Extreme inequality
In our world economy at the moment, inequality is soaring, with the wealthiest 1% gaining an ever-growing share of total wealth. The Global Wealth Report 2015 states, "We estimate that the top percentile now own half of all household assets in the world," while Oxfam report that the world's 62 richest people own as much as half of the world's population put together.
What goes up must come down
In the world economy, there are many mechanisms that transfer wealth upwards, towards those who already have quite a lot of it. Rent is taken from tenants and passed to landlords. Profits are created by workers using natural resources, and are distributed among shareholders. Interest is taken from those who are forced to borrow money, and given to those rich enough to have money in the bank. Some tax regimes take a large proportion of income from people on low incomes, while taking little from the well-off. Even markets tend to favour the richest, with discounts for bulk purchases, and high transaction costs for those with the least. These mechanisms send wealth up the economic pyramid.
Other mechanisms bring wealth back down the pyramid. These include wages and salaries paid to workers, spending by rich people and companies on goods provided by poorer people and companies, progressive tax regimes, pro-poor public spending and social security. But many of these mechanisms are under attack or in decline. Trends in inequality suggest that these mechanisms for 'trickle down' are not enough.
To keep an economy stable, these mechanisms need to be in balance. Without enough ways to bring wealth back down, more and more of it will end up in the hands of a tiny number of people. The rest of us are left fighting over the crumbs.
Many people, including us at World Basic Income, believe that extreme inequality is unjust and problematic. We believe the economy needs to be re-balanced, with more mechanisms to bring wealth back down the pyramid, dynamically re-capturing it from the top 1% and sharing it amongst the rest of us.
We believe that a world basic income provides an ideal direct mechanism for doing exactly this. It gathers wealth from places where there is too much and re-distributes it to everyone, all over the world. We can vary the amount collected and redistributed, to adjust inequality to the level we feel is right. No other mechanism so directly addresses world inequality.
Other mechanisms bring wealth back down the pyramid. These include wages and salaries paid to workers, spending by rich people and companies on goods provided by poorer people and companies, progressive tax regimes, pro-poor public spending and social security. But many of these mechanisms are under attack or in decline. Trends in inequality suggest that these mechanisms for 'trickle down' are not enough.
To keep an economy stable, these mechanisms need to be in balance. Without enough ways to bring wealth back down, more and more of it will end up in the hands of a tiny number of people. The rest of us are left fighting over the crumbs.
Many people, including us at World Basic Income, believe that extreme inequality is unjust and problematic. We believe the economy needs to be re-balanced, with more mechanisms to bring wealth back down the pyramid, dynamically re-capturing it from the top 1% and sharing it amongst the rest of us.
We believe that a world basic income provides an ideal direct mechanism for doing exactly this. It gathers wealth from places where there is too much and re-distributes it to everyone, all over the world. We can vary the amount collected and redistributed, to adjust inequality to the level we feel is right. No other mechanism so directly addresses world inequality.
The earth is a common treasury for all.
The extreme inequality of the modern world poses many practical problems, but it is also the manifestation of historic injustices that have deprived most people of their fair share of the world's natural and collective wealth.
Once, the earth and its natural resources belonged to all of us. Over time, and usually with much violence, people began to enclose land and declare ownership over it. Our rights to travel, to build homes, to gather food and firewood, to graze our animals, to have space to be buried after our death - these rights were, deliberately or inadvertently, taken away from us. Now, most of us are obliged to pay someone else for the ability to do these things.
Other kinds of property are not naturally occurring, but many people believe they should be thought of as collective goods, as their creation is the result of thousands of years of combined human efforts. Intellectual property - everything from medicines to seeds to computers - is thought by many to fall into this category.
It feels fair to pay others for work that they do for us, but to pay for access to land and natural resources that simply exist seems unfair. Similarly it seems odd that a few people are able to charge us so much for using intellectual property that our own ancestors may have helped to create. But of course, most of today's owners of land, natural resources and intellectual property also paid for them - they bought them from the previous owners, who bought them from the owners before that. In practice it would be extremely difficult, and in many cases unfair, if we were to now declare everything to be common property. How then can we recognise people's rights to share in the wealth of the world?
Once, the earth and its natural resources belonged to all of us. Over time, and usually with much violence, people began to enclose land and declare ownership over it. Our rights to travel, to build homes, to gather food and firewood, to graze our animals, to have space to be buried after our death - these rights were, deliberately or inadvertently, taken away from us. Now, most of us are obliged to pay someone else for the ability to do these things.
Other kinds of property are not naturally occurring, but many people believe they should be thought of as collective goods, as their creation is the result of thousands of years of combined human efforts. Intellectual property - everything from medicines to seeds to computers - is thought by many to fall into this category.
It feels fair to pay others for work that they do for us, but to pay for access to land and natural resources that simply exist seems unfair. Similarly it seems odd that a few people are able to charge us so much for using intellectual property that our own ancestors may have helped to create. But of course, most of today's owners of land, natural resources and intellectual property also paid for them - they bought them from the previous owners, who bought them from the owners before that. In practice it would be extremely difficult, and in many cases unfair, if we were to now declare everything to be common property. How then can we recognise people's rights to share in the wealth of the world?
A dividend for all
A world basic income could provide an answer. Another name for basic income is the 'universal dividend', which reflects this idea of common ownership and sharing of proceeds.
This idea is already in practice in Alaska, where revenues from oil drilling are shared out among citizens via the Alaska Permanent Fund, helping the state to achieve the lowest inequality level in the USA. A similar scheme has been proposed by Indian economists, who are calling for revenues from the mining or iron and other minerals to be invested in an endowment fund, with its proceeds being distributed equally to all.
These ideas are radical, but with inequality as extreme as it now is, we need to begin thinking beyond the old solutions. It is our world, and our wealth - why not invent decent solutions to make the best use of it?
This idea is already in practice in Alaska, where revenues from oil drilling are shared out among citizens via the Alaska Permanent Fund, helping the state to achieve the lowest inequality level in the USA. A similar scheme has been proposed by Indian economists, who are calling for revenues from the mining or iron and other minerals to be invested in an endowment fund, with its proceeds being distributed equally to all.
These ideas are radical, but with inequality as extreme as it now is, we need to begin thinking beyond the old solutions. It is our world, and our wealth - why not invent decent solutions to make the best use of it?
