One of the key places where social justice and climate justice meet, is around the issue of work. The work that exploits and exhausts the workers, only to then exploit people as customers as well, is toxic to the planet. Capitalism means that essential things - like taking proper care of vulnerable people - don't happen because there isn't enough profit in it. This is why we don't have rural bus services, and our shit ends up in the rivers.
I recently ran into the term economic democracy, and I love it. I think it's hugely important to talk about alternative ways of living. Part of our problem at the moment is that so many people believe capitalism is natural, necessary and unavoidable. It's an exploitative, planet killing, soul destroying thing and we could ditch it.
What does economic democracy mean? Well, imagine if the work done was decided by the people doing it. What would we choose? Who is going to choose to work long hours for little pay doing things that are pointless or destructive? Obviously we'd start by making sure that everyone's basic needs are met. We'd share out that work as fairly as we could, with everyone doing some of the essentials, and essential work being valued because it's essential. Once we'd got that in place, we'd all be looking for nice things.That would mean having the time and resources to devote to whatever brings us joy, and having enough people working on the joyful stuff to enable it. Leisure, entertainment, health, sport, looking good…
An economic democracy would share out the good things more evenly. It would not support exploitation. The whole point of democracy is that it is supposed to put us all on an equal footing, but capitalism prevents that. Capitalism creates poverty, requires a struggling underclass, and enables an affluent, leisured class who contribute little or nothing to humanity while overconsuming to the detriment of the planet. Capitalism means we have people who can use their extreme wealth to corrupt democracy to serve them. In an economic democracy we would share responsibility, while all having more time to enjoy ourselves and we would not accept massive wealth gaps.
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