The topic has been discussed to death but my touching on it just one more time is only so that I can add my two cents worth in its emphasis, that being just how the solution to many socio-economic problems resides in the simple resolution for all of us to come together in an attempt to address those issues. It doesn’t even have to be all of us in our entirety – all you need for something to fly is a collection of enough people to push the idea and to practice its principles.

This time we’re talking particularly about so-called uncle economics, which as the phrase suggests is an economic model which is based on the family dynamic of one’s relationship with their uncle. Basically it suggests that you would have a selection of uncles each of whom are in business, selling a range of products and services which form a vital part of your life as a consumer.

You don’t literally have to have nine or ten uncles who are uncles of yours by relation, but you’d rather have nine or ten figures who assume the uncle role somewhat.

The suggestion would be that if you for example had an uncle who owns and runs a butchery you would naturally be afforded a regular supply of meat at the “family” price, which is very close to if not dead on the production rate. The same would go for that uncle of yours who owns a fruits and vegetables store – you’d get your fresh produce at the family rate.

The same applies to pretty much every other product or service you’d need and I think you can start to see where this is headed…

So in action there would be a group of people, preferably a group of people living in close proximity to each other such as all the community members in your neighbourhood. All of these people would then put their heads and purses together to fund the formation of a collection of businesses which produce products and services that are essential to the basic sustenance of life.

The designated individuals who are to oversee the operation of those businesses are artificially assigned the tag of “uncles” simply because traditionally it was indeed some or other “uncle so-and-so” who ran the bakery, a locksmith’s, a gardening service, etc. These days of course it really doesn’t matter who would be in charge of the businesses and in fact “aunts” are encouraged to take ownership of some of these community businesses.

Since these are indeed still businesses, the rendering of services and the sale of products to consumers who aren’t part of the founding community would be given the regular price and those profits would then perhaps go down as the extra remuneration the “uncle” running the business would get to keep.

This system is based on a lot of trust and requires what appears to be too much of an effort in mass self-organisation, so for now it remains a concept which can only really exist in an ideal world.