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A Sketch For A Free Socialism Part II
If the revenue from rents and the extraction of natural resources generated around $1 trillion per year it could generate a substantial amount of money for the special citizen’s dividends funds if most recipients found it desirable to place their dividend into one of the funds. These funds would only allow participants to pay in up to their citizen’s dividend in order to make sure that profits were spread more widely throughout a society. They may also be allowed to transfer balances between funds and access funds easily similar to money market accounts connected to debit cards. Citizens might find it especially desirable to pay in since the size of the total fund would allow it to be invested in ways that generates profits for the participants that the average person would otherwise be unable to access — such as VC investing and institutional types of investing of all sorts where there are high or unlimited possible upsides.
As the society develops the value collected in rents should increase and although rents will increase for each participant, it will also mean that they are allowed to place more money in to the citizen’s dividend funds. In 2020 companies raised $435 billion in stock sales, the SBA loaned around $750 billion to small businesses and relief efforts, and corporate bond sales were around $1.7 trillion. As long as the demand for funding does not grow more quickly than the amount being paid into these funds annually, where we are currently estimating $1 trillion per year with expectations that the value will grow, then it’s not hard to imagine that the collection of citizen’s dividend funds might someday have more than enough resources to cover the needs for allocation for most if not all of production.
The question of paying the citizens for the use of the natural resources can be separated from the question of how to fund government. If poverty is eliminated by the citizen’s dividends funds then the costs of government should decrease, including lower costs for welfare programs and law enforcement. One of the problems associated with privatization of government is the need for the wealthy to often pay more for services that the poor can not afford alone. With the elimination of poverty brought about through these funds private organizations that compete to offer government type services may become a more viable option since they may not require wealthy individuals to shoulder much of the costs. With the elimination of poverty and the reduction in taxes that discourage development and production human potential may be more fully developed and a substantial societal wide boom may occur.
Perhaps these humble suggestions will someday help to inspire a free socialism.
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