(‘Look
at The System’ until July 2020)
The System Explained
and
How Humanity Should Organise Society
by
Ed McDonnell (see
‘Author’ at bottom of page)
Free
downloads or buy printed - see lower down.
To
cope with life and politics
you
need the basic framework
of
society clear in your head.
The
System Explained provides it.
It
explains how politics, business, work
and
trade operate by showing how we
relate
in our roles as workers, employers
and
fellow-citizens.
And
it shows how we can relate
differently,
to build a fair, secure,
sustainable
global society.
In all the opinions we, the media,
and
politicians express about the state
of
the world, few raise the system,
the
basic relationships, as the
problem.
And even those who do never explain
it,
say what’s wrong with
it, or say what we
can do about it. These
writings do.
People call the system
‘capitalism’.
But that just refers to some people
accumulating money at the top
and re-cycling it.
It ignores capitalism’s key process
-
the work process.
The process where
people produce capital in producing
goods and services.
It ignores how people relate in
the workplace, in the production
processes, the social and economic
relationships, the organisations
that
are the basis of the capitalist
system.
It ignores the key trade
relationship. Not
the trade in goods and services but
the
labour market – the trade in
people,
in fellow-citizens – that is
central to
the manufacture of goods, the
provision
of services, and the generation of
capital.
This
is analysed in free downloads below.
But
first this summary ...
To solve humanity's problems
we need to:
› Look beneath everyday politics and
look at the system ...
› ... at how we interact in everyday life.
› We need to explain the system and
the rights and wrongs of it ...
› ...
especially the wrong of how business
people and public sector employers
get excess power over the rest ...
›
... and how to correct that imbalance of power.
›
... show the explanation is true by being
drawn
from people’s own, observable,
everyday life experiences ...
› ... spread this view widely.
›
But
people take how we relate and organise
in the
system of business, work, trade and
politics
as just the way things are.
›
They
take how it operates for granted.
›
In
political debate few mention or criticise
the
basic relationships.
›
They
don't see that most things in the
economy,
work, income and jobs don't start
with or
come from politics and politicians ...
› ... that
most happen through the basic, long-
established, everyday relationships of the
business system.
(A
better term than capitalism).
› ... that
politics is just how you might – or
might
not - get a say in this established
everyday system.
›
We need
to spread awareness that business
people run the world more than politics and
politicians do ...
› ... because
they organise most of the key
public activities - business - production
–
work - jobs - trade, the everyday buying
and selling of goods, services and people.
› This everyday activity in their roles in
business, work and trade makes them
(most
of) 'the economy'.
› That gives them political power even before
they
act directly in politics.
› They earn this power because they organise
and
act together socially as businesses.
› To push their interests directly in
politics,
some
of them run conservative media and
conservative parties.
›
They are
a class - the business class.
›
They are
a minority of citizens.
›
They
oppress the majority.
›
Conservative parties are the political arm
of the
business class.
›
The
majority - most citizens - are workers.
›
We too
are a class - the worker class.
›
We
represent ourselves weakly in the system.
›
We let
business people dominate us every
day,
at work, in media political debate,
and
in politics itself.
› We relate weakly to them because we don't
recognise them as a class, nor ourselves ...
... and because ...
…we don't organise and act together as they
do.
›
To stand
up to them (and public sector
managers) as employers at work we need
almost
all citizens who are workers to
organise
together in unions.
›
Then in politics, the majority need to
match
up to
business people's power by organising
into a progressive social and political force.
›
Unionized workers are central to this
progressive political force, making it soundly
based on how the majority too relate and act
together in their economic roles ...
... and from those meaningful, active,
everyday,
permanent, relationships, better represent
themselves in politics.
›
Progressives are not short of better policies
than conservatives. They are short of
organisation and its use in the effective
communication and gathering of support
for policy.
›
Because
we don't look at the basics,
many people find politics confusing and,
disastrously for themselves and us all, allow
the conservative, business class minority,
who care only about themselves, into
government…
... they group themselves and others by shallow
diversionary 'identities' when we should
identify and group people, and base our
politics on, how people genuinely relate
in
business, jobs, the economy and politics.
›
That means all who are workers should base their
main
‘identity’ on being, with most other citizens,
a worker.
›
When we share a clear understanding of the
basics of 'the system' it'll be easier to make
sense of political issues, discuss them, and
organise to get society working fairly for all.
Look at The System -
-
explains the system clearly,
-
relates it to daily experience
-
uses everyday language.
The Free Downloads and Links
(click on the red .pdf
links)
First, three key downloads:
of 'Look at The System'
in large text to read on phones
A Ten Minute Read In Normal Text.pdf
2. How To Talk Politics With Each
Other.pdf
in large text to read on phones
...
will help you discuss politics with others.
How To Talk Politics In Normal
Text.pdf
……How
To Talk Politics With Voters.pdf
… a version for progressive movements,
with a group activity for use at
meetings.
The full book as a free download.
A long read but
if you just read to page 23 you’ll get the basics
Or buy the book printed
and posted,
£9.99 plus postage, from Lulu,
https://www.lulu.com/en/us/shop/ed-mcdonnell/the-system-explained/paperback/product-2ev2qd.html
Short, taster downloads
(in large font to read on smartphones,
for printing use the copies in the full
book)
Employers are organised - as businesses
and public bodies - and their organisations
are recognised in
workplaces (obviously).
We need the right for worker's organisation
to be recognised in
workplaces too.
… there is no ‘middle’ class
…
that’s all nations are
... the myths about competence, spending and tax
Worker To Worker On Brexit,
Trump and Populism.pdf
… blame the business
class, not ‘outsiders’
... if people do as
these writings urge
One-page
Summary Charts
...
how we relate in politics
… people’s right to organize as
workers
It's Your Money Not Theirs.pdf
… how we make
all that wealth
The
Right To Organise In Unions.pdf
An extract from the full book
144
pages, v.2020.1
Buy it from Lulu by print-on-demand,
£4.40
plus postage,
Its own website is
The Author - Ed McDonnell,
retired Lecturer in
Trade Union Education,
active in politics and
worker's
organisation in the UK for fifty years.
End of website