But if we were to end plcs, or at the very least try to extract our own lives from shareholder capitalism, what would we do about pensions?
It used to be that government pensions worked by working people paying taxes, and some of that tax money going to pensioners, straight away. That doesn't work any more because we've got so many old people, so state pensions act more like private pensions, investing the money and using stock market growth to deliver pension wealth.
How about this as an alternative.
Land-based pensions.
Right now, "69 per cent of the acreage of Britain is owned by 0.6 per cent of the population", according to the New Statesman (2004). What's that about?
So, Land-based pensions work like this.
With your monthly pension payments, you gradually buy a bit of land.
When you get old, you gradually sell that bit of land to a youngster who gradually buys it off you. The income is your pension.
I can't work out the maths of whether it would keep you in hobnobs, financially, but it's worth a think.
"This land is your land, this land is my land", well it's not, is it.
"Who's is the Kingdom? The power and the glory? Forever and ever; will it be the same old story?" - Songline from the goose and the common by the Claque.
We should own it. Us. Us lot. All of us.
Humm.
