In principle all members get a democratic say in every aspect of the party and can exercise that power at all times, which is made very accessible. In practice low member participation results in a lot of decisions, policy etc being done by a core of more active members which you could argue form an “elite bureaucracy”. That’s not to say other pirates aren’t doing things which advance the cause of the party and contributing… but in terms of who’s actually steering the ship, from what I’ve observed in the year I’ve been here there is a dedicated inner core who generally run things and get shit done, while an outer core do ad hoc what they can in the time they have and when it peaks their interest, and then on the margins there are inactive members who appear to be phantoms.
To basically sum up AndrewD, results, influence, and power (as with most things in life) comes with/from doing shit most people won’t or don’t want to do. It’s a basic component of leadership.
The average person doesn’t understand or know what single tax means either.
I generally don’t like this term because it has a history of being confusing and misstating the principle - rents go beyond site values, and in a legal/legislative sense we seek to impose multiple taxes to collect multiple sources of rent. The average layperson is subsequently confused by this terminology and would be prone to dismissing us as crackpots.
From what we’ve been working on we will likely produce an Anti-Rent Seeking Position Statement (ARSPS) under Declaration_of_platform_and_principles in coming months, which will explain the concept of economic rent and the theme in the platform. You are welcome to help, discuss and contribute towards this. The next Policy Development Committee meeting is Tuesday 10/10/17 8:30PM AEDT on irc:
The Right2Work stuff will hopefully make more sense when I’ve finished hammering out the policy. Until then all I can do is recommend you read through the lengthy thread on the matter, and watch my presentation at the last congress to get the full context. The purpose is end involuntary unemployment/underemployment in the labour market which occurs due to systemic demand deficiency resulting from trade deficits and private domestic sector net saving desire. I don’t expect you to understand any of that jargon, but there is a huge wealth of academic backing which supports this concept should you be interested.
I’m uncertain here if this is referring the size of government or the size of the federal deficit or both. On the one hand I agree that I find the Greens too wedded to expanding government, although on the other I’ve come to the conclusion after reading Game of Mates that trying to keep government small for ideological reasons when it actually results in more rent-seeking and private rent extraction is stupid. There are many very good cases where the government should be involved in a sector rather than no public sector involvement. It depends on the situation and context.
This is why George supported public control of utilities, railways and other certain sectors of the economy where monopoly rents were inherent in the market and no real competition could be had. A good example of this now would be the LNG sector in Australia, which has turned into an absolute rentier rape fest with a cartel of 3 big gas companies controlling the cheapest gas reserves and over 80% of the market, all the while running off with the resource rents, exporting all the cheap gas overseas, extorting the domestic market and price gouging on monopoly pipeline networks, and even retail. Not to mention trying to get out of their dud frothy investments they made on Curtis Island (they want to socialise those losses). The ACCC and the federal government are only now getting their shit together, but it’s too little and too late. At this point in time Santos should have been nationalised, and use it or lose it laws imposed on gas reserves to ensure they’re not left in the ground to be drip feed to the more profitable export market, which needs to be restricted with a much stronger gas reservation.
If you are implying an opposition to fiscal deficits, then I would have to state I disagree. Fiscal policy (which includes deficits) is a means to an end and not an end in of itself. The size of the deficit for a currency issuing government is not important, what is important is price stability, full employment, unencumbered (productive) private investment, good public infrastructure, education, health etc. - real outcomes. This is called functional finance, and at some point I will raise the debate within the Pirate Party on the matter.