Tiberius Thought

Braun Spencer Thought is the ideology of Braun Spencer, otherwise known as DerVampir666. His ideology is -. His ideology has been described as Distributist Progressivism and  Agrarian Social Democracy.

Economics
Braun supports a market economy where production and consumption is as  local as possible. He therefore wants an economy dominated by small businesses (preferably less than 150 employees in most industries) and worker co-ops (which tend to be small). He also supports decentralizing the currency through community banks and credit unions. In cases of natural monopolies and when economies of scale are necessary evils, they should be handled by state-owned enterprises. He also supports de-urbanization, which he feels would be a natural consequence of  taxing away economic rents and an economy where most economic activity is localized.

Small Business
Braun is an enthusiastic supporter of small businesses for:
 * Being more innovative—generating 14-16 times more patents than bigger firms.
 * Greener, as they take steps to respond to an increasingly anxious consumer base.
 * Are better responsive to price signals in general, making them more efficient.
 * Being better for workers.
 * A sole proprietorship down the street is more accountable than anonymous shareholders 1,000 miles away.
 * Small business employees report higher job satisfaction, happiness, and commitment; and feel their concerns are listened to and addressed by leadership.
 * And in abundance small businesses will compete for the best working conditions and pay possible. This, combined with LVT and prohibiting usury, will inhibit surplus-value extraction as well.
 * Empowering and autonomizing small communities.
 * Buying locally generates more local wealth and jobs, making small communities like towns and villages more self-sufficient (local multiplier effect).
 * Small businesses foster a sense of community (e.g. a family-owned arcade sponsoring the kid's baseball team and donating heavily to local causes).
 * And empowering ethnic, racial, gender, and sexual minorities—giving them more financial independence.

Worker-Owned Firms
Braun is also a strong supporter of worker co-ops. Most of them are small, only hiring 20 workers on average. It's axiomatic that the benefits of small businesses above apply to worker-owned firms. In Italy the towns with the most worker-owned firms had better health and educational outcomes, lower crime rates, and a sense of optimism and solidarity. In that same country they also had a higher three-year survival rate (87%) than traditional firms (48%). Worker co-ops encourage more local consumption and production since they prioritize their member's well-being over growth. (Which is why they're almost always small-scale.)

If state-owned enterprises (SOEs) must exist, Braun feels they should be managed, in whole or in part, democratically.

However, the Mondragon Corporation—as they hired more independent contractors than worker-owners—convinced Braun that once co-ops become too large they will suffer from the same flaws as big businesses. Therefore, unlike many libertarian market socialists, Braun doesn't discriminate when it comes to  busting trusts.

Wealth Inequality
Braun sees large concentrations in wealth as an existential threat to both democratic institutions and  human rights. The big businesses which fuel such inequalty are a source of stagnation. Once they achieve a certain size they only do the bare minimum to maintain their market share. An example of this is Big Tech companies spending more on patent enforcement, stifling competition, than on research and development. Big Pharma does something similar by spending more on marketing than creating new drugs. And to the extent Big Pharma does create new drugs, they're rushed, mediocre, and/or dangerous—often doing shady things like covering up negative clinical trial data to deceive patients and doctors. And big businesses eventually become central planners, as demonstrated by the socialist Leigh Phillips in "The People's Republic of Walmart"; and all the inefficiencies seen in Soviet-style economic systems apply.

More than this, wealth inequality corrupts our institutions. Two ways this is done:
 * [[File:CronyCap.png]] By lobbying politicians. Basically, big businesses donate money to political campaigns which best reflect their policy preferences. That means candidates with the most campaign finances get the most advertisements on television, billboards, etc. This sort of manufacturing consent ensures that candidates most aligned with the rich get the most attention, and therefore the most votes. TL;DR the wealthy have the loudest voices.
 * [[File:Regulationism.png]] By regulatory capture. Regulatory agencies meant to protect the common man against dangerous products and working conditions become bedfellows with the wealthiest firms in their respective sectors. A great example of this is nearly half of the FDA's budget comes from the biggest pharmaceutical companies; and this results in the FDA becoming complacent with the industry's unforgivable corruption.

Maximum Wage
Braun supports a maximum wage as argued for by Sam Pizzigati. Basically the highest-paid member of a firm cannot have an income ten times greater than the lowest paid employee (1:10). Every penny which crosses that threshold will be taxed away. This is to ensure businesses cannot accumulate enough capital to cause serious harm; but it also ties the profits of a business to the well-being of bottom-end employees.

Land Value Taxation
I'm a strong supporter of land-value taxation as promoted by Henry George. Private property in land is a source of monopoly, poverty, and inequality. As natural resource ownership concentrates, a landed plutocracy is better able to extract rent, labor, and other resources from the unlanded commons like leeches. If one cannot access the means of survival without submitting themself to those who "got there first," they're effectively a slave. Suppose you among 100 people crash-landed on an island and claimed all of its natural resources, beating everyone (who were either still unconscious or unable to keep up) to them. In order to access these resources like clean drinking water and coconuts, you demand they do your bidding. They're de facto your chattel slaves.

Hunter-gatherers treat the land as common property. Work to them is play and starvation doesn't exist since they take from nature what they need according to ability. We should emulate this within the context of a modern society. And the best way to do this is ensure those who occupy and use land must reimburse the community for excluding others based on its market value.

In a country as massive as the United States, adopting something like  Singapore's system would promote rural life since most land value is in urban areas. Many people in urban areas will move elsewhere to avoid paying the tax, while city-dwellers pay most of it. It would also make rural areas cheaper to occupy and use, boosting the number of entry-level farmers and small-scale entrepreneurs. This is why farmers across the globe support this scheme. And of course this would deprive the wealthy of another tool to exploit the common man.

The revenue derived from this scheme should go towards a basic income and other effective programs.

Welfare State
Braun believes the welfare state is ineffective at addressing the cause of poverty while worsening it in other cases. It makes the vulnerable dependent on corrupt bureaucrats for survival. In some cases these programs make it impossible for people to find success. Disabled people, for example, are unable to secure even part-time work since they will lose their benefits for having an additional income stream. Braun supports the following:
 * A [[File:Yang2020.png]] universal basic income which replaces most other welfare programs (e.g., food stamps), which Braun feels is more efficient since you can't lose those benefits.
 * A decentralized [[File:Keynes.png]] government jobs guarantee designed to improve the infrastructure of local communities, paying workers a living wage.
 * A [[File:Bism.png]] national health insurance scheme where healthcare is supplied by a free market but paid for by the government.
 * And [[File:Cball-Singapore.png]] "universal public housing" where the [[File:Georgist.png]] government leases land according to its unimproved value.

Suburbs
Although Braun would prefer a return to rural communities, he realizes most Americans live in suburbs and prefer them. Therefore completely getting rid of them by is unrealistic. The neoliberal fetish for bulldozing them will never win elections. And by Braun's standards the suburbs are superior to the city. Braun supports in the immediate-term making suburbs more efficient. Namely reducing car dependency. To achieve this he supports drastically expanding public transportation, such as buses, vanpools, and transit systems (e.g., high-speed rails, commuter rails, streetcars, and subways). Building more bike lanes and pedestrian-friendly infrastructure in the suburbs is a good idea too. He also supports increasing the number of small businesses and the self-employed; the former has been shown to reduce car dependency.

Education
Braun used to support privatizing education and ending subsidies to colleges. This is because of Bryan Caplan's book "The Case Against Education." It resulted in his belief that increasing access to education creates credential inflation, where it becomes difficult to find a job in the face of needing to appear unique to employers. It's why a job someone could've done out of high school full-time in the 1950s now requires a bachelors degree. This is in spite of such jobs being stupidly easier via technology. Braun's solution to public education currently is:
 * Elementary and middle school remaining similar to what we have today, but with improved funding.
 * Upon finishing middle school (8th grade), a student will take an exam on most things learned that's similar to the GED test.
 * If they get a good score on the exam they will be placed into high school.
 * If they get a low score, however, they will be placed into a trade school so they will complete their schooling with a marketable skill.

Braun also supports nationalizing tertiary education. His reasoning is that most countries across the globe which do this actually see college attendance decrease. Because the government will only spend money on students who show promise. In the American context of Braun's situation, that would entail those who do well in high school. Thus nationalizing it would not only remove the profit incentive to boost student numbers, but would overall decrease enrollment numbers. Making it more difficult to access means credential deflation. This, combined with universal trade school, would stabilize job markets in a way which helps the impoverished.

LGBT Rights
Braun is a supporter of equal rights for same-sex couples and  transgender individuals. Though he confesses to bias since he's bisexual. He's also befriended many transgender and non-binary people over the years, which has influenced his opinion on the subject. He feels the persecution of LGBT people in the United States justifies protecting the 2nd Amendment for them; especially for transgender citizens. He feels an economy based on small businesses will also empower sexual minorities in general since they will have greater financial independence (and therefore autonomy). He feels the same regarding / racial/ethnic minorities.