For our upcoming book, we are doing new, deeper research into how a global basic income could be funded. Read our blog post about the latest numbers here.
A dividend for all from the global commons
A global basic income would be funded by charging corporations and well-off individuals for their overuse of the global 'commons'. An international carbon charge, a global wealth tax and a financial transaction fee would all be major contributors. Global ‘quantitative easing’ (money creation) would also play a key role. These funding streams could raise trillions of dollars a year for a global UBI fund.
How much could we raise for a world basic income?
Coming soon: Following five years of research we will shortly be publishing updated numbers showing how much could be raised through global taxes and fees to pay a worldwide basic income. To support this research, please consider helping to crowdfund our upcoming book, which will provide a tour of the global commons and explore in detail how we could use it to raise money for the people of the world.
A whole world of resources
The global commons refers to resources that either are or should be considered the common property of humankind, either because their value is created through our collective efforts, or because they exist naturally as part of our shared inheritance.
CO2 - Our atmosphere and the right to pollute it.
A global carbon charge could provide the initial funding basis for a worldwide basic income. Our atmosphere is clearly a global commons, and it makes sense that people receive compensation for damage done to it through carbon pollution. Capping overall carbon extraction and pricing CO2 at a starting rate of $135 per tonne would meaningfully address climate change while raising significant sums for a public dividend. Revenues should be placed in a global sovereign wealth fund and invested in renewable energy generation, ensuring the world has clean energy resources and providing dividends (i.e. the investment income from the fund) long after we stop using fossil fuels. A global carbon cap and share scheme of this kind has incredible potential to address two major global problems at once - climate change and extreme deprivation. Our full paper on this topic, including economic modelling by Autonomy, will be published in 2023.
A global carbon charge could provide the initial funding basis for a worldwide basic income. Our atmosphere is clearly a global commons, and it makes sense that people receive compensation for damage done to it through carbon pollution. Capping overall carbon extraction and pricing CO2 at a starting rate of $135 per tonne would meaningfully address climate change while raising significant sums for a public dividend. Revenues should be placed in a global sovereign wealth fund and invested in renewable energy generation, ensuring the world has clean energy resources and providing dividends (i.e. the investment income from the fund) long after we stop using fossil fuels. A global carbon cap and share scheme of this kind has incredible potential to address two major global problems at once - climate change and extreme deprivation. Our full paper on this topic, including economic modelling by Autonomy, will be published in 2023.
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A collective share in global corporations. Thinkers such as Yanis Varoufakis have proposed funding basic income by requiring that a percentage of the shares sold via Initial Public Offerings be held by a Commons Capital Depository. A proportion of the dividends paid out to shareholders by companies would then accumulate in a collective fund which would be distributed to everyone worldwide as a basic income. This idea recognises that corporations make money partly through the use of ideas, people, infrastructure and natural resources that have been publicly funded or are collectively owned, so the public deserve a share in the proceeds.
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Our money, and the real value within financial products. High finance only works if traders have 'confidence' in the products being exchanged. To create confidence, products have to originate in the real economy of useful things. Currencies and bonds get their value from the fact that populations go out to work and pay their taxes. Derivatives are based on farmers actually growing food next year, and on real earning people taking out mortgages on real homes. Without our hard work, the immense wealth within the finance sector would disappear, so it seems fair to ask that a portion of this wealth is shared among the people of the world that helped to create it.
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Our oceans and airspace, and the right to travel through them. Transnational shipping of goods, and aviation, are huge industries which rely on the use of these immense shared resources. We as the world's people could choose to charge for passage or freight through our airspace and oceans, and share this money out amongst us all.
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Our land. Most of us either have no access to land or we spend our lives renting or paying off the huge cost of a tiny parcel of it. In line with longstanding campaigns for Land Value Tax, owners of large areas of land could be required to contribute a proportion of the revenue they generate with it (in rents, agricultural produce or capital gains) to the world's people, in recognition that we all have a shared moral claim on the land.
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The riches beneath the land. Gold, diamonds, oil, iron and other minerals all occur naturally yet they are traded for vastly more than what it costs to extract them. Although it may be unjust to begin extracting global dividends from these resources now, when the world's best off countries got rich centuries ago from selling theirs freely, these are nevertheless resources that can be considered to be common property at least by the people who live in areas where they still exist. There may be socially just ways to accrue a fair dividend from their extraction.
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Energy from the wind, sun, rivers and waves. As energy prices rise, landowners who happen to possess windy hills, or who can stake a claim to sunny deserts or fast-flowing rivers, may make a fortune by selling us the output of our own weather. Although these are benign energy sources and their development should be encouraged, in time (especially as revenues from carbon taxes diminish) it may become right to gather a share of their revenues for humanity. |
Riches from space. Near-earth asteroids contain valuable minerals, and some companies are already lining up to mine them. As no one privately owns asteroids, it seems reasonable to consider them to be in shared ownership. Therefore some or all of the gains from asteroids should surely be shared among the people of earth, just as the people of a country (or their government) usually expect a share of the proceeds from mining beneath their lands. Other riches from space, including space itself and the right to keep satellites there, could be treated the same way.
Intellectual property, and the making of money from it. The fortunes made by Bill Gates and others programmers, writers and inventors were only possible because many people had built up knowledge before them, often for little or no pay. Our ancestors created this immensely valuable store of knowledge together, and we all deserve to share in the bounty created from it.
Intellectual property, and the making of money from it. The fortunes made by Bill Gates and others programmers, writers and inventors were only possible because many people had built up knowledge before them, often for little or no pay. Our ancestors created this immensely valuable store of knowledge together, and we all deserve to share in the bounty created from it.
There are many sources from which we could derive a global basic income. We can choose to tap into these stores and flows of wealth as much as the people of the world consider to be appropriate. Doing so feels radical. It would require an expansion in global co-operation to create tax- and rent-raising powers at the world level. A world fund would need to be created into which the proceeds could be accumulated, and from which the world basic income could be paid. These are big changes, but they are within our reach. The results could be spectacular.
