A Simple Plan
There’s a lot of truth to the notion that if you fail to plan then you have planned to fail. Failing in life is something none of us plan to do but it is the widespread lack of awareness regarding what you’re up against that has produced a society where failures outnumber successes by a staggering margin.
It has been twenty years since I originally conceived the plan and it has evolved not so much in design but in rationale since then. The reasons and mechanics of changing over from cash driven society to a labor based one are the same; it’s the economic conditions that have changed.
Some may have noticed there’s a tendency in the media as well as in politics to engage in myopia when it comes to dealing with the problems facing society.
As the situation deteriorates, the pundits are now offering solution cocktails, a mix of solutions sure to put you anxious mind to rest. The obvious problem with every one of these proffered avenues of salvation is who pays.
You can’t make informed decisions without accurate information and reliable information is in short supply, mostly because the truth is downright frightening.
Major problem number one is population. Every time the population doubles it halves the time to duplicate the process. It took one hundred years to go from three billion to six billion inhabitants, a point reached late in 1999. It will only take fifty more to go from six billion to twelve billion and only twenty-five years after that to hit twenty-four billion.
There are those who believe that the earth is currently ‘overpopulated’ at six billion souls. A child born in the year 2000 will live to see the world’s population quadruple in their lifetime.
The second major problem that, unlike the population situation, has recently received some recognition is energy. Our entire way of life relies on cheap, abundant energy. Fossil fuels, our main source of energy for transportation, are finite.
As we are seeing in the media, increased demand on the dwindling supply is driving prices out of the reach of the average consumer. Add the ‘population bomb’ into this equation for a look into the not too distant future. Long before we reach twelve billion inhabitants fossil fuels will be neither cheap nor abundant.
Everything moves in this society of ours and the price to move it is passed on to the consumer. When the price of energy rises, the price of everything goes up. Compound this with the fact that the cost of energy also causes the price of doing business to rise, manufacturing and agriculture are both energy intensive industries.
The added cost of making the product is also passed on to the consumer. Non-hardgoods industries are likewise affected. While the national media is ignoring it, your local papers are headlining stories of how school committees across the nation are planning draconian measures to deal with budgets that have been decimated by rising energy costs.
Here’s a double whammy, not only does it cost more to get to your job that doesn’t pay enough, your property taxes will rise to cover the cost of keeping your kids in school!
The third problem that is being widely ignored is jobs. Automation and off-shoring to nations that have no such thing as overtime pay or restrictions on the number of hours worked have radically reduced commerce’s need for human resources.
This comes at a time when the global population is growing at an alarming rate…and the cost of moving things as well as to make them is also on the rise.
The danger hidden within these combined factors is the potential for a breakdown of the global supply chain. An already stressed transportation industry is incapable of picking up the slack caused by the mass bankruptcy of independent operators.
Three major issues that are all intertwined with one another. We have reached a nexus in the socio-political climate where society will undergo profound changes…with many of these changes being for the worst.
Winners reap, losers weep. This is a fact that everyone in our society is keenly aware of, while the common reference is to gambling, the winners in our social structure don’t gamble. What then do they mean by winners and losers?
It’s economic warfare. Our social structure is one of the cruelest con games ever devised. Outlawing the ownership of our fellow humans has not freed them but instead freed the owners from having to care for them; otherwise slavery persists.
Anyone who draws a paycheck based on the ‘prevailing wage’ knows this to be true. Regardless of how hard you work the benefit to you remains the same. Most often the only way to improve your circumstances is to seek employment elsewhere because it’s not in your current employer’s interest to pay you a cent more than they have to…regardless of the cost of living.
If you can’t live on what your employer pays you it’s not their problem; it’s yours.
This brings us to the most pressing issue facing our society, the purpose of commerce. Does commerce exist to enrich its owner(s) or does it exist to enrich society?
The law as it stands specifically states that commerce exists to serve its owners. The society that founded it can go to hell…and it’s well on its way there, isn’t it.
Fret not good citizen because life as we know it is a human construct and like all human constructs it can be changed.
We have lived so long under cash driven society that cash has become confused with wealth. If this were true lottery winners would never go bankrupt…which they do with alarming frequency.
Only labor is capable of producing wealth.
As you can see, owning labor produces great wealth…for the owner, not the laborer. The question we must address as a society is the right (as well as the necessity) of allowing anyone to profit from the toil of others.
The principal issue here is justice. It is unjust for anyone to reap a greater benefit from labor than those who perform it. This initial injustice leads to many more, dooming those who physically bring us the world as we know it to a life of hardship.
Ownership has created the idle rich that have an insatiable appetite for more. Are owners necessary? Short answer, no. You could tear the executive offices out of every avenue of commerce and they wouldn’t be missed.
Resources are free from nature. They exist for all of us yet if we had to perform all of the functions necessary to live on our own we’d live a very primitive life indeed. That and we would condemn ourselves to living on whatever was locally available because we’d be far too busy to travel.
Commerce and the division of labor are essential to our modern lifestyle as well as to the future of our species. Yet allowing a few to claim ownership of what we all need to live dooms our society to perpetual poverty.
Understand that since resources are free, cost is an abstract proposition. Time is also free, just ask the unemployed. The cost of allowing an owner class to exist is what’s driving our society into moral bankruptcy.
Think about taxes for a minute and consider why they exist. Taxes serve to finance things that can’t be done profitably…which in our society means to the financial gain of the owner class.
Same thing goes for shelter. Ever wonder why you have to ‘buy’ a place to live? It’s just one more senseless income stream created by the owner class.
Where am I going with this? Think for a moment what Humanity Inc would look like, a society owned by and managed for the benefit of humanity…not just a few but everyone.
Since money is nothing more than ‘representative’ wealth and labor represents true wealth, everyone who labored for the benefit of society would be an equal stakeholder.
This represents the leveling of the playing field we’re never going to see if we continue to honor the frivolous claims of the owner class.
In Humanity Inc, everyone is guaranteed a job that pays a living wage by society itself. There are no taxes because everyone is paid by society to do what they do, there’s no need for you to pay them too.
The ‘liberation’ of natural resources provides every member of society with free housing, utilities, healthcare and education for life…with ZERO taxes!
The people that provide these services are paid by society to do what they do, there’s no need for you to pay them too…because using other humans as an income stream will be illegal. The only way to obtain money is to work for it.
How the hell will anyone get rich if the only way to make money is to work for it? That’s the whole point, isn’t it? Since nobody gets rich working for someone else, nobody should be forced to work in order to make someone else rich.
The purpose behind Humanity Inc is to use commerce to enrich our entire society, not just the owners. The kings owned everything and did nothing to better the lot of their subjects, so it is with ownership society, a few kings that lord their wealth over a whole boatload of peasants.
The only way to stop being a victim is to put your oppressor out of business. By outlawing the exploitation of labor by any human for the financial gain of another we will pave the way for a society that can work together rather than for a privileged few.
Society is a complex beast that requires management to function smoothly…not owners but managers, people whose job is to get things done.
By outlawing the exploitation of labor for personal benefit we will create in its place a non-profit management framework to guide the activities of labor along the twelve major fields of endeavor that bring us life as we know it.
Why twelve and not a million? Because the task of monitoring the system for fraud will be much more difficult if we fail to keep it simple and there are only twelve fields…actually there are only eleven but one serves as in interface between the rest.
Core Concepts
Without justice there can be no peace and without peace there can be no prosperity. Justice is key to the foundation of a sustainable society. Justice by no means stops at equal treatment under the law; justice includes equal treatment in all things social and economic as well.
Each of us is fundamentally equal with none of us being more valuable than any other to the whole of society. Our world, our way of life depends on a myriad of skills coming together as one. Remove even one piece and all of the others suffer, therefore, no one piece can honestly be deemed to be more valuable than any other.
Justice is a synonym for fairness. What applies to one must apply to all. Since all wealth is born of labor it is only fair that all members of society surrender their labor in exchange for the benefits of civil society.
Leadership is not a privilege but a skill. Only those who prove they have the necessary skills to provide leadership will permitted to hold positions of responsibility.
None of us were born to be someone else’s beast of burden. All members of society are deserving of respect. Every citizen is born with the right to participate fully in society and to share equally in all of the benefits society has to offer.
Every citizen has a right to a job that pays a living wage.
Every citizen has a right to a free place to live that meets his or her needs.
Every citizen has a right to free education and healthcare for as long as they live.
Division society will deliver each of these rights to every citizen.
The Divisions
Life as we know it can be broken down into a dozen general ‘fields of endeavor’ if you will. I shall number them here:
1. Agriculture
2. Natural Resources
3. Manufacturing
4. Construction
5. Transportation
6. Distribution
7. Communications
8. Education
9. Science
10. Recreation
11. Medical
12. Division Services
I offer these in no particular sequence, as they are all equally important. It isn’t necessary to make individual Divisions for each specialty as every Division will need to have trained personnel from just about every skill imaginable on their payroll.
If you don’t see a division for your skill the chances are good that you currently work in an industry that will no longer exist (most conspicuous by their absence are the insurance, legal and banking professions.)
While all three are vital to cash driven society they have no place in a (cashless) labor driven one.
While these industries will disappear aspects of each will be retained within the Divisions. Payroll, account management, the handling of claims for losses due to injury or accident are just some of the skills the Divisions will require.
Legal Eagles will find themselves in an odd position as there will be no civil courts and all legislation will be the sole domain of the people. That which remains will exist in the realm of criminal prosecution as the private practice of law will be prohibited.
One of the primary goals of Division Society is provide each individual with work they find both interesting and rewarding. If you fell into plumbing because it was the family business but you always wanted to be a doctor, sign on with the Medical Division!
What you became under capitalism in no way obliges you to stay in that profession. If you have a passion in your life this is your opportunity to pursue that passion. You may not achieve ‘stardom’ but you’ll be doing something you love and EVERY job pays a living wage.
Those who aren’t fussy about what they do will find opportunities in the professions that people neglect in order to chase their dreams. Supply and demand means jobs that go wanting will pay more than their more ‘glamorous’ counterparts.
If pay is more important (or equals happiness to you) your life experience will give you a leg up when it comes to choosing which Division to work for. Experienced individuals will start at the highest labor grade they qualify for.
Establishment of the Divisions and Division hierarchy.
Failure to be specific invites disaster!
What follows are detailed instructions of how the Divisions are to be set up along with some ground rules regarding their operations.
Upon surrender of the US government after our passive and totally non-violent revolt (We will bring them to their knees without harming anyone or destroying any property simply by turning their own ‘weapon’ against them.)
There is no need to re-invent the wheel. Each town has a town hall, each city a city hall etc. These former government offices will be made into the offices of your local Division Services.
Each State has a State house and that will become the State office of Division Services. Division Services fills the role of public interface between the Divisions and the individual.
Operations of this unit will be similar to local civic offices of today but there will be key differences. You won’t be able to find any ‘elected’ officials there but you will find the supervisor who is in charge of the office’s operation. In larger cities you will find assistant supervisors to help you also.
There will still be a clerk’s office responsible for maintaining public records but the former assessor’s office will become the new housing resources management office. This is where you will go to find suitable quarters should you require them or if you wish to exercise your option to upgrade your living quarters due to promotion.
While you will still be able to find the building inspector’s office here, this will also be where you go to request services from the Construction Division.
Since tradesmen are paid by their Division carpenters, plumbers, electricians and the like will draw their work from this office rather than contract directly with the customer.
The local public health office and the division of weights and measures will still function like they always have but Division services rather than the town itself will employ them.
Local public works departments along with custodians, water and cemetery employees will become sub units of the Construction Division. Division services will employ the people who fulfill the critical functions of trash pick-up, recycling and public safety.
New entries into the workforce will go to their local Division services office to review employment opportunities and search the national database for open jobs they are interested in. People desiring a career change can do likewise.
If you are transferring into a new position within your current Division, this is where you will go to be signed up with your new work unit.
At the inception of the Divisions, the people who held the position before the ‘changeover’ will often be the best qualified to continue in these positions. Since there are no longer any ‘elected’ officials the ‘supervisors’ hat will be temporarily filled by whoever led the city or town at the time of the changeover. (If they stick around.)
The State operations will mirror the towns and include an office for interfacing with regional Division Services. There should seldom be a reason for the individual to visit the State office of Division Services as its functions are more administrative than customer service oriented.
Once each State has it’s house in order they are to send ‘representative’ delegates to a mutually agreed upon location to set up a Regional Division operations center.
This will be where all of the Divisions will coordinate their efforts on a regional basis. Each State will funnel the city and town’s requirements for goods and services to the Regional office. Here representatives of each Division will work together to satisfy the needs within their region by drawing upon resources from across the nation.
These regional Division offices will be responsible for directing the specific Divisions to gather and produce the needed inputs to insure that local Division services can meet the citizen’s needs.
There are six regions within the nation and they are as follows: Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, Southeast, Central
Mid-West and Western. (For any other nation that thinks Division society is for them, some nice person in your country has already broken your nation into regions. Use the above as an example.)
For clarity, each region within the US consists of the following States:
Northeast; CT, MA, ME, NH, NJ, NY, RI and VT
Mid-Atlantic; DC, DE, GA, MD, NC, PA, SC, VA and WV
Southeast; AL, AR, FL, KY, LA, MO, MS and TN
Central; CO, IA, KS, MN, ND, NE, NM, OK, SD and TX
Mid-West; IL, IN, MI, OH and WI
Western; AK, AZ, CA, HI, ID, MT, NV, OR, UT, WA and WY
Like any endeavor setting up the local offices will be fairly easy, as they’re most of they way there already. The State offices will be somewhat harder and the Regional Offices harder still.
Time, weather conditions and a bunch of broke (and likely pissed off) formerly wealthy people will be stirring up what trouble they can.
To avoid disaster, many things need to be happening at the same time. Try not to get bogged down in the details as it is of critical importance that some of you keep your eye on the big picture.
The following will aid you in this process. To repeat myself, it is not necessary to reinvent the wheel, it’s been done for us in the form of SIC codes.
The pieces are all there, you just need to fit the pegs into the holes. Here’s the list of Divisions and the SIC codes each are responsible for.
1. Agriculture: 010 to 099, 201 to 214
It has been twenty years since I originally conceived the plan and it has evolved not so much in design but in rationale since then. The reasons and mechanics of changing over from cash driven society to a labor based one are the same; it’s the economic conditions that have changed.
Some may have noticed there’s a tendency in the media as well as in politics to engage in myopia when it comes to dealing with the problems facing society.
As the situation deteriorates, the pundits are now offering solution cocktails, a mix of solutions sure to put you anxious mind to rest. The obvious problem with every one of these proffered avenues of salvation is who pays.
You can’t make informed decisions without accurate information and reliable information is in short supply, mostly because the truth is downright frightening.
Major problem number one is population. Every time the population doubles it halves the time to duplicate the process. It took one hundred years to go from three billion to six billion inhabitants, a point reached late in 1999. It will only take fifty more to go from six billion to twelve billion and only twenty-five years after that to hit twenty-four billion.
There are those who believe that the earth is currently ‘overpopulated’ at six billion souls. A child born in the year 2000 will live to see the world’s population quadruple in their lifetime.
The second major problem that, unlike the population situation, has recently received some recognition is energy. Our entire way of life relies on cheap, abundant energy. Fossil fuels, our main source of energy for transportation, are finite.
As we are seeing in the media, increased demand on the dwindling supply is driving prices out of the reach of the average consumer. Add the ‘population bomb’ into this equation for a look into the not too distant future. Long before we reach twelve billion inhabitants fossil fuels will be neither cheap nor abundant.
Everything moves in this society of ours and the price to move it is passed on to the consumer. When the price of energy rises, the price of everything goes up. Compound this with the fact that the cost of energy also causes the price of doing business to rise, manufacturing and agriculture are both energy intensive industries.
The added cost of making the product is also passed on to the consumer. Non-hardgoods industries are likewise affected. While the national media is ignoring it, your local papers are headlining stories of how school committees across the nation are planning draconian measures to deal with budgets that have been decimated by rising energy costs.
Here’s a double whammy, not only does it cost more to get to your job that doesn’t pay enough, your property taxes will rise to cover the cost of keeping your kids in school!
The third problem that is being widely ignored is jobs. Automation and off-shoring to nations that have no such thing as overtime pay or restrictions on the number of hours worked have radically reduced commerce’s need for human resources.
This comes at a time when the global population is growing at an alarming rate…and the cost of moving things as well as to make them is also on the rise.
The danger hidden within these combined factors is the potential for a breakdown of the global supply chain. An already stressed transportation industry is incapable of picking up the slack caused by the mass bankruptcy of independent operators.
Three major issues that are all intertwined with one another. We have reached a nexus in the socio-political climate where society will undergo profound changes…with many of these changes being for the worst.
Winners reap, losers weep. This is a fact that everyone in our society is keenly aware of, while the common reference is to gambling, the winners in our social structure don’t gamble. What then do they mean by winners and losers?
It’s economic warfare. Our social structure is one of the cruelest con games ever devised. Outlawing the ownership of our fellow humans has not freed them but instead freed the owners from having to care for them; otherwise slavery persists.
Anyone who draws a paycheck based on the ‘prevailing wage’ knows this to be true. Regardless of how hard you work the benefit to you remains the same. Most often the only way to improve your circumstances is to seek employment elsewhere because it’s not in your current employer’s interest to pay you a cent more than they have to…regardless of the cost of living.
If you can’t live on what your employer pays you it’s not their problem; it’s yours.
This brings us to the most pressing issue facing our society, the purpose of commerce. Does commerce exist to enrich its owner(s) or does it exist to enrich society?
The law as it stands specifically states that commerce exists to serve its owners. The society that founded it can go to hell…and it’s well on its way there, isn’t it.
Fret not good citizen because life as we know it is a human construct and like all human constructs it can be changed.
We have lived so long under cash driven society that cash has become confused with wealth. If this were true lottery winners would never go bankrupt…which they do with alarming frequency.
Only labor is capable of producing wealth.
As you can see, owning labor produces great wealth…for the owner, not the laborer. The question we must address as a society is the right (as well as the necessity) of allowing anyone to profit from the toil of others.
The principal issue here is justice. It is unjust for anyone to reap a greater benefit from labor than those who perform it. This initial injustice leads to many more, dooming those who physically bring us the world as we know it to a life of hardship.
Ownership has created the idle rich that have an insatiable appetite for more. Are owners necessary? Short answer, no. You could tear the executive offices out of every avenue of commerce and they wouldn’t be missed.
Resources are free from nature. They exist for all of us yet if we had to perform all of the functions necessary to live on our own we’d live a very primitive life indeed. That and we would condemn ourselves to living on whatever was locally available because we’d be far too busy to travel.
Commerce and the division of labor are essential to our modern lifestyle as well as to the future of our species. Yet allowing a few to claim ownership of what we all need to live dooms our society to perpetual poverty.
Understand that since resources are free, cost is an abstract proposition. Time is also free, just ask the unemployed. The cost of allowing an owner class to exist is what’s driving our society into moral bankruptcy.
Think about taxes for a minute and consider why they exist. Taxes serve to finance things that can’t be done profitably…which in our society means to the financial gain of the owner class.
Same thing goes for shelter. Ever wonder why you have to ‘buy’ a place to live? It’s just one more senseless income stream created by the owner class.
Where am I going with this? Think for a moment what Humanity Inc would look like, a society owned by and managed for the benefit of humanity…not just a few but everyone.
Since money is nothing more than ‘representative’ wealth and labor represents true wealth, everyone who labored for the benefit of society would be an equal stakeholder.
This represents the leveling of the playing field we’re never going to see if we continue to honor the frivolous claims of the owner class.
In Humanity Inc, everyone is guaranteed a job that pays a living wage by society itself. There are no taxes because everyone is paid by society to do what they do, there’s no need for you to pay them too.
The ‘liberation’ of natural resources provides every member of society with free housing, utilities, healthcare and education for life…with ZERO taxes!
The people that provide these services are paid by society to do what they do, there’s no need for you to pay them too…because using other humans as an income stream will be illegal. The only way to obtain money is to work for it.
How the hell will anyone get rich if the only way to make money is to work for it? That’s the whole point, isn’t it? Since nobody gets rich working for someone else, nobody should be forced to work in order to make someone else rich.
The purpose behind Humanity Inc is to use commerce to enrich our entire society, not just the owners. The kings owned everything and did nothing to better the lot of their subjects, so it is with ownership society, a few kings that lord their wealth over a whole boatload of peasants.
The only way to stop being a victim is to put your oppressor out of business. By outlawing the exploitation of labor by any human for the financial gain of another we will pave the way for a society that can work together rather than for a privileged few.
Society is a complex beast that requires management to function smoothly…not owners but managers, people whose job is to get things done.
By outlawing the exploitation of labor for personal benefit we will create in its place a non-profit management framework to guide the activities of labor along the twelve major fields of endeavor that bring us life as we know it.
Why twelve and not a million? Because the task of monitoring the system for fraud will be much more difficult if we fail to keep it simple and there are only twelve fields…actually there are only eleven but one serves as in interface between the rest.
Core Concepts
Without justice there can be no peace and without peace there can be no prosperity. Justice is key to the foundation of a sustainable society. Justice by no means stops at equal treatment under the law; justice includes equal treatment in all things social and economic as well.
Each of us is fundamentally equal with none of us being more valuable than any other to the whole of society. Our world, our way of life depends on a myriad of skills coming together as one. Remove even one piece and all of the others suffer, therefore, no one piece can honestly be deemed to be more valuable than any other.
Justice is a synonym for fairness. What applies to one must apply to all. Since all wealth is born of labor it is only fair that all members of society surrender their labor in exchange for the benefits of civil society.
Leadership is not a privilege but a skill. Only those who prove they have the necessary skills to provide leadership will permitted to hold positions of responsibility.
None of us were born to be someone else’s beast of burden. All members of society are deserving of respect. Every citizen is born with the right to participate fully in society and to share equally in all of the benefits society has to offer.
Every citizen has a right to a job that pays a living wage.
Every citizen has a right to a free place to live that meets his or her needs.
Every citizen has a right to free education and healthcare for as long as they live.
Division society will deliver each of these rights to every citizen.
The Divisions
Life as we know it can be broken down into a dozen general ‘fields of endeavor’ if you will. I shall number them here:
1. Agriculture
2. Natural Resources
3. Manufacturing
4. Construction
5. Transportation
6. Distribution
7. Communications
8. Education
9. Science
10. Recreation
11. Medical
12. Division Services
I offer these in no particular sequence, as they are all equally important. It isn’t necessary to make individual Divisions for each specialty as every Division will need to have trained personnel from just about every skill imaginable on their payroll.
If you don’t see a division for your skill the chances are good that you currently work in an industry that will no longer exist (most conspicuous by their absence are the insurance, legal and banking professions.)
While all three are vital to cash driven society they have no place in a (cashless) labor driven one.
While these industries will disappear aspects of each will be retained within the Divisions. Payroll, account management, the handling of claims for losses due to injury or accident are just some of the skills the Divisions will require.
Legal Eagles will find themselves in an odd position as there will be no civil courts and all legislation will be the sole domain of the people. That which remains will exist in the realm of criminal prosecution as the private practice of law will be prohibited.
One of the primary goals of Division Society is provide each individual with work they find both interesting and rewarding. If you fell into plumbing because it was the family business but you always wanted to be a doctor, sign on with the Medical Division!
What you became under capitalism in no way obliges you to stay in that profession. If you have a passion in your life this is your opportunity to pursue that passion. You may not achieve ‘stardom’ but you’ll be doing something you love and EVERY job pays a living wage.
Those who aren’t fussy about what they do will find opportunities in the professions that people neglect in order to chase their dreams. Supply and demand means jobs that go wanting will pay more than their more ‘glamorous’ counterparts.
If pay is more important (or equals happiness to you) your life experience will give you a leg up when it comes to choosing which Division to work for. Experienced individuals will start at the highest labor grade they qualify for.
Establishment of the Divisions and Division hierarchy.
Failure to be specific invites disaster!
What follows are detailed instructions of how the Divisions are to be set up along with some ground rules regarding their operations.
Upon surrender of the US government after our passive and totally non-violent revolt (We will bring them to their knees without harming anyone or destroying any property simply by turning their own ‘weapon’ against them.)
There is no need to re-invent the wheel. Each town has a town hall, each city a city hall etc. These former government offices will be made into the offices of your local Division Services.
Each State has a State house and that will become the State office of Division Services. Division Services fills the role of public interface between the Divisions and the individual.
Operations of this unit will be similar to local civic offices of today but there will be key differences. You won’t be able to find any ‘elected’ officials there but you will find the supervisor who is in charge of the office’s operation. In larger cities you will find assistant supervisors to help you also.
There will still be a clerk’s office responsible for maintaining public records but the former assessor’s office will become the new housing resources management office. This is where you will go to find suitable quarters should you require them or if you wish to exercise your option to upgrade your living quarters due to promotion.
While you will still be able to find the building inspector’s office here, this will also be where you go to request services from the Construction Division.
Since tradesmen are paid by their Division carpenters, plumbers, electricians and the like will draw their work from this office rather than contract directly with the customer.
The local public health office and the division of weights and measures will still function like they always have but Division services rather than the town itself will employ them.
Local public works departments along with custodians, water and cemetery employees will become sub units of the Construction Division. Division services will employ the people who fulfill the critical functions of trash pick-up, recycling and public safety.
New entries into the workforce will go to their local Division services office to review employment opportunities and search the national database for open jobs they are interested in. People desiring a career change can do likewise.
If you are transferring into a new position within your current Division, this is where you will go to be signed up with your new work unit.
At the inception of the Divisions, the people who held the position before the ‘changeover’ will often be the best qualified to continue in these positions. Since there are no longer any ‘elected’ officials the ‘supervisors’ hat will be temporarily filled by whoever led the city or town at the time of the changeover. (If they stick around.)
The State operations will mirror the towns and include an office for interfacing with regional Division Services. There should seldom be a reason for the individual to visit the State office of Division Services as its functions are more administrative than customer service oriented.
Once each State has it’s house in order they are to send ‘representative’ delegates to a mutually agreed upon location to set up a Regional Division operations center.
This will be where all of the Divisions will coordinate their efforts on a regional basis. Each State will funnel the city and town’s requirements for goods and services to the Regional office. Here representatives of each Division will work together to satisfy the needs within their region by drawing upon resources from across the nation.
These regional Division offices will be responsible for directing the specific Divisions to gather and produce the needed inputs to insure that local Division services can meet the citizen’s needs.
There are six regions within the nation and they are as follows: Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, Southeast, Central
Mid-West and Western. (For any other nation that thinks Division society is for them, some nice person in your country has already broken your nation into regions. Use the above as an example.)
For clarity, each region within the US consists of the following States:
Northeast; CT, MA, ME, NH, NJ, NY, RI and VT
Mid-Atlantic; DC, DE, GA, MD, NC, PA, SC, VA and WV
Southeast; AL, AR, FL, KY, LA, MO, MS and TN
Central; CO, IA, KS, MN, ND, NE, NM, OK, SD and TX
Mid-West; IL, IN, MI, OH and WI
Western; AK, AZ, CA, HI, ID, MT, NV, OR, UT, WA and WY
Like any endeavor setting up the local offices will be fairly easy, as they’re most of they way there already. The State offices will be somewhat harder and the Regional Offices harder still.
Time, weather conditions and a bunch of broke (and likely pissed off) formerly wealthy people will be stirring up what trouble they can.
To avoid disaster, many things need to be happening at the same time. Try not to get bogged down in the details as it is of critical importance that some of you keep your eye on the big picture.
The following will aid you in this process. To repeat myself, it is not necessary to reinvent the wheel, it’s been done for us in the form of SIC codes.
The pieces are all there, you just need to fit the pegs into the holes. Here’s the list of Divisions and the SIC codes each are responsible for.
1. Agriculture: 010 to 099, 201 to 214
2. Natural Resources: 101 to 149, 461, 491 to 493, 497,
3. Construction: 152 to 179, 598901
4. Manufacturing: 221to 399, 496, 899911
5. Transportation: 401 to 421, 441 to 458, 473 to 478
6. Distribution: 422 to 431, 501 to 573, 592 to 593, 5949 to 596304, 596306, 596307, 596308, 596311, 596398, 5983 to 5984, 598902 to 599502, 599904 to 599999 (except as noted) 651201,
7. Recreation: 472, 581,594 to 5948, 596305, 599969, 701 to 703, 729901 to 729908, 729925, 729926, 729932, 729935, 729965, 729986, 866 to 869
8. Communications: 481 to 489, 731 to 733, 899901-3
9. Division Services: 491 to 495, 653118, 721 to 726, 729909 to 729923, 729928, 729930, 729931, 729933, 729934, 729999, 833 to 836, 874
10. Medical: 591, 599503, 599504, 599939, 599968, 801 to 809, 832, 839, 864
11. Education: 821 to 829, 841, 842, 899906
12. Science/ R&D: 871, 873,899904-5
Every designation above the 500 series has either soon to be ‘obsolete’ codes or they cover such niches so thoroughly that they will take too much time to sort them out here. Let the above be a general guide to which Division will handle which specialties. Consolidate wherever possible and don’t be afraid to ‘eliminate’ the seemingly superfluous
Division Hierarchy
Like it or not without leadership people tend to work against one another. The above helps to define the scope of the Divisions but this does not address the important issue of the totem pole and who sits where.
I’ll start from the bottom and we’ll work our way up.
1. Apprentice: Entry level with only the barest skills. All new entries into the workforce start here. (No exceptions)
2. Journey person: Has mastered the basic skills of the trade and is working to learn the finer points.
3. Master: Knows the trade inside and out, can teach others to do every job in their specific area of expertise.
4. Foreperson: A master in charge of issuing tasks to a work group of skilled trades people who also troubleshoots jobs as required. (Workgroup being defined as two or more crafts persons engaged in a specific process that is a portion of the whole or all of the crafts people involved in any single step of an endeavor including those that produce finished product from raw inputs in one step.) This is the first rung of management.
5. Operations Support Specialist ‘C’: Those who pass the foreperson’s test but lose the ‘election’ are candidates for this support position. This spot provides an excellent ‘training’ for the next level. You will earn more than your master’s pay but less than a foreperson.
6. Manager: A foreperson in charge of directing all of the forepersons within a working unit. Depending upon the scale of the operation this slot is a wildcard. In larger operations, a manager will report to a Unit manager. In small-scale operations the manager’s slot is skipped and a Unit manager is promoted from amongst the forepersons.
7. Operations Support Specialist ‘B’: Those who pass the manager’s test but lose the ‘election’ are candidates for this position, like ‘C’, you will earn more than a foreperson but less a manager.
8. Unit Manager: A manager who directs the activities of the managers in larger scale operations or one who directs the efforts of the forepersons in a small scale operation.
9. Operations Support Specialist ‘A’: Those who pass the Unit Manager’s test but lose the election are eligible for these positions. At this point you will be involved in plant operations to a point where you will learn all of the functions up to Division manager. Like the two previous Support Specialist positions, this spot pays less than a Unit manager but more than a manager.
10. Plant Manager: Directs the activities of unit managers in large-scale operations.
11. Division manager: Directs the activities of the Plant Managers within regional multi-plant operations and interfaces with the State Division Operations officer for their commodity
‘Superperson’ will be around thirty years old at this stage of the game but this will be a rare occurrence. From here we jump to the State office of Division Operations.
1. State Division Operations Officer: Directs the efforts of plant managers and coordinates their outputs and efforts with the other units of their Division within the State. These officers also interface with regional Division management and direct units under their supervision of regional and national initiatives and goals.
2. Operations Support Specialist III: Those who pass the Division Manager’s test but lose the election are eligible for these positions. You will be paid more than a Unit Manager will but less than a Division Manager makes. This position will provide excellent training for both Division Manager’s and State Division Operations Officer’s spots.
From here we make the leap to Regional Division Management.
3. Regional Division Operations Officer: Directs the efforts of State Division Operations Officer’s and coordinates their efforts with the other six regions that make up National Division Operations.
4. Division Planning Officer: This spot oversees the Regional Division Operations Officers and forecasts the production and personnel requirements for the Region.
5. Regional Division Treasurer: Oversees payroll operations for their Division. Provides input to the combined Divisions treasury council of wage/price controls.
6. Operations Support Specialist II: Those who pass the Division Planning Officer test but lose the election are eligible for these positions. You will be paid more than a Regional Division Operations Officer but less than a Division Planning officer will. At this point you will become heavily involved with the operation of your regional Division from a logistics aspect.
7. Assistant Division Chairperson: There will be two open slots to compete for at this level. Assistant Chair people will work closely with the Division Chairperson to plan the direction of the Division and implement new processes and procedures.
8. Operations Support Specialist I: Those who pass the Regional Division Treasurer test but lose the election are eligible for these positions. You will be paid more than a Division Planning Officer will but less than a Regional Division Treasurer will.
9. Division Chairperson: Top of the Regional food chain. Whoever sits in this seat decides what needs doing and how it will get done on a regional basis and as directed by the National Division Leadership.
Again, Superperson will be around Thirty-nine years old at this point but this should be an extremely rare occurrence.
National Division Leadership
Each of the twelve Division chairpersons from each of the six regions will compete for the position of National Division chairperson. This provides a field of seventy-two candidates for the highest office in the land.
Each one of them will have demonstrated experience in how the Divisions run and a keen awareness of the needs of the people through their hands on experience.
The competition for Division leadership will test the candidates on their ability to make tough decisions quickly, their personal integrity and their vision or grasp if you will of where we are and where we’re going.
The top three candidates will form the leadership triad as the fate of society is a heavy responsibility to lay upon any one person.
Since ties are unacceptable at this level, testing will continue until only three distinct winners emerge. The three will ‘rule’ by consensus with the top scoring candidate’s decision being final in the event of a deadlock.
The three Divisions that need to replace their chairperson will conduct a run-off test from their pool of eligible candidates after the leadership is chosen.
I wish to explain the reason behind using ‘manufacturing’ titles for positions within Division hierarchy. Each endeavor ‘produces’ a product or service, thus ‘production’. While job titles currently vary from skill to skill, job functions do not.
Many organizations are verbally top heavy with many impressive titles translating directly to ‘support specialist’ once the grandiose title is taken away.
Division Society is driven by supply and demand within truly free markets. The pyramid shape is still apparent but with private ownership taken out of the picture, the tops slots are now open to all that possess the drive, ambition and personal integrity to climb the ladder.
The most qualified person wins every time. The Divisions do not tolerate nepotism or patronage. No one has the power to ‘appoint’ anyone or to ‘create’ and then fill a job position without testing.
If a new avenue of employment presents itself, the Division leadership will determine who is qualified to test for the position and cause a test to be created to fill the open positions.
It will be a crime to ‘tailor’ a test so that only a specific candidate qualifies for a given position. It is also a exile crime to place non-pertinent material or requirements within a test as well as failing to give proper notice across all Divisions that a new position exists or to allow sufficient time for interested candidates to submit themselves.
The higher you climb, the broader your knowledge base must be. Some tests will include a portion that focuses on the individual’s personal integrity as related to the amount of power that the position tested for gives the successful candidate.
If we are to live in a just society then the penalties for cheating the system must be harsh. Fines or imprisonment have done little to prevent those who would abuse their power for personal gain from doing so.
Sadly, I predict that there will be many exiles until the shiftless realize that we aren’t messing around when it comes to the good of the many or protecting them from the self-serving among us.
Due to changes in how the Divisions handle money, some ‘Industries’ will disappear entirely. Specifically insurance, taxation and credit are the most obvious victims.
Sales and advertising industries will be altered to such a degree that they will cease to exist in their current form. Since the Divisions don’t compete with each other the focus of these specialists will be directed towards assuring that the consumers are getting what they want.
It could be argued peanut butter is peanut butter, so why have more than one ‘brand’ available?
Everybody’s taste is different. Marketing will listen to the customer and inform manufacturing of what the customer wants.
Product diversity is very important to a diverse society. Sales people will disappear into either the order processing side or the marketing end of the cycle. Advertising will become an informational function of the when and where of things rather then the exercise in brainwashing that it currently is.
While SIC codes provide a quick and simple way to identify business types it seems that not everyone understood what they were being asked when it came to classifying their business.
Many companies are listed under several SIC codes and none of them are correct. Once the Regional Division Operation Centers are set up, a shakedown will have to be conducted to weed out those units that are neither fish nor fowl.
The process of organizing the Divisions and populating them may take months thus rationing of food and fuel will be necessary to carry us through the setup phase. (Since food and fuel will be free during the set up of the Divisions, rationing will be enacted to prevent hoarding, waste and shortages.)
Not everyone is going to want to live under Division rule. Many former elites will flee although I wish to state right here that anyone who does not wish to stay will be provided with free transportation to any country that will have you.
Anyone who is rubbing their hands gleefully while thinking about how they are going to scam us out of all of these ‘free’ goods and services I strongly suggest that they think again and flip now to the ‘legal’ section of this guide.
The benefits of Division society are bestowed upon workers, period. There will be no such thing as ‘partial disability’ within the Divisions, if you can move your eyes then you can be a lookout! If you are really tough off, you will be institutionalized with no pay but all of your basic needs will be met.
This sounds hard and cold on the surface but some people will always try to beat the system. The Divisions will meet their social obligations to the infirm rationally.
Your money is for you and you alone. This means that when you die, your money dies with you. Every individual who lives under Division rule makes their own way from the cradle to the grave.
If you fall down somewhere in between we will carry you but if you put nothing in it means that you will get nothing out.
No one is ever denied the right to suitable work and like I commented above, even if you can only move your eyes, we will find or make a way for you to participate and earn the benefits that are yours by right if you desire.
Here is perhaps the key difference regarding life under Division rule. You work and your money is for you and you alone. The Divisions will include motherhood as a paid skill and every child born to a family will provide greater income to their mother so she can support the children.
Key words, your money is for you. The money paid to your mate is for her and the resultant children. If you slap ‘mommy’ around until she surrenders the card (there will be no cash) well, this is considered stealing. (See general law # 3.)
Should fate remove mommy from the picture and daddy is both willing and can demonstrate that he’s competent, the Divisions will pay daddy to raise the children. (This assumes that daddy didn’t give fate any assistance in mommy’s demise.)
To avoid the ‘baby factory’ phenomenon, three kids and ‘mommy’ and ‘daddy’ get automatically sterilized.
Law and Order
Justice and equal treatment under the laws are the foundation of any just society. A society will disintegrate once its laws become slanted to protect the interests of the power elite and enforcement of the law becomes selective and prejudiced.
General laws
For our first law, I submit one that seems obvious but I am unaware of any society that includes such a law on its books. Even the UN has a law that specifically exempts world leaders from prosecution for their ineptitude or for violating their own laws.
1. All laws apply equally to all citizens regardless of their rank or station within the society. No one under any circumstances shall be allowed to exempt himself, herself or any other individual or group from any law set down herein.
The intent of this law is to prevent anyone (including me) from making themselves the omnipotent ruler. It also acts to insure against other abuses of authority and self-enrichment at the expense of the rest of society.
2. The intent of a law takes precedence to the letter of a law in as much that an act that could be construed to break the letter of the law but not the intent would not be considered a crime. Acts that do not break the letter of the law but violate the intent of an existing law would be a considered a crime.
3. Theft for the purpose of self-enrichment in any form is a exile crime. Petty or nuisance theft is to be punished as a jury sees fit.
4. Your money is for you. Monetary compensation can only be obtained through employment within the Divisions. Cash or the use of any other form of hard currency is strictly prohibited.
5. The transfer of funds of any kind or the ability to do so between private individuals or groups is strictly prohibited.
6. The establishment of for profit ventures of any kind is strictly prohibited. Anyone engaging in this type of activity will be exiled.
7. Credit or the creation of debt is strictly prohibited. The only lawful debt recognized by the Divisions is that of the individual to trade their labor in exchange for the benefits that is their right as a citizen of the Divisions. Any individual or group that places any citizen or group through whatever means within their debt will be exiled.
8. Murder in its three recognized degrees is prohibited. Those convicted of murder are subject to whatever punishment the jury sees fit to impose including death in kind.
9. Claiming personal or group ownership of any land(s) or resource(s) within the borders of the Divisions is strictly prohibited and punishable by exile. The granting of any such rights by any group or individual is strictly prohibited and shall be considered a crime.
10. All ‘intellectual’ properties are the domain of the Divisions. There shall be no royalties or commissions paid to any individual or group for innovations, inventions or artistic works of any kind. The Divisions will reward the creator(s) innovative ideas, new inventions or inspired artistry with a one-time award of either money or perquisites commensurate with the merit of the idea or work.
11. Taxation or causing pools of money to be collected for any purpose is strictly prohibited. Money is created by work and erased once it is traded back to the Divisions for goods or services. Anyone obtaining money by any other means than working or who contrives to pay themselves more than their just wages is guilty of theft and shall be punished accordingly. (See # 3)
12. All citizens of the Divisions are required to trade their labor in exchange for the benefits of Division society until they meet the requirements for retirement. Only those deemed totally incapacitated by the medical Division are exempt from this requirement.
13. Religion. The Divisions recognize the right of every citizen to worship or not as they please. The Divisions recognize no religions of any kind and make no provision for compensation of self-proclaimed or ‘ordained’ clerics of any faith. While ideology and divinity will still be valid topics taught by the education Division, the ‘professional’ practice of religion is strictly prohibited. Houses of worship will continue to be maintained by the Divisions but the faithful are prohibited from exempting their leaders from their obligation to work for the Divisions. It can be said that we all do the work of the lord but the Divisions require that we do it on our own time.
Testing
In Division society every individual is required to prove that they are qualified to do what they do. Testing begins at the start of a citizen’s working career and continues until they attain mastery of their craft. Crossing the line into management commits the individual to annual testing to continue to hold the position as well as to advance.
1. Once the level of master has been achieved the worker is no longer required to test for the purpose of career advancement. Masters will still be required to test at intervals determined by their Division in order to keep their skills current and their certifications valid.
2. Every individual who aspires to management must test annually to keep their current position as well as to advance to the next level if they desire.
3. No individual, regardless of how talented they are, is allowed to advance more than one level per annual test period. This requirement is to insure that intellect keeps pace with perspective (maturity).
4. Once testing for advancement begins it is unlawful for any person or group to suspend or postpone the tests for any reason.
5. Division Services bears the responsibility of insuring that suitable tests are available across all Divisions in a timely manner. Due to the scope of the testing process, tests will be staggered throughout the calendar year.
6. Once an individual is certified in a skill, that individual may laterally transfer (to a different Division) without loss of benefits and they are entitled to test for positions within their new Division that they are qualified for.
7. Every Division must test new job candidates and those transferring in from other Divisions to insure that they are qualified to perform their skill within the organizational structure. This testing is to be conducted on an ‘as need’ basis. Results of the ‘skill audit’ test cannot to be used for advancement or to circumvent the one-year minimum service requirement between skill levels.
8. It will be a exile crime to ‘tailor’ or in any way alter a test so that only a specific candidate or group qualifies for a given position.
9. Placing non-pertinent material or requirements within a test, failing to give proper notice across all Divisions that a new position exists or failing to allow sufficient time for interested candidates to submit themselves is a exile crime.
10. Circumventing the testing process in any way is a exile crime. No individual has the authority to appoint or fill a compensated position with the individual or group of their choice. (It is lawful to serve in a non-compensated capacity so long as that capacity is advisory or consultative in nature and carries no decision-making authority.)
11. It is a exile crime to create a position (compensated or not) that usurps any or all of the power of the Division leadership or that circumvents in any way the chain of command as laid out herein.
Due Process
1. The professional practice of law is strictly prohibited. Any individual charged with a exile crime or an exile offense is responsible for their own defense to the best of their ability.
2. The law recognizes that the accused is innocent until proven beyond a reasonable doubt to be guilty.
3. The burden of proving that the accused did in fact commit a crime is laid upon the investigators of the given crime.
4. A trial by jury will be convened as swiftly as possible once the facts of the case have been determined.
5. The jury shall consist of three people who know the accused personally and four who do not. The accused shall have no choice in selecting the jurors who know them but will be allowed to challenge any juror they feel may harbor a grudge against them.
6. The accused is allowed three challenges and can only challenge the three jurors who are known to him. Once the accused uses up his three challenges or is satisfied with the jury then the trial will commence.
7. An ‘adjudicator’ from Division services will preside over the case and act as a referee. The facts and circumstances of the case will be heard by the jury with the accused being allowed ample opportunity to either explain or challenge any points raised by the investigators.
8. It is up to the jury to decide guilt or innocence by a simple majority vote.
9. If the accused is found guilty then the jury must also determine the punishment.
10. If in the jury’s opinion the case has mitigating circumstances then they are permitted to offer a lesser punishment than that prescribed by the law.
11. There will be no prisons within the Divisions, only facilities to hold secure those awaiting trial.
12. Alternative forms of punishment are limited only by the creativity of the jury with imprisonment being the only option denied to them.
13. The convict has the right to refuse the alternative offered by the jury and thereby accepts the punishment prescribed by law.
14. Anyone that falsely accuses another individual or group of a crime with either malicious intent or for personal gain or for the gain of another shall be punished by exile. Mistakenly accusing someone of a crime is just that, a mistake. In the absence of malicious intent or some type personal gain arising from the accusation, this act is not a crime.
Civil Code
It is the view of the Divisions that laws should be few and simple. A rational person is assumed to be peaceful and law abiding. The problem lies in the fact that we all tend to be irrational at times.
The Divisions prohibit lawyers, sitting judges and civil courts. Individuals or groups are forbidden to ‘sue’ other individuals or groups because the only way to get money is to work for it.
Fines exacted for violations of the civil code are simply erased from the violator’s account, no one gets it.
Lawyers create quibbling about the nuance of the law and sitting judges become full of themselves, interpreting the laws and meting out punishment (or not) however they see fit.
Removing the ability of people to solve their own conflicts begets more conflict. The attitude becomes, “If you don’t like it, sue me!” with the wealthier of the two belligerents usually being declared the winner. This is not justice and it forces all of us to live in a much less than civil environment.
Dueling was outlawed because it begot feuds however, outlawing dueling hasn’t prevented feuds from starting anyway as evidenced by the current court system’s caseload.
People seldom think before they speak because they know that the law will protect them. The target of their verbal tirades must prove in court that they were ‘wronged’ in some way, which is difficult at best if not downright impossible most of the time.
I begin this section with the most controversial of the civil laws.
1. Dueling as a method of settling personal quarrels or disputes is legal. The rules of legal dueling are set forth below.
2. The duel must be held inside a special facility designed specifically for this purpose as a matter of public safety.
3. It is unlawful to have a ‘second’, the Divisions will provide security for all matches and only the belligerents are allowed inside the facility for the duel. The matches will be recorded as a security precaution to monitor for cheating. The public display of such tapes is strictly prohibited. (This is a matter of honor, not a public spectacle.)
4. The challenged has both the right to refuse and the right to ‘qualify’ the extent of the match along with the choice of weapons.
5. ‘Qualify’ means that the challenged decides if the match will be to the death or not before the match is to begin. Dueling is dangerous and someone may die regardless. This is a risk that both combatants agree to take.
6. There is a mandatory forty-eight hour ‘cooling off’ period before a duel can be held. Either party may cancel their participation right up to the time when they enter the facility. Once inside the facility the duel will be held.
7. Dueling is considered a battle upon the field of personal honor. The use of poisons, toxins or chemical agents of any kind is strictly prohibited.
8. Only the belligerents are allowed into the facility, this means that no dangerous animals or other outside agents can be used in the contest.
9. The use of explosive devices, machine guns or any weapon to large for the combatants to carry without mechanical aid or that will endanger the safety of the neutral observers are strictly prohibited.
10. The use of prohibited items is considered cheating. Anyone caught cheating will be exiled if they are not executed on the spot by the neutral observers.
11. Anyone under twenty-one years of age is forbidden to duel.
The need to have a mechanism for the redress of personal grievances is critical. Block this avenue and murder along with all other types of violent crime will become rampant.
This law also serves the purpose of making the Divisions largely self-policing. While we are all taught by our parents to live by the ‘golden rule’ of “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” There will now be a damn good reason to follow this rule and for everyone to conduct themselves accordingly.
The knuckle draggers who will duel at the slightest provocation will meet their betters soon enough and dueling will become a rare occurrence in just a short time.
Choice of weapons can tip the scales in the smaller person’s favor, which is why the old rules of only pistols or swordplay are out the window. A clever opponent need not fear a larger one if they become proficient in the use of a unique weapon.
The rational person will be very leery of challenging anyone to a duel because issuing the challenge puts all of the aces in the other fellow’s hand.
I’d like to refocus on the big picture for a moment. You work for money and the only place to spend your money is through the Divisions.
The Divisions will never knowingly shortchange you and if a Division employee does, the weight of the law falls upon them as this is considered a criminal act.
To prevent or minimize crime there is no cash and there is also no (lawful) way for individuals to exchange money between each other. This fact alone should keep disputes to a minimum.
The Divisions do not recognize ‘debts’ between individuals and it is a crime for anyone to place another in the position of real or imagined indebtedness beyond their obligation to trade their labor in exchange for the benefits of Division society.
The non-recognition of personal debts and the criminalization of the act of placing anyone in debt works as a safety mechanism to minimize fraud and coercion. It will not prevent those who are of a mind to from committing such acts; it will just slow them down a little.
With that said, my strongest defense of this law is to say that while dueling is barbaric, it serves to make society on the whole much more civil and it is far more preferable to the alternative, a police state with a corrupt civil court system.
Civil Code (cont.)
1. Matrimony: The Divisions recognize the right of the individual to form unions for the purpose of rearing children. The Divisions also recognize their responsibility to intermediate over the dissolution of such unions.
In as much as the Divisions recognize motherhood as a paid profession they also offer the mother the choice of continuing to work rather than forcing the onus full time parenting upon them.
The Divisions provide (financially) for the children from the moment of birth to the grave. Housing arrangements are bestowed with the children’s needs in mind, not the parents.
The Divisions believe in fairness and the right of the children to have access to both of their biological parents. With this thought in mind, dissolution of the union is granted with the provision that both parents share equally in the continuance of the child-rearing task.
Either mate can elect to leave the children’s home but they are obliged to amicably shoulder their share of the burden of finishing what they began.
Either parent (with the agreement of the other) is permitted to walk away from the relationship if they feel continued exposure to their former spouse is damaging to their children’s emotional well being. (The Divisions do not ‘default’ to the mother being automatically granted custody)
Women who chose to bear children without forming a union with the biological father accept the responsibilities of single parenthood with eyes wide open. The Divisions will provide for the children and care for them in the same manner as children born within the bounds of matrimony.
2. Childcare: Funds provided by the Divisions for childcare are to be used for precisely that, caring for the children and meeting their needs. Parents who misuse Division funds thereby neglecting the needs of their children will have the children removed from their custody and face possible exile for gross or repeated offenses. Parents that physically or sexually abuse their children or knowingly allow either spouse to do so are subject to exile.
The Divisions consider children to be our single most important resource. Our children are our future!
3. The Divisions believe in supporting a sense of community and will strive to create ‘enclaves’ for like-minded individuals to live in within each metropolitan area.
The purpose of this initiative is to minimize conflicts between neighbors and with planning, between neighborhoods. Individuals are cautioned to choose their preference carefully as extricating someone from a poor decision may take time.
Social organizations, clubs and groups of any sort are welcome to visit their local Division services office to establish their own enclave.
In the interest of peaceful co-existence, no group will be allowed to specify the location of their enclave. Local Division Services has total discretion to the placement of enclaves within their city or town.
Let it be stated here that ‘choice’ properties within any municipality are reserved for the community’s high ranking Division employees.
This is part in parcel with the Division compensation / incentive program. Work hard, achieve and you’ll be rewarded, not just with money but with the finer things in life.
4. Rules of the road: The crowded, overtaxed highway system has created new realities. A new, stricter licensing process will be implemented with an emphasis on skills that enhance traffic flow.
If you find driving either scary or boring then you will no longer have to concern yourself as it is unlikely that you will qualify for a new license.
If you somehow manage to pass the road test and still drive like a bonehead, you will stop quick as the fines will be stiff. (Like drive or eat stiff!) Enough said.
5. Substance abuse: The Divisions recognize the futility of the war on drugs. All popular recreational drugs will be processed for purity, quality and made available from Division stores in various dosages.
Drug abuse resistance education will still be provided in school and the under age use of recreational drugs will still be prohibited.
While drugs are legalized, they won’t be cheap or free from the onus of responsible use. Being stoned to the bone on the job will have you on the outside looking in quick! (Exile, if you can’t help yourself, we can’t help you either.)
It is legal to grow or whip up and ‘do’ anything you like, just remember that you do so at your own peril. Kill someone with one of your concoctions and you’ll be defending yourself on a murder rap!
6. Arms: The Divisions recognize the right of the individual citizen to keep and bear arms for their personal defense either openly or concealed. Removing the individual's right to defend themselves is the first step towards tyranny.
7. Personal Possessions: With the private ownership of resources being prohibited by law and with most other items being provided free of charge by the Divisions, items defined as personal possessions will be few.
Personal possessions are hereby defined as any item or work that you yourself create, if it costs you money to obtain or any durable item of sentimental value (only) that is either given to you as a gift or received as a legacy.
The ‘only’ implies that if the item in question belongs in a museum, that’s where it’s going regardless of how long it’s been in your family.
We all have a job to do in this life and the ‘hoarding’ of rare or precious items isn’t one of them. The ‘trappings’ of the formerly wealthy automatically revert to the public domain upon the creation of the Divisions.
Your personal possessions are the only things that you will have to bequeath to your children should you decide to have any, your money dies with you.
8.Bartering: While bartering between individuals is legal, the individual is cautioned to be wary. You will have no legal recourse beyond dueling if the other party fails to fulfil their part of any bargain. Likewise, the creation of indebtedness is also illegal and you may find yourself being exiled as well as getting screwed.
9. Disturbing the peace: Division society is built around its children. Children need their sleep so they can concentrate in school. There is a time and a place for everything. The individual is admonished to act responsibly as failure to do so will cost you money. Repeated irresponsible behavior will get you exiled.
10. Exile: A one way trip to the badlands where everyone is free to do as they please. The Divisions do not believe in prisons. Thus, anyone who is not willing to conform to the rules of Division society will have the benefits of Division society withdrawn from them. The Divisions believe that Darwin was right. Commit a hideous, selfish act and the punishment is to have the benefits of civil society taken away. Most offenses are related to abuses of power or trust. The audacity to screw over the many for your own personal gain revokes your right to live in a civil society.
The above are the basics of the civil code. New laws may be enacted on an as need basis. The prohibition against the professional practice of law is to prevent perversion of the laws and laws being written and enacted just because it is someone’s job to sit there and think up new laws.
I did not specifically prohibit such things as public nudity or lewd behavior because the ‘enclaves’ will be allowed to set their own standards of acceptable conduct within the realm of the general laws.
Personal possessions are hereby defined as any item or work that you yourself create, if it costs you money to obtain or any durable item of sentimental value (only) that is either given to you as a gift or received as a legacy.
The ‘only’ implies that if the item in question belongs in a museum, that’s where it’s going regardless of how long it’s been in your family.
We all have a job to do in this life and the ‘hoarding’ of rare or precious items isn’t one of them. The ‘trappings’ of the formerly wealthy automatically revert to the public domain upon the creation of the Divisions.
Your personal possessions are the only things that you will have to bequeath to your children should you decide to have any, your money dies with you.
8.Bartering: While bartering between individuals is legal, the individual is cautioned to be wary. You will have no legal recourse beyond dueling if the other party fails to fulfil their part of any bargain. Likewise, the creation of indebtedness is also illegal and you may find yourself being exiled as well as getting screwed.
9. Disturbing the peace: Division society is built around its children. Children need their sleep so they can concentrate in school. There is a time and a place for everything. The individual is admonished to act responsibly as failure to do so will cost you money. Repeated irresponsible behavior will get you exiled.
10. Exile: A one way trip to the badlands where everyone is free to do as they please. The Divisions do not believe in prisons. Thus, anyone who is not willing to conform to the rules of Division society will have the benefits of Division society withdrawn from them. The Divisions believe that Darwin was right. Commit a hideous, selfish act and the punishment is to have the benefits of civil society taken away. Most offenses are related to abuses of power or trust. The audacity to screw over the many for your own personal gain revokes your right to live in a civil society.
The above are the basics of the civil code. New laws may be enacted on an as need basis. The prohibition against the professional practice of law is to prevent perversion of the laws and laws being written and enacted just because it is someone’s job to sit there and think up new laws.
I did not specifically prohibit such things as public nudity or lewd behavior because the ‘enclaves’ will be allowed to set their own standards of acceptable conduct within the realm of the general laws.
Briefly, 'enclaves' will be communities where 'birds of a feather' (people that share similar interests or beliefs) can live together. Surfers, bikers, Christians, athiests...whatever. Within the bounds of the general laws the enclaves will have the latitude to set their own community standards.
Every citizen of Division society is free to pursue life, liberty and happiness in as much as it does not intrude upon anyone else’s pursuit of the same.
In short, all are free to do there own thing so long as they take care that their pleasure does not turn into someone else’s misery.
The question that faces this type of laissez-faire freedom is just how tolerant can we be? The police state has forced us to learn tolerance; will the Divisions reverse that?
It is my sincere hope people will understand that their ‘freedom’ to do as they please is directly proportional to their tolerance of others to do the same.
It may be a ‘hassle’ to consult your neighbors before having a jam session with a few friends but forethought and consideration for your neighbors should foster the same from those around you.
Just as exile offenses stem from abuses of power or authority, civil crimes will result in fines for lack of consideration for the impact of your actions upon others.
Civil fines will not only cost you money; they will also add ‘points’ to your criminal record. Accumulate enough points and you will be invited to go where you can do as you please without bothering anyone, exile.
Anyone who feels ‘there ought to be a law’ is free to submit his or her suggestions to Division services for consideration. Anyone who witnesses any violation of the laws set down herein is invited to report the infraction to Division services for immediate investigation.
Labor Laws
Nothing happens if nobody gets off their dead ass and does it. No one wants to be the victim of unfair labor practices nor do they want to face the prospect of having to do all of the work by virtue of their being the low man on the totem pole.
1. The Divisions will utilize a quota/time standard system to measure job performance for production work. Like the piece workers of the past, if you can make your quota in less time than your shift, you’re free to get on with your life. If you make junk, you will remake the parts on your own time.
2. Non-production jobs will require the worker to work specified hours and meet the metrics of job performance as determined by industry standards.
3. All workers are to be protected by a common Union and the Divisions will observe union/management grievance procedures for the settlement of workplace disputes.
4. Workers have the legal right to institute work stoppages if management does not act in good faith to resolve disputes in a timely manner. (See # 19)
5. Collective bargaining is illegal. Pay scales are determined by occupation/skill level alone. Striking for more pay is strictly prohibited. Abuse by management is a criminal offense; the need to strike should not exist. ‘Frivolous’ striking will add significant ‘points’ to any participating worker’s criminal record.
6. The Divisions shall observe the law of ten regarding compensation. There shall be no more than ten units between skill levels and the difference between the absolutely lowest compensated (Apprentice) to the highest compensated (Leader) shall not exceed two hundred and thirty times of what the lowest paid is compensated. (There are twenty three levels of compensation, while a factor of two hundred and thirty may seem steep remember that only one person makes this much and it is a far cry from the current practice of compensating executives over seven hundred times what the average employee makes.) Perquisites are not to be factored into overall compensation. The law of ten applies to monetary compensation only.
7. No one is obliged to work more than forty hours within a one hundred and sixty-eight-hour week.
8. Overtime is paid after forty hours and the individual can elect to either be paid at one and one half times their skill rate or to bank the extra time worked for future time off or use it for credit towards their retirement requirement. ‘Splitting’ of compensation (some in money and some in future time off) is also permitted.
9. There is no ‘backwards’ motion regarding compensation; failing to win in the tests does not penalize the worker. Workers are always compensated at their highest level achieved for the duration of their careers and perks earned for successful campaigns are not required to be surrendered upon defeat in the tests. Juries may offer reduction in pay scale as an alternative to a more severe form of punishment and this is the only way for a worker to lose compensation /status.
10. Upon entering the labor force the worker is entitled to two weeks compensated vacation time. They will continue to accrue additional vacation time at the rate of one additional day per year for the duration of their working career. Unused vacation time may be banked for future use or credited towards their retirement requirement on an as need, as desired basis. (It’s your time, you decide!)
11. Bereavement or family crisis; The Divisions will maintain the practice of compensating the worker for three days following the death of any relative extending as far as first cousins. If married, this applies to both partners for bereavement on either side of the family. Family crisis or extended bereavement leave is permitted for a period of up to two weeks without compensation. Extended leave is restricted to incidents where the crisis or bereavement involves immediate family members only. Immediate is defined as parents, spouse, siblings, children or grandchildren. Uncompensated leave may be extended beyond this period if the Medical Division determines that the worker requires additional time to heal before returning to work.
12. Sick Time; Every worker is allowed a dozen compensated sick days per year. Sick time refreshes every year on the worker’s birthday. Unused sick time may be carried forward and banked for future use or credited towards early retirement. Banked overtime or vacation time may be used to supplement this number as required. Extended illness beyond the workers means to support themselves requires that the Medical Division place the worker into one of their care facilities where the worker’s basic needs will be met until they are well enough to return to work. (This does not imply that a worker needs to exhaust his or her own resources before being admitted to Medical for basic needs compensation. Any illness that requires the worker to be hospitalized immediately qualifies for basic needs compensation which means that they will feed you and keep you warm during your stay.) Hospitalization for any reason other than fraud is a ‘free ride’ and does not require the worker to ‘compensate’ the medical Division for its services. (Although doing a brief volunteer gig would be a nice gesture on your part but this is not mandatory.)
13. The ‘magic number’ for retirement is ninety-two (age plus years of service) with retirement becoming mandatory at one hundred and twenty-two. Career change is required to continue working beyond one hundred and twenty-two. Banked vacation, overtime or sick time can be credited towards early retirement. Retiring workers are compensated at half of their pre-retirement pay. There are no limitations on a retiree’s earnings and continuing to work part-time at a different position other than the one retired from does not jeopardize the retiree’s income benefit. The part-time/ career change requirement is necessary to prevent people from realizing a fifty percent pay increase due to ‘retiring’ and then continuing to work at their former position which would entitled them to receive their former pay rate plus their fifty percent retirement pay. All time worked for any Division in any capacity is counted toward satisfying the retirement requirement. Barring prolonged illness, regular retirement would be between ages fifty-five to seventy for the average worker.
14. Poor performance on the job will be documented. Management will observe a metric of ‘documented’ warnings for repeated abuses of workplace rules. Draw enough warnings (no less than three in a twelve-month period) and the individual may be remanded to Division services for reassignment. Drawing three remands is cause for and may result in exile.
15. Abuse of authority; including but not limited to falsification of records, favoritism, coercion of any kind, bigotry or vendetta are all criminal acts and shall be punished accordingly. Management is charged with providing guidance and support for operations, insuring that safe workplace practices are observed and to enforce compliance with quality, production and attendance standards. The management role is strictly pro-active and the manager’s job is to be the reporter. Individuals can dig their own graves; it is not management’s job to help them do it. If the individual can prove that you did, either through your actions or your failure to act, you’re in more trouble than they are as willful abuse of authority is an exile offense.
16. Clocking; from the lowest apprentice right up to Leadership is required to maintain an activity log to account for their time on the job. Everyone not on medical exemption or waiting to stand trial on criminal charges is required to work and failure to account for your time on the job is a criminal act.
17. Holidays; There shall be at least one holiday every month. Workers who work on their holiday are entitled to ‘holiday pay’, time and a half for working and straight time for the day that you should have had off. Work groups can elect to ‘float’ holidays if desired (substituting ‘minor’ holidays so they may take the day after Thanksgiving or Christmas and New Year’s Eve off for example.) Working a ‘floated’ holiday entitles the worker to holiday pay on the ‘floated’ day rather than upon the true holiday’s date. Holidays that fall on weekends will be celebrated/compensated on either the closest Monday or Friday to the actual day. Scheduling a vacation over one or more holidays extends the worker’s time off rather than their being ‘penalized’ and losing the time or pay.
18. Continuing Education; Skills need to be kept current as new technologies and concepts come into use. Education is free for life but you will have to surrender some of your time now and then to keep your certifications valid. Division Services will be in charge of the certification process and they will make it known who needs to take courses to upgrade their skills. The worker is responsible for keeping him or herself informed relative to new certification requirements that affect their job classification. (Division Services will make general postings; you need to read them to see if they apply to you.)
19. Due process in the workplace. Real or perceived violations of workplace rules are to be documented by management and the worker has the right to ‘grieve’ any violation that they are charged with. Grievances are forwarded to Division Services where a determination is made to the validity of the charges and an answer returned as soon as practical. (Within thirty working days maximum or the charge is expunged from the worker’s record.) For the same reason the Divisions prohibit the professional practice of law, there shall be no ‘stewards’ to prevent ‘quibbling’ regarding the specifics of workplace rules. The worker must defend him or herself to the best of their ability. Division services may call for a ‘hearing’ if the facts of the incident are unclear or if they seem to be reported in an uneven manner.
20. All disciplinary and grievance proceedings shall be both documented and video taped creating a permanent record for either party to review. The accused has the right to review the tape before it is sent and must sign off that the tape is an accurate account of event. The management member who witnesses the violation of a workplace rule must conduct this process him or herself. It is unlawful to delegate this task and criminal action will follow. Workers who witness a member of management violating workplace rules or any other violation of the law are urged to file a grievance against the offender and forward it to Division Services for judgement.
21. Processes and standards. Observing a spirit of cooperation and teamwork, all workers and management alike are charged to do their utmost to optimize their operations and output. The benefits of doing so will work to reduce the work requirement upon the individual and meet the needs and wants of society as a whole. Grieving process changes is only valid when it creates either a quality problem or requires unusual stamina on the worker’s part to meet production requirements. Management is charged to marshal sufficient resources so that no worker is required to rush in order to meet production requirements. Anyone who works like a ‘bat out of hell’ does so of his or her own volition. Standards for production must reflect time for the average worker to move at a safe, measured rhythm. Frantic activity causes errors and burns out the worker. Management personnel are considered workers too and on occasion management may be required step in and run a job for a shift (not just a few parts or a short time) to determine if the standard is valid or if the process can be improved upon.
22. All citizens are guaranteed freedom of mobility. Any worker who so desires is free to seek employment elsewhere in the Divisions if they dislike their current situation. Any citizen at any time is free to leave the Divisions for any reason but acknowledges that this decision is irrevocable. Once anyone leaves the Divisions they are forbidden to return. (Citizens are workers who are not currently under criminal investigation, criminals are not allowed to invoke their right to mobility to flee justice. For this reason anyone wishing to leave the Divisions is required to give thirty days notice prior to being allowed to depart.) Transportation to elsewhere is free but individuals are prohibited from taking any Division property with them when they leave.
This ends the legal section of Division rule and sums up what life under the Divisions will be like. I feel I have provided adequate protection for both worker and management alike to achieve a society that is truly free in most aspects of the word.
Your right/ability to make a living should not hinge on whether or not the boss likes you, which is why management positions are temporary. The measures spelled out above aim at insuring everybody pulls their own weight. Workers will no longer have to bite their tongue while the current supervisor’s favorites enjoy a perpetual coffee break when everyone else is busting their hump.
The ‘imprecision of speech’ has doubtlessly left holes in the fences that will need to be fixed later but this document creates a solid foundation to build upon.
Every citizen of Division society is free to pursue life, liberty and happiness in as much as it does not intrude upon anyone else’s pursuit of the same.
In short, all are free to do there own thing so long as they take care that their pleasure does not turn into someone else’s misery.
The question that faces this type of laissez-faire freedom is just how tolerant can we be? The police state has forced us to learn tolerance; will the Divisions reverse that?
It is my sincere hope people will understand that their ‘freedom’ to do as they please is directly proportional to their tolerance of others to do the same.
It may be a ‘hassle’ to consult your neighbors before having a jam session with a few friends but forethought and consideration for your neighbors should foster the same from those around you.
Just as exile offenses stem from abuses of power or authority, civil crimes will result in fines for lack of consideration for the impact of your actions upon others.
Civil fines will not only cost you money; they will also add ‘points’ to your criminal record. Accumulate enough points and you will be invited to go where you can do as you please without bothering anyone, exile.
Anyone who feels ‘there ought to be a law’ is free to submit his or her suggestions to Division services for consideration. Anyone who witnesses any violation of the laws set down herein is invited to report the infraction to Division services for immediate investigation.
Labor Laws
Nothing happens if nobody gets off their dead ass and does it. No one wants to be the victim of unfair labor practices nor do they want to face the prospect of having to do all of the work by virtue of their being the low man on the totem pole.
1. The Divisions will utilize a quota/time standard system to measure job performance for production work. Like the piece workers of the past, if you can make your quota in less time than your shift, you’re free to get on with your life. If you make junk, you will remake the parts on your own time.
2. Non-production jobs will require the worker to work specified hours and meet the metrics of job performance as determined by industry standards.
3. All workers are to be protected by a common Union and the Divisions will observe union/management grievance procedures for the settlement of workplace disputes.
4. Workers have the legal right to institute work stoppages if management does not act in good faith to resolve disputes in a timely manner. (See # 19)
5. Collective bargaining is illegal. Pay scales are determined by occupation/skill level alone. Striking for more pay is strictly prohibited. Abuse by management is a criminal offense; the need to strike should not exist. ‘Frivolous’ striking will add significant ‘points’ to any participating worker’s criminal record.
6. The Divisions shall observe the law of ten regarding compensation. There shall be no more than ten units between skill levels and the difference between the absolutely lowest compensated (Apprentice) to the highest compensated (Leader) shall not exceed two hundred and thirty times of what the lowest paid is compensated. (There are twenty three levels of compensation, while a factor of two hundred and thirty may seem steep remember that only one person makes this much and it is a far cry from the current practice of compensating executives over seven hundred times what the average employee makes.) Perquisites are not to be factored into overall compensation. The law of ten applies to monetary compensation only.
7. No one is obliged to work more than forty hours within a one hundred and sixty-eight-hour week.
8. Overtime is paid after forty hours and the individual can elect to either be paid at one and one half times their skill rate or to bank the extra time worked for future time off or use it for credit towards their retirement requirement. ‘Splitting’ of compensation (some in money and some in future time off) is also permitted.
9. There is no ‘backwards’ motion regarding compensation; failing to win in the tests does not penalize the worker. Workers are always compensated at their highest level achieved for the duration of their careers and perks earned for successful campaigns are not required to be surrendered upon defeat in the tests. Juries may offer reduction in pay scale as an alternative to a more severe form of punishment and this is the only way for a worker to lose compensation /status.
10. Upon entering the labor force the worker is entitled to two weeks compensated vacation time. They will continue to accrue additional vacation time at the rate of one additional day per year for the duration of their working career. Unused vacation time may be banked for future use or credited towards their retirement requirement on an as need, as desired basis. (It’s your time, you decide!)
11. Bereavement or family crisis; The Divisions will maintain the practice of compensating the worker for three days following the death of any relative extending as far as first cousins. If married, this applies to both partners for bereavement on either side of the family. Family crisis or extended bereavement leave is permitted for a period of up to two weeks without compensation. Extended leave is restricted to incidents where the crisis or bereavement involves immediate family members only. Immediate is defined as parents, spouse, siblings, children or grandchildren. Uncompensated leave may be extended beyond this period if the Medical Division determines that the worker requires additional time to heal before returning to work.
12. Sick Time; Every worker is allowed a dozen compensated sick days per year. Sick time refreshes every year on the worker’s birthday. Unused sick time may be carried forward and banked for future use or credited towards early retirement. Banked overtime or vacation time may be used to supplement this number as required. Extended illness beyond the workers means to support themselves requires that the Medical Division place the worker into one of their care facilities where the worker’s basic needs will be met until they are well enough to return to work. (This does not imply that a worker needs to exhaust his or her own resources before being admitted to Medical for basic needs compensation. Any illness that requires the worker to be hospitalized immediately qualifies for basic needs compensation which means that they will feed you and keep you warm during your stay.) Hospitalization for any reason other than fraud is a ‘free ride’ and does not require the worker to ‘compensate’ the medical Division for its services. (Although doing a brief volunteer gig would be a nice gesture on your part but this is not mandatory.)
13. The ‘magic number’ for retirement is ninety-two (age plus years of service) with retirement becoming mandatory at one hundred and twenty-two. Career change is required to continue working beyond one hundred and twenty-two. Banked vacation, overtime or sick time can be credited towards early retirement. Retiring workers are compensated at half of their pre-retirement pay. There are no limitations on a retiree’s earnings and continuing to work part-time at a different position other than the one retired from does not jeopardize the retiree’s income benefit. The part-time/ career change requirement is necessary to prevent people from realizing a fifty percent pay increase due to ‘retiring’ and then continuing to work at their former position which would entitled them to receive their former pay rate plus their fifty percent retirement pay. All time worked for any Division in any capacity is counted toward satisfying the retirement requirement. Barring prolonged illness, regular retirement would be between ages fifty-five to seventy for the average worker.
14. Poor performance on the job will be documented. Management will observe a metric of ‘documented’ warnings for repeated abuses of workplace rules. Draw enough warnings (no less than three in a twelve-month period) and the individual may be remanded to Division services for reassignment. Drawing three remands is cause for and may result in exile.
15. Abuse of authority; including but not limited to falsification of records, favoritism, coercion of any kind, bigotry or vendetta are all criminal acts and shall be punished accordingly. Management is charged with providing guidance and support for operations, insuring that safe workplace practices are observed and to enforce compliance with quality, production and attendance standards. The management role is strictly pro-active and the manager’s job is to be the reporter. Individuals can dig their own graves; it is not management’s job to help them do it. If the individual can prove that you did, either through your actions or your failure to act, you’re in more trouble than they are as willful abuse of authority is an exile offense.
16. Clocking; from the lowest apprentice right up to Leadership is required to maintain an activity log to account for their time on the job. Everyone not on medical exemption or waiting to stand trial on criminal charges is required to work and failure to account for your time on the job is a criminal act.
17. Holidays; There shall be at least one holiday every month. Workers who work on their holiday are entitled to ‘holiday pay’, time and a half for working and straight time for the day that you should have had off. Work groups can elect to ‘float’ holidays if desired (substituting ‘minor’ holidays so they may take the day after Thanksgiving or Christmas and New Year’s Eve off for example.) Working a ‘floated’ holiday entitles the worker to holiday pay on the ‘floated’ day rather than upon the true holiday’s date. Holidays that fall on weekends will be celebrated/compensated on either the closest Monday or Friday to the actual day. Scheduling a vacation over one or more holidays extends the worker’s time off rather than their being ‘penalized’ and losing the time or pay.
18. Continuing Education; Skills need to be kept current as new technologies and concepts come into use. Education is free for life but you will have to surrender some of your time now and then to keep your certifications valid. Division Services will be in charge of the certification process and they will make it known who needs to take courses to upgrade their skills. The worker is responsible for keeping him or herself informed relative to new certification requirements that affect their job classification. (Division Services will make general postings; you need to read them to see if they apply to you.)
19. Due process in the workplace. Real or perceived violations of workplace rules are to be documented by management and the worker has the right to ‘grieve’ any violation that they are charged with. Grievances are forwarded to Division Services where a determination is made to the validity of the charges and an answer returned as soon as practical. (Within thirty working days maximum or the charge is expunged from the worker’s record.) For the same reason the Divisions prohibit the professional practice of law, there shall be no ‘stewards’ to prevent ‘quibbling’ regarding the specifics of workplace rules. The worker must defend him or herself to the best of their ability. Division services may call for a ‘hearing’ if the facts of the incident are unclear or if they seem to be reported in an uneven manner.
20. All disciplinary and grievance proceedings shall be both documented and video taped creating a permanent record for either party to review. The accused has the right to review the tape before it is sent and must sign off that the tape is an accurate account of event. The management member who witnesses the violation of a workplace rule must conduct this process him or herself. It is unlawful to delegate this task and criminal action will follow. Workers who witness a member of management violating workplace rules or any other violation of the law are urged to file a grievance against the offender and forward it to Division Services for judgement.
21. Processes and standards. Observing a spirit of cooperation and teamwork, all workers and management alike are charged to do their utmost to optimize their operations and output. The benefits of doing so will work to reduce the work requirement upon the individual and meet the needs and wants of society as a whole. Grieving process changes is only valid when it creates either a quality problem or requires unusual stamina on the worker’s part to meet production requirements. Management is charged to marshal sufficient resources so that no worker is required to rush in order to meet production requirements. Anyone who works like a ‘bat out of hell’ does so of his or her own volition. Standards for production must reflect time for the average worker to move at a safe, measured rhythm. Frantic activity causes errors and burns out the worker. Management personnel are considered workers too and on occasion management may be required step in and run a job for a shift (not just a few parts or a short time) to determine if the standard is valid or if the process can be improved upon.
22. All citizens are guaranteed freedom of mobility. Any worker who so desires is free to seek employment elsewhere in the Divisions if they dislike their current situation. Any citizen at any time is free to leave the Divisions for any reason but acknowledges that this decision is irrevocable. Once anyone leaves the Divisions they are forbidden to return. (Citizens are workers who are not currently under criminal investigation, criminals are not allowed to invoke their right to mobility to flee justice. For this reason anyone wishing to leave the Divisions is required to give thirty days notice prior to being allowed to depart.) Transportation to elsewhere is free but individuals are prohibited from taking any Division property with them when they leave.
This ends the legal section of Division rule and sums up what life under the Divisions will be like. I feel I have provided adequate protection for both worker and management alike to achieve a society that is truly free in most aspects of the word.
Your right/ability to make a living should not hinge on whether or not the boss likes you, which is why management positions are temporary. The measures spelled out above aim at insuring everybody pulls their own weight. Workers will no longer have to bite their tongue while the current supervisor’s favorites enjoy a perpetual coffee break when everyone else is busting their hump.
The ‘imprecision of speech’ has doubtlessly left holes in the fences that will need to be fixed later but this document creates a solid foundation to build upon.
The peaceful revolt
No one in their right mind is dumb enough to go toe to toe with the military, nor is this necessary.
Cash driven society operates on...cash flow. Labor driven society doesn't. All debt will be outlawed...erased, once Division society is established so take advantage of their 'easy' credit terms while cash driven society lasts.
Cash in any form will also be outlawed so it's a good idea to use it up before that happens.
The very basis of this revolt is to reject their power over us, the power of debt. Run up all the bills you want because you won't have to pay them back.
Be advised that the investor class isn't going to roll over and play dead. This will be a siege. With that in mind stocking up on non-perishable foods and other survival gear is the best place to spend those soon to be useless dollars.
As for timing...be a big disaster if you went over your head in debt prematurely, is to wait until THEY pull the plug on the economy. It's going to happen soon. Spikes in the price of energy and the booming gold market are signs we're getting close to a repeat of 1929...which was also a contrived financial collapse.
I'd start preparing right now, today in fact! I'm already buying a little extra every week against the day when the stores close as well as the banks.
When, as they did in '29, they force you to exchange your greenbacks for the 'new' currency, that's the time to say 'fuck you!'
Time to stop working and to wait. If you buy into this scam you'll never dig out of the hole they're going to shove you into...especially with the new bankruptcy laws.
Do not under any circumstances take to the streets! The military will be ordered to make an example of any who are foolish enough to publicly call them on this disaster they brought upon us in order to enrich themselves.
Call for a general strike and take part when it's called! Do not go back to work until the government surrenders!
Your children's future depends on it.
posted by Gegner at 10:48 PM
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