- Capitalism and Alternatives -

Re: A footnote

In Reply to: A footnote posted by Samuel Day Fassbinder on January 01, 1998 at 19:54:59:

In his footnote Samuel Day Fassbinder wondered if people of the FIAN (FoodFirst Information and Action Network) URL: < http://www.foodfirst.org/ > were not doing meaningful work in line with what I discussed in my posting "Freedom to work or not to work." My answer is resounding: NO.

FIAN is full of talk and no action. This organization is full of good intentions, declarations, formulations of principles and voluntary guidelines, clarifications of misconceptions, statistics, and above all, too many words.

Secondly, it has too much on its plate. It is concerned with 800 million people throughout the world who do not have enough food to meet their nutritional needs. It tries to teach and educate, to protect the vulnerable, to eradicate poverty, to provide adequate standard of living, to achieve nutritional well-being, to facilitate food-self-reliance, to protect self-employment, to provide landless peasants with access to land, etc., etc.

Too many words spoken and too much thinking, puts on the breaks on action. It will continue until doomsday, and we can be certain that nothing meaningful will happen. The reason for the non-action is that it involves persuasion to the powerful to give up their power. Food is used as an instrument of political and economic pressure, and to give it up would mean that people would be set free not to comply with such pressures.

In contradistinction with FIAN, my "Universal Prepaid Food Staples Plan" is not concerned with such personal issues as well-being, poverty, self-employment, etc. It does not require persuasion. It does not have to involve the entire world in the beginning. It is based on the universally known fact that prepaid goods and services are less expansive than those purchased individually. Managed Health Care in the USA becomes cheaper when more people participate in it. A magazine purchased from the vendor on the street corner is many times more expensive than the same magazine subscribed to e.g. for 5 years. Protection from accidents, fire, loss of life and limb, is much cheaper when subscribed to through group insurance.

The prepaid food staples plan deals with practical details of its introduction. It could be introduced virtually overnight. It would accomplish all the things aimed at by FIAN, while at the same time it would bring down the last bastion to the ultimate human liberation from slavery: freedom not to do what other people consider to be important to them, and to do (or not to do) only that which is in harmony with oneÆs own conscience. This freedom from being forced to do evil would also address our concern about destruction of our ecosystem and the peace on earth. One disadvantage, perhaps; there would be fewer slaves to carry out dirty work, because the unemployment would be wiped out.

Finally, I would like to say that I was very much impressed with the wealth of information contained on Samuel Day FassbinderÆs Web Page: URL . I hope that he will make a reference in it to my above mentioned Prepaid Food Staples Plan.

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