A note about the
design of this website,
including the
text size, is at the bottom
About The System
Was The System
Explained until November 2023
Its the system - what workmates would
say to this
writer when he worked in
industry on the
shopfloor and argued
against the
power employers have over
workers (all
who need to have a job)
and the
wealth they take from their work.
So what is the system? It is the everyday
relationships where you, I, everybody,
make things, provide services, they get
sold, we make our living, we buy things.
Business, production, work and trade.
From which come income and wealth.
The economy.
People call it capitalism and free market
economics but best to name it for its
familiar central process, business, and
call it simply the business system.
Since
around 1980, conservatives have
convinced people that the business
system, deregulated, is the only way
to run the world. So people just take its
relationships, its distribution of power,
for granted. So a work like this can seem
abstract, distanced from normal politics.
Yet it is actually a concrete, grounded
explanation of the essentials of everyday
life, that people need to take account of
in politics. All political thought, debate
and action should make reference to
the system, and this work provides
the mental framework. More in
Why People Should
Read This Work
at page 491.
The bulk of the system
is the billions
of voluntary
trades we make with each
other every
day. We have subsidiary
systems: contract
law to bring order
to it,
governments that oversee it or
leave it
alone (and provide public
services),
and representative bodies
to make the
laws and form the
governments.
But they only
supervise the
overall system.
This work
shows how we, all of
humanity,
work together in the
system, how
we relate in the
essential,
universal activities,
how we co-operate
hugely but
also
antagonistically, how,
through unfair relationships,
unfair terms
of trade in jobs,
a minority dominate the majority,
who they both are, and how
the majority can regulate the
minority, in the workplaces
and in politics.
By Ed McDonnell
(see bottom of page).
After the further introductory text, next,
are free downloads, and links to where
you can buy printed copies.
People think the everyday world is run
by politics. But it is
the other way round,
politics
comes from the everyday world.
From, as
said above, the system, from
how we
relate to each other in making
a living or
making money, making goods,
providing
services, selling them.
Business,
trade, work.
The economy,
then politics.
Most people
think there is a lot wrong
with it. And
that governments let us
down. We are
even wrecking our habitat.
But rather
than tackle the unfairness
of the
system we get diverted into
phony
loyalties and divisions and
daft
conspiracy theories.
That is because
we ignore the system.
We need a
clear understanding of it .
And to
relate all and everyones politics
to it.
Including ordinary peoples.
And to
consider not only their
political standpoint,
left, right etc.,
but their place
in the system.
People look to politicians to put things
right and see the political parties as
just interchangeable management
teams all aiming to run the country,
for everyone, from above the system.
But politicians do not make the system,
and not from above it. They come from
it
and represent the interests of different
groups in it, that are
often against the
interests of other groups.
How we produce goods and services
to make our living involves everybody
working together so much, is so social,
so industrialised, so
collective, it is
really a public activity. That is why
we call it The Economy. But it is run
privately by a
self-confessed selfish
minority. They run this key activity,
of us all making our living together
intensely inter-connected, and they
control the sharing-out of income
and wealth. This prevents democratic
regulation of the economy and political
protection of people in their basic needs.
The system is the business system.
The minority is business people, the
business class. But people do not see
business people as a class. And most
of the great majority are workers but
do not see themselves as a class,
the worker class, either.
Conservatives claim the
system
is all about the individual
this introductory text continues
in the full book, the free .pdf
download just below, at page 2,
in Why This Work Is Needed.
Then, in the book, you get
The Ten Minute Read then
The Twenty Minute Read then
the full content.
About The System.pdf v.2023.10.
A big read, just
read to page 30 for the basics.
(That
includes the Ten and Twenty Minute Reads.)
And
here they are separately, in large text
to read on phones/devices.
(You
can print normal-size copies from the full book.)
Buy The Full Book printed,
coil-bound
for easy reading, from...
'About
The System' on Lulu.com
Special
Papers
How To Talk To Each Other About Politics.pdf
-
will help you discuss politics with others.
In
large text for devices.
How To Talk To Each Other About Politics for printing.pdf
-
the same, in smaller font for
printing
-
a version for progressive movements
with a small group activity for meetings.
Three
one-page charts - some of the
key
points of the work as diagrams
The Right To Unionise
How
We Relate In Politics
How
We Make All The Wealth
And
(Was The Right To
Organise In Unions)
-
a
subsidiary work taken from
the full book. 208
pages. v.2023.10
Its own website -
Buy it printed,
coil-bound for
easy reading, from here
'The
Right to Unionise' on Lulu.com
Ed McDonnell is a retired lecturer.
He taught courses for union workplace
reps/shop stewards and
has been
active in the labour movement and
class politics for fifty years, in the
UK.
Note
on this Website/page.
The
page is made as a simple .html file in
MS
Word and does not display text correctly
on
different devices. Made in a size readable
on
smartphones, it shows too big on desktop
computers
and tablets.
A
proper webpage is planned.
End of website