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citizen’s wage,
with commentary on the misconstruing of property,
ownership and subsidy
a briefing document |
site map |
We brought nothing into the world, and we take
nothing out. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away: blessed be
the name of the Lord.[1 Timothy 6.7 [1]]
Index
introduction
confusions with ownership
heritage of knowledge and resources
citizen’s wage
the idle poor
taxation
common wealth and the common wealth dividend
end notes
introduction
A citizen’s wage,
or common wealth
dividend (c.w or c.w.d.),
is an amount paid out to every member of a society as a matter of right.
It is normally discussed in terms of tax neutrality. The c.w.d. is directed
to replacing all the array of means-tested, and other,
handouts from government. This includes pensions, wage supplements,
child or family allowances, and so on. Everybody is then taxed according
to the same rules.
Taxes are set at levels that effectively recoup the c.w.d. from the
better-off. The c.w.d. is steadily raised to replace the various allowances
etc. referred to above, which are then phased out. This removes ‘poverty
traps’ and the dependency culture, while greatly simplifying administration.
This results in the removal of much unproductive (counter-productive)
make-work.
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confusions
with ownership
I have written in power,
ownership and freedom on some of the basics of ownership.
I now intend to extend the analysis of ownership in order to remove
some other confusions.
Marx, in confusion and resentment, outlined a wholly false pseudo-analysis
of the sources of ‘profit’ in response to the perceived
inequity/injustice of the control of power and wealth in his society.
Arriving at a conclusion that profit was ‘exploitation’
of ‘the workers’ and that ‘them’ were to ‘blame’,
he thence embraced ideas of ‘class’ warfare and revolution
inherited from Saint-Simon.
While it is clear that ‘the workers’, in the sense of those
working directly upon an artifact, impart some of the value produced;
in modern society, a very great deal also goes into organising, transporting,
publicising and marketing the products from the factory system of mass
production. A very great deal of the value
of these products is that of accrued knowledge transmitted down the
ages through culture. Without Newton and the founders of libraries,
without the organisers of factories and those who worked out the production
processes, without the thousands of ancestors who worked out how to
use materials like metal and rubber; there would be no products for
‘the workers’ to produce and little wealth to spread around,
including productive wealth to improve the lives of the majority of
working people.
heritage
of knowledge and resources
I discussed the logic of power in power,
ownership and freedom, and I will not repeat that here. It
is clearly necessary for able people to build and run the factories
of modern production. However those, who apparently own that capital
and the power that accrues to the ‘owners’, heavily rely
upon appropriation of the cultural heritage. The manufacturing capital
and resultant power is no more ‘all
their own doing’ than is the air we breathe or are the elements
we access from the earth. Often, this power is inherited by those who
currently claim ownership without having made any contribution to that
accumulated wealth, and by people with little ability to develop or
manage that largesse. Such claims to individual ‘ownership’
of this cultural accumulation are dubious at the minimum. This
wealth is an inheritance of the culture of the world at large, and not
that of some particular living individuals within that culture.
Such wealth has no natural rightful
living owner.
This wealth makes up a considerable proportion of the items valued
by present humans. Current production is at least fifty or a hundred
times greater than it was one hundred years ago. The quality and efficiency
of the products have greatly advanced, and include the means to push
back disease and starvation. This inherited common wealth
does not ‘belong’ to the government. It does not naturally
‘belong’ to those with signatures on documents.
It is a trust inherited from our
ancestors.
It is the general natural human patrimony.
The society at large, the natural inheritors, have a reasonable
claim on at least a large proportion of the common wealth. A citizen’s
wage is not a ‘redistribution’ of the wealth of natural
‘owners’; it is a reasonable distribution to those who naturally
inherited it from the past; in a false sense, a return of misappropriated
goods. ‘False’ because I have little reason to believe that
those currently with their names on title documents took any deliberate
acts to ‘steal’ that wealth.
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citizen’s
wage
Now, in some degree this is recognised by the clumsy tax and redistribution
programmes of modern states. But it is not tolerable to have this wealth
taken arbitrarily and redistributed through ‘means tests’
by those assuming the power of control over such goods; nor are the goods
theirs to control. As stated, they are the common
inheritance. Those administering a citizen’s wage are merely intermediaries,
not legitimate power brokers.
A citizen’s wage is a natural right, not some
human administered charity or dole
A citizen’s wage is not something to be begged
for by mendicants from the largesse of a controlling class.
The change from begging and intrusive means testing represents a considerable
difference from the puritanical attitudes of the socialist
state, and even from those of the self-righteous, self-anointed ‘owners’
of wealth.
To introduce the citizen’s wage, at a high value suddenly and without
thought, may well disrupt work motivation and the current culture to which
people are habituated. It should be started
at a fairly low level, and steadily phased in until the plethora of ‘allowances’
(pocket money) doled out by the state, with all the associated spies and
intrusions, are eventually removed and replaced by the universal unconditional
right of the citizen’s wage.
A citizen’s wage will bring a raft of associated
advantages to society at large
Now we are entering an age wherever more is produced with ever less labour,
to such an extent that those of little skill cannot make a reasonable
living in the advanced cultures. This is aggravated by a situation where
ever more jobs require ever higher skills, while the numbers of low-skill
jobs shrink continuously. I see no reason why this process will not continue
until the amount of leisure time available to most people becomes very
great indeed. As Iain
Banks puts it in his novels on ‘the culture’, “Money
is a symptom of poverty”; or as an old joke has it, “Work
is the curse of the drinking classes”.
France, where such
matters are being handled with more sense that elsewhere, have now introduced
a 35-hour week and are beginning to discuss a citizen’s wage [2003].
In my view, modern societies are reaching the point where it will not
be possible to function without such a wage.
It is essential to educate to the greatest possible degree, in order
that an advanced civilisation can function and move forward (see franchise
by examination, education and intelligence); but education
is also necessary in order that people become not bored or destructive.
There remains vast work around the world, if we are to improve the lot
of the poor and to develop an advanced civilisation where low
technology methods do not destroy and poison the planet. The West
is in an advantageous position to train and educate the millions, in such
a manner that they will come to know how to apply the best and least damaging,
current technology.
the idle poor
However, in Western societies, a continually growing group of people
are not able to command sufficient return from their work to sustain a
minimal standard of living, unless they go begging to the governments
for handouts. Such people are also placed in a position where large corporations
can gouge their wages, because there is a considerable surplus of people
with insufficient skills to fill a steadily lessening number of low-skill
positions. Both the demeaning demands of socialistic governments, and
the puritans of the right, must adapt to modern conditions, not continue
with practices that grew from a far more backward and poverty-stricken
era.
Much of the reason for low wages is that market competition in the presence
of a growing over-supply of lower skilled workers will not allow corporations
to pay a reasonable living wage. The competition among the weak for limited
wages is also unreasonable because of the fear and health-threatening
insecurity that is associated with such stress. A citizen’s wage
can be set to allow the markets to clear, while those on a small citizen’s
wage will have the free choices and independence to take jobs only if
they wish to increase their basic standard of living, thus removing the
unreasonable power and bullying by the more fortunate and the more able.
taxation
Some have suggested that a citizen’s wage should be funded from
a very large inheritance tax, but this is to misunderstand basic economics
and the nature of tax.
All tax is collected from current
production
It does not matter a fig where a tax is applied, it is always a tax on
current transactions or production. There is no special merit in an inheritance
tax, and much difficulty in the application or collection of such a tax.
The citizen’s wage would primarily be spent on goods here and now
(or saved/invested). It would not be spent on deals concerning the great
concentrations of wealth. It would be spent on the production from the
factories, or on services, or go towards accommodation (for instance,
on land).
A large amount of intrusive modern government is devoted to deciding
just to whom they award a mess of ‘allowances’ and ‘wage
supplements’, ‘pensions’ etc. All this can be steadily
and systematically removed with a citizen’s wage, and the great
superstructure of government administrators released instead to do useful
work. Much everyday government intrusion would no longer be ‘necessary’.
Citizens would be considerably more free to choose their activities and
contributions. They could in due course live frugally on the citizen’s,
while writing their masterpiece; or learn to play a banjo in the attic.
If they wanted to move into better accommodation, purchase a new music
player, eat more luxuriously or visit the cinema regularly, they could
select the work and hours necessary, while not constrained to accept wages
below a level they considered acceptable. So, there would be no need for
minimum wage laws either.
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common
wealth and the common wealth dividend
Some dislike the term ‘citizen’s wage’ because it is
not a wage for any effort or work. It is a right allowed to all citizens.
Some claim that any such wage must be taken from the work of others but,
in fact, a very great deal of the wealth available to modern society does
not stem directly from the hand and head work of those performing the
tasks. It comes from the inventions and efforts of long dead ancestors,
and from the fact of the earth we find ourselves upon and the air we breathe.
Quite apart, this argument fails on the inconsistency that very large
amounts are already distributed by taxation.
It is quite reasonable to regard any fund as a royalty upon those efforts
of past generations, distributed as a dividend to those now living. What
Marx was pleased to call “Mister Moneybags” did not somehow
gain a moral right to the results of the inventions of Newton, or to possession
of the land. That Moneybags builds a great industrial empire from his
(or her) creativity and energy is admirable
and useful to us all. But his children have no obvious ‘right’
to the power that accrues
to large accumulations of wealth, once the founder and builder moves on
to the great factory in the sky.
However, breaking up such organisations on the demise of Moneybags and
dispersing the organisation for whatever it will fetch is a bit harsh
on the rest of the ‘family’, especially if some of them have
spent years training under the originator to run the organisation effectively.
A tax to repay the windfall extending over say 20 years may mitigate such
complications.
The part of the productive machinery that is not down to the creativity
of Mr. Moneybags can easily be considered common wealth, and hence our
citizen’s wage can as easily be called the common wealth without
even changing the initials! Or else, call it the common wealth dividend
– c.w.d. In due course, it is probable that the c.w.d. would become
converted into actual share or loan certificates. With these certificates,
future Moneybags or co-operatives could assemble the large concentrations
of wealth required for productive corporations.
The ‘right-wing’ puritanical classes
[2] use different excuses
from the ‘left-wing’ socialist puritans to keep the poor enslaved
(always for the ‘moral good’of the poor, of course). The‘right-wing’
puritans wish to ensure that government ‘charity’ is not ‘misdirected’
and that the poor do not lose the motivation to work! It is strange that
the puritans do not imagine that their own wealth has no such deleterious
effect on their moral standing and motivation!
An examination of a large proportion of those who
have contributed to the advance of civilisation shows that they have indeed
come from the ‘idle’ moneyed classes. The leisure has,
in fact, given them time to think and to develop human knowledge. I see
not the slightest reason why greater freedom to choose among all citizens
should not also greatly increase the numbers who choose to benefit society
and study with that objective in mind. Increasing leisure, and spreading
that leisure around throughout society, is a high public good. Most of
what is necessary is reasonable access to adequate education when necessary. |
End notes
- There is also a version at Ecclesiastes 5:15
 As
he came forth from his mother's womb, naked shall he go again as he
came, and shall take nothing for his labor, which he may carry away
in his hand.
Then
Job arose, and rent his mantle, and shaved his head, and fell upon the
ground, and worshipped,
And he said, “Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked
shall I return thither: the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away;
blessed be the name of the Lord.”
Bible, Job (ch. I, v. 20-21)
We
brought nothing into the world, and we take nothing out. The Lord gave,
and the Lord has taken away: blessed be the name of the Lord.
1 Timothy 6: 7
Or in another version:
Paul
wrote to Timothy: "Godliness with contentment is great gain. For
we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it.
But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that"
1 Timothy 6: 6-8
For the love of money is the root of all evils
1 Timothy 6: 10
- Because those whom I am discussing here impose their
puritanism upon others through mechanisms such as church and state,
rather than merely practicing their vices in isolation, they are also
obviously authoritarians. For more detail see socialist
religions.
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