PRESS RELEASE:
THE SOCIETY ALLIANCE ANNOUNCES ITS FORMATION AND CAMPAIGN FOR ECONOMIC DEMOCRACY and launches a petition calling on government to work with the parties of opposition to provide energy at cost to hard hit households and businesses
Building a better post-covid future, reducing people’s cost of living and unifying society around our shared, collective purpose is the aim of the Society Alliance, a movement for reform of our economic system and politics. Sarah Ralphs, the founding leader of the Alliance says, “we need a levelled-up economy, an inclusive, fairer one which empowers all but particularly the young and those disadvantaged by gender and race. The cause of economic reform is that of social justice too”.
For over two hundred years we have relied on the private sector, taxation and increasing levels of debt in an attempt to create societal well-being, allowing shareholder owned companies a monopoly over the market economy. As was the case then, it remains now that there is food poverty, people cannot afford to heat their homes and the young in particular cannot find affordable housing.
The Alliance, through its ENERGY PETITION calls on government to work with opposition parties to establish a societal company that will provide energy at cost to individuals and businesses, matching the wholesale buying price with that charged to customers, with the operating costs of the company paid by an administration charge on those business customers most able to afford it. Once set up the company should then operate independently from government – run by trustees not for the benefit of shareholders. A similar model of company is proving successful in Norway and can be here.
The founder of the Alliance and author of “the Politics of Society and Market Societism”, Peter Ellis, whose ideas were published recently by the RSA in , “a better future….imagining a societal economy”, calls for a paradigm shift in favour of consumers and society saying “private equity hoovers up food retailing profits but our children go hungry, this is not acceptable. We should be as equal under our economy as we expect to be under the law. Consumer choice attached to a societally purposed enterprise economy will build a fairer economy and society. Rather than having the NHS and public services supplied by companies seeking to maximise profit it should be through societal ones keeping prices low and using profit from other sales to fund the NHS and social programmes”.
As Sarah makes clear, “the Alliance’s aims are rooted on humane, universal values of truth, integrity and compassion promoting economic democracy for our collective good but we should never sacrifice the significance of the individual”. Please direct any enquiries to Sarah Ralphs or Peter Ellis at societyalliance.org@gmail.com or phone Peter on 07808.857.517
The Society Alliance 