Take me to another useless website

Start here

Examples

licking dog
growing tree
assembly line
lesson in love
ha ha !
dibidibidibido
random colors

1000 Euro Rente für alle

Deutschland sollte von den Dänen lernen. Eine steuerfinanzierte Grundversorgung würde weniger kosten als das bisherige System

Von Bernd Wenzel

 

 

Immer wieder wird mit Sorgen und Ängsten über das Thema Rente diskutiert. Einen Ausweg aus unserem Renten-Dilemma können unsere Politiker nicht zeigen. Wir leisten uns eine zergliederte und hoch komplizierte Sozialversicherung mit gesellschaftspolitischen Auswüchsen. Einer davon: Täglich berechnen 62.000 Beamte und Angestellte mit einem Kostenaufwand von 3,5 Milliarden Euro im Jahr unsere Renten. Das Ergebnis: In den alten Bundesländern sind 70 Prozent der Frauenrenten und 30 Prozent der Männerrenten niedriger als 650 Euro im Monat, reichen also nicht zum Leben.

Zurzeit sind es vier Milliarden Euro im Jahr, mit denen der Staat die Minirenten auf Hartz-IV-Niveau aufstocken muss – Jahr für Jahr steigend. Alle Parteien denken über Mindestrenten nach. CDU und SPD fordern dafür 30 bis 35 Beitragsjahre. Damit grenzen sie bis zu sechs Millionen Rentner aus, nicht nur viele Frauen, auch Klein-Selbstständige, die Jahrzehnte Steuern bezahlt haben. Dabei finanzieren sie jede vierte Rente über Steuerabgaben mit.

Internationale Wirtschaftswissenschaftler prophezeien, dass die Sozialsysteme der Industriestaaten nur überleben, wenn ihre Finanzierung schnell auf Steuerbasis umgestellt wird. Dänemark ist richtungweisend. Auch Deutschland braucht ein solches System. In Dänemark nennt man diese Leistung "Volkspension". Ich nenne sie "Grundversorgung", weil deutlich sein soll, dass jeder Bürger die Möglichkeit hat, diese Grundversorgung durch Eigeninitiative zu ergänzen. Nach heutigem Geldwert sollte die Grundversorgung 1000 Euro monatlich brutto betragen, einschließlich der noch zu zahlenden Abgaben für die eigene soziale Sicherheit. Sie steht bei Berufsunfähigkeit oder ab dem 67. Lebensjahr zu. Witwen- und Witwerrenten gibt es dann nicht mehr, sie werden nicht mehr benötigt. Die Grundversorgung erhalten alle Bürger, die 50 Jahre in Deutschland gelebt haben (in Dänemark 40 Jahre). Wer etwa nur zehn Jahre hier gelebt hat, bekommt 20 Prozent der Grundversorgung, also 200 Euro. Es wird nicht gefragt, ob und welche Beiträge gezahlt wurden. Es reicht ein Leben in Deutschland als Steuerzahler. Alle werden einbezogen. Bei den Beamten sind dann die ersten 1000 Euro der Monats-Pension die Grundversorgung.

Am Reformstichtag muss es für ältere Bürger eine Wahlmöglichkeit geben (altes oder neues System). Außerdem müssen erworbene Rentenansprüche, so sie höher sind, erhalten bleiben.

Wer soll das bezahlen? 457 Milliarden Euro im Jahr benötigen wir für eine Grundversorgung aller Bürger in der Kranken-, Pflege-, Renten- und Arbeitslosenvorsorge. Das sind 22,62 Prozent vom Volkseinkommen (2,02 Billionen Euro). Die jetzige Sozialversicherung kostet ca. 503 Milliarden Euro (24,9 Prozent vom Volkseinkommen). Daraus folgt: Eine Grundversorgung sollte keinesfalls teurer, sondern eher billiger sein als die bisherige "beitragsgestützte" Sozialversicherung.

Was bedeutet das im Einzelnen? Der "einfache" Arbeiter, Angestellte und Beamte, der außer seinem Arbeitslohn keine Einkünfte hat, wird entlastet, zahlt etwas weniger Beiträge als zuvor. Die "Beitragszahlung" geschieht dann in Form einer erhöhten Lohnoder Einkommenssteuer (anstelle der bisherigen rund 20 Prozent Sozialversicherungsabgaben). Auch Arbeitgeber und alle deutschen Betriebe zahlen diese verringerten "Beiträge" in Form von Steuern auf die Summe aller Löhne. Volkswirtschaftlich vermutlich bedeutendster Nebeneffekt: Die Lohnstückkosten sinken wegen geringerer Abzüge. Waren und Dienstleistungen werden im lebenswichtigen Export billiger und konkurrenzfähiger. Der Binnenumsatz, dessen Erhöhung andere Staaten von Deutschland fordern, würde dank höherer Kaufkraft steigen.

Eine bedeutende Rechengröße darf der Bundesfinanzminister bei Einführung der steuerfinanzierten Grundversorgung als Vorteil verbuchen: Es wird keine steuerlich absetzbaren Vorsorgeaufwendungen mehr geben. Denn der Staat hat dann alles getan, um für seine Bürger menschenwürdig vorzusorgen. Der Bundesfinanzminister würde dann 45 Milliarden Euro im Jahr einsparen. Dadurch würde die steuerfinanzierte Grundversorgung nur noch 412 Milliarden Euro im Jahr kosten, also fast ca. 100 Milliarden Euro weniger als das jetzige marode System.

Endlich könnten die Deutschen so sorgenfrei leben wie unsere dänischen Nachbarn. Sie wüssten von Kindheit an: Für mich ist vorgesorgt. Ein solches Sicherheitsgefühl setzt gewiss bei sehr vielen unternehmerische Kräfte frei, die dem Wohl aller zugutekommen.

Bernd Wenzel ist Rentenberater und Rechtsbeistand für Sozialversicherung

Quelle 

 

Is it nuts to give to the poor without strings attached?

Bernard Omondi lives in a small Kenyan village in a rural district called Siaya that sits right on the Equator and is almost impossible to get to. He has spent years working on and off as a day laborer, moving stones on construction sites, and commuting long distances over rough dirt roads. When he could find work, he made about $2 a day. When he couldn’t, his two sons sometimes went hungry. Then one morning last year, Omondi woke up to an unusual text message. “When I saw the message, I jumped up,” he recalled. “My wife said, ‘Bernard, what is it?’ ” He told her he had just been given $500 with no strings attached. “ It’s here! ” he said.

A month earlier, Omondi told me, a couple of strangers showed up in his village, and explained that they worked for a charity, GiveDirectly, that gave money to poor people without any preconditions. They had chosen this area, they said, because it was among the most impoverished they could find — most people grew vegetables on small plots, lived in dirt-floored houses and worked sporadically at informal jobs. The poorest people in the village, the strangers explained, would be eligible to receive $1,000, about a year’s income for a family, spread over two payments. Not surprisingly, many villagers were incredulous. Some thought a politician was trying to buy their votes; others presumed it was some sort of trick. “My friends didn’t believe it at all,” Omondi said. “They told me, ‘They will come for it one day.’ ” 

A charity that gives away money, as opposed to, say, offering agricultural training or medicine, does seem a bit unusual. That’s partly because governments and philanthropists have emphasized solving long-term economic problems rather than urgent needs. But in the past decade it has become increasingly common to give money right to the very poor. After Mexico’s economic crisis in the mid-1990s, Santiago Levy, a government economist, proposed getting rid of subsidies for milk, tortillas and other staples, and replacing them with a program that just gave money to the very poor, as long as they sent their children to school and took them for regular health checkups. 

Cabinet ministers worried that parents might use the money to buy alcohol and cigarettes rather than milk and tortillas, and that sending cash might lead to a rise in domestic violence as families fought over what to do with the money. So Levy commissioned studies that compared spending habits between the towns that received money and similar villages that didn’t. The results were promising; researchers found that children in the cash program were more likely to stay in school, families were less likely to get sick and people ate a more healthful diet. Recipients also didn’t tend to blow the money on booze or cigarettes, and many even invested a chunk of what they received. Today, more than six million Mexican families get cash transfers. 

Dozens of countries imitated Mexico’s example and their results inspired the founders of GiveDirectly, a handful of graduate students at Harvard and M.I.T., who were studying the economics of various developing countries. They chose to situate the charity in Kenya because it was a poor country with a well-developed system for sending money to anyone with a cheap cellphone. But they also planned to differentiate their charity; whereas most of the government programs give people money for as long as they qualify, GiveDirectly offers people a one-time grant, spread over the course of several months, and without any requirements. 

“I’m hopeful about GiveDirectly’s model, but what they’re doing is very different from what some of the research has suggested is really working,” Chris Blattman, an economist who teaches at Columbia and who studies cash transfers, told me. “They’re just giving away money with no strings. It’s just manna falling onto your mobile phone.” An outside group is studying GiveDirectly’s impact; final results are expected later this year. 

 A few months after the group sent out its second round of payments to Omondi’s village, I spent two days walking around the area in Siaya where GiveDirectly is working. I didn’t find anyone who drank their money away or started sitting around waiting for the next handout. Although people did like to gossip about what their neighbors did with the money. One man actually pointed to a nearby house, and told me that the owner had nothing to show for his windfall. I later learned that the man, whose first wife had died, used the money to pay a dowry so he could remarry. 

Lots of people, in fact, used the money in productive ways. An inordinate number, it seemed, used it to replace their thatched roofs, which are not only lousy but also weirdly expensive, as they need to be patched every few months with a special kind of grass. A metal roof costs several hundred dollars, but lasts for 10 years, making it a much better investment. Omondi was among those who bought metal roofs. He also purchased a used Bajaj Boxer, an Indian-made motorcycle that he uses to ferry people around, for a small fee; he is also currently paying off a second motorcycle, which he rents out. Now Omondi makes about $6 to $9 a day in his taxi operation, several times his previous income, and he works almost every day. Several of his neighbors also used the money to start businesses­. One man bought a mill and charges villagers to grind their corn. Others became microretailers, buying goods like soap and oil at wholesale and reselling them at a markup.

But while Omondi and his neighbors have metal roofs, their houses still have dirt floors and no running water or electricity. And their prospects for making it to the middle class are pretty bleak. “You give people cash to start a business or expand their business, and in a lot of cases, they shoot forward,” Blattman says. “Then they start screeching to a halt when they hit the next constraint.” If Omondi wanted to further expand, he’d probably find it hard to get a small-business loan from a bank. The problems holding Omondi and his neighbors back — underdeveloped financial systems, bad infrastructure — are the generic but defining problems of the developing world, and they won’t be fixed by a one-time windfall. 

Even if they can’t necessarily build thriving businesses, or pave their floors, the poorest Kenyans can, even for a time, enjoy the tangible relief of being a little less poor. At its most basic level, after all, GiveDirectly’s work is an attempt to test one of the simplest ideas in economics — that people know what they need, and if they have money, they can buy it. Taken to its logical conclusion, this suggests that giving away money may often be more helpful to people than giving them cows, or medicine, or training or whatever. “This puts the choice in the hands of the poor, and not me,” Michael Faye, one of GiveDirectly’s co-founders told me. “And the truth is, I don’t think I have a very good sense of what the poor need.” 

Source

Deutscher Staat will wieder Bürger töten. Holocaust lebt wieder auf.

Ich nehme hier Rückgriff auf die Causa Boes [...] Da der Prozess für alle öffentlich belegt ist, kann jeder Normalbürger einen Blick auf jene Mutation werfen, die den demokratisch-sozialen Rechtsstaat verschlungen hat. Man kann einen Blick auf jene Sprache werfen, die heutzutage den Tod in die Welt trägt.

Da Sie wiederholt Ihren Pflichten nicht nachgekommen sind (vorangegangene Pflichtverletzung am 15. Februar 2013) wird für die Zeit vom 1. August bis zum 31. Oktober (Minderungszeitraum) ein vollständiger Wegfall Ihres Arbeitslosengeldes II festgestellt. 

Im Einzelnen sind von der Absenkung betroffen:

- der Regelbedarf zur Sicherung des Lebensunterhaltes (§20 des SGB II)
- die Bedarfe für Unterkunft und Heizung. 

Bemerkenswert: das Arbeitslosengeld wird nicht gestrichen, sein Wegfall wird passiv festgestellt. Eine unbekannte Macht hat es wegfallen lassen. Kein Mensch trägt dafür Verantwortung. Schön auch das Wort “Absenkung” – es erinnert an einen großen See, dessen Wasserspiegel man etwas senkt. Die Wahrheit ist: der See wird ausgetrocknet, der Mensch der Vernichtung preisgegeben – durch staatliche Macht. [...]

Was dort geschieht, ist einzigartig in Deutschland. Man darf da nicht einfach drüber hinweggehen – erst recht nicht, da diese Sanktionen – wie die Presse meldet – beständig neue Rekorde erzielt. Eine neue Qualität greift sich Raum – eine Qualität, die für unser Urgroßeltern noch Alltag war.
Da muss man ganz genau hinschauen. Das ist ein Akt unvorstellbaren Grauens, der dort vollzogen wird – und viele fleißige Hände machen mit.

Man entzieht dem Bürger das Essen.
Man entzieht dem Bürger die Wärme.
Man entzieht dem Bürger seinen Wohnraum – sein Zuhause, sein Heim.

Das ist nun seit 1933 deutsche Geschichte. Ja – bitte: jetzt mal nicht wieder herummaulen. Seit Gerhard Schröder wird der bundesrepublikanische Alltag immer mehr zum Großraum-KZ … wenn man auf die Prinzipien schaut. Nur darauf.
Ob ich nun einen Juden zum “Umsiedeln in den Osten” abhole und ihn im Lager verhungern lasse oder ob ich einen Arbeitslosen zwecks “Druckausübung” mittellos auf die Straße werfe: der Unterschied ist nur graduell, nicht prinzipiell .  Wir formulieren genauso schön wie die Nazis – aber wir vergasen noch nicht. Wir haben gelernt: KZ´s und Vergasungen sind nämlich … INEFFEKTIV und TEUER. Besser ist, man wirft den Menschen mit Staatsmacht hinaus aus seiner Heimat (so wie es aktuell Frank Schönwetter geschieht) und lässt die Natur den Rest erledigen.

Sollen sich die Sozialromantiker doch bei der Natur beschweren – oder bei Gott, dass er den Menschen so mangelhaft gebaut hat.

Das Ganze geht aber auch noch ein Stück weiter.  ”Arbeitslosigkeit” kann heutzutage jeden treffen. “Jude” ist heutzutage ein Adjektiv, das JEDEN treffen kann: es sei denn, man ergötzt sich an den großzügigen Segnungen, die der Staat seinen Beamten zukommen lässt, jenen Staatsdienern, die schon im Dritten Reich “nur ihre Arbeit gemacht haben”.

Starben die Juden früher im KZ (man denke nur an die Transportkosten – jedem Neoliberalen schaudert dabei), stirbt man heute überall.

Wenig bewusst ist dem modernen Menschen, das man ohne Wärme nur einen Tag überleben kann (habe ich bei einem “Wie-überlebe-ich-allein-im-Wald”-Seminar gelernt). Einem Menschen die Wärme absichtlich zu entziehen, gleicht einem Todesurteil – auf jeden Fall kann man dem Auslöser des Prozesses zurecht Vernichtungswillen unterstellen.

Ich will hier auch nicht darüber diskutieren, dass es ja noch die Kann-Leistung der Lebensmittelgutscheine gibt. Dieses Feigenblatt kann nicht die Absicht der Vernichtung (bzw. der versuchten Tötung) verschleiern – zudem ist es eine Kann-Leistung und kein Rechtsanspruch. Außerdem bringen Lebensmittel keine Wärme.

Ich möchte die Absicht der Vernichtung noch ein wenig deutlicher beleuchten – dass hat sie aufgrund ihrer Ernsthaftigkeit verdient.

Der sanktionierte Mensch wird im Zeitraum seiner Sanktionierung ja nicht von seinen Pflichten entbunden. Weiterhin muss er sich um eine sozialversicherungspflichtige Beschäftigung kümmern. Das er keine Adresse mehr hat, hungrig, durstig, vielleicht schon im komatösen Wahn dirilierend sich übel stinkend und völlig verdreckt in den Konkurrenzkampf mit anderen Bewerbern beweisen soll, gehört mit zu der Last, die man ihm aufbürdet. Versagt er, wird vom allmächtigen Arbeitgeber abgelehnt (was immer als eigenes Verschulden gedeutet werden kann) werden die Sanktionen verlängert.

Da steckt ein elementarer Vernichtungswillen hinter, der gezielt ins Gesetz gegossen wurde.

Wir brauchen da keine Konzentrationslager mehr: die Straße eliminiert solche vogelfreien Gestalten selber – zur Not fallen sie gutbürgerlichen Säuberungskommandos zum Opfer, die schon immer einen Hass auf Arme geschoben haben. Das ist leider keine Zukunftsmusik, finden wir doch ein entsprechendes Hasspotential in weiten Kreisen der niederen Bevölkerungsschichten – angespornt von Medien, Wirtschaft und Politik.

Viele werden jetzt denken: das kann doch gar nicht sein! Wir leben in einer Demokratie, in der Menschenrechte absolute Gültigkeit haben!

Stimmt: das war die Bonner Republik. Jetzt haben wir die Berliner Republik, die einen Kurs eingeschlagen hat, den wir in Deutschland schon kennen. Hier herrscht ein ganz neues Klima.
Quelle

Why we need a Citizen's Income

To accompany the launch of Money for Everyone: Why we need a Citizen’s Income by the Policy Press on the 27th June, there is now a podcast on the Citizen’s Income Trust’s website.
It’s quite short. It tells how, while I was a curate at the Elephant and Castle, I was invited to the Department of Health and Social Security’s summer school. I had previously worked for the Department, and had realised how much better the unconditional and nonwithdrawable Child Benefit was than means-tested benefits: and at the summer school I found serious discussion taking place about the possibility of replacing adults’ means-tested benefits with universal ones. This was a cause worth pursuing.

The podcast describes a Citizen’s Income: It is an unconditional benefit – that is, everyone gets it; everyone of the same age gets the same amount – whatever our employment status, whatever our income, whatever our household structure, whatever our relationships … whatever. And it is nonwithdrawable – which means that if we earn additional income then the benefit isn’t taken away. If we are on means-tested benefits and we earn additional income then benefits are withdrawn, which means that there is little incentive to earn additional income. A Citizen’s Income would not be withdrawn, so there would be far more incentive to seek employment, or to seek new skills, or to seek a better paid job.

If we are earning an income then we have a tax allowance: an amount of earnings that is not taxed. The tax allowance has a value ( - the tax allowance multiplied by a tax rate). If instead of receiving a tax allowance we received a cash payment of the same value and we were then taxed on all of our earned income, then we would be in the same position as before, and we would have a Citizen’s Income. If we were on means-tested benefits and the earnings rules were removed then we would have a Citizen’s Income. So a Citizen’s Income can be described as two minor changes to our tax and benefits systems. It can also be described as a whole new way of distributing income in our society.

I’ve written Money for Everyone because it’s the right time for the book. During the past few years there have been books about aspects of a Citizen’s Income, but it is ten years since there has been anything like a wide-ranging discussion of the arguments for and against a Citizen’s Income from a variety of viewpoints. If someone asked me to recommend a book about Citizen’s Income, there really wasn’t anything to suggest. Now there is.

In the podcast I mention my experience of discussing a Citizen’s Income with groups of people. I explain how the tax system calculates how much the government should receive from us in relation to our income, and how a means-tested benefits system (which includes Tax Credits) calculates how much the government should pay to us in relation to our income, and that we are therefore doing the same job twice; I explain how means-tested benefits impose disincentives, how they stigmatise claimants, how the cohabitation rule means civil servants investigating people’s private lives - and how all of this is unnecessary and could easily be replaced by an unconditional and nonwithdrawable Citizen’s Income. I describe how I see the penny drop for members of the group. They see it. But for some people the penny never drops. At the end of the session they are still telling us that we need to means-test benefits because we mustn’t give people something for nothing. They haven’t noticed that that’s exactly what we are doing. We are already giving lots of people something for nothing, and we’re doing it badly, because the way we do it makes it really difficult for people to climb out of means-tested benefits. Those for whom the penny has dropped realise that with a Citizen’s Income it would be much easier for people to climb out of poverty than it is now.

In the podcast I mention a pilot project in Namibia. The income security that a small Citizen’s Income gave to every member of the community meant that people were able to start new businesses, and were in other ways able to improve their earned incomes, and that net incomes for the lowest paid increased by a staggering average of 200%. Similar pilot projects in India are now being evaluated. What we haven’t yet seen is a pilot project in a developed country such as the UK. Not only is it time for a book: it is time for a pilot project.

Malcolm Torry

Source

Citizen's Income Trust

On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs

On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs
Posted on August 17, 2013

Ever had the feeling that your job might be made up? That the world would keep on turning if you weren’t doing that thing you do 9 - 5? David Graeber explored the phenomenon of bullshit jobs for our recent summer issue – everyone who’s employed should read carefully…




On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber.

In the year 1930, John Maynard Keynes predicted that, by century’s end, technology would have advanced sufficiently that countries like Great Britain or the United States would have achieved a 15-hour work week. There’s every reason to believe he was right. In technological terms, we are quite capable of this. And yet it didn’t happen. Instead, technology has been marshaled, if anything, to figure out ways to make us all work more. In order to achieve this, jobs have had to be created that are, effectively, pointless. Huge swathes of people, in Europe and North America in particular, spend their entire working lives performing tasks they secretly believe do not really need to be performed. The moral and spiritual damage that comes from this situation is profound. It is a scar across our collective soul. Yet virtually no one talks about it.

Why did Keynes’ promised utopia – still being eagerly awaited in the ‘60s – never materialise? The standard line today is that he didn’t figure in the massive increase in consumerism. Given the choice between less hours and more toys and pleasures, we’ve collectively chosen the latter. This presents a nice morality tale, but even a moment’s reflection shows it can’t really be true. Yes, we have witnessed the creation of an endless variety of new jobs and industries since the ‘20s, but very few have anything to do with the production and distribution of sushi, iPhones, or fancy sneakers.

So what are these new jobs, precisely? A recent report comparing employment in the US between 1910 and 2000 gives us a clear picture (and I note, one pretty much exactly echoed in the UK). Over the course of the last century, the number of workers employed as domestic servants, in industry, and in the farm sector has collapsed dramatically. At the same time, “professional, managerial, clerical, sales, and service workers” tripled, growing “from one-quarter to three-quarters of total employment.” In other words, productive jobs have, just as predicted, been largely automated away (even if you count industrial workers globally, including the toiling masses in India and China, such workers are still not nearly so large a percentage of the world population as they used to be).

But rather than allowing a massive reduction of working hours to free the world’s population to pursue their own projects, pleasures, visions, and ideas, we have seen the ballooning not even so much of the “service” sector as of the administrative sector, up to and including the creation of whole new industries like financial services or telemarketing, or the unprecedented expansion of sectors like corporate law, academic and health administration, human resources, and public relations. And these numbers do not even reflect on all those people whose job is to provide administrative, technical, or security support for these industries, or for that matter the whole host of ancillary industries (dog-washers, all-night pizza deliverymen) that only exist because everyone else is spending so much of their time working in all the other ones.

These are what I propose to call “bullshit jobs.”

It’s as if someone were out there making up pointless jobs just for the sake of keeping us all working. And here, precisely, lies the mystery. In capitalism, this is precisely what is not supposed to happen. Sure, in the old inefficient socialist states like the Soviet Union, where employment was considered both a right and a sacred duty, the system made up as many jobs as they had to (this is why in Soviet department stores it took three clerks to sell a piece of meat). But, of course, this is the sort of very problem market competition is supposed to fix. According to economic theory, at least, the last thing a profit-seeking firm is going to do is shell out money to workers they don’t really need to employ. Still, somehow, it happens.

While corporations may engage in ruthless downsizing, the layoffs and speed-ups invariably fall on that class of people who are actually making, moving, fixing and maintaining things; through some strange alchemy no one can quite explain, the number of salaried paper-pushers ultimately seems to expand, and more and more employees find themselves, not unlike Soviet workers actually, working 40 or even 50 hour weeks on paper, but effectively working 15 hours just as Keynes predicted, since the rest of their time is spent organizing or attending motivational seminars, updating their facebook profiles or downloading TV box-sets.

The answer clearly isn’t economic: it’s moral and political. The ruling class has figured out that a happy and productive population with free time on their hands is a mortal danger (think of what started to happen when this even began to be approximated in the ‘60s). And, on the other hand, the feeling that work is a moral value in itself, and that anyone not willing to submit themselves to some kind of intense work discipline for most of their waking hours deserves nothing, is extraordinarily convenient for them.

Once, when contemplating the apparently endless growth of administrative responsibilities in British academic departments, I came up with one possible vision of hell. Hell is a collection of individuals who are spending the bulk of their time working on a task they don’t like and are not especially good at. Say they were hired because they were excellent cabinet-makers, and then discover they are expected to spend a great deal of their time frying fish. Neither does the task really need to be done – at least, there’s only a very limited number of fish that need to be fried. Yet somehow, they all become so obsessed with resentment at the thought that some of their co-workers might be spending more time making cabinets, and not doing their fair share of the fish-frying responsibilities, that before long there’s endless piles of useless badly cooked fish piling up all over the workshop and it’s all that anyone really does.

I think this is actually a pretty accurate description of the moral dynamics of our own economy.

*

Now, I realise any such argument is going to run into immediate objections: “who are you to say what jobs are really ‘necessary’? What’s necessary anyway? You’re an anthropology professor, what’s the ‘need’ for that?” (And indeed a lot of tabloid readers would take the existence of my job as the very definition of wasteful social expenditure.) And on one level, this is obviously true. There can be no objective measure of social value.

I would not presume to tell someone who is convinced they are making a meaningful contribution to the world that, really, they are not. But what about those people who are themselves convinced their jobs are meaningless? Not long ago I got back in touch with a school friend who I hadn’t seen since I was 12. I was amazed to discover that in the interim, he had become first a poet, then the front man in an indie rock band. I’d heard some of his songs on the radio having no idea the singer was someone I actually knew. He was obviously brilliant, innovative, and his work had unquestionably brightened and improved the lives of people all over the world. Yet, after a couple of unsuccessful albums, he’d lost his contract, and plagued with debts and a newborn daughter, ended up, as he put it, “taking the default choice of so many directionless folk: law school.” Now he’s a corporate lawyer working in a prominent New York firm. He was the first to admit that his job was utterly meaningless, contributed nothing to the world, and, in his own estimation, should not really exist.

There’s a lot of questions one could ask here, starting with, what does it say about our society that it seems to generate an extremely limited demand for talented poet-musicians, but an apparently infinite demand for specialists in corporate law? (Answer: if 1% of the population controls most of the disposable wealth, what we call “the market” reflects what they think is useful or important, not anybody else.) But even more, it shows that most people in these jobs are ultimately aware of it. In fact, I’m not sure I’ve ever met a corporate lawyer who didn’t think their job was bullshit. The same goes for almost all the new industries outlined above. There is a whole class of salaried professionals that, should you meet them at parties and admit that you do something that might be considered interesting (an anthropologist, for example), will want to avoid even discussing their line of work entirely. Give them a few drinks, and they will launch into tirades about how pointless and stupid their job really is.

This is a profound psychological violence here. How can one even begin to speak of dignity in labour when one secretly feels one’s job should not exist? How can it not create a sense of deep rage and resentment. Yet it is the peculiar genius of our society that it’s rulers have figured out a way, as in the case of the fish-fryers, to ensure that rage is directed precisely against those who actually do get to do meaningful work. For instance: in our society, there seems a general rule that, the more obviously one’s work benefits other people, the less one is likely to be paid for it. Again, an objective measure is hard to find, but one easy way to get a sense is to ask: what would happen were this entire class of people to simply disappear? Say what you like about nurses, garbage collectors, or mechanics, it’s obvious that were they to vanish in a puff of smoke, the results would be immediate and catastrophic. A world without teachers or dock-workers would soon be in trouble, and even one without science fiction writers or ska musicians would clearly be a lesser place. It’s not entirely clear how humanity would suffer were all private equity CEOs, lobbyists, PR researchers, actuaries, telemarketers, bailiffs or legal consultants to similarly vanish. (Many suspect it might markedly improve.) Yet apart from a handful of well-touted exceptions (doctors), the rule holds surprisingly well.

Even more perverse, there seems to be a broad sense that this is the way things should be. This is one of the secret strengths of right-wing populism. You can see it when tabloids whip up resentment against tube workers for paralysing London during contract disputes: the very fact that tube workers can paralyse London shows that their work is actually necessary, but this seems to be precisely what annoys people. It’s even clearer in the US, where Republicans have had remarkable success mobilizing resentment against school teachers, or auto workers (and not, significantly, against the school administrators or auto industry managers who actually cause the problems) for their supposedly bloated wages and benefits. It’s as if they are being told “but you get to teach children! Or make cars! You get to have real jobs! And on top of that you have the nerve to also expect middle-class pensions and health care?”

If someone had designed a work regime perfectly suited to maintaining the power of finance capital, it’s hard to see how they could have done a better job. Real, productive workers are relentlessly squeezed and exploited. The remainder are divided between a terrorised stratum of the, universally reviled, unemployed and a larger stratum who are basically paid to do nothing, in positions designed to make them identify with the perspectives and sensibilities of the ruling class (managers, administrators, etc) – and particularly it’s financial avatars – but, at the same time, foster a simmering resentment against anyone whose work has clear and undeniable social value. Clearly, the system was never consciously designed. It emerged from almost a century of trial and error. But it is the only explanation for why, despite our technological capacities, we are not all working 3-4 hour days.

Source

David Graeber is a Professor of Anthropology at the London School of Economics. His most recent book, The Democracy Project: A History, a Crisis, a Movement, is published by Spiegel & Grau.

Does Work Really Work?

L. Susan Brown

Taken from Kick It Over 35
PO Box 5811, Station A, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5W 1P2

One of the first questions people often ask when they are introduced to one another in our society is "what do you do?" This is more than just polite small talk -- it is an indication of the immense importance work has for us. Work gives us a place in the world, it is our identity, it defines us, and, ultimately, it confines us. Witness the psychic dislocation when we lose our jobs, when we are fired, laid off, forced to retire or when We fail to get the job we applied for in the first place. An unemployed person is defined not in positive but in negative terms: to be unemployed is to lack work. To lack work is to be socialIy and economically marginalized, To answer "nothing" to the question "what do you do?" is emotionally difficult and socially unacceptable. Most unemployed people would rather answer such a question with vague replies like "I'm between contracts" or "I have a few resumes out and the prospects look promising" than admit outright that they do not work. For to not work in our society is to lack social significance -- it is to be a nothing, because nothing is what you do. 

Those who do work (and they are becoming less numerous as our economies slowly disintegrate) are something - they are teachers, nurses, doctors, factory workers, machinists, dental assistants, coaches, librarians, secretaries, bus drivers and so on. They have identities defined by what they do. They are considered normal productive members of our society. Legally their work is considered to be subject to an employment contract, which if not explicitly laid out at the beginning of employment is implicitly understood to be part of the relationship between employee and employer. The employment contract is based on the idea that it is possible for a fair exchange to occur between an employee who trades her/his skills and labour for wages supplied by the employer. Such an idea presupposes that a person's skills and labour are not inseparable from them, but are rather separate attributes that can be treated like property to be bought and sold. The employment contract assumes that a machinist or an exotic dancer, for instance, have the capacity to separate out from themselves the particular elements that are required by the employer and are then able to enter into an agreement with the employer to exchange only those attributes for money. The machinist is able to sell technical skills while the exotic dancer is able to sell sexual appeal, and, according to the employment contract, they both do so without selling themselves as people. Political scientists and economists refer to such attributes as "property in the person," and speak about a person's ability to contract out labour power in the form of property in the person. 

In our society, then, work is defined as the act by which an employee contracts out her or his labour power as property in the person to an employer for fair monetary compensation. This way of describing work, of understanding it as a fair exchange between two equals, hides the real relationship between employer and employee: that of domination and subordination. For if the truth behind the employment contract were widely known, workers in our society would refuse to work, because they would see that it is impossible for human individuals to truly separate out labour power from themselves. "property in the person" doesn't really exist as something that an individual can simply sell as a separate thing. Machinists cannot just detach from themselves the specific skills needed by an employer; those skills are part of an organic whole that cannot be disengaged from the entire person, similarly, sex appeal is an intrinsic part of exotic dancers, and it is incomprehensible how such a constitutive, intangible characteristic could be severed from the dancers themselves. A dancer has to be totally pre sent in order to dance, just like a machinist must be totally present in order to work; neither can just send their discrete skills to do the work for them. Whether machinist, dancer, teacher, secretary, or pharmacist, it is not only one's skills that are being sold to an employer, it is also one's very being. When employees contract out their labour power as property in the person to employers, what is really happening is that employees are selling their own self determination, their own wills, their own freedom. In short, they are, during their hours of employment, slaves.

What is a slave? A slave is commonly regarded as a person who is the legal property of another and is bound to absolute obedience. The legal lie that is created when we speak of a worker's capacity to sell property in the person without alienating her or his will allows us to maintain the false distinction between a worker and a slave. A worker must work according to the will of andther. A worker must obey the boss, or ultimately lose the job. The control the employer has over the employee at work is absolute, There is in the end no negotiation -- you do it the boss' way or you hit the highway. It is ludicrous to believe that it is possible to separate out and sell "property in the person" while maintaining human integrity. To sell one's labour power on the market is to enter into a relationship of subordination with one's employer -- it is to become a slave to the employer/master. The only major differences between a slave and a worker is that a worker is only a slave at work while a slave is a slave twenty-four hours a day, and slaves know that they are slaves, while most workers do not think of themselves in such terms.

Carole Pateman points out the implications of the employment contract in her book The Sexual Contract:
 
Capacities or labour power cannot be used without the worker using his will, his understanding and experience, to put them into effect. The use of labour power requires the presence of its "owner," and it remains as mere potential until he acts in the manner necessary to put it into use, or agrees or is compelled so to act; that is, the worker must labour. To contract for the use of labour power is a waste of resources unless it can be used in the way in which the new owner requires. The fiction "labour power" cannot be used; what is required is that the worker labours as demanded. The employment contract must, therefore, create a relationship of command and obedience between employer and worker.... In short, the contract in which the worker allegedly sells his labour power is a contract in which, since he cannot be separated from his capacities, he sells command over the use of his body and himself. To obtain the right to the use of another is to be a (civil) master.(1)

Terms like "master" and "slave" are not often used when describing the employment contract within capitalist market relations; however, this does not mean that such terms don't apply. By avoiding such terms and instead insisting that the employment contract is fair, equitable and based on the worker's freedom to sell his or her labour power, the system itself appears fair, equitable and free. One problem with misidentifying the true nature of the employee/employer relationship is that workers experience work as slavery at the same time that they buy into it ideologicaIly.

No matter what kind of job a worker does, whether manual or mental, well paid or poorly paid, the nature of the employment contract is that the worker must, in the end, obey the employer. The employer is always right. The worker is told how to work, where to work, when to work, and what to work on. This applies to university professors and machinists, to lawyers and carpet cleaners: when you are an employee, you lose your right to self-determination. This loss of freedom is felt keenly, which is why many workers dream of starting their own businesses, being their own bosses, being self-employed. Most will never realize their dreams, however, and instead are condemned to sell their souls for money. The dream doesn't disappear, however, and the uneasiness, unhappiness, and meaninglessness of their jobs gnaws away at them even as they defend the system under which they exploitedly toil.

It doesn't have to be this way. There is nothing sacred about the employment contract that protects it from being challenged, that entrenches it eternally as a form of economic organization. We can understand our own unhappiness as workers not as a psychological problem that demands Prozac, but rather as a human response to domination. We can envision a better way of working, and we can do so now, today, in our own lives. By doing so we can chisel away at the wage slavery system; we can undermine it and replace it with freer ways of working.

What would a better way of work look like? It would more resemble what we call play than work. That is not to say that it would be easy, as play can be difficult and challenging, like we often see in the spores we do for fun. It would be self-directed, self-desired, and freely chosen. This means that it would have to be disentangled from the wage system, for as soon as one is paid one becomes subservient to whoever is doing the paying. As Alexander Berkman noted: "labour and its products must be exchanged without price, without profit, freely according to necessity,"(2) Work would be done because it was desired, not because it was forced. Sound impossible? Not at all. This kind of work is done now, already, by most of us on a daily basis. It is the sort of activity we choose to do after our eight or ten hours of slaving for someone else in the paid workplace.It is experienced every time we do something worthwhile for no pay, every time we change a diaper, umpire a kid'sbaseball game, run a race, give blood, volunteer to sit on a committee, counsel a friend, write a newsletter, bake a meal, or do a favour. We take part in this underground free economy when we coach, tutor, teach, build, dance, baby-sit, write a poem, or program a computer without getting paid. We must endeavor to enlarge these areas of free work to encompass more and more of our time, while simultaneously trying tochange the structures of domination in the paid work-place as much as we possibly can.

Barter, while superficially appearing as a challenge to the wage system, is still bound by the same relationships of domination. To say that I will paint your whole house if you will cook my meals for a month places each of us into a situation of relinquishing our own self-determination for the duration of the exchange. For I must paint your house to your satisfaction and you must make my meals to my satisfaction, thereby destroying for each of us the self-directed, creative spontaneity necessary for the free expression of will: Barter also conjures up the problem of figuring out how much of my time is worth how much of your time, that is, what the value of our work is, in order that the exchange is Fair and equal. Alexander Berkman posed this problem as the question, "why not give each according to the value of his work?", to which he answers,
 
Because there is no way by which value can be measured... Value is what a thing is worth... What a thing is worth no one can really tell. Political economists generally claim that the value of a commodity is the amount of labour required to produce it, of "socially necessary labour," as Marx says. But evidently it is not a just standard of measurement. Suppose the carpenter worked three hours to make a kitchen chair, while the surgeon took only half an hour to perform an operation that saved your life. If the amount of labour used determines value, then the chair is worth more than your life. Obvious nonsense, of course. Even if you should count in the years of study and practice the surgeon needed to make him capable of performing the operation, how are you going to decide what "an hour of operating" is worth? The carpenter and mason also had to be trained before they could do their work properly, but you don't figure in those years of apprenticeship when you contract for some work with them. Besides, there is also to be considered the particular ability and aptitude that every worker, writer, artist or physician must exercise in his labours. That is a purely individual personal factor. How are you going toestimate its value?

That is why value cannot be determined. The same thing may be worth a lot to one person while it is worth nothing or very little to another. It may be worth much or little even to the same person, at different times. A diamond, a painting, a book may be worth a great deal to one man and very little to another. A loaf of bread will be worth a great deal to you when you are hungry, and much less when you are not. Therefore the real value of a thing cannot be ascertained if it is an unknown quantity.(3)

In a barter system, for an exchange to be fair, the value of the exchanged goods and services must be equal. However, value is unknowable, therefore barter falls apart on practical grounds.

Increasing the amount of free work in our lives requires that we be conscious of the corrupting effects of money and barter. Thus, baby-sit your friend's children not for money, but because you want to do so. Teach someone how to speak a second language, or edit someone's essay, or coach a running team for the simple pleasure of taking part in the activity itself. Celebrate giving and helping as play, without expecting anything in return. Do these things because you want to, not because you have to.

This is not to say that we should do away with obligations, but only that such obligations should be self-assumed. We must take on free work in a responsible matter, or else our dream of a better world will degenerate into chaos. Robert Graham outlines the characteristics of self-assumed obligations:
 
Self-assumed obligations are not 'binding' in the same sense that laws or commands are. A law or command is binding in the sense that failure to comply with it will normally attract the application of some sort of coercive sanction by authority promulgating the law or making the command. The binding character of law is not internal to the concept of law itself but dependent on external factors, such as the legitimacy of the authority implementing and enforcing it. A promise, unlike a law, is not enforced by the person making it. The content of the obligation is defined by the person assuming it, not by an external authority.(4)

To promise, then, is to oblige oneself to see through an activity, but the fulfillment of the obligation is up to the person who made the promise in the first place, and nonfulfillment carries no external sanction besides, perhaps, disappointment (and the risk that others will avoid interacting with someone who habitually breaks her or his promises). Free work, therefore, is a combination of voluntary play and self-assumed obligations, of doing what you desire to do and co-operating with others. It is forsaking the almighty dollar for the sheer enjoyment of creation and recreation. Bob Black lyrically calls for the abolition of work, which "doesn't mean that we have to stop doing things. It does mean creating a new way of life based on play... By 'play' I mean also festivity, creativity, conviviality, commensuality, and maybe even art. There is more to play than child's play, as worthy as that as. I call for a collective adventure in generalized joy and freely interdependent exuberance."(5)

We must increase the amount of free work in our lives by doing what we want, alone and with others, whether high art or mundane maintenance. We need to tear ourselves away from drinking in strict exchange terms: I will do this for you if you will do that for me. Even outside our formal work hours, the philosophy of contract and exchange permeates our ways of interacting with others. This is evident when we do a favour for someone -- more often than not, people feel uncomfortable unless they can return the favour in some way, give tit for tat. We must resist this sense of having to exchange favours. Instead, we need to be and act in ways that affirm our own desires and inclinations. This does not mean being lazy or slothful (although at times we may need to be so), but rather calls for self-discipline. Free work actually demands a great deal of self-discipline, as there is no external force making us work, but only our own internal desire to partake in an activity that motivates our participation.

While we move towards a freer world by consciously affirming free work outside the marketplace, we can also make a difference during those hours when we are paid to work. Being conscious of the fact that when we are selling our labour we are actually selling ourselves gives us self-awareness. Such self-awareness is empowering, as the first step to changing one's condition is understanding the true nature of that condition. Through this understanding, we can develop strategies for challenging the slave wage system. For instance, every time we ignore the boss and do what we want we create a mini-revolution in the workplace. Every time we sneak a moment of pleasure at work we damage the system of wage slavery. Every time we undermine the hierarchical structure of decision-making in the workplace we gain a taste of our own self-worth. These challenges can come from below or from above: those of us who achieve a measure of power in the workplace can institute structural changes that empower those below, drawing from principles like consensus decision-making and decentralization. For instance, as teachers we can introduce students to the idea of consensus by using such a method to make major class room decisions. Those of us who head up committees or task forces can advocate institutional structures, policies and constitutions that decentralize power. Of course, the wage system is inherently corrupt and unreformable; however, we can make it more bearable while at the same time trying to destroy it.

And destroy it we must. If one's identity is based on work, and work is based on the employment contract, and the employment contract is a falsehood, then our very identities have at their foundation a lie. In addition, the labour market is moving towards an ever-increasing exploitative form of work: it is predicted that by the year 2000, fifty percent of the labour force will be engaged in temp work -- work which is even less selfdirected than permanent full-time jobs. Bob Black has it right when he proclaims that "no one should ever work."(6) Who knows what kinds of creative activity would be unleashed if only we were free to do what we desired? What sorts of social organizations would we fashion if we were not stifled day in and day out by drudgery? For example, what would a woman's day look like if we abolished the wage system and replaced it with free and voluntary activity? Bob Black argues that "by abolishing wage-labor and achieving full unemployment we undermine the sexual division of labor,"(7) which is the linchpin of modern sexism. What would a world look like that encouraged people to be creative and self-directed, that celebrated enjoyment and fulfillment? What would be the consequences of living in a world where, if you met someone new and were asked what you did, you could joyfully reply "this, that and the other thing" instead of "nothing?" Such is the world we deserve.

L. Susan Brown holds a Ph.D. from the University of Toronto. She is author of The Politics of Individualism: Liberalism, Liberal Feminism and Anarchism (Black Rose Books, 1993). She is currently doing "this, that and the other thing." - Source
 

Footnotes
 
1 Carole Pateman, The Sexual Contract (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988), pp. 150-151.
2 Alexander Berkman, ABC of Anarchism (London: Freedom Press, 1977), p. 20.
3 Berkman, p. 19.
4 Robert Graham, The Role of Contract in Anarchist Ideology, in For Anarchism: History, Theory, and Practice, edited by David Goodway (London: Routledge, 1989), p. 168.
5 Bob Black, The Abolition of Work and Other Essays (Port Townsend: Loompanics), p. 17.
6 Black, p. 33.
7 Black, p. 29-30.

Dass der Sozialstaat sich bewährt hat ist ein Witz!

04.08.13

Folgendes Schreiben hat Matthias Lindemer an den Petitionsauschuss und an die Obleute der Fraktionen, im Bezug zur Ablehung der Petition zum Bedingungslosen Grundeinkommen von Susanne Wiest, geschickt.

An die Mitglieder und Mitarbeiter des Petitionsausschusses.

Bezug auf die Begründung die Petition zum Grundeinkommen abzuschließen.

Bereits in den ersten Zeilen bitten Sie um Verständnis, dass nicht auf alle vorgetragenen Aspekte eingegangen werden kann. Dafür habe ich jedoch kein Verständnis! Sie haben sich über 4 Jahre Zeit genommen, sich mit den vorgetragenen Aspekten zu beschäftigen. Da muss man eine bessere Argumentation erwarten können. Zumal alle Abgeordneten über ein staatlich finanziertes Büro mit Mitarbeitenden und Zugang zu Informationen verfügen.

Die aufgeführten Aspekte sind bessere Formulierungen von Stammtischargumenten, die man sonst von Menschen hört, die gerade das erste Mal mit dem Thema Grundeinkommen konfrontiert wurden. Ihre Begründung wirkt, als hätten Sie 2 Wochen an der Formulierung gefeilt ohne sich lange mit dem Inhalt zu beschäftigen.

Dass der Sozialstaat sich bewährt hat ist ein Witz! Dass auch Parteien, die sich im Wahlkampf als „sozial“ darstellen dieses Schreiben unterstützen sagt einiges über den Zustand unserer Demokratie aus.

Dass die Arbeitslosenstatistik gesunken ist hat wenig mit „funktionieren“ zu tun. Es gehen schlicht mehr Menschen in Rente, als Junge Menschen auf den Arbeitsmarkt kommen. Einige befinden sich in Arbeitsplatzbeschaffungsmaßnahmen oder melden sich aus Scham oder Angst nicht an. Und sollte doch jemand einen Job erhalten, so gehen dafür in einem anderen Europäischen Staat 2 Jobs verloren. Neue Arbeit entsteht kaum.

Wir alle kennen Menschen, die von Hartz IV betroffen sind oder sich aus Angst oder Scham nicht Arbeitslos melden. Wir alle kennen Menschen, die an ihrem Arbeitsplatz unwürdige Beschäftigungsverhältnisse akzeptieren, um nicht in Hartz IV zu rutschen. Viele Studierenden warten Monate auf die Bearbeitung ihrer Bafög Anträge oder unterbrechen aus Geldmangel ihr Studium. Junge Menschen wissen genau, dass sie keine Rente erhalten werden obwohl sie von ihrem Praktikumsgehalt in die Rentenkasse einzahlen. Ich selbst benötige Stunden, um aus der Post aller möglichen Ämter schlau zu werden seit ich für ca. 250€/Monat einen Job an der Uni übernommen habe und ständig ein paar € an irgendwelche Sozialtöpfe fließen. Und Sie halten es nicht einmal für nötig ihre Aussage der Sozialstaat habe sich bewährt mit Fakten zu belegen.

Natürlich muss das hohe Niveau eines Sozialstaats erwirtschaftet werden. Das Grundeinkommen ist finanziert! Das Grundeinkommen derer, die heute von einer Sozialleistung leben, finanziert sich durch den Wegfall dieser Sozialleistungen. Das Grundeinkommen derer, die einer Erwerbsarbeit nachgehen finanziert sich indem das Grundeinkommen in das Gehalt hinein wächst. z.B.:

Heute 2000€ Erwerbslohn
mit BGE: 1000€ Grundeinkommen + 1000€Erwerbslohn.

Hinzu kommen Einsparungen bei Bürokratie und Arbeitsbeschaffungsmaßnahmen.

Abhängig von der wirtschaftlichen Situation ist alles was der Staat an Geld ausgibt. Das trifft nicht nur auf das Grundeinkommen zu, sondern auch auf alle derzeitigen Sozialleistungen zu.

Ihre Behauptung der Anreiz würde sinken, bleibt in ihrer Begründung ebenfalls unbelegt. Anreiz bleibt mit Grundeinkommen erhalten.
Es gibt einen Unterschied zwischen Druck und Anreiz. Anreiz ist z.B. der Lohn, die Anerkennung oder der Sinn einer Arbeit. Was mit Grundeinkommen wegfällt sind Druck und Existenzangst.
Unter Angst und Druck kann man arbeiten wie eine Maschine. Man kann körperlich schwere Arbeit verrichten und körperliche Höchstleistung erbringen. Die Bereiche des Gehirns, die für soziales, Gefühle oder kognitive Fähigkeiten zuständig sind, werden unter Druck und Angst gehemmt.

Dies deckt sich mit Erkenntnissen der Psychologie. Sobald Grundbedürfnisse gedeckt sind, streben wir nach höheren Bedürfnissen bis hin zur Selbstverwirklichung.

Faul werden Menschen nur dann, wenn sie gezwungen werden Arbeit zu verrichten, die sie nicht für sinnvoll halten.

Arbeiten wie eine Maschine ist nicht mehr sinnvoll. Wir haben Maschinen, die uns körperlich schwere oder unangenehme Arbeit zunehmend abnehmen. Wir brauchen Menschen in der Pflege, Erziehung, und der Wissenschaft sowie in der Erfindung und Weiterentwicklung neuer Maschinen. Tätigkeitsfelder in denen Druck und Angst hinderlich sind.

Wäre es wirklich so, dass man aufhört zu Arbeiten sobald für das Überleben gesorgt ist, hätten Sie im Bundestag noch mehr Rücktritte.

Dass die Leistungsfähigkeit eng an den Grad der Beschäftigung geknüpft ist, war in der Vergangenheit der Fall und liegt vor allem an der Besteuerung von Arbeit. Angesichts der zunehmenden Automatisierung verändert sich das. Maschinen zahlen nicht in Sozialkassen ein. Das muss dringend verändert werden. Aber darüber wollen Sie ja nicht diskutieren.

Ihre Begründung sehe ich als Absage an jede konstruktive Diskussion. Für neue Lösungen sind Sie nicht offen. Sie möchten weiterhin die gewohnte im Kreis drehende Diskussion führen welche man von Bundestagsdebatten und Talkshows kennt.

Damit ist Ihre Begründung inakzeptabel, um nicht zu sagen eine Frechheit.

Ich fordere Sie dazu auf eine Enquette-Komission einzurichten und sich eingehender mit der Idee des Grundeinkommenszu beschäftigen.

Ausdrückliche Grüße

Matthias Lindemer
26, politisch aktiver Student

150 Kinder pro Jahr erschlagen oder zu Tode gequält

Schier unfassbare Zustände wurden in Deutschlands Jugendämter aufgedeckt. Mehr als 150 Kinder werden jedes Jahr erschlagen, oder zu Tode gequält – unter Aufsicht und Verantwortung der Jugendämter. Aber auch in Österreich herrschen fatale Zustände und Unfähigkeit. Genaue Zahlen kann man hierzulande gar nicht nennen. Man beruft sich auf den Datenschutz. 

Kinder werden den Eltern abgenommen, weil diese nicht in der Lage sind, sich ordentlich um das Wohlergehen der Sprösslinge zu kümmern. Entweder Pflege oder Förderung, die Versorgung mit Essen, zu wenig oder zu viel Aufmerksamkeit, kurzum, wenn es um die Abnahme von Kindern geht, ist das Jugendamt schnell und niemals um eine Ausrede verlegen.

Was dann mit den Kindern passiert, bleibt oftmals völlig im Dunkeln und ist offenbar niemand mehr für das Wohl der Kinder zuständig. Das Jugendamt schiebt die Verantwortung auf die jeweiligen Pflegefamilien, oder Kinderheime. Die machen ihre Arbeit aus Sicht des Jugendamtes zuverlässig und beanstandungsfrei.

Auf eine Anfrage seitens der FPÖ über allfällige Statistiken über Kosten, Ausbildung und Fortschritten bei den Förderungen der anvertrauten Kinder und Jugendlichen hüllt man sich seitens des Ministeriums in Schweigen. Tatsächlich gibt es kein Qualitätsmanagement, keine Statistiken und keine Nachweise über die Verwendung von weit mehr als einer Milliarde Euro pro Jahr.
 
Kinderheim-Industrie

In Wahrheit kosten die Jugendwohlfahrt und ihre willfährigen Handlanger dem Steuerzahler ungeheuer viel Geld und sind niemandem Rechenschaft über die Verwendung der Mittel verantwortlich. Längst schon ist die ganze Jugendwohlfahrt zu einer gigantischen Industrie entartet und hat so eine ungeheure Zahl von dubiosen Figuren angelockt, die sich am Leid der Kinder ein Vermögen verdienen. Das Jugendamt ist machtlos, durchschaut die Machenschaften einzelner Organisationen der so genannten „Freien Jugendwohlfahrt“ gar nicht mehr und kann nur tatenlos zusehen und den Kopf in den Sand stecken.

Buchhalter, Gastwirte, Glücksritter, Alkoholiker und Drogenabhängige, Kinderschänder und abgehauste Unternehmer finden sich als Verantwortliche in diesen Organisationen wieder und sollen die Förderung und Versorgung der abgenommenen Kinder sicherstellen. In Wahrheit geht es nur mehr um Gewinnmaximierung, das Kindeswohl spielt keine Rolle mehr.
 
Grausame Geschichte

Von Adolf Hitler gegründet, hat die Jugendwohlfahrt wohl so manche schwarze Stunde hinter sich und hat in der Vergangenheit ebenfalls machtlos weggeschaut, als in vergangenen Jahren tausende Kinder in den Heimen vergewaltigt, geschlagen und auch ermordet worden sind.

Man wusste das alles nicht, man konnte ja nicht ahnen..., das sind die Ausreden für fehlende Kontrolle der vergangenen Jahre und werden wohl auch in einigen Jahren wieder zu hören sein, wenn die Missstände heutiger Tage in den Medien ihren Niederschlag finden werden. 2008 haben es zumindest schon die ersten zwei Gutachter geschafft, große mediale Präsenz zu erreichen. Nicht etwa durch große Leistungen, sondern durch tausende Falschgutachten, zerstörte Familien und Existenzen und Schaden in Millionenhöhe.
 
Schlechte Ausbildung

Zu diesem Übel kommt noch die grottenschlechte Ausbildung der Mitarbeiter der Jugendämter. Ein dreijähriger Schnellkursus soll ausreichen, um in wenigen Augenblicken eine Familie und die Interaktion untereinander einschätzen zu können. Akademisch ausgebildete Fachleute brauchen für eine solche Einschätzung wesentlich länger und liegen mit ihrer Meinung auch dann noch weit neben der Realität. Ist ein Kind einmal weg, dann wird alles unternommen, um Fehleinschätzungen zu vertuschen. Das wird oftmals auch durch die Pflegschaftsgerichte gedeckt, die auch gerne Fehlentscheidungen in Kauf nehmen, weil Richter nicht gerne in Konfrontation mit den Jugendämtern gehen wollen.

Sehen Sie hier einen Beitrag aus Deutschland, damit Sie einen Überblick über die katastrophalen Zustände in diesem Bereich bekommen:

Quelle