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This interactive essay is ~8500 words
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Wealth, like language, is created collectively. It is then privatised by the powerful, who invent ideological explanations of why they deserve “their” wealth.11You may protest that not everyone is equally productive. True. In language too, not everyone has contributed as many new words and brilliant phrases as, say, Shakespeare. Nevertheless, if Shakespeare lived outside society, he would have no language himself. Similarly, Thomas Edison would have never invented the light bulb had he not stood on the shoulders of so many others. Wealth, like language, is thus a social output – the result of joint production by people who are alive and many who died long ago.Notes1You may protest that not everyone is equally productive. True. In language too, not everyone has contributed as many new words and brilliant phrases as, say, Shakespeare. Nevertheless, if Shakespeare lived outside society, he would have no language himself. Similarly, Thomas Edison would have never invented the light bulb had he not stood on the shoulders of so many others. Wealth, like language, is thus a social output – the result of joint production by people who are alive and many who died long ago. The more dominant these explanations become, the greater the extractive power of the few over humanity and nature – and the greater the loss of freedom and habitat.
If wealth is produced collectively, then why do some people receive huge dividends and others none? Because a select few have the sheer power to impose their property rights over jointly produced wealth and to extract dividends, with the constant help of a state (i.e., a government or a political entity and its system of laws, policies and institutions) that has their backs while they busily exploit, deplete and stifle our commonsThe commons refers to resources or spaces that are shared and accessible to all members of a community. These can include natural resources, public spaces, or cultural assets that are collectively owned and managed.Wikipedia in the name of private enterprise.
The creation of new commons, and the revival of the old commons that capitalism destroyedWe are losing the commons. Austerity and neoliberal policies have depleted our shared wealth; our national utilities have been sold off to foreign conglomerates, social housing is almost non-existent, our parks are cordoned off for private events and our national art galleries are sponsored by banks and oil companies.Penguin Books, is key to creating freedom and a sustainable world. But, where do we begin?
Imagine a trust fund for everyone that pays each individual a monthly Personal Dividend in lieu of the wealth we jointly create but cannot access – unconditionally, no strings attached.
Imagine that this trust fund is financed not by the taxes you pay (whether income or sales taxes), but through three separate sources of wealth that should have always been shared in the context of a new Monetary Commons:
- Our capacity jointly to create money (currently monopolised by financiers).
- Levies on activities that damage our surviving commons (nature, culture).
- Returns to capital that we produce collectively (R&D, big data, cloud capital).
Imagine the freedom this will create when everyone can do what, today, only the rich can do: Say no to bullshit jobsDoes your job make a meaningful contribution to the world? In the spring of 2013, David Graeber asked this question in a playful, provocative essay titled “On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs.” It went viral. After one million online views in seventeen different languages, people all over the world are still debating the answer.Simon & Schuster and exploitative deals that destroy dignity and smother creativity!
Imagine how it will enhance society’s capacity to encourage sustainability when anyone who damages our commons pays levies into a fund that finances everyone’s Personal Dividend.
Is this feasible? Of course it is. Will it be easy to implement? Technically, not hard at all. What will it take to implement it? An almighty struggle with the oligarchy who will fight tooth and nail to prevent it. Is it worth it? You bet!
The platform that can fund a Dividend for All by taking money-creation away from bankers.
Our simulation models say that they will, even if there is a lot of scepticism and ideological resistance.
When the idea of a trust fund for everyone, paying a Dividend for All within a Monetary Commons, reaches the ears of the powerful, they will instantly seek to turn you against it with horror stories of new taxes, galloping inflation, and state control of your money. You now know how to debunk their fearmongering and to expose their central motive in opposing the Monetary Commons: the desire to maintain their monopoly of society’s “money tree” along with their extractive power over humanity and nature.
Financial and Monetary Stability of the Monetary Commons
- Why the Personal Dividend within a Monetary Commons is good for financial stability and an excellent tool against deflation, unemployment and liquidity traps.
- Debunking false orthodoxies and setting up the Monetary Commons.
