As corporate influences grow relative to government functionality, the dividing line between the two becomes more blurred and complex. The difference between employee, consumer, politician, and citizen likewise becomes less determined. While our current economic system attempts to retroactively reward those who produce more, moving forward, the system will need to evolve to provide for those who display productive merits.
As an interim step, governments should provide high returns, or dividends, to citizens who actively produce, and also supporters, who possess qualities that enable others to produce. This dividend functions similarly to the
earned-income tax credit. It should be coupled with an active population control policy, such as tax benefits for having only one or two children, neutral taxes for three, and a tax burden for more than three.
Governments already define minimum levels of poverty, mostly for taxation purposes, and the target dividend for an average producer should be
at least two to three times the
lowest bracket amount. This money would be mostly levied from high-revenue, high-saturation companies. It could also be taken from high-impact ecological taxes, such as carbon credits. Regardless of the source, this dividend is only meant to go to those citizens who actively participate in, or contribute to, the economic market. It is not a safety net. Therefore, there are a few vital social programs which must be funded before dividends can be circulated:
- Social security, mostly for senior-citizens.
- Medicare, also for seniors.
- SNAP, for ensuring young families are fed.
- VA, for providing for military veterans.
- Pell Grants, for promising students.
- TANF, helps improve conditions for needy families.
To be clear, the amount per dividend would be based on a quantitative representation of a person's potential value, combined with their present state of productivity. This idea is already present in the free labor market of the US, in the form of higher pay for high-demand, educated, high-skilled jobs, and in the earned-income tax credit. One way to summarize this dividend would be to say that governments and corporations share responsibility for the well-being of citizen employees by providing social services, protection, infrastructure, etc., through a combination of high corporate taxes and citizen dividends. Instead of a company simply offering higher compensation to an in-demand candidate, they pay a portion of that position's compensation as taxes. (Which also incentivizes the company to keep that position filled!)
The reasoning behind having the wealth pass back through the government, instead of circulating wholly through the corporation, is both regulatory, and for economic stability. It also gives the corporation leverage to ask the government for help in filling open positions - moving the recruiting cost from corporation to government. If corporations are successful, so are the countries in which they occupy. If a corporation fails, either in part or entirely, a government has the power to reclaim assets and rights to land and resources. The ideal country would then be the one that can offer a citizen the highest dividend, while also offering corporations competitive tax rates.
This produces the question, "what about tax loop holes?" -
Close them! Corporations, via
Citizens United, have obfuscated the boundary between company and government.
Tax benefits to move a company to a certain area are unethical at face value - the company should get access to a qualified labor source, and nothing more. Government regulations are not overbearing when,
in their absence,
blatant misuse and
misconduct exists. If a large company fails, the government is not there to lift them back up, it is there to repossess and redistribute said company's resources, either to other, more responsible competing companies, or sold off to the citizens.
The argument here is that a company should be incentivized to spend its accumulated wealth, not hoard it. That idea requires one simple change: Redefine corporate responsibilities to shareholders - If a shareholder's profits are linked to citizen dividends, and not private dividends/profits, suddenly the corporate relationship with its community becomes a high priority again. In other words, the more the company pays in taxes to the government, the higher the citizen dividends become for everyone, including the shareholders.
"Why give citizens a dividend?" - Citizens give a country its value. Regardless of how you define that value, the return citizens get has traditionally been food, property, safety in various forms, and a host of other benefits. With the proliferation of
regulatory capture, the citizens must be given a means to provide for themselves - both corporations and the governments need consumers and citizens to have value, and without them, they cease to function. Citizens must be able to continue forward, and the boast of nations is, and always will be, how well their citizens can live. Likewise, a corporation's boast is how well their consumers can spend. Why would you enact policies that threaten your own survival?
Throughout history, power and control has been imposed and utilized through various forms of taxation, conglomeration, spending, and the nuances of trading influence. In the future, new variables will challenge traditional models. These variables include: heightened awareness, both of self and of community; increased knowledge and ability; access to information; capacity for individuals to undermine traditional consumerism; understanding of basic human equality; rapid transportation; reduced importance of religion as a method of control; increased influence of scientific method to define factual ideas; increased urgency of environmental balance.
"What about freeloaders?" Among the many questions raised by this topic, this one requires more finesse to answer. The optimist says give them a dividend regardless, albeit a much smaller one. The pessimist says let them swim without assistance, and maybe only some will sink. If someone isn't producing results, or maybe they can, but they're not effective at it, they likely won't get the attention they need to solve that problem. Fixing human inadequacies is a process that cannot be automated, and is a persistent, ongoing issue. Largely, it's a problem that can't be solved, only adapted to and perhaps circumvented in some cases. (It's also why teachers are consistently underpaid and their administrators are overpaid.)
What worries me most isn't that these ideas, and many others, might be ignored. I don't mind writing about my ideas in relative obscurity - if anything, it serves to structure my worldview. I won't be the only one to think of these solutions. What worries me is that I will be targeted as an outlier for even suggesting them. What worries me is that human inadequacies will gain stubborn, prominent, influential support, and anyone who genuinely wants to try something new will be spitefully harassed, slandered, silenced, or persecuted.
If you asked, "what about freeloaders?", well, many of them are well off, in power, and have been for decades. In the future, governments and corporations, citizens and consumers can exist in a balanced chaos, but only if those in power realize the opportunity presented to them by enabling those below them to live in relative comfort.
