system that funds education out of local property tax revenues is absurd. Funding should be set at an equal level per capita for every school district and every school should follow a set national curriculum. As to what that curriculum should be, I invite suggestions from people who have more knowledge about education. Maybe I'll invite my mom to blog...
15. Earned "Open Door" Immigration
Obviously, immigration is a big issue right now. The best solution (I think) to the current immigration problem is to funnel all immigration through the national service program. Everyone and anyone who wants to immigrate to the
In effect this program only officially recognizes the current system under which immigrants work low paid jobs. However, it guarantees that at the end of a long term of low-paid labor, the immigrant gains the full rights and privileges of citizenship. This is only fair.
16. Capital Controls
It is of fundamental importance that the massive, global, and largely unproductive flows of capital be reigned in. Such capital flows exert a conservative "discipline" on governments and can destabilize third world economies. It is also very important, in the effort to implement a wealth tax, that countries keep track of each others citizens’ investments, so that people cannot avoid the tax simply by investing in a country that does not implement a wealth tax.
Note: the above is not particularly clear. I will elaborate in a later post.
As Keynes argued long ago, capital should be national. Controlling the circumstances under which people may invest in other countries will allow us to better tax and control capital flows, and will allow countries to pursue their own economic policies without fear of a currency crisis.
17. Drastic Expansion of Basic Research Funding
This is self-explanatory. We have the technology. The time is now.
18. Drastic Expansion of the Peace Corps
You get the idea. We need to recognize and act on our obligation to encourage economic and social development in the third world. It's morally required and would just be good politics.
19.
Markets can have certain useful functions in allocating resources. Within reason, these tendencies should be harnessed (i.e., as long as it doesn't put the income/wealth distribution out of whack). However, under the traditional laws of business entities, their only obligation is to maximize their profits for equity owners. This means not only do they not have to, but they legally may not consider the interests of workers and the community at large, unless of course management can argue that somehow just policies would manifest themselves in higher profits. We have little reason to trust that business executives will consistently take this far-sighted view.
Once enterprises reach a certain size, they should be required to sell out significant, but not necessarily controlling, equity interests to their work force and to the SDF. (Note: but maybe labor plus SDF interests should >50%. Maybe not. What does everybody think?) This lets mom and pop entrepreneurs and start ups do their thing (subject to dealing with a union, of course) until they become, if they ever do, a large public corporation in which the workers and the community have a legitimate interest.
This would spread the benefits of business profitability widely and would encourage a more symbiotic relationship between business and society.
20. Strengthen Multilateral International Institutions
Our country should be a better global citizen. We should take a more cooperative posture with the international agencies that do exist. But beyond that, in this global economy we need to expand the scope of national coordination in cracking down on tax shelters, regulatory havens, organized crime, and terrorism. I personally like the Olde Vision of the IMF, under which an international agency coordinates currency fluctuations to ease the effects of volatile capital flows and to maintain systemic stability. I think we need more of this.
21. 30 Hour Work Week; Mandatory Paid Leave
Work is good. But so is free time. The key is balance, and we are singularly lacking in balance right now. People should have the time to hang out with friends and family, exercise, volunteer for charity.
I would exempt managers, entrepreneurs, emergency personnel, and youth/immigrant national servants.
22. Ban All Handguns
No one needs a handgun. Legal gun sales often end up in the underground economy, and are used to threaten and kill people. Urban violence has reached epidemic levels in some places, and we routinely see (comparatively rare but still jarring) school massacres.
The Second Amendment is based on the notion that an armed citizenry should act as a surrogate police force and should act as a check against government tyranny. These purposes should no longer be taken seriously. The social costs of widespread gun ownership are immense and there is no sensible countervailing interest. Its time to join the 21st century on this one.
23. Impose a High Tariff on Imported Gasoline
This merely backstops the public transit policy. We should make car use prohibitively expensive, so long as reasonable alternatives are in place.
As my undergrad international trade professor once said, "there's nothing wrong with the
24. Moratorium on New Suburban Construction; Stronger Urban Planning
Sprawling suburbs impose serious costs on society. It exacerbates socio-economic and racial segregation, creates duplicative infrastructure costs, helps maintain a disinterested and atomistic society, and eats up free land that could be used more productively.
It probably also makes sense to end the mortgage interest deduction for residential homes. This "ownership society" subsidy looks pretty silly now that the real estate market has crashed.
25. Eliminate Cash
This has nothing to do with socialism per se, but I think it could help practically implement and enforce a lot of socialist policies. It would be way easier to track and appropriately control and tax economic transactions if there is no cash economy, and it would make criminal transactions way more expensive and difficult. Every criminal operation would have to run through a front business, which would be more expensive for them and would make them easier to prosecute, and it would reduce corner drug transactions to a barter economy.
26. North American Union, Creation of a
I think it makes sense to forge a union between the U.S,
27. Wealth Tax and Valuation Issues
Some people voice concern that a wealth tax, while a good idea in theory, may be an administrative nightmare, especially in the case of closely held corporations and partnerships. I don't think so. After all, we already go through the messy business of valuing real estate for property tax purposes. And it wouldn't have to be every year for these hard-to-value assets (there's no reason why we could put a value on marketable securities every year), it could be every three years or so. This business doesn't have to be 100% exact. And with the savings from eliminating 50-odd tax codes from the states, overall tax enforcement and administration costs would almost certainly be lower than they are now. Tax valuation officers would set a value on hard-to-value assets, and taxpayers could challenge those valuations through an administrative hearing, and, ultimately, in court. We will also need multilateral treaties to make sure any investments our citizens have abroad are properly reported to our tax authorities, and that we do the same for their citizens.
Just as a ballpark, I'd put the highest wealth tax rate at about 6-8%, and it wouldn't even kick in until someone had more than like $500,000 in net worth. But this is very tentative. I need to do a lot more work before I know what rates to set.
Note: within my whole tax schema, I would eliminate business entity level (i.e., corporate) income taxes. They would be unnecessary in a hyper-progressive individual-based tax system and they cause artificial market distortions in favor of unincorporated business (partnerships are not subject to any entity level tax; their income "flows through" to partners and is only taxed at the individual income level ) and in favor of debt financing and earnings retention. Its just not the best way to implement a consistent system of taxation, and can cause nightmares in practical administration.
28. Vice Taxes and Liquor Licensing
I think every "vice" should raise enough revenue, in the aggregate, to offset the social costs of its use. So if smoking costs society $X trillion, we should raise $X trillion (+ a bit for the administrative costs and enough to turn a small surplus) from cigarette excise taxes. These estimates are necessarily, estimates. But again, we don't have to be 100% precise. That said, I think this system makes the vast array of other laws regulating liquor licensing and liquor stores and bars and how much food bars have to serve, etc., etc. totally unnecessary. We impose the regulatory burden at one level and that's that.
29. Civil Unions
It is unjust that gays and lesbians don't have the basic legal and equitable rights, protections, and obligations that married couples get. The government should acknowledge any and all unions between consenting adults as having the same effect. On the other side, I see no reason why government should be in the business of acknowledging "marriages" at all. The term "marriage" has a religious, sacramental significance. If individual churches want to bestow a blessing on a civil union, they should be free to do so. But the government should stick to the business of defining legal rights and obligations.
30. Crack Down on Hate Speech
I, personally, think we get carried away with our First Amendment fundamentalism. Yes, basic free expression rights are of great importance to a liberal democracy. But some forms of expression are clearly noxious and of no social value to any but small groups of freaks.
31. Free Child Daycare and Paid Family Leave
Daycare can be a huge burden for women who would otherwise want to work. The government should provide this service free of charge, preferably, or at least at a heavily subsidized nominal fee. New mothers should get about 18-24 months paid time off from work and new fathers should get about 6 months.
Leave of an appropriate amount (which I can't say off the top of my head) should also be available for sickness, tending to sick relatives, and for other really important family obligations.
32. End Charitable Contribution Deduction for All But "True Charity."
Right now, the charitable deduction is handed out liberally to wealthy people who donate money to things like art museums and orchestras (i.e., entertainment for rick people). There should be no deduction for this. Nor should the government underwrite religious organizations by granting making contributions to them tax deductible. Only direct donations to organizations that demonstrably help the needy should receive tax deductible treatment. And hopefully, we won't have any needy people, so these will only be organizations that operate overseas.
33. Trade
It’s true, trade can be efficient and mutually helpful. But as it stands now it only gives income gains in exchange for exacerbated economic inequality. As I said in an earlier point, income gains are not worth it if they come at the expense of distributive justice.
We are wealthy enough now that moral considerations should be the primary considerations, and massive income inequality is immoral. So, two main things should be a part of any free trade agreement. First, an organized re-training and redeployment program. This could be done under the auspices of the national service, or at one of the (free) universities or trade schools, or both. This would make sure that income losses to our employees are only transitory. Second, we should require that some minimum wage be observed by our trading partners (not our minimum wage, because that would make trade totally impossible, just a basic amount enough to insure subsistence according to local customs and with local price levels), and that basic workers' human rights be respected (i.e., no child labor, quasi-slavery, 16-hour shifts, the right to organize, etc.). I think this should allow us and our trading partners to enjoy income gains from trade without significantly hurting anyone in either country.
34. National Economic Plan Targets
We should strive for the following targets:
(i.) 1:1 hour-adjusted ratio of men's income to women's income
(ii.) 1:1 ratio of white income and net worth to nonwhite income and net worth
(iii.) 5:1 ratio of aftertax income of the richest person to aftertax income of the poorest person
-no more than 60% of work force employed by the public sector (we'd have to lower wages in the public sector to achieve this, but we could offset this income hit by corresponding increasing the SDF.) The last two ratios are subject to discussion and revision. Like any quantitative cutoff I propose, they are ballpark estimates and require way more study to say for sure.
35. Sports Reform
Sports franchises should be owned by the cities they play for. As it stands now, cities and states already extend huge subsidies to local sports franchises. So if they're paying the costs, they might as well get the upside too. The central government should own the league, and should subsidize teams to the extent that they draw from local talent. The players, like everyone else, should be represented by a union to safeguard their interests.
36. SDF & Retirement
This wasn't clear from my previous post about the SDF. People who are retired should not just receive the normal SDF payment (which will be set such that, the payment plus the minimum salary > the poverty level for a family of average size), but should receive a payment equal to the normal SDF plus the minimum salary. They are not working so they need a payment of this sized to ensure that they are not in poverty.
37. "Good Samaritan" Laws
Under Anglo-American tort law, there is no liability for a person who could easily (without harm to him or herself), but does not help someone who is subject to imminent harm. A classic example is of the "baby drowning in a puddle." Anyone could easily, without any risk, pull the baby out of the puddle. Liability should attach to the person who decides it would be more fun not to. Of course, letting someone die or suffer easily preventable harm is not the same thing as killing them or harming them directly. But there should be some liability in these situations. On the other hand, as it stands now, a "good samaritan" could be sued for negligently trying to rescue someone. So someone has no liability to help, but if they do so and they act negligently, they are subject to liability. That's ridiculous. There should be no liability for the guy/gal who tries to help but just messes up at it.
38. "The Basics"
Everyone should get certain basic things, like cell phone and at least a cheap computer, for a heavily subsidized nominal fee.
39. Agriculture Reform
Animal abuse may not be as big of a problem as human suffering, but it is a problem. Not to mention, when animals live clustered together in cages, eating their own feces and euthanized pets, its not too healthy for the food supply. The thing is, we have pretty good laws in this area, we just don't have the resources to enforce them. That should change.
40. Free National Exercise Program, Mandatory Annual Check-ups
And finally, for now, we should have a free national exercise program for anyone who wants to join. It should offer different programs for people according to their tastes, like organized sports, running groups, and weight training. The medical costs saved would almost certainly make up for the expense. Similarly, we should save the medical system some expense (and people the trouble of suffering from preventable disease) by forcing people to have routine check-ups. It's not so oppressive to have to go to the doctor once a year, and it could save us as individuals and as a society a lot of trouble.
...
907. Mandatory Uniforms
Everyone should, at all times, wear black sunglasses, black corduroys, black turtlenecks, and carry black blackberries and black suitcases (even if, and especially when, there's nothing in them). Everyone should also dye their hair black, and men should slick their hair back while women should have hair exactly like Uma Thurman's character in Pulp Fiction. This is only sensible.
