Wouldn't it be revolutionary if it were to come to pass! What is remarkable is that this is all written, in beautiful detail, in so many places, but none of it implemented, EVER.
Despite my rusted on pessimism about the world, I am grateful you keep drawing our attention the fact there is a clear path to follow. The thinking has been done. We just have to start the journey. We can tweak it as we go.
Would a universal basic dividend tied to resource extraction actually incentivise the public even more to support business as usual vs degrowth?
You would maybe have to have a system where the dividend increased over time, and was multiplied by a factor representing the actual sustainability of extracting resources.
So if an industry was a big polluter they paid ever increasing dividends then multiplied further. Whilst regenerative activities had their pay outs cut right down maybe even to 0 if fully 100% sustainable. Extra money in the pot past a set dividend per citizen amount could be dedicated to grants for nature restoration and the transformation of industry to less impact or lower scale. (Eg Pay for sunk costs of oil rigs)
The high costs to polluters would be represented in higher prices of their product, and disincentivise purchase vs regenerative options. The cap on universal citizen dividend would prevent a positive connection between extraction and income, and discourage consumerism. Whilst a set layed out increase of the dividend over time (beyond inflation that the cap is in line with) but which probably eventually levels out, would provide the resources to finance broader global redistribution as well- which could also be set as an automatic part of the system.
You pollute, you pay, people don’t benefit MORE from pollution, that money goes to regeneration, sunk costs to prevent the pollution regardless and increasingly larger proportions end up being transferred from wealthy to poor.
I don’t think this would ever get implemented as a globally agreed system - but if poorer countries (or blocks of) that would immediately benefit adopted their own versions of the model which prevented resource extraction at their own detriment, and wealthy countries did so based on pressure from their citizens and each other and a need to deal with the sunk costs of former governments, it might be possible to have many interlocking models that worked for each country, making places more or less desirable to live and do business.
I’m sure I’ve not just come up with this... and I’m sure I’m missing a lot of the picture. But something like it would make political economics actually interesting to citizens and revolutionary to status quo.
Wouldn't it be revolutionary if it were to come to pass! What is remarkable is that this is all written, in beautiful detail, in so many places, but none of it implemented, EVER.
Despite my rusted on pessimism about the world, I am grateful you keep drawing our attention the fact there is a clear path to follow. The thinking has been done. We just have to start the journey. We can tweak it as we go.
Would a universal basic dividend tied to resource extraction actually incentivise the public even more to support business as usual vs degrowth?
You would maybe have to have a system where the dividend increased over time, and was multiplied by a factor representing the actual sustainability of extracting resources.
So if an industry was a big polluter they paid ever increasing dividends then multiplied further. Whilst regenerative activities had their pay outs cut right down maybe even to 0 if fully 100% sustainable. Extra money in the pot past a set dividend per citizen amount could be dedicated to grants for nature restoration and the transformation of industry to less impact or lower scale. (Eg Pay for sunk costs of oil rigs)
The high costs to polluters would be represented in higher prices of their product, and disincentivise purchase vs regenerative options. The cap on universal citizen dividend would prevent a positive connection between extraction and income, and discourage consumerism. Whilst a set layed out increase of the dividend over time (beyond inflation that the cap is in line with) but which probably eventually levels out, would provide the resources to finance broader global redistribution as well- which could also be set as an automatic part of the system.
You pollute, you pay, people don’t benefit MORE from pollution, that money goes to regeneration, sunk costs to prevent the pollution regardless and increasingly larger proportions end up being transferred from wealthy to poor.
I don’t think this would ever get implemented as a globally agreed system - but if poorer countries (or blocks of) that would immediately benefit adopted their own versions of the model which prevented resource extraction at their own detriment, and wealthy countries did so based on pressure from their citizens and each other and a need to deal with the sunk costs of former governments, it might be possible to have many interlocking models that worked for each country, making places more or less desirable to live and do business.
I’m sure I’ve not just come up with this... and I’m sure I’m missing a lot of the picture. But something like it would make political economics actually interesting to citizens and revolutionary to status quo.
🤞🏼🏄🏼♀️🌏