In a week in which one of my favourite economists, Yanis Varoufakis was banned by Germany, I have taken a moment to reflect on what I see lies at the heart of new economic modelling for a flourishing world in every way.
In economic terms, I, a complete amateur, have come to see that tax reform is at the heart of transformation of economic potentiality in a renewable energy world. In particular the reform required is for all nations to establish a resource rent tax as foundational. In this tax, no corporation can avoid their tax because the resource exploitation they ‘borrow’ from a nation is readily calculated from public domain information, and such tax can provide a powerful investment in communities and national infrastructures including transport, energy networks, education, and ecosystem restoration and conservation. It has the prospects of assisting communities to own their energy supply and decoupling energy from centralised corporation which has the added effect of empowering democracy.
Following the work of Yanis Varoufakis, personal agency and democracy is further empowered by legislation that protects personal data as property which can only be loaned through contract at a price agreed by the owner or as mediated by the government on behalf.
Personal data exist in a tension with the national interest i.e what personal data do we all provide a public national data base to allow democracy and government to work efficiently and effectively?
However the likelihood that such payments accrue back to the individuals is the possibility of a universal basic income.
Likewise with the resource tax, with a much diminished income tax and elimination of point of sales taxes or housing transaction taxes, the average person accrues more personal savings.
These together, and with the assist of new technologies – robotics, AI, remote communications – open the possibility for new working schedules and the motivation for individuals and groups to define new lifestyle models and technical or service innovation.
The third, and very big draw on the commonwealth, is money laundering including tax havens. International agreements are needed with all nations to ban tax havens, and identify the owners of all transactions by type of trade. Once the trade is identifiable, resource tax can apply and withdrawn externally by Taxation Departments. This also makes slavery and illicit trade easier to trace and prosecute. The productivity and wealth returned to community by the failure of illicit trade is very enormous. Even with 9 billion people, we should all be at ease. Indeed the impact on community resilience could be such that the individual need less to be thinking of their future as of their contribution in the present, knowing that the worst life in the future is one in which they are at basic economic ease and fully engaged as a citizen. As Mahatma Ghandi said, there is enough to provide all our need, just not enough to provide all our greed.
Owen's Meanderings 