Education, Work and Cooperation: Abolition of the wages system, institutional hierarchy and bosses

Cosmopolitan education for all building solidarity within and across territories

All citizens of a city or township shall be provided with a public education free of charge at schools run on a basis determined by the citizens of that city. All public education shall however be connected to the learning of practical skills at one or more of the cooperative organisations or business enterprises of the city, and the learning of a professional degree (engineering, nursing, software writing, history, etc.). All students in every city shall spend one semester of their secondary school years travelling to other cities in their region to see how that city is governed, how its trades and skills are developed and how its cooperatives work. Upon graduation from University, all students in the regions north of the Mediterranean Sea, the Rio Grande River or the city of Vladivostok shall spend one year in a city in a region in the South of the world as a guest citizen, helping to provide transfer technology and other resources to enable those parts of the world to quickly arrive at a comfortable and sustainable living condition for their citizens, and students from the South will likewise reside for a year upon graduation in a city of the North so as to gain access to useful technology, knowledge and techniques while sharing the cultural knowledge and ways of their own city with the residents of the northern city.

Cooperatives are schools of self-government and realization of everyone’s abilities

All business enterprises and organisations in every city shall be owned in the final instance by the city’s or township’s citizens as a whole. All enterprises involving more than 5 persons shall be managed as cooperatives by the workers together with the clients, patients or service-provided citizens relevant to that organisation, the latter group (clients etc.) to serve on a rotating basis as in jury duty and for periods of not more than one year, and in proportion of 1/1 with the workers at the enterprise or organisation. On all questions of work that do not directly involve or affect clients however, such as hours of work, safety at work, how to carry out specific tasks, and so on, the workers themselves will decide but will keep the clients informed of their decisions and where possible seek approval by the latter as a gesture of good will.

A City or Township Council with two branches shall administer the decisions taken by the citizens themselves and their delegates on a day to day basis. One branch will deal with city or township issues as a whole, including relationships with other cities and regions, and will consist of an appropriate number of citizens (for each city given its size and population) chosen by random to serve one-year terms. This council will also oversee, or will create an agency of some of its members and also including delegates from other cities in the proportion of 5/1 to oversee the decisions taken by the other branch, the Cooperatives Council in its role of oversight of the enterprises, organisations and funds provided publicly to these by the city in both local and global currency.

The Cooperatives Council will coordinate, administer and make rules for the cooperatives making up the economic life of the city. They will send delegates to the Regional Cooperatives Council which will coordinate and develop plans in accordance with the already expressed decisions of the cooperative assemblies and the City and Township citizen assemblies to deal with larger scale questions of management of common transport and communications, ecological repair and sustainability, resource management beyond the boundaries of cities and townships and other related issues.

Regional coordination by delegated administration enables cooperation among cities and townships

A Regional Cities and Townships Council will coordinate the cooperation among cities in the region on issues of common concern, will oversee the organisation of city self-defense without however exercising any authority over the self-defense organisations, will seek to develop needed common infrastructure by cooperation leading to the pooling of Universal money funds provided to cities for common uses approved by the citizens of each city and township by referendum and in neighborhood assemblies. But it will not have the authority for example to negotiate with other Regions or Continents on political or economic issues. These powers remain with the cities and can only be temporarily delegated for extraordinary purposes.

Work as free activity for all without the whip of hunger or need and without bosses

Each city and township will insure that each citizen has useful work to do with a cooperative organisation or enterprise. Cooperatives are schools of citizenship and self-government and the contribution to the general good is a central right and duty of all city and township citizens. Citizens shall be free to seek and apply for membership with any cooperative they choose and employment shall be determined by the members of that cooperative, as well as, in extreme cases, the ending of such membership if a member is determined to have violated basic rules, put others in danger, damaged the means of production or in some other way to have violated the norms of the cooperative to such a degree as to merit expulsion. But each cooperative shall be required by each city to hold a number of positions available to those requiring placement in useful work and an agency of the city chosen by random but overseen by the Cooperatives Council proportionate to the likely need for work placement beyond the immediate membership applications by the cooperative’s members. Those citizens placed in cooperatives by the Cooperatives Council agency shall be full voting and managing members of the cooperative in which they are placed on an equal basis with all others, with the same rights and duties. All new
members of cooperatives become full voting and permanent members, subject only to the extraordinary disciplinary rules outlined above, after a 90 day probationary period.

Each cooperative will designate at least two days per week or 9 days per calendar month in which their members will not be expected to work, though these need not be the same day for each cooperative member, but these days are to be decided by the members themselves as appropriate for the kind of work they do and type of product or service their cooperative provides. These days may not ever coincide with the days which the city has designated for assembly participation in self-government, but are intended for rest and for the activities freely engaged in by cooperative members, their families and friends. The general tendency and overall objective is for less work time to be required with periodic reductions of required work time as the overall productivity worldwide rises. But many cities or townships may choose freely to carry out work in traditional or labor-intensive ways due to local cultural values. But work may never be imposed either by physical force (see the ban on slavery and related practices), by threat or practice of withholding needed resources or income needed for survival, by debt (see ban on debt), nor be required to exceed the number of days proscribed herein.

Provision for but limits on private business enterprise

Some small privately run businesses, such as restaurants and some personal service businesses will continue to exist, and any citizen is free to seek and accept employment in any private business with 5 or fewer members, founders and their family members included. Should a family or household consist of more than 5 persons and wish to establish an enterprise, they may do so, but under the regulations established by that city for such organisations, but they may not employ other non-family member citizens.

Abolition of the Wages System. Income Separated from Work, with universal access to needs

The wages system is abolished. No pay will be received or provided by cooperative or private businesses in any currency local or universal nor in kind. All citizens’ material needs are provided for by the guaranteed universal income through the direct transfer by the local and global public finance agencies, and by the rights and duties of their citizenship in their respective city.

Payment in global money may be provided to opting out individuals, though such payments may never exceed 1% of the funds provided to the city by the global authority.

Education, housing, health care, access to wi-fi internet and related networks, transportation within the boundaries of one’s city, and meals at a common neighborhood cafeteria (which will be available to all in the neighborhood provided they inform the cafeteria’s staff of their intention to be present for the meal no later than at the closing time of the previous meal that same day), will be provided free of charge to all citizens and a certain number of guests to be determined by each city or each neighborhood as each city or township decides.

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This post was written by Steven Colatrella