But scarce observed, the knowing and the bold
Fall in the general massacre of gold;
Wide wasting pest! That rages unconfined,
And crowds with crimes the records of mankind;
For gold his sword the hireling ruffian draws,
For gold the hireling judge distorts the laws;
Wealth heaped on wealth, nor truth nor safety buys,
The dangers gather as the treasures rise.
Samuel Johnson

The key to our economic reform policies is the proposal to separate politics from the undue influence of monied interests. Going against the modern trend we believe that that politics is not merely a branch of economics.

Government must be separated from the influences of wealth, both personal and corporate. In this it reflects a continuation of the historical trend of separating government and religion, and government and the military.

In order to do this we do not intend to implement standard Socialist measures across the whole of the state. In fact, we are generally in favour of the free market. Our measures affect only the tiny percentage of the population that wishes to wield political power, the status of multinational companies and a small corner of the banking system.

Reform of the Political Establishment

In our Constitution we write that members of the government must take a legally binding 'vow of poverty', never to possess significantly more wealth than the majority of the population of the nation, and their income is to be set relative to the national median income for life.

What this means in practice is passing a number of laws restricting the 'freedom' of politicians.

Most importantly political parties, where they exist, must be financed solely by the state and standard membership fees. This is necessary in order to remove the undue influence that monied organisations and business interests have in determining governments and their policies. The provision of party, or individual, funds by pressure groups for the purposes of advertising or canvassing gives these people great influence over the formulation of policy. The argument that people should be allowed to give money to politicians to help elect those of their choice is inimical to the spirit of democracy. The only freedom the above scheme limits is the freedom of the rich and powerful to buy the government of their choice. The exact mechanism for providing state finance is largely irrelevant. Whether it is proportional to support in the last major election, or depends on a periodic opinion poll does not matter. The principle does.

Second, those possessing significantly more wealth than the average citizen will be barred from high elected office unless they permanently relinquish that wealth. During their political career they will also be barred from undertaking any work other than that for which they were elected. Upon their retirement from office they will be granted a pension guaranteeing an income in excess of the national average for life. In exchange they will not be allowed to undertake any paid work for a period of a number of years.

There will be no more examples of politicians having multiple 'second jobs' and then moving into the business sector of the very people they were regulating as members of government.

Naturally one can think of many loopholes, but this is not a legislative document, but the basis for future legislation which will be drafted in far greater detail.

It might also be argued that restricting both the present and future wealth of politicians will discourage high calibre people from careers in politics. However, this is only if by 'high calibre' is meant the highest paid in the money or law business. There are large numbers of very high quality people who earn far less than our politicians salaries simply because they work in fields that do not deal in power and money eg fields such as science, engineering, medicine, teaching etc. Money is not the measure of quality when it comes to people.

Finally politicians should be forbidden from joining secret or secretive societies. The have in the past fostered corruption and certainly foster the suspicion of corruption. As the old Roman saying went - "Ceasars wife must be above suspicion".

We want politicians who are servants and not masters. Their right to lead must be their willingness and ability to truly serve our people before themselves.

The International Scene

From our point of view the overriding consideration must be the local, and global, environment. We have no objection to the free market moving jobs to low wage areas of the planet as this benefits humanity as a whole by gradually spreading our wealth in a way that is made more effective through self interest than simple 'selfless' aid. As we should export our low technology jobs so should we educate our people to enable them to move up the technology ladder to more knowledge intensive jobs.

If the governments of the recipient nations are sensible they educate their people as the Pacific Rim nations do and become a power in the world in their own right, even though they may have started as slave economies to the West. Where we part company with the 'free market' is in dropping trade barriers with nations that have lax environmental laws, or laws that are not enforced, compared with the West.

It is one thing to export a job to someone who asks for less money. It is another if that person is being effectively subsidised by destroying their environment, their nation, or exploited through inadequate personal safeguards. It is immoral for Britain to close its coal mines because we can import cheaper coal that is strip mined by child labour in the Third World, or buy goods cheaper because the manufacturers use children as virtual slaves. It is no good for them or us in the long term. We made child labour illegal in this country decades ago. Were we wrong? Should we take our children out of school and send them down the mines on starvation wages? If not then why do we support an international economic regime that, through the 'free market' demands this? The analogue of the 'free market' should be the farm, not the jungle, or even a neglected garden. Through our present system we are being made accessories to brutalities, inhumanities and crimes against Nature. One result of this is that we import Third World conditions for our unemployed so that the rich can buy cheaper luxuries whilst undermining the cohesion of our people and nation through shortsighted greed.

We must impose taxes on both nations that do not comply with civilised safeguards as well as taxes aimed at the products and services of specific multinational companies that fail to maintain environmental and human rights standards in such places. The latter may well be the more effective, especially from a legal point of view considering the ramifications to international trade and the possible misuse of sanctions to justify protectionist barriers to inter-nation trade.

Note that this does not mean going through multiple judicial processes aimed at the multinational in question, as, with our present system of justice, it would be unworkable. It is not a case of imposing 'fines' against a company for antisocial or illegal behaviour, but of taxation, a matter of internal democratic politics that will be effective against any multinational wishing to sell products and services here.

Briefly, multinationals must be treated as a power in their own right, as effective 'nations' without a homeland. As such they must be held responsible for their actions worldwide. Protectionist barriers must no longer be solely applied to and through the old nation state, but the new powers as well.

The ability of individual multinationals to blackmail nations by shifting jobs and resources can be offset to some extent by taxing their products.

The New Banking System

An interest free banking system is to be established for the benefit of certain sections of the economy and also as part of a new Third World aid structure.

Currently Western banking and financial practices revolve around the notion of interest. That is, money gathers more money to itself smply through existing. It is an efficient way if the only goal is to accumulate more money, and an efficient way to expand an economy by directing resources into the areas of highest, and quickest, return.

However, it's very strength is its weakness from a social point of view. It transfers money from those who need it most to those who have an excess of it and does so in a manner that is non productive. It often creates debts that cannot be cleared, although in actuality they may have been repaid many times over. This is the state with much Third World debt. As such it is a tool of enslavement - usury.

We propose to create a banking system to provide loans to key sectors of the future economy, especially small hitech startups, new energy resources and ecologically sound industrial and farming enterprises. This can be viewed as a form of subsidy that actually brings a return to the investor, the taxpayer while removing the usurous influences from the keystones of the future economy.