Preface

I want to preface this by saying that the problems we face together as a people, are complex and fluid. In that regard I am leaving my positions open to evolve and adapt according to changing circumstances and the revelation of new information. I do not claim to be an expert in any field other than perhaps my stock-in-trade, climate control. But I am well versed in a variety of subjects including, History, Philosophy, Economics, Science, Mathematics, Music, Art, Literature, Politics, Agriculture and the Environment, as well as others to a lesser degree.

I am an open minded big picture guy, a "Jack of All Trades" if you will. If you look on my Facebook page you'll see that my motto is "As for me, all I know is that I know nothing." It is a paraphrase of something attributed to Socrates, from Plato's "Apology", "I am wiser than this man, for neither of us appears to know anything great and good; but he fancies he knows something, although he knows nothing; whereas I, as I do not know anything, so I do not fancy I do. In this trifling particular, then, I appear to be wiser than he, because I do not fancy I know what I do not know."

These were words to live by for me, they have made me unafraid to engage anyone on any subject, since I do not know, I am free to inquire of anyone, on any subject, to try and better my understanding. Because of this I have uncovered a great many things and my positions are not weak and fleeting, but tested through dialogue and discussion. This is why I leave myself open to change, because I have seen the wisest among us have to amend their ideas. Why should I, someone who knows nothing, be any different?

What I have to offer my fellow citizens is honesty, a dangerous thing because being imperfect as I am, it leaves me vulnerable and open to criticism. But I offer no excuses, just a commitment to work for the betterment of my fellow human beings. To take what I have learned and apply it in a way that brings the best possible result. In that regard I offer you my positions. Use them as a guide to understanding how I will act if elected to represent you in our State's General Assembly.

Positions

The Economy

This is truly a case of whether you see the glass as half full or half empty. Since I do not pretend to know how good it can be, I can not say how full our glass is. All I can say is that it is significantly better than it has been and only marginally worse than the best it has ever been. In that regard I propose there is room for improvement and we have examples from all over the world and throughout history, to use as a guide on how to improve it. The trouble with most economic philosophies is that the people that espouse them tend to stick to them religiously, as if they will magically lead us to the promised land. I suggest that they are like the man Socrates refers to in Plato's "Apology" that claims to know what he does not know. So I will not engage in economic theory, but instead speak about what I have seen with my own eyes and how I think we can move forward.

Emannuel Levinas, a great Jewish Philosopher, once said "To be free is to build a world in which one could be free" To understand how an economy should work, we first need to understand what the goal of the economy is. My personal philosophy closely matches that of our founding fathers. it is one that espouses liberation and happiness as the ultimate goal. Liberation of the individual, personal freedom and the creation of a society that allows every person the freedom to be the best possible person they can be. "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness"

So to me our economy has to be one that affords each and every person, Life, Liberty and Happiness. In that regard an economy has not accomplished it's goal, unless the least among us has achieved their best possible selves. Tall order I know, but that goes back to what Levinas said, to be free is to be working towards that goal. This is the essence of progressivism.

On Capitalism

The profit motive has been a great driver of economic growth. What distinguished capitalism from other types of economic systems, is the idea of private ownership of the means of production, for profit. Whereas capitalism has been a great driver of economic growth, it does not come without certain dire consequences. Who among us has not heard the expression "The Rich get richer and the poor get poorer"? Unfortunately it is becoming clearer and clearer, that this is exactly what happens under a capitalist system and that the more liberal an economy becomes (and I mean that in terms of Economic Liberalism as expressed by free and unencumbered markets)the more inequality grows. It is economic survival of the fittest. It may seem like the fairest system at first glance, since this seems to be the way that nature works, but what it does is lead to a less diverse society with less competition and ultimately becomes self defeating as it dries up the economic engine and leads to social unrest.

If you take capitalism to it's ultimate conclusion it winds up being a death spiral as it serves a very few amount of people very well, while leaving the vast majority to struggle and deteriorate, until they either rise up in violent revolt or are subdued and controlled either by means of force or coercion. Most liberal market economies have figured out that pure capitalism is untenable, especially if you hold to such tenets as expressed in our Declaration of Independence about people being endowed with unalienable rights. So we have tweaked the capitalist system with the use of social programs to keep the masses from rising up in open revolt, but not enough to make it a completely level playing field. The Rich, after all, still want to be rich.

So you have the more conservative wealthy that want to do just enough to prevent the death spiral of capitalism, but nothing more, you have the Libertarian which still holds on to the idea that economic Liberalism left to it's own devices will find an equilibrium, in spite of massive evidence to the contrary and then you have the Liberal and Neo Liberal views, the former of which has greater emphasis on social programs while the latter depends on a more enlightened meritocratic view that the people who are most successful will be the ones that will be enlightened enough to determine how best to reach this equilibrium. Where I was originally in the liberal camp, I eventually became tolerant of the neo- liberal perspective and did not oppose it while I waited for it to accomplish it's promised goal.

But those promises never materialized and in spite of it's efforts, the divide between Rich and Poor continues to grow. In fact, history has now shown that the divide between Rich and poor grew least under previous Liberal social programs, where the State intervened more on behalf of the poor and disenfranchised and I have a theory as to why that happened. I have come to be a big believer in diversity. Go to a conservative financial advisor and what is the advice you get most often? Diversify your portfolio. It spreads out the risk and allows for the random variant that nobody expects, to rise up and be successful. I saw this too in agriculture, a farm that has more diverse plantings has the better chance of surviving drought and disease. There are many other examples in a variety of fields that show that diversity is almost always more successful than homogeneity.

I believe that when we invest in our people, in their diversity, when we decentralize, economic, social and political control, we will actually yield a better result. I'm not saying we need to scrap capitalism, even the communists in China have embraced capitalism. The profit motive is like fertilizer in a field, it is a strong incentive for people to try and reach a very high level of achievement. So to me we should not try to limit capitalism so much as try to harvest it's results for the good of our collective diversity. I am in no way saying all people should be equal, quite the contrary, people are anything but equal, but I am saying that people should all receive equal opportunity to be their best possible selves. Because we do not know where the next great achiever will come from, where the next great idea will be born. So we need to cultivate all our people and use the fertilizer of capitalism to achieve this.

I believe in free and unencumbered markets in a micro economic sense, taking the following in to consideration. In order for there to be a strong economy, there needs to be a strong middle class. The middle and lower economic classes drive the economy because a greater proportion of the money they spend goes to pay for goods and services rather than investments that remove wealth out of the economy and concentrate it in the hands of the wealthy. Not that investment isn't important, just that a greater portion of the money goes to fuel economic inequality rather than fueling economic growth. You don't want to stifle innovation or the profit motive that drives it, so you have to find a happy medium where innovation and hard work are rewarded while we continue to stimulate the economy and build a strong middle class.

Wage economics and the fight for $15/hr

The middle class is the nursery for the next great innovators, a wellspring of diversity where the majority of the wealth that is created goes to fuel a diverse economy while it helps create the motivated workforce that will continue to drive the economy. So how do we grow the middle class? First of all you do so by making sure than anyone who works can make a living wage. Detailed studies need to be made, but in New Jersey, a single person, living alone in a studio apartment, providing for utilities, food, transportation and basic necessities, can not survive on our current minimum wage. A way to quantify these costs in a more detailed and substantive way needs to be done, but even a cursory look will show that the cost is closer to $15/hour for a 40 hour week.

Anything less than this is akin to slavery and is morally wrong. If a business says they can't afford to pay it they are basically saying they do not have a sustainable business model and are in need of a form of business welfare in order to stay afloat. I am not opposed to helping businesses, having been a business owner myself, I am well aware of the challenges. Also, a person making $15/hour needs to be able to at least generate that much through their labor. A person who can not is also in need of a sort of welfare, to make up for their inability to generate enough wealth to sustain themselves. In this regard, rather than allowing businesses to pay slave wages or keeping underperforming workers at home on government assistance, I recommend the State helps subsidize new businesses and unproductive workers, long enough to allow those businesses to survive and prosper, while giving the workers skills and training that will make them more productive.

Clearly there would need to be limits on this kind of relationship. But I believe rather than the State intervening, we can partner these struggling businesses and workers with successful ones, with the help of the State, in order to mentor these businesses and train these workers. The State could compensate the successful businesses with tax incentives while the owners of struggling businesses share the profits with productive employees and the supporting businesses. The job of the State would be to ensure that no abuse is taking place, that workers are being trained and made productive and to ensure that the combination of wages and government assistance is sufficient to maintain a minimum standard of living.

Education

The next most important ingredient to building a strong middle class is education. Not only do we need to have the best possible and most diverse education system we need to have the most well educated workforce, which means that education should be a never ending process, even in to adulthood. And we need to have a strong, diverse and free public education system that affords every person the opportunity to be the best person they can be. The public education system must be maintained at a level equal to or exceeding the best private institutions. This includes every field of our economy from the arts to the trades and the highest levels of science law and medicine.

Good schools lead to safer and happier communities, maintain the economic base and provides the best possible path to the middle class. And we need to change the way education is funded from a property tax system to a progressive income tax based system. New Jersey has the most progressive Education funding formula in the nation and it has yet to be fully implemented. We need to pay teachers in line with other professionals and fully fund the public worker pension fund so they can have a secure retirement along with every public employee, including Police, Firefighters and all government employees. A fully funded education system will lower the cost of living, and help create wealth and innovation while building the middle class.

Immigration

Clearly the federal government has failed with it's immigration policy. It has created an untenable situation that undermines the building of wealth, subjugates Hundreds of Thousands to slave wages, exploitation, intimidation, poor living standards and poor health that becomes a burden on our health care system. If the federal government can not or will not do anything about it, than it is incumbent on the State to act. The illegal status of certain immigrants puts families at risk, creates an underground economy that does not contribute to the general welfare, taxes our education and health care systems and creates poverty. In that regard I believe in taking the humanitarian approach once a person is here, and they have ties to the community and do not commit any violent or serious crimes. We need to find a way to bring them in to the mainstream economy, account for them in our labor force, provide for their education and health care and help make them productive members of our society.

This is not to say they should be given the full rights and privileges of ordinary citizens from the start but that we create a system that will eventually lead to that, that is fair to the people that have waited to emigrate to our country legally, assures that they are productive members of our society and not a burden to it and in exchange the State will provide safe harbor while they apply for permanent legal residency or citizenship. But we must make an effort to locate and detain violent and abusive criminals and hand them over to the Federal government to pass judgment or incarcerate them ourselves in our own prison system. But we can not allow lawless and dangerous criminals free access to our society, it undermines everything were are trying to accomplish and hurts the very people who came here seeking to get away from the lawlessness and build a better life.

Healthcare and the Environment

The last and most important thing we can do for our economy, to reduce the cost of living, to increase wages, to help struggling businesses, to create happy and healthy middle class communities and keep healthcare costs low, is to make sure we have clean air, pure unrestricted water and a healthy, productive and self sufficient food supply system to go along with the best most comprehensive healthcare system we can afford. Like education these are best done by having free publicly funded systems to supplement the free market and provide for the general welfare of our State.

Energy is one of the driving forces of a productive economy, if you can produce clean inexpensive energy, there is no limit to what the economy can do. Also, New Jersey does not produce enough food to feed itself. If our supply chain were to break down due to economic or natural disaster, we would have food shortages in less than two weeks. We owe it to the security of our State to make clean energy production, healthy food production and comprehensive medical care a priority for the good of our people. It is a side benefit that it is also good for our economy and the environment at large as well as not contributing to Global climate change, which is also a security issue for our State and threat to our well being as ocean levels begin to rise and or waterfront communities begin to submerge under water. We must make plans to mitigate the effects of climate change while helping to make a thriving, clean, well educated, safe, healthy and prosperous State.

What else can we do?

Political reform

Making all these wonderful things possible requires one thing. The political will. Too many people are not getting involved with moving our State and Country forward. They sit on the sidelines while an elite group of career politicians work to preserve their own fiefdoms while failing to move our government forward. But it only happens because we let it happen. We don't have all these good things because we don't demand it, we don't get involved. We treat politics as a pariah or a vehicle for graft and corruption rather than a responsibility to be shared by all for the general good of our society. I am running for public office to show how even an average citizen can get involved and make a difference. To show how we can penetrate the political establishment and build a mandate for reform and progressive action. Defeatism is not an option, we need to claim our government.

We need term limits for elected officials. There are plenty of full time permanent employees in our government we do not need full time permanent elected officials, we need well informed citizens to guide the actions and provide over site of the public and private sectors of our State. not entrenched policy makers with insider ties to special interests. But this is something we need to claim. We need to end gerrymandering and the drawing of legislative lines in order to protect political strongholds, we need free and open elections and a variety of other progressive election reforms, but most importantly, we need you. The success of our society depends on it.

Criminal Justice Reform

We have too many people in prison that do not need to be there. Low level drug offenders or petty criminals that can be given the healthcare and job training they need to keep them out of trouble with the proper guidance. We also need to legalize Marijuana once and for all. It would be great for our economy, a healthier alternative to alcohol and opiates, and a source of food, fuel and medicine. It's time we ended this prohibition in our State and in our Nation.

Summary

These are the main issues I am running for, they are not complex ideas that can only be understood and managed by a select few in the ruling class, but something all citizens should be aware of and responsible for. I think this gives the reader a general idea of what I am running for and how I will act if elected, but more importantly I hope it finds like minded people to help join the fight for these progressive ideals. Together we can make great things happen, but if we fail to act the consequences could be devastating. Please join me.

This page is sponsored by Paul Alirangues for NJ State Assembly - District 22 at the sole expense of Paul Alirangues - no campaign contributions are solicited or accepted