MANA Initiative Policies
and Election Strategy
12th of September, 2024 –
Pālave⃑an Embassy, Princess Khan
Last modified: 15th of September, 2024 at 1:27p.m.
Table of Contents
- Housing Policy: We Must Construct
Additional Housing - Land Reform: Expropriating Empty
Properties from the Wealthy - Transportation: Expanding our Railroads and
Public Transporation Networks - Urban Planning: Building Walkable, Pro-Social
and Cycle-Friendly Cities - Second Renaissance: Bringing Back
Classical Architecture - Technology: Robotics, E-Vehicles
and Meat Alternatives - Healthcare: Obesity Regulation, Preventative Medicine
- Social Investment: Tangible Markets, Universal Basic Gold Coins / Services
- Law and Order: Addiction, Drug Decriminalization,
Crime & Punishment - Collective Wellbeing: Rethinking Therapy, Schooling
- Fiscal Policy: Rethinking Taxation, Currency, and the Gold Standard
- Human Rights: LGBTQ+, Gender Affirming Healthcare
- Animal Rights: Welfare and Liberation
- Foreign Policy: Immigration, the Military and the New Cold War
Under Construction...
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Housing Policy:
We Must Construct
Additional Housing
Our goal as Astromaryan Socialists is to decommodify the very basis of housing and accommodation – by bring the total cost of residential properties all the way down to $80,000NZD or less – per house, unit or apartment.
Additionally, we will deconstruct the housing market in its current form, and make it illegal for foreigners to buy properties in New Zealand, full stop.
In order for new arrivals and immigrants to qualify for our stock of subsidized housing, they must have the intention to live and work here permanently.
We shall boost our supply of affordable homes and apartments by first of all acquiring empty properties through the expropriation of real estate listings from the very top earners in this country, and then using that land for our projects.
Public housing needs to be built in as many random, scattered parts of every town and city as possible – so as to avoid the creation of segregated ghettos and marginalized communities.
Tiny houses and concrete domes fabricated using concrete '3D-printers' and make-shift containers, is an option worth exploring, as it is way more private and comfortable for the individual than it would be to be squashed into a boarding house, or worse yet – living in a car, or motel!
Each and every tiny house [must] come with its own backyard, in addition to some room for expansion if the family or individual wishes to upgrade or renovate their property – which they are perfectly entitled to, with minimal to no regulations.
Likewise – each and every apartment, townhouse or unit must also come with a community garden at ground-level, so that even people living in the cities can enjoy the privileges of having a lawn, and a vegetable garden.
All of our public housing stock will come with a rent-to-own payment plan – and the rental housing market will likewise be highly regulated, until it is eventually abolished altogether.
Being a landlord OR a renter will become a thing of the past – and our mission is to achieve a home-ownership rate of 100%.
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At the end of the day – the reason governments around the world refuse to provide affordable housing, is because forcing people to pay obscene amounts of rent, usually means that they also have to work long hours just to be able to live – and forcing people to work long hours tends to boost GDP, despite it being a covert form of slavery.
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Land Reform:
Expropriating Empty Properties
from the Wealthy
In 2021, residents of Berlin voted to expropriate 240,000 apartments from private companies as a way of dealing with rising rents.
The housing crisis, driven by decades of privatization and increasing demand, has seen rents soar in Germany – as Land is a scarce natural resource that will always be in limited supply.
Yet despite the referendum's successes, campaigners have criticized the lack of political will to act, as well as the obstruction from 'expert' commissions – with calls for a more transparent approach and suggestions to broaden the movement or escalate tactics like rent strikes to push for concrete results.
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...So how can the New Zealand Left emulate this example without running into the same barriers?
Please refer to our: Roadmap for a New Zealand Revolution.
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Transportation:
Expanding our Railroads
and Public Transportation Networks
Car-dependent infrastructure is a scourge on our collective psyche which, much like our housing crisis, is fueling our rising rates of obesity, loneliness and social alienation.
Cars make people anti-social. They kill people, pets, wildlife, the environment and suck the beauty and soul from out of our cities.
Cars kill more people than terror attacks, mass shootings or domestic violence every year (at least in New Zealand), yet no politician could propose reducing our dependence on these murder machines without being ridiculed.
To put it into perspective:
- USA: 40,000 car related deaths vs. 48,000 gun related deaths per year.
- NZ: 340 car related deaths vs. 60 gun related deaths per year.
As trivial as the figure on the left might seem – we make a [huge] deal about gun control.
Driving is [not] in fact a privilege. You need insurance, registration and a license. You need to obey speed limits. You need to sit in traffic. You still need to plan your trips. It is far more expensive in the long run than simply taking a bus, or a train.
...And you would still need to go to the gym in order to spend the excess calories you would have otherwise burned while walking!
Cars take up space. Parking lots will charge you per hour. Billions of taxpayer dollars are spent every few years in order to build more roads, add more lanes, and keep them paved. Highways may as well be railways in and of themselves.
Parking lots are even being put up for rent – just for the privilege of actually putting your cager somewhere, adding yet another layer of insanity to the picture.
Cars might make it easy in order for you to pick up your brand new dishwasher from the home depot, though you'd probably still need to get your fridge delivered to you by truck.
Cars are the reason why 'indoor cats' are becoming a thing – and they're capable of killing just as many birds as your average kitty.
We need more cycleways, more railroads, pedestrian-friendly cities, public places for people to meet face-to-face without spending any money – and a massive upgrade to our bus networks. Which brings me now to my next point...
Urban Planning:
Building Walkable, Pro-Social
and Cycle-Friendly Cities
Western society is defined by its greater emphasis on Individualism. The adoption of the automobile could be considered a natural progression of this logic.
Instead of laundromats, everyone can have a washing at home. Instead of taking the train, or the bus, and dealing with smelly and annoying strangers, you just drive the car. Instead of talking to cashiers and receptionists, you just order all of your meals, clothes, tools and gadgets online.
Instead of talking to people and making friends, you can even now have an A.I. companion – albeit with the help of a giant corporation whose profit model relies on you borrowing processing power from their servers, since the average person probably can't afford a fast enough computer to be able to run A.I. applications as smoothly as they'd like.
"A blitzkrieg toward complete and total isolation..." is how some people have described the phenomenon, which probably explains why Loneliness has become such a big deal in the First World – with the U.K. and even the U.S. now having their own Ministers of Loneliness.
South Korea and Japan, on the other hand, have already moved on to Robot Girlfriends, in addition to dealing with an aging population, presumably due to people's unwillingness to raise children, as well as the lack of affordability in doing so.
These are all problems that would have sounded like an absolute joke to someone living in the early 20th century, yet here we are – and nearly 40% of people in the U.K. and even New Zealand are now overweight. (And lonely).
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The solution to this is not to force people to socialize, or have children. Nor should we be forcing people to lose weight at gun point.
Simply providing the infrastructure for people to walk and meet in public without having to be there for any specific purpose should already suffice.
Meetups and 'hobbies' generally do not solve the problem, because most people get hung up and intimidated at the thought of having to sign up to those groups. They're usually also made up of older people, which in turn means that younger folks have no choice but to spend their days predominately online.
A well-designed city should [not] have a busy road wedged between rows of shops. Instead – people should be able to walk freely without having to wait for the cars pass. Ideally, the streets should also be laid with bricks, and decorated with plenty of vegetation so as to create a more inviting look and atmosphere.
Buskers, lemonade stands and farmers markets should also be encouraged as a way to brighten the mood, and breathe life into our towns. As opposed to just having a sterile, clinical-looking wasteland of parking lots and drivethru takeaways – as is the case in most parts of the U.S., the U.K. and New Zealand.
It's fair to say that conservatives are the pampered cry-babies in this debate – much like the humans in the movie Wall-E!
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Second Renaissance:
Bringing Back Classical Architecture
Far from being the stereotypical look of dystopian, communist dictatorships – brutalist architecture is taking over our cities, especially here in New Zealand.
We simply do not bother decorating the windows and entrances to our banks, hospitals, libraries and shopping centers with flowers and sculptures anymore – aside from plastering them with billboards, advertisements and neon lights that only look good at night time.
I believe this logic is borne out of the Post-modernist notion that "There's no such thing as objective beauty – and it's all just a matter of individual opinion."
Just as: "There's no such thing as having a cultural identity – and we should instead allow all cultures to have their own little [Insert Country Name Here]-town and let it all be a battleground of ideas, and markets!"
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This is not to say that we should discriminate against people of different cultures and religions. Rather – we have the right to prioritize and manifest our own cultural heritage onto our towns and cities, just as other countries do within their own borders.
Otherwise, what would be the point in visiting China, Japan, Germany or the Netherlands – if it's all just going to be the same bunch of malls, shopping centres and KFC/McDonalds/Wendy's drive-thrus?
Heritage matters. Cultural identity matters. I would like to see more Māori sculptures and wood carvings when going outside, just as I would like to see roads and streets paved with bricks, and complemented by the sight of statues, cathedrals and castles for both tourists and citizens to enjoy.
Our hyper-individualism is causing us to regress into passive, infantile consumers – socially engineered into spending money, drained of their creative spirit and stripped of their strength and vitality.
But again... Communism is not to blame here – Capitalism is.
More Capitalism, More BigMacs and more Cars will [not] save the West.
Quite the contrary: it'll sterilize it, and render it a glorified resthome.
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Technology:
Robotics, E-Vehicles and
Meat Alternatives
Nobody could have predicted the rise of Large Language Models such as ChatGPT even 3 years ago – yet here we are talking to computers that can answer even the most complicated questions in less than a split second.
This article is being written as we speak... Check back later!