Henry George: The Condition of Labor — An Open Letter to Pope Leo XIII in response to Rerum Novarum (1891)

As to the right of ownership, we hold: That —

Being created individuals, with individual wants and powers, men are individually entitled (subject of course to the moral obligations that arise from such relations as that of the family) to the use of their own powers and the enjoyment of the results. There thus arises, anterior to human law, and deriving its validity from the law of God, a right of private ownership in things produced by labor — a right that the possessor may transfer, but of which to deprive him without his will is theft.

This right of property, originating in the right of the individual to himself, is the only full and complete right of property. It attaches to things produced by labor, but cannot attach to things created by God.

Thus, if a man take a fish from the ocean he acquires a right of property in that fish, which exclusive right he may transfer by sale or gift. But he cannot obtain a similar right of property in the ocean, so that he may sell it or give it or forbid others to use it.

Or, if he set up a windmill he acquires a right of property in the things such use of wind enables him to produce. But he cannot claim a right of property in the wind itself, so that he may sell it or forbid others to use it.

Or, if he cultivate grain he acquires a right of property in the grain his labor brings forth. But he cannot obtain a similar right of property in the sun which ripened it or the soil on which it grew. For these things are of the continuing gifts of God to all generations of men, which all may use, but none may claim as his alone.

To attach to things created by God the same right of private ownership that justly attaches to things produced by labor is to impair and deny the true rights of property. For a man who out of the proceeds of his labor is obliged to pay another man for the use of ocean or air or sunshine or soil, all of which are to men involved in the single term land, is in this deprived of his rightful property and thus robbed.

As to the use of land, we hold: That —

While the right of ownership that justly attaches to things produced by labor cannot attach to land, there may attach to land a right of possession. As your Holiness says, “God has not granted the earth to mankind in general in the sense that all without distinction can deal with it as they please,” and regulations necessary for its best use may be fixed by human laws. But such regulations must conform to the moral law — must secure to all equal participation in the advantages of God’s general bounty. The principle is the same as where a human father leaves property equally to a number of children. Some of the things thus left may be incapable of common use or of specific division. Such things may properly be assigned to some of the children, but only under condition that the equality of benefit among them all be preserved.

In the rudest social state, while industry consists in hunting, fishing, and gathering the spontaneous fruits of the earth, private possession of land is not necessary. But as men begin to cultivate the ground and expend their labor in permanent works, private possession of the land on which labor is thus expended is needed to secure the right of property in the products of labor. For who would sow if not assured of the exclusive possession needed to enable him to reap? who would attach costly works to the soil without such exclusive possession of the soil as would enable him to secure the benefit?

This right of private possession in things created by God is however very different from the right of private ownership in things produced by labor. The one is limited, the other unlimited, save in cases when the dictate of self-preservation terminates all other rights. The purpose of the one, the exclusive possession of land, is merely to secure the other, the exclusive ownership of the products of labor; and it can never rightfully be carried so far as to impair or deny this. While any one may hold exclusive possession of land so far as it does not interfere with the equal rights of others, he can rightfully hold it no further.

Thus Cain and Abel, were there only two men on earth, might by agreement divide the earth between them. Under this compact each might claim exclusive right to his share as against the other. But neither could rightfully continue such claim against the next man born. For since no one comes into the world without God’s permission, his presence attests his equal right to the use of God’s bounty. For them to refuse him any use of the earth which they had divided between them would therefore be for them to commit murder. And for them to refuse him any use of the earth, unless by laboring for them or by giving them part of the products of his labor he bought it of them, would be for them to commit theft. ...

It seems to us that your Holiness misses its real significance in intimating that Christ, in becoming the son of a carpenter and himself working as a carpenter, showed merely that “there is nothing to be ashamed of in seeking one’s bread by labor.” To say that is almost like saying that by not robbing people he showed that there is nothing to be ashamed of in honesty. If you will consider how true in any large view is the classification of all men into working-men, beggar-men and thieves, you will see that it was morally impossible that Christ during his stay on earth should have been anything else than a working-man, since he who came to fulfil the law must by deed as well as word obey God’s law of labor.

See how fully and how beautifully Christ’s life on earth illustrated this law. Entering our earthly life in the weakness of infancy, as it is appointed that all should enter it, he lovingly took what in the natural order is lovingly rendered, the sustenance, secured by labor, that one generation owes to its immediate successors. Arrived at maturity, he earned his own subsistence by that common labor in which the majority of men must and do earn it. Then passing to a higher — to the very highest — sphere of labor, he earned his subsistence by the teaching of moral and spiritual truths, receiving its material wages in the love-offerings of grateful hearers, and not refusing the costly spikenard with which Mary anointed his feet. So, when he chose his disciples, he did not go to landowners or other monopolists who live on the labor of others, but to common laboring-men. And when he called them to a higher sphere of labor and sent them out to teach moral and spiritual truths, he told them to take, without condescension on the one hand or sense of degradation on the other, the loving return for such labor, saying to them that “the laborer is worthy of his hire,” thus showing, what we hold, that all labor does not consist in what is called manual labor, but that whoever helps to add to the material, intellectual, moral or spiritual fullness of life is also a laborer.*

* Nor should it be forgotten that the investigator, the philosopher, the teacher, the artist, the poet, the priest, though not engaged in the production of wealth, are not only engaged in the production of utilities and satisfactions to which the production of wealth is only a means, but by acquiring and diffusing knowledge, stimulating mental powers and elevating the moral sense, may greatly increase the ability to produce wealth. For man does not live by bread alone. . . . He who by any exertion of mind or body adds to the aggregate of enjoyable wealth, increases the sum of human knowledge, or gives to human life higher elevation or greater fullness — he is, in the large meaning of the words, a “producer,” a “working-man,” a “laborer,” and is honestly earning honest wages. But he who without doing aught to make mankind richer, wiser, better, happier, lives on the toil of others — he, no matter by what name of honor he may be called, or how lustily the priests of Mammon may swing their censers before him, is in the last analysis but a beggar-man or a thief. — Protection or Free Trade, pp. 74-75.

In assuming that laborers, even ordinary manual laborers, are naturally poor, you ignore the fact that labor is the producer of wealth, and attribute to the natural law of the Creator an injustice that comes from man’s impious violation of his benevolent intention. In the rudest stage of the arts it is possible, where justice prevails, for all well men to earn a living. With the labor-saving appliances of our time, it should be possible for all to earn much more. And so, in saying that poverty is no disgrace, you convey an unreasonable implication. For poverty ought to be a disgrace, since in a condition of social justice, it would, where unsought from religious motives or unimposed by unavoidable misfortune, imply recklessness or laziness. ... read the whole letter

Nic Tideman:  Applications of Land Value Taxation to Problems of Environmental Protection, Congestion, Efficient Resource Use, Population, and Economic Growth

Clarence Darrow: The Land Belongs To The People (1916)

This earth is a little raft moving in the endless sea of space, and the mass of its human inhabitants are hanging on as best they can. It is as if some raft filled with shipwrecked sailors should be floating on the ocean, and a few of the strongest and most powerful would take all the raft they could get and leave the most of the people, especially the ones who did the work, hanging to the edges by their eyebrows. These men who have taken possession of this raft, this little planet in this endless space, are not even content with taking all there is and leaving the rest barely enough to hold onto, but they think so much of themselves and their brief day that while they live they must make rules and laws and regulations that parcel out the earth for thousands of years after they are dead and, gone, so that their descendants and others of their kind may do in the tenth generation exactly what they are doing today — keeping the earth and all the good things of the earth and compelling the great mass of mankind to toil for them.

Now, the question is, how are you going to get it back? ... read the whole article

Nic Tideman:  Global Economic Justice, followed by Creating Global Economic Justice

Consider first the issue of intergenerational justice without the complication of international concerns. The efficient use of depletable natural opportunities requires that they be allocated over time in such a way as to maximize the present value of net revenue from sales. As economists have long known, this requires that prices charged for resources that are being depleted rise at the rate of interest. But this is just efficiency. It says nothing about who should get the money.

The axiom that all persons have equal rights to natural opportunities suggests that when we deplete a resource such as oil, there are two steps that must be taken to achieve intergenerational equity. In the first step, when oil is sold we must share the proceeds over generations in such a way that every person in every generation can receive a payment of the same real value every year. To satisfy this obligation when the number of people alive in different years is not proportional to the amount of oil used in those years, we need to invest the proceeds of oil sales in a fund that would make annual payments to all persons of a size that could be maintained for all generations.

This first step provides intergenerational equity with respect to oil revenue, but it does nothing about the fact that, if oil is allocated efficiently over time, later generations will face a higher price of oil than early generations. To provide equity with respect to the changing price of access to natural opportunities, there must be a second step that redistributes money among generations to offset the changing price.

This second step implicitly assumes a world with no change in technology. If an early generation provides later generations with improved technology, then the later generations are treated justly if the combination of prices of commodities, technology and money received from the earlier generation permits them to attain the same overall level of satisfaction as the earlier generation. This specification of justice presumes that everyone has the same tastes. When tastes differ, an improvement in technology that more than compensates some persons for a greater scarcity of some natural resources will provide inadequate compensation for others. Such inequality cannot be avoided. All that can be expected is that those who use exhaustible resources will, by limiting their use and providing endowments for future generations, make it possible for the typical member of every future generation to attain the same level of well-being as the typical members of the earlier generations of resource users. Success in such an effort cannot be guaranteed. We don't know the tastes of future generations. We don't know the rate at which technology will advance. We don't know the rate at which new resources will be discovered. Estimates of all these things must be made to determine the proper rate of resource use and the proper endowments of future generations. The most that can be asked for is a good-faith effort to achieve the standard required by justice.

Now consider the international dimension of intergenerational equity. What one nation owes to others with respect to intergenerational equity is compensation for making it more difficult for the other nations to provide adequately for their future generations. If all nations are using the same amount of oil per capita, then no nation can complain about what the others are doing. But if one nation is using more oil per capita than the others, then it owes compensation to the others for making it harder for the others to provide all of their future generations with equal rights to natural opportunities. If oil is being allocated efficiently and equitably among generations, the amount of compensation that an excessively consuming nation owes will be the market value of its excess oil consumption, valued in terms of the price of oil in the ground. The same result is obtained if all nations include the resource value of all oil that they consume, and all other depletable resources, in the calculation of what they appropriate for themselves from everyone's common heritage.

One of the ways that a nation can compensate other nations for disproportionate use of natural opportunities is by creating technology that other nations can use to compensate their future generations for scarcer natural resources. If gasoline costs twice as much but cars are twice as efficient, people are not, on net, disadvantaged by the higher price of gasoline. This line of reasoning requires contestable judgements about the value of new technology and how long it would have taken before someone else would have made the same discovery. Nevertheless, technological improvements are a valid form of compensation for resource scarcity.

One issue that arises when technological improvements are used as compensation is that not all nations place the same value on technology. If some island nation wishes to maintain a way of life that does not involve cars, then that nation is not compensated for an increased scarcity of fish by increased efficiency of car engines. What compensates a particular nation must reflect the typical preferences of that nation.

One of the ways in which harmony is promoted by a world order in which nations acknowledge an obligation not to make disproportionate claims on natural opportunities is through the incentives that such an order generates for nations to amalgamate.

Bill Batt: The Compatibility of Georgist Economics and Ecological Economics

Underlying the whole agenda is a commitment beyond simple description to sustainable development economics and to Daly’s “steady state” economics. This entails the institution of environmental safeguards, protection of cultural and biological diversity, minimal resource use, and recycling. It further means protection of small countries and localities — of both ecosystems and populations — against all-encompassing economic units that preclude the possibility of their being able to survive independently. It presumes also that not just humans alive today have entitlements, especially privileged elements of wealthy countries; it recognizes rather the justice and moral claims of people and natural ecosystems yet to live to survive as intact and integral units. It recognizes that governments must take a hand in the preservation of such ecosystems, as markets forces left to themselves will wreak destruction on the most vulnerable parts of the earth and ultimately upon the earth itself. It accepts the fact that the carrying capacity of the earth is  limited, and that we appear to have already exceeded that carrying capacity in our ignorance.119

• First, for emissions that do not cause significant damage and do not accumulate in significant concentrations, taxpayers would be charged a general fee.
• Second, in instances where incentives require altered behavior to address problems such as high ozone or carbon monoxide emissions in certain local areas, more targeted taxes would apply.
• Finally for those pollutants that have profoundly damaging impacts, regulation and perhaps criminal liability would be called for in cases of their release. These classes are labeled the “property rights zone,” the “incentive zone,” and the “regulatory zone” respectively. The model follows the growing interest and preference for pricing approaches over more heavy-handed and administratively inefficient CAC approaches.

Nic Tideman: The Case for Site Value Rating

If site value rating is used only to finance local public services and to reward private activities that raise the rental value of land, the resulting reductions in other taxes on commerce and housing can be expected to raise the rental value of land by enough that land will retain most of its present sale value, and there will be no issue of compensating the existing owners of land. On the other hand, if the full rental value of land is collected through site value rating, then the sale value of unimproved land will fall to approximately zero. The sale value of houses will fall to the value of the houses themselves. Do the owners of land deserve compensation for these reductions in the market value of their wealth?

First, it should be pointed out that the average taxpayer will pay the same tax as before, but in a different form. Site value rating will be substituted for some combination of income taxes, excise taxes, community charges, property value rates, and other taxes. A person should not complain about a change in the form of the taxes he pays if the total is the same. The above argument would be sufficient if every individual paid the same total tax after the change, but of course this will not occur. To some extent, increases in the sale value of capital will offset decreases in the sale value of land. This occurs because, by a removal of taxes from capital, site value rating will greatly increase the private returns to capital. This will generate a massive flow of capital toward any nation or region that reduces its taxes on capital. But such flows cannot occur instantaneously, and before they are completed the reductions in taxes on capital will raise the value of capital. In general, young persons will benefit more than older persons from a move to site value rating, because they tend to own less expensive plots of land if they own land at all, and they have many years ahead of them to benefit from reduction in other taxes. Those who are yet unborn will benefit most of all, because their birthrights to equal shares of the provenance of nature, as well as to the product of their labour, will be recognized. Net financial losses will tend to be greatest for older persons. Their houses will fall in sale value. They will be required to pay annually the rental value of the land on which their houses sit, without as much in reductions of their income taxes, and with fewer years ahead of them to reap tax savings. On the other hand, they will have less concern about providing for their children, because houses will be much easier for their children to acquire. Further offsetting any claim to compensation would be any past unearned profits that potential claimants had made on ownership of land.

In some circumstances, a claim for compensation would have merit. If a person had purchased a title to land from the government just before the introduction of site value rating, that person could reasonably claim compensation from government action that eliminated the value of his purchase. Even if a substantial amount of time has passed, it can be argued that a government should not be permitted to eliminate by legislation the value of an asset that it has sold. On this basis, anyone who owned land that was at one time purchased from the government would have a reasonable claim on a return of the (inflation adjusted) price for which the land was purchased from the government. A claim for interest on the purchase price could not be sustained, however. The use of the land since the time of purchase offsets the interest that could otherwise be claimed. ... read the whole article

Clarence Darrow: How to Abolish Unfair Taxation (1913)

Most of our laws were made by the dead, and the dead have no right to legislate for the living. The present generation has no right to bind its legislation upon the generation still unborn. When one generation is dead, it ought to stay dead and not reach out its dead hand to bind the living. We have no right to fix terms and conditions for those yet unborn; it is for each generation to fix the rules and regulations for itself. The earth should be owned by all men, the coal mines should belong to the people who live here, so they can take what they want while they live, as when they are dead they won't need coal — they will be warm enough without it — and they should not have the power to say who shall have it when they are gone. Carnegie and Morgan cannot use or withhold it much longer, as they will soon be gone — that is one consolation.

... The single tax theory is that the public should take all the value of land, as it was made by the public. Land value goes up because of population, and not because of the owner of the title deed, and the value should be taken by the community, and thus create a natural fund from which to make improvements for the comfort of all, and thus make life easier. It would abolish poverty, that crime of the century, which has always come with civilization; inequality of wealth, which comes as the world grows older, and which we have never been able to cure, because man wants to hold what he cannot use, and pass on to future generations what they will not use. ... read the whole speech

Peter Barnes: Capitalism 3.0 — Chapter 3: The Limits of Government (pages 33-48)

There’s even an economic theory explaining this: Mancur Olson’s logic of collective action. Olson, a Harvard economist, argued that unless the number of players in a group is very small, people won’t combine to pursue their common interests. For example, if the CEOs of five major airlines decide they want a $500 million government bailout, they pool their resources and hire a lobbying firm. Together they tell Congress that without the $500 million, their companies won’t survive, and the consequences of their collapse will be dire.

Who lobbies against them? No one. The reason is that, while the five airlines will gain about $100 million each, the average taxpayer will lose only $5 each. It’s thus not worth it for ordinary citizens to get off their duffs and fight.

On top of this, there’s an even deeper problem. Democracy responds at best to voters and at worst to money. Both voters and donors are living humans. Not even seated at democracy’s table — not organized, not propertied, and not enfranchised — are future generations, ecosystems, and nonhuman species. James Madison and his brethren could scarcely have foreseen this defect. In their day, politics was about the clash between living factions, not between living humans and their heirs, or between our species and the rest of nature. But that’s no longer the case.

The implications of Adam Smith’s quote at the beginning of this chapter are thus even graver than he thought. If government’s inherent bias is toward property owners, the losers aren’t only the poor. The losers are also future generations, ecosystems, and nonhuman species, none of whom own any property at all. The only positive news here is that the converse might also be true: if future generations, ecosystems, and nonhuman species did own property, they might have some economic and political power. ... read the whole chapter

Peter Barnes: Capitalism 3.0 — Chapter 4: The Limits of Privatization (pages 49-63)

It’s tempting to believe that private owners, by pursuing their own self-interest, can preserve shared inheritances. No one likes being told what to do, and words like statism conjure fears of bureaucracy at best and tyranny at worst. By contrast, privatism connotes freedom.

In this chapter, we look at Garrett Hardin’s second alternative for saving the commons: privatism, or privatization. I argue that private corporations, operating in unconstrained markets, can allocate resources efficiently but can’t preserve them. The latter task requires setting aside some supplies for future generations — something neither markets nor corporations, when left to their own devices, will do. The reason lies in the algorithms and starting conditions of our current operating system.

The Algorithms of Capitalism 2.0

If you’ve ever used a computer spreadsheet, you know what an algorithm is. Each cell in the spreadsheet contains a set of instructions: take data from other cells, manipulate the data according to a formula, and display the result. The instructions within each cell are algorithms.

If you think of the economy as a huge spreadsheet, with each cell representing a producer, consumer, or property owner, you can see that the behavior of the whole is driven by the algorithms in the cells. Our current operating system is dominated by three algorithms and one starting condition. The algorithms are:
(1) maximize return to capital,
(2) distribute property income on a per-share basis, and
(3) the price of nature equals zero.
The starting condition is that the top 5 percent of the people own more property shares than the remaining 95 percent.

The first algorithm is what drives corporations. It tells them to sell as much as they can, pay as little as possible for labor, resources, and waste disposal, and make shareholders happy every quarter. It focuses the minds of managers every day. If they work in marketing, they wake up thinking about how to sell more; if there’s no demand for their product, they must create some. If they work in finance, they worry about margins and leverage. If they’re in labor relations, they bargain hard, replace long-term employees with temps, and shift jobs to places where wages are lower. All the while, the CEO feeds sweet numbers to Wall Street.

The second and third algorithms then mesh with the first. It’s the combination of these algorithms that causes the wheels of capitalism to devour nature and widen inequality among humans. At the same time, nothing in the algorithms requires or encourages corporations, either individually or collectively, to preserve anything.

This doesn’t mean people inside corporations don’t think about protecting nature, raising their workers’ pay, or giving something back to society. Often, they do. It does mean their room for actually doing such things is too narrow to make a difference. Nor does it mean that, from time to time, some brave mavericks don’t briefly flout the corporate algorithm. They do that, too. What I’m saying is that, in the great majority of cases, the corporate algorithm and its brethren are obeyed. For all practical purposes, the publicly traded corporation is a slave to its algorithm. ... read the whole chapter

Peter Barnes: Capitalism 3.0 — Chapter 6: Trusteeship of Creation (pages 79-100)

It seems to me that, if anything is divine, it should be gifts of creation. Morally, they’re gifts we inherit together and must pass on, undiminished, to future generations. Economically, they’re irreplaceable and invaluable capital. Protection of these shared assets should trump transient private gain. Broad benefit should trump narrow benefit. The commons should trump capital. This should be written into our economic operating system and enforced by the courts. ... read the whole chapter

Peter Barnes: Capitalism 3.0 — Chapter 7: Universal Birthrights (pages 101-116)

A Children’s Opportunity Trust

Not long ago, while researching historic documents for this book, I stumbled across this sentence in the Northwest Ordinance of 1787: “[T]he estates, both of resident and nonresident proprietors in the said territory, dying intestate, shall descent to, and be distributed among their children, and the descendants of a deceased child, in equal parts.” What, I wondered, was this about?

The answer, I soon learned, was primogeniture — or more precisely, ending primogeniture in America. Jefferson, Madison, and other early settlers believed the feudal practice of passing all or most property from father to eldest son had no place in the New World. This wasn’t about equal rights for women; that notion didn’t arise until later. Rather, it was about leveling the economic playing and avoiding a permanent aristocracy.

A nation in which everyone owned some property — in those days, this meant land — was what Jefferson and his contemporaries had in mind. In such a society, hard work and merit would be rewarded, while inherited privilege would be curbed. This vision of America wasn’t wild romanticism; it seemed quite achievable at the time, given the vast western frontier. What thwarted it, later, were giveaways of land to speculators and railroads, the rise of monopolies, and the colossal untaxed fortunes of the robber barons.

Fast-forward to the twenty-first century. Land is no longer the basis for most wealth; stock ownership is. But Jefferson’s vision of an ownership society is still achievable. The means for achieving it lies not, as George W. Bush has misleadingly argued, in the privatization of Social Security and health insurance, but in guaranteeing an inheritance to every child. In a country as super-affluent as ours, there’s absolutely no reason why we can’t do that. (In fact, Great Britain has already done it. Every British child born after 2002 gets a trust fund seeded by $440 from the government — $880 for children in the poorest 40 percent of families. All interest earned by the trust funds is tax-free.)

Let me get personal for a minute. My parents weren’t wealthy; both were children of penniless immigrants. They worked hard, saved, and invested — and paid my full tuition at Harvard. Later, they helped me buy a home and start a business. Without their financial assistance, I wouldn’t have achieved the success that I have. I, in turn, have set up trust funds for my two sons. As I did, they’ll have money for college educations, buying their own homes, and if they choose, starting their own businesses — in other words, what they need to get ahead in a capitalist system.

As I hope my sons will be, I’m extremely grateful for my economic good fortune. At the same time, I’m painfully aware that my family’s good fortune is far from universal. Many second-, third-, and even seventh-generation Americans have little or no savings to pass on to their heirs. Their children may receive their parents’ love and tutelage, but they don’t get the cash needed nowadays for a first-rate education, a down payment on a house, or a business venture. A few may rise because of extraordinary talent and luck, but the majority will spend their lives on a treadmill, paying bills and perhaps tucking a little away for old age. Their sons and daughters, in turn, will face a similar future.

It doesn’t have to be this way. One can imagine all sorts of government programs that can help people advance in life — free college and graduate school, GI bills, housing subsidies, and so on. Such programs, as we know, come and go, and I prefer more rather than less of them. But the simplest way to help people advance is to give them what my parents gave me, and what I’m giving my sons: a cash inheritance. And the surest way to do that is to build such inheritances into our economic operating system, much the way Social Security is.

When Jefferson substituted pursuit of happiness for Locke’s property, he wasn’t denigrating the importance of property. Without presuming to read his mind, I assume he altered Locke’s wording to make the point that property isn’t an end in itself, but merely a means to the higher end of happiness. In fact, the importance he and other Founders placed on property can be seen throughout the Constitution and its early amendments. Happiness, they evidently thought, may be the ultimate goal, but property is darn useful in the pursuit of it.

If this was true in the eighteenth century, it’s even truer in the twenty-first. The unalienable right to pursue happiness is fairly meaningless under capitalism without a chunk of capital to get started.

And while Social Security provides a cushion for the back end of life, it does nothing for the front end. That’s where we need something new.

A kitty for the front end of life has to be financed differently than Social Security because children can’t contribute in advance to their own inheritances. But the same principle of intergenerational solidarity can apply. Consider an intergenerational transfer fund through which departing souls leave money not just for their own children, but for all children. This could replace the current inheritance tax, which is under assault in any case. (As this is written, Congress has temporarily phased out the inheritance tax as of 2010; a move is afoot to make the phaseout permanent.) Mind you, I think ending the inheritance tax is a terrible idea; it’s the least distorting (in the sense of discouraging economic activity) and most progressive tax possible. It also seems sadly ironic that a nation that began by abolishing primogeniture is now on the verge of creating a permanent aristocracy of wealth. That said, if the inheritance tax is eliminated, an intergenerational transfer fund would be a fitting substitute.

The basic idea is similar to the revenue recycling system of professional sports. Winners — that is, millionaires and billionaires — would put money into a kitty (call it the Children’s Opportunity Trust), to be divided among all children equally, so the next round of economic play can be more competitive. In this case, the winners will have had a lifetime to enjoy their wealth, rather than just a single season. When they depart, half their estates, say, could be passed to their own children, while the other half would be distributed among all children. Their own offspring would still start on third base, but others would at least be in the game.

Under this plan, no money would go to the government. Instead, every penny would go back into the market, through the bank or brokerage accounts (managed by parents) of newborn children. I’d call these new accounts Individual Inheritance Accounts; they’d be front-of-life counterparts of Individual Retirement Accounts. After children turn eighteen, they could withdraw from their accounts for further education, a first home purchase, or to start a business.

Yes, contributions to the Children’s Opportunity Trust would be mandatory, at least for estates over a certain size (say $1 or $2 million). But such end-of-life gifts to society are entirely appropriate, given that so much of a millionaire’s wealth is, in reality, a gift from society. No one has expressed this better than Bill Gates Sr., father of the world’s richest person. “We live in a place which is orderly. It’s a place where markets work because there’s legal structure to support them. It’s a place where people can own property and protect it. People who have the good fortune, the skill, the luck to become wealthy in our country, simply have a debt to the source of their opportunity.”

I like the link between end-of-life recycling and start-of-life inheritances because it so nicely connects the passing of one generation with the coming of another. It also connects those who have received much from society with those who have received little; there’s justice as well as symmetry in that.

To top things off, I like to think that the contributors — millionaires and billionaires all — will feel less resentful about repaying their debts to society if their repayments go directly to children, rather than to the Internal Revenue Service. They might think of the Children’s Opportunity Trust as a kind of venture capital fund that makes startup investments in American children. A venture capital fund assumes nine out of ten investments won’t pay back, but the tenth will pay back in spades, more than compensating for the losers. So with the Children’s Opportunity Trust. If one out of ten children eventually departs this world with an estate large enough to “pay back” in spades the initial investment, then the trust will have earned its keep. And who knows? Some of those paying back might even feel good about it. ... read the whole chapter

Peter Barnes: Capitalism 3.0 — Chapter 8: Sharing Culture (pages 117-134)

So far I’ve focused on the commons of nature and community. In this chapter I explore the third fork of the commons river, culture. By this I mean the gifts of language, art, and science we inherit, plus the contributions we make as we live.

Culture is a joint undertaking — a co-production — of individuals and society. The symphonies of Mozart, like the songs of Lennon and McCartney, are works of genius. But they also arise from the culture in which that genius lives. The instrumentation, the notation system, and the prevalent musical forms are the dough from which composers bake their cakes. So too with ideas. All thinkers and writers draw on stories and discoveries that have been developed by countless men and women before them. To paraphrase Isaac Newton, each generation sees a little farther because it stands on the shoulders of its predecessors. In this way, all new work draws from the commons and then enriches it. To keep art and science flourishing, we have to make sure the cultural commons is cared for.

In addition, unlike most natural commons, the cultural commons is inexhaustible. Shakespeare’s plays can be “used” again and again without diminishing them. The same is true of Newton’s theories, Beethoven’s string quartets, and the information on the World Wide Web. Indeed, the more we use these assets, the more value they bestow. And thanks to technology — from Gutenberg’s press to Marconi’s radio to the globe-spanning Internet — sharing this wealth has become increasingly easy.

Today, unfortunately, this cultural commons, like the commons of nature and community, is being enclosed by private corporations. The danger is that corporations will deplete the soil in which culture grows. The remedy is to reinvigorate the cultural commons. ...

 

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