New Commonwealth - Shared Prosperity in a Sustainable World

Poverty - Universal Public Services

The only way to reach a just social foundation is to end poverty through decommodification.

The General Equilibrium Theory is a myth when addressing human needs. The "basic law of supply and demand" falls apart if the two lines cannot intersect.

When the demand for everyone to survive is plotted horizontally at 100% social sufficiency, supply will never intersect while wealth supremacy exists.

Furthermore, while there is private ownership of the means of production, it is necessary for the asset class to maintain an artificial scarcity through exploiting labour's surplus value and maximising profit.

It is therefore impossible to set a "fair price" on the value of life's necessities while they are commodified.

Markets do not supply what people demand. They supply what people can afford.

Needs v/s Wants

The market is not free while losses are socialised as we see whenever there is a financial crisis. Protests such as Occupy Wall Street may result, but they fizzle out because there is no coherent socio-political movement coupled with an irrefutable economic strategy.

Marx encouraged workers to cease the means of production through revolution.

For nations with monetary sovereignty, there is no need for violent revolution. Instead, a fundamental, social justice paradigm shift can be achieved institutionally with the proverbial stroke of a pen.

An MMT-inspired government could instead peacefully implement Universal Public Services through buying the means of necessary production.

This isn't expropriation in the dispossessing sense, but simply de-privatisation - there is no limit to finding the money to buyback all essential property from private owners at the current market valuation. Money circulation in the private sector remains the same as there is still market-driven forces for non-essential discretionary/luxury goods and services. In exchange, the public now own essential utilities/factories and we can have all essentials service available for free as a decommodified human right.

The result will see the end of poverty through the provision of the following as free & universal public services:

When compared to the Consumer Price Index (CPI), the decommodification of essentials will mean that the spectre of inflation is also all but eliminated.