Consumerism

This thought was triggered by attending the Inclusive Education Conference: Making it Happen at Te Papa, Wellington, New Zealand in September 2009. Professor Tony Booth and Professor Roger Slee were keynote speakers. Real Inclusion is almost infinite, so the discussion starts simply with this idea.

Imagine a centralised database where all your purchases and consumption are assigned a value based on their real cost: to society, the environment, human mental and physical health and the cost to peoples human rights.

Once you start going over a certain threshold of load (the value you are allocated is based on your global socio economic rating) you are taxed more.

To be eligible for this tax you have to be part of an electronically based society. This tax is completely automated by computer and you can see a graph or pictorial indication of how much your family has used of their allocation at the checkout or online.

The equity aspect is addressed by the nature of the model. The more money you have, the more you consume, the more you contribute to you life footprint liability.