In the 1600s, Quakers acknowledged that, "The Fruits of the Earth belong to all of us."
"Meet the Minimum Needs of All", (MMNA) / New York Yearly Meeting (NYYM) of (2006), re-witnessed the tip of the iceberg of global poverty.
Given the financial crash of Oct 2008, I believe we are called upon to witness the iceberg itself and discern suitable corrective action.
Query:
If some are enabled to take, hold and benefit from the biospheric natural resources of land, energy, minerals and the electromagnetic spectrum, and allowed by law, pay little if any for its use, (and they strive to extend similar privileges for themselves over the oceans, potable water, air, space, and logical structures) , would not such accomodation lead to natural use of structural and direct violence by them over the general population, maintaining poverty considered necessary, (unwisely perhaps, since the bankers did acknowledge and make provision for teachers, priests, business people, policemen, judges and soldiers), for the retention of their enablement by us?
The general population in this context is everyone upto and inclusive of the uppermost global middle-class who are allowed to wait upon the elite.
Though they are well weaponized, we must re-witness the need for removal of this take (while the rest were poorly organized), by the global elite by raising consciousness on 'ground rent' unpaid by them on natural resources that constitute biospheric "common wealth" of human beings and other species. To reflect its ownership, the proceeds must then be distributed as a global Citizen's Dividend to every man, woman and child, while retaining global "free-enterprise".
(Alaska's miniscule, oil, Permanent Fund Dividend--PFD--paid $837 per person in year 2008; thus the frontier is closer to benefiting from the truth that evades most of us)
Once the global Citizen's Dividend is comprehended, negotiated and operative, it must be held in "trusteeship" by each of us and would lead to 'species environment friendly' governance, and a sustainable age of biospheric performance.
Background:
John Locke, 17th century British philosopher acknowledged that all land and its natural resources are rightly our "common heritage."
By the time of Adam Smith 1776, the established practice of 'free-enterprise capitalism' in a bountiful environment had concentrated wealth in the hands of a few.
Tom Paine, in Agrarian Justice, 1797, was supportive of John Locke, recognizing addition of value through individual / collective labor, but requiring that value added be held and paid for separately, and be not co-mingled with the "common heritage", to avoid potential confusion.
Henry George (1879) wondered in Progress and Poverty why despite progress poverty persisted, and concluded that the elite did not pay "land rent" that was due to the commons, but were allowed to get richer by charging others for use of natural resources (that belonged to all).
(Exxon Mobile : profits of 125 million dollars a day, every day, in 2008 from natural resources that belong to everyone. TV: Revenue for one minute of superbowl Ad, is one million dollars, utilizing the electromagnetic spectrum that belongs to everyone)
Andersen proposes that "technology", (intellectual property created by us, utilizing inheritance from previous generations and civilizations) , is "common heritage". (Natural Capital : Key to Economic Justice , by Alfred F Andersen, Tom Paine Institute, Portland, Oregon).
But, there is no need to worry : value created by technology, (intellectual property) could be rewarded by patents of limited duration, (17 years?), thereafter, merging into the "common heritage" of civilization for the benefit of the future.
Our top priority must be to realize non-violently Article 3 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Those of the First World population have realized Article 3 for themselves and reciprocity is a productive, healthy guideline; so, let's (more...)
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