work units and uniform wage scales

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sam in pocket factory, Thailand

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uploaded by sam_micheal

i now work for Yui's aunt Surang in her pocket factory in Chiangmai. in a perfect world, i should be accumulating work units as i type these words; ideally, any meaningful interaction should be compensated .. recently, i had a serious discussion with Doug about money and business styles. in the end, we were forced to agree to disagree. the argument started when i stated Surang's business is based on worker exploitation. Doug rebutted "it's the going rate" (our pay rate here at the small factory). but it's clearly Not: Surang pays (including room, rice, water, and garbage) the absolute minimum Thai wage rate. as one of the lowest paid workers in Thailand, i consider this exploitation .. Doug indifferently stated Ford used to pay his workers higher than the going rate. what Ford has to do with Surang and her pocket factory eludes me ;) don't get me wrong, i pray thanking God for work, a decent place to sleep, food, and being 'only' five hours away from Arthur .. the work here is so simple and repetitive that i have too much time to think and not enough resources to 'get the word out' about War for Meaning and Better Way .. i still consider that my highest priority .. i'll relist the websites here in case you missed them before:

https://www.msu.edu/~micheal/before-2012.pdf

https://www.msu.edu/~micheal/BW-docs.pdf

https://www.msu.edu/~micheal/WfM.pdf

today i was debating with myself about the issue of work unit wage-rate. it's a difficult but not impossible task: to establish a uniform wage scale that's fair, equitable, and uniformly respectful to all workers. as stated previously, doctors and other highly educated workers will balk at my proposals but we must start somewhere; we will never create true utopia unless we make steps toward it .. even in a co-op, workers will be compensated differently based on their levels of experience and responsibility. we could try the following scenario: establish what the average / maximum minimum-wage is for affluent countries, call this value MW, in order to 'switch over' to WUs (replacing money) - we need to establish an initial conversion system, initially - MW = WU, we also need to compensate previously unrecognized work such as mothering / parenting (when done properly, this is the most important job conceivable), mothers and fathers parenting at home will be compensated for their parenting time, supporting a friend in their time of need will be compensated, and as stated above - all meaningful interaction will be compensated in WUs. 'right away' some of us might see problems with this scenario: rewarding altruistic behavior, but isn't it better than our current system which rewards exploiters, grifters, and con-men? another 'problem' scenario: having a drink at a pub with a friend discussing problems of our world - this is clearly a meaningful interaction but many will balk at compensating it. to me, there is no problem: we compensate it - it's meaningful interaction .. i Don't propose we put cameras everywhere to monitor potentially meaningful interactions; perhaps we can use the 'honesty system' initially and see if that works. if too many people abuse that trust, we can try another method of recording WUs for meaningful interaction .. now we arrive at rate. it's a sticky problem i don't enjoy thinking about. because of all the highly educated workers who will insist they get more compensation (a higher rate) at least in order to repay their education costs, we must propose a WU rate system based on work-related education, level of experience, and level of responsibility. i also propose to include what i call 'care factor' which is the level you care about your work wrt your peers. so your individual WU pay rate will be a weighted sum of four things: WRE, EL, RL, and RCF. how we weight these things needs to be determined but i believe this is a fair and decent beginning for calculating work units .. there are two 'final' issues that need discussion or this system will never be implemented: retirement and current debts. debt holders will never agree to 'wiping the slate clean' so we must convert those debts to negative work units. and if we think about retirement from a co-op perspective, it's approachable: take the single co-op example (i know it's not realistic but we must start somewhere) - a woman works for a single co-op her entire life. it's truly unrealistic to expect every person to maintain a retirement fund of WUs. i propose alternatively: we globally establish the concept of 'buy out' which is fairly common practice for unionized establishments. suppose again she works for a single co-op for 40 years - approximately from age 20 to 60. during that entire time, she's gaining a larger share of owning the co-op. when she retires, essentially her coworkers must 'buy her out' of the co-op to release her part ownership of it. this is my proposal for retirement. if you retire early, you get less which is only fair. if you retire late, you get more which is only fair. what that buy-out rate is - must be determined .. Doug stated WUs are equivalent to money but they're Not: work units are based on meaningful interaction and money is based on greed and exploitation.

our current system superficially resembles my proposed WU system but only superficially. we need to establish a global economy based on meaning NOT exploitation and greed. we need to reward meaningful interaction. we need to make this shift fairly soon or we will perish as a race .. i Know i'm not an economist, expert on business systems, or even the best worker in the world but my RC factor is consistently maxed out. consider that as strong evidence my proposed system is inherently better and sustainable than our current economic system which is doomed for continual and repeated failure .. i finally propose we establish a Global Co-op with dual function of coordinating our future global democracy and providing for all main services listed in Basic Human Rights. the GC will: build schools where they're needed, build and staff hospitals, promote the conversion of conventional exploitative businesses to co-ops, develop and coordinate secure democratic transactions, and develop and promote the three key technologies listed in other documents .. above may seem like a 'pipe dream' or totally unrealistic for those who Love our current system. but i contend that is Satan/Lucifer talking .. one way to look at Earth is Hell and we are prisoners under Satan's rule .. it may be true but i refuse to look at it that way: it's too demoralizing. God is Freedom in our hearts if we only look within .. one approach toward creating the GC and its resources initially is to take all current resources used in all governments all over the planet and handing them over to the GC - this could be our first decision of our future global democracy .. with all change there is fear/trepidation about negative/bad side effects of those changes .. not all change is good. but i believe the change proposed above is not only good, it is ABSOLUTELY REQUIRED FOR OUR SURVIVAL AS A RACE.

sam iam, 2011/MAR/12, Chiangmai, Thailand