PUDD
For a Democratic
Dividend
FOR A DEMOCRATIC DIVIDEND
What moves the world are ideas, whether good or bad. Here is one of which I let you decide which category it belongs to. It is very simple, has the ability to radically change our society, and has never been tried before.
THE FUNDAMENTAL ISSUE
Look around you. Everything in the universe is only harmony, beauty, sophistication, balance, at all scales, from the infinitely large of the cosmos to the infinitely small of elementary particles. Between the two, our planet, nature, ecosystems, animals, plants, are breathtaking creations, sometimes gigantic, sometimes tiny, always miraculous.
It therefore seems legitimate to ask a very simple question: in such a harmonious universe. Why is the human condition so hopeless? Why so much suffering and misfortune, so many people living in utter destitution. Why everywhere in our societies pollution, dirt, imbalance? At the same time we come across benevolent, voluntary, altruistic people every day who demonstrate that man has other engines than his reptilian cortex.
In this manifesto, we consider that the first cause, the deep root of this anomaly, lies in two words: “Capital” and its avatar “Demagogy”. More exactly: the root of our suffering is:
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our need to move forward and therefore generate progress
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which requires us to accept an unequal and quasi-feudal capitalist system
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which generates a concentration of wealth in a few hands
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makes us develop in compensation an obese, liberticidal and plundering redistributing State
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which breeds demagoguery, clientelism, abuse of power
There must be another way.
Man has always been looking for a way out of this curse. We must read and reread the Stoics, reread Solon, Smith, Proudhon, Marx, Keynes and his best enemy Hayek, Allais, Piketty, we must study the immense creativity that man has deployed through the ages, torn between is between the law of the jungle of dictatorial feudalism and the inevitable inefficiency of communism.
We propose here a very simple answer, so simple that it seems unbelievably obvious: to restore the balance, we must put in place a “democratic dividend”.
THE GOLDEN RULE OF CAPITALISM
For a society to be balanced, it is essential that wealth be distributed in an acceptable manner, but that progress should always be fueled by its main fuel, which is freedom and the lure of gain. If the inequalities become too strong, troubles set in. On the other hand, if too many rules are put in place, corporatism develops and society stagnates.
To maintain a balance, it is essential that capital be remunerated in proportion to the progress it generates, no more, no less. If the capital is no longer remunerated, the investor no longer invests. If capital is overpaid, it monopolizes wealth, impoverishes the people, generates frustration, war, revolution.
It's the golden rule of capitalism : return on capital = growth
This rule has never been respected in human societies. The " preference for the present " has always meant that a citizen is always ready to pay more for capital than it costs, making people happy. usurers and the wealth of banks – even if it is undeniable that their action as lenders and investors is essential to progress.
The consequence of the preference for the present is that macro-economically the return on capital is systematically higher than the progress it generates, a differential of 2 or 3% or even higher. It is this difference which, in the long run, like an insidious poison, engenders inequalities and the concentration of capital in a few hands. It's mechanical, inevitable. This is what needs to be corrected to restore the balance.
This imbalance makes necessary the redistributive state, which takes from the rich to give to the poor.
Unfortunately, State redistribution is ineffective, and above all generates political politics and demagoguery, which is itself another form of rent as harmful as capital itself. To prevent demagoguery the best solution is to set up an automatic mechanism, leaving no room for debate, irrefutable.
In conclusion, we seek to set up a redistributive system which (1) restores the golden rule but (2) is a light and simple system, that is to say an automatic redistribution mechanism.
THE DEMOCRATIC DIVIDEND
Democracy is the foundation of our society. After millennia of law of the jungle, of feudalism, of royalty, of dictatorship, we have succeeded in this incredible, unimaginable tour de force of granting an identical ballot paper to all citizens, whatever their social rank. It seems so obvious to us who have been immersed in it since our childhood, but it is absolutely against nature in the light of human history.
Our proposal is to implement an identical revolution in our economy. We therefore consider that the nation is a company in which each citizen holds 1 share, in the same way that the citizen has 1 vote in our democracies. To be considered " acteur " a citizen must simply (1) have a social security number and (2) be authorized to reside in France for several years (we may be of foreign nationality and shareholder of the nation).
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Each quarter we count on the one hand (1) the return on capital at the scale of the nation, and (2) the growth. Note that there is no difficulty because INSEE or Eurostat already do this. The difference between the two is the over-remuneration of capital, the share of wealth that capital captures unduly. It is the imbalance that causes concentration, and in the long run generates inequalities
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Consequently, the Central Bank issues (ie prints ex-nihilo) as much money as this over-remuneration, no more, no less. It is the democratic dividend, mechanically and automatically equal to the wealth created by the Nation. It will generate inflation " euthanasie des rentiers ", which will push them to invest so as not to see their capital depreciate
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This money is distributed to a bank account managed by Social Security held by each citizen equally, automatically, universally, whether rich or poor. This automatism is necessary to prevent demagogy and the Lépine contest of the redistributing measure.
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There is no dividend distributed if the over-remuneration of capital is zero or negative – if we do not collectively create wealth we cannot pay ourselves a dividend (but there may be more classic compensatory mechanisms)
Because it is indeed a dividend here : each French citizen holds an identical share of the company's assets "France" (or Europe), and therefore deserves to receive a dividend each year, equal to the value created by the company. We are all equal shareholders of France (or Europe - simple question of scale), we all have the same voting rights at the big five-yearly meeting of shareholders that we call "Presidential Election". Ah, what irony in the fact of applying the law of commercial companies, the foundation of capitalism itself directly resulting from feudalism and the law of the strongest, to the democracy daughter of the spirit of the Enlightenment, and to discover that the democracy then gives us the fundamental right to receive the universal dividend made possible by our creation of collective value.
Collectively our first climbers have the right to keep their earnings up to the wealth they create (and that's fine this way), but no more. Through the mechanism of inflation induced by the monetary creation of the democratic dividend, they mechanically and painlessly redistribute part of their earnings to the shareholders of our great common society, in the form of a democratic dividend.
The democratic dividend ticks all the boxes. It is simple to implement. It allows a redistribution up to the wealth created by the Nation, no more, no less. Its automatic character prevents demagogic manipulations. It restores the balance of the golden rule of the economy and blocks the accumulation and concentration of capital. Since it restores balance, it is the universal remedy for all the ills of our societies.
ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE
The wealth of France is around 14 000 billion in 2014[1]), which is roughly 209 000 euros for each of the 67 million French people. This figure should make react the enormous mass of the French having almost no capital and having to rent everything, borrow, etc. – their work contributes to the enrichment of those who hold capital today, whether they have earned it by the sweat of their brow or simply inherited it from their ancestors. It is this inequality that is compensated by State redistribution. We can assimilate this amount of 14 000 billion, this united heritage of all French people, as being the "capital of the Nation" . Placed at 3%, it should yield 420 billion in dividends per year. This corresponds to 6 268 euros per year for each Frenchman, which divided by 12 months corresponds to €500 of dividend per month and per Frenchman.
In the system of democratic money we accept that private capital be remunerated at the height of the growth it produces, i.e. 1%, and therefore we subtract this growth, and generate a monetary mass equal to 2% redistributed in the form of democratic dividend. So 14 000 billion at 2% generates 280 billion, €4179 per French, €348 per French.
Let's take another angle. The GDP of the Nation is of the order of 2000 billion. Let's call " revenu du travail " the sum : (income from salaried labor + income from individual businesses and artisans). The " revenu du travail " represents respectively approximately 59.6% for one and 6.8% for the other, i.e. a total of 66.4% ( source Insee: Companies in France in 2012[2]) or almost exactly two-thirds. So GDP less labor income, which is capital income, is about 100% - 66.4% = 33.6% of GDP. Capital income is therefore about 33.6% of 2000 billion, or 660 billion. This is the “nation dividend ”. This result is not so different from the 420 billion found for a 3% dividend applied to the capital of France.
Seen from this second angle, France's capital income is therefore ~600 billion in 2012, which represents a rate of return of 4.5% of national wealth evaluated at 14 000 billion. This suggests that the preference for the present is still higher than our assumptions of 3%, more like 4.5%. We then subtract our current 1% growth and arrive at a rate of " imbalance compared to the golden rule" 3.5% and a compensatory envelope of 490 billion to be shared between 65 million French people. We then find a universal income of 628 euros per French person per month. Here again it is only a question of orders of magnitude to be refined.
In conclusion, our different approaches define for the democratic income an amount between 348 and 628 € per French person. This calculation of " dividend of the nation " is probably to be adjusted but the order of magnitude of the "dividend of the nation” is enough for us here.
[1] http://www.lemonde.fr/economie/article/2014/12/19/quatre-questions-autour-du-patrimoine-economique-de-la-france_4543636_3234.html
[2] https://www.insee.fr/fr/ffc/docs_ffc/entfra13g_ftlo2emploi.pdf
WHY CREATE CURRENCY RATHER THAN TAX
Above all because it is simpler than levying taxes. Then it's automatic, while taxes are probably the area where demagogy and human perversity show the greatest creativity and do the most damage. Finally it is painless, in any case much less than the tax.
In addition, our central banks are already printing money: to maintain inflation around 2%, our States are already creating money, but through banks that profit from it. If we consider that capital is already intrinsically over-remunerated, it obviously seems absurd for the state to contribute to the enrichment of finance, which is its most powerful vector.
Finally, inflation is essential : it is the inflation generated by monetary creation which restores the balance, which counterbalances the preference for the present.
BUILDING UP CAPITAL FOR MINERS
In a democracy a citizen must be 18 to vote. Are they entitled to a democratic dividend ?
An answer could be the following : until the age of 18, the State pays half a Democratic Dividend per child, replacing family allowances, and capitalizes the rest for him, in order to build a capital which will be made available to the child when he reaches 18 years of age. He will then benefit from his majority of a fairly substantial savings, of the order of magnitude of 50K€ to start in life (12 months x 18 years x 300 € - even if depreciated by inflation at 2% for 18 years).
This makes it possible to correct another example of deep inequality : access or not to its majority to a first capital to study or to undertake. The sum of these capitalized investments allows constitutes the equivalent of a pension fund but for the children, which makes it possible to supply fresh capital to the economy of the community - but this time not for the elders who will be leaving us. , but good for newcomers who will benefit from the progress generated by their own investment.
CONCLUSION
The democratic dividend has all the advantages
It is logical, normal, obvious : a citizen = a vote, therefore a citizen = a dividend
It is simple to implement, all you have to do is have it managed by Social Security
It is intended to replace certain mechanisms such as the RSA which are absurdly complicated and generate counterproductive threshold effects.
It is automatic, which makes it possible to greatly reduce demagoguery and to refocus politics on the sovereign and the management of current affairs rather than on the invention of ever more complicated redistribution mechanisms.
It enriches citizenship, it transforms the citizen into a shareholder of the Nation, brings him into a collective generating wealth equally for all – if a citizen vandalizes a common good, he vandalizes himself
It restores the golden rule of the economy, it blocks the accumulation of capital, and consequently corrects the fundamental imbalance which has undermined human societies since the dawn of time.
It is painless, because it does not require the creation of a new tax
It does not hinder entrepreneurs who generate progress because it does not induce new friction. The problem is not that there are rich people (who would have created the pyramids of Egypt or Versailles otherwise ?), the problem is that there are poor people. The democratic dividend gives them a basis to survive and bounce back
It remunerates this part of the GDP which is not counted, but which nevertheless is an integral part of the " bien commun ", such as volunteering, participation in Wikipedia, maintaining a presence and nature in our beautiful countryside