MFSolutionA1

Version 1

Put in place a structure that allows people to take decision together. Put in place basic income.

Version 2

Open Culture, Ease of access to digital content (and non digital content). Sharing is Caring modo.

Version 3

Government must be transparent, Courts must be led by impartial judges and legislator must be free and independent.

Version 4

The solution is to modernize democracy towards a liquid democracy. In a liquid democracy, liquid democratic tools make it possible for everyone to have clear insight into what to vote for and the arguments pro/contra. Everyone can decide whether to vote for themselves or to leave it to someone they trust. At the same time, there should be a good way to bring on good points for the agenda. The problem with implementing liquid democracy, is that the transition to it, is quite a way to go if you see the current state of politics. In our minds, we need to think differently too and this can take some time, but this could come naturally: if we have something to remove the fear, it will be easier to think what is best for ourselves and for everyone. The biggest change will be for politics itself. Some people might think that the problems are too complex to just give everyone the opportunity to vote/to delegate, but you should consider that the biggest complexity is in the way you present results objectively, the way meetings are kept to come to those results, … Not to compare those results with what we want as humans.

As implementing liquid democracy will not come from itself, we need some extra solutions: a transparent government using open data, open source, open innovation and the tools for a liquid democracy, supporting the works of self-organizing networks and the Commons like P2P economy and distributed currencies, the tool to take away the fear with people is by implementing an Unconditional Basic Income and last but not least the simplification of our legislation. For a transparent government, the tools are known: open data has shown its power already. Liquid democracy tools like liquidfeedback, democracyOs, loomio, getopinionated are less successful, but coming up. They are usable, but we see there is still a big gap between the tools and getting people to use them efficiently, certainly if it needs to decide over an entire country. Sometimes we see initiatives that work through an entire society through distributed networks in a P2P way. With companies like Uber, Airbnb, Cambio,… the P2P economy is quite disruptive. With technologies like Bitcoin, … We should search for ways to make this kind of economy and initiatives sustainable. E.g. if you make an income through these services, if the amount is low enough, it is taxed lower than regular work.

An Unconditional Basic Income (UBI) or "Free Money for Everyone" gives everyone (unconditionally) a fixed amount of money regardless if he/she is already working or not. A UBI is key for liquid democracy as it takes away a lot of our fears (consciously or unconsciously): if it is high enough, people can question for themselves if what they do in their job and the pay they get (on top of the UBI) for it is worthwhile enough in their lives or not. By doing that, it learns us how to think for ourselves. While it takes away the fundamental fear of getting in a situation without job, the logic of feeling better simply because you have a job should no longer be valid either. Everyone should search for the way that makes him/her happy. This changes the political discussion totally and the old arguments that the parties bring, won't make sense anymore. Their powers will diminish and that opens the way to implement liquid democracy. On the other hand, when you ask several people about the form of an UBI they envision, the answer you get might vary a lot. We think a UBI should be sufficiently high in order to take away the fear, which means it should provide at least an income to have a worthy life (good own house, good food, good ways of transportation(not necessarily an own car), good clothing, travelling). Right now, a high enough UBI is already economically viable as the way our government operates, is inefficient. An UBI will probably lead to some more unemployment, but experiments tell us this is not massive (13%, while 8% now). And as people can afford to change jobs, a very profitable scenario where some people go into unemployment, more people work in private sector, but less in the public sector is possible. (Fons Verplaetse said once with respect to our economy: the problem of our government is not jobs, jobs, jobs but not subsidized jobs) We can even say that a UBI is the only way to restore our economy without too much pain. But this is not the only thing. E.g. in order to avoid prices of houses rising with respect to an UBI, it is possible to put a tax on houses according to their size. (it exists already, but it can be updated) Small houses become cheaper and big ones more expensive as the big ones pay for the UBI (or for lower taxes on labour as a tax shift). But, suppose that robotics would get a really high risk getting to the point where a lot of people can not get a job, then we must consider other arguments as a productivity tax when you make use of robots. So, there is quite some things to decide about a UBI yet, which will evolve, and a liquid democracy is ideal to think about the best measures: scientists need to give the arguments pro/contra certain decisions and we need to see which measures we want to accept to keep the UBI sustainable. It will be important that society supports innovations, while at the same time keeping the UBI high enough. Without a UBI, it would be a fight with people blocking innovations, because they are afraid to loose their job. As such, a UBI allows to go forward instead of fighting for old party programs.

A UBI does yet another thing that is important for liquid democracy, but that we should encourage in general to make a liquid democracy possible. We can simplify legislation. Our legislation is still from the Napoleontic ages and we need to revise it completely. Why still have a difference between an employee and an independent, no need anymore for lots of social security rules that breach the privacy of people, … Also, a simpler legislation means that more people can understand the rules and the impact of them. Explaining them gets easier, getting more people interested. Lots of people will tell us that our society is complex and it asks for more complexity. People that did complex things, will argue the opposite: keep things as simple as possible, that way you will see the real problems.

Version 5

vooral transparantie en een beleid door burgers gevormd, alles draait immers