Earth Rights Economic Policy
Vision Statement
Alanna Hartzok
[Submitted to the Global Progressive Forum/Party of
European Socialists in response to the question: wht do you think are
the biggest challenges for social democracy today? December 2003]
The biggest challenge for social democracy today is to articulate
coherent policies based on a unifying vision for society. The policy
approach should transcend the usual right/left divide and articulate a
clear analysis of the problems inherent in the neoliberal
macroeconomics structures.
The major problems to address include: (1) the enormous worldwide
wealth gap and the underlying concentration of land and natural
resource ownership and control; (2) the privatized monetary
structures; and (3) building global governance institutions and
financing governance and development in such a way as to divert funds
from military industrial profits and into social development and
environmental restoration.
We need a basic clarification of First Principles on the concept of "ownership",
starting with the principle that the land and natural resources of the
planet are a common heritage and belong equally as a birthright to
everyone. Products and services created by individuals are properly
viewed as private property. Products and services created by groups of
individuals are properly viewed as collective property.
We can hatch many birds out of one egg when we shift public finance
OFF OF private property and ONTO common heritage property. From the
local to the global level we need to shift taxes off of labor and
productive capital and onto land and natural resource rents. In other
words, we need to privatize labor (wages) and socialize rent (the
value of surface land and natural resources). This public finance
shift will promote the cooperatization of the ownership of capital in
a gradual way with minimal government control of the production and
exchange of individual and collective wealth. Natural monopolies
(infrastructure, energy, public transportation) should be owned and/or
controlled or regulated by government at the most local level that is
practical.
The levels of this public finance shift can be delineated thusly:
Municipalities and localities to collect the surface land rents within
their jurisdiction. Regional governing bodies to collect resource
rents for forest lands, mineral, oil and water resources; the global
level needs a Global Resource Agency to collect user fees for
transnational commons such as satellite geostationary orbits,
royalties on minerals mined or fish caught in international waters and
the use of the electromagnetic spectrum.
An added benefit of this form of public finance is that it provides a
peaceful way to address conflicts over land and natural resources.
Resource rents should be collected and equitably distributed and
utilized for the benefit of all, either in financing social services
and/or in direct citizen dividends in equal amount to all individuals.
A portion of revenues could pass from the lower to the higher
governance levels or vice versa as needed to ensure a just development
pattern worldwide and needed environmental restoration.
In the area of monetary policy we need seignorage reform, which means
that money should be issued as spending by governments, not as debt by
private banking institutions. We also need guaranteed economic
freedoms to create local and regional currencies on a democratic and
transparent basis.
Submitted by: Alanna Hartzok,
Co-Director Earth Rights Institute United Nations NGO Representative
for International Union for Land Value Taxation Box 328, Scotland, PA
17254 USA Phone: 717-264-0957 Fax: 717-264-5036 Email: earthrts@pa.net
Website: http://www.earthrights.net
|