A Plea for Social Equality

True democratic wealth is time: everybody has 24 hours of it a day.

The significant social inequality of the day is that some peoples time is not exchangeable for much value, while other peoples time is very much in demand and exchangeable at a high rate.

I simplify somewhat, for a person can sometimes exert control over their exchange rate by means of how much effort they put in; but even at maximum effort there is still a large disparity between the exchangeable values of the time of different people, or in different locations.

In the corrupt imperial west there is a notion that 8 hours of effort per day should be exchangeable for necessities of life (and some discretionary comforts) but the opportunity to make this exchange is not granted equally to all people (and nor is the standard of life).

In the name of social conscience and humanity, this inequality is often reasonably addressed by moving a surfeit of value from those who found favourable exchange, to those who who found a poor rate of exchange.

Yet paradoxically, the extreme inequality of those who found no exchange is addressed by an attempt to provide the value of life necessities with no exchange required.

This does not introduce equality but instead introduces further inequality for in transferring the surfeit of value to those who find no exchange, it leaves them with a surfeit of time. It reduces them to the status of beggar and provides no way to contribute.

It would be more equitable to provide opportunity of exchange to those who found no exchange, making all equal contributors to society from the universal and collective wealth of time, and condemning none to the status of beggar.

TLDR: Or in other words, why in the UK when taxes are going up, and public works are going down, why, are we paying people to do nothing?

It is no socialist triumph to lose the working class and gain another idle class (however unwilling).

Let the time of each be valued equally - sufficient for life, and let all contribute.

And here's hoping for a shorter working day for all, enough time for dancing and singing.