No Sense

If you construct a society with no sense in it, you can't be surprised if people behave destructively and irrationally.  And if you set an example of violent greed, you can't be surprised if people follow it.

David Cameron was involved in a shop-window-breaking incident in Oxford while a member of the Bullingdon Club.  "Just youthful exuberance", of course.  He didn't spend any nights in prison.

And if bankers and company directors grab millions in pay and pension rights, you can't be surprised if ordinary kids try to grab what they want.

What "utterly unacceptable, criminal behaviour" actually means is: "tug your forelocks and respect our property as we exploit society to our own advantage".  And "We'll throw your parents out of their homes if you don't behave," merely compounds the nonsense.

When you have never been in the habit of saving, or building up capital, living co-operatively is a major mental gear-change.  You're actually taking over the capitalist system, but running it ethically.  This meams we have to get rid of the government - which useless and dishonest - and ban usury, to get land and property taken out of the speculative arena and owned on behalf of the community.  It means, ultimately, creating our own banking system, which works on permanently fixed low interest rates so you know your finance costs and those who lend to you know what they're going to get: and there's no more of this letting politicians and banker jerk rates up and down like a yoyo.

What you are doing is building up capital to purchase the house you're living in so that you become your own landlords; and you only spend on what is necessary, abolishing profiteering.  Once your borrowed funds have been repaid, you should be able to fix rents at the level that just takes care of maintenance plus Council tax and utilities.

At the 2011 Britain Yearly Meeting of the Society of Friends (Quakers), the theme was "sustainability.  During the discussions, it became clear that the only way of saving our world is to learn to live like human beings are supposed to live: sharing and co-operating.  By using facilities and housing in common, we learn how to make do with less.  We are reversing the economic trend that has governed us for 200 years: dividing people into smaller and smaller competing and consuming nuclear unit to increase consumption. Continual growth is demanding more than this world's resources, and we need to find ways of living with less.  And that means trusting and relying on each other more.