In contributism, the rich still get richer. But that's okay, because the rest of us get richer too.
The Global Assembly is creating the bones of a new society. A new democracy that listens to the people and ensures we all have an equal chance at life. We've had this crappy system for over 200 years. We think it's time for a change.
The Global Assembly gives the wealthy an opportunity to literally "buy into a better world" by donating their resources (land, factories, natural resources and so on) to the public for credits they can use to purchase shares in regional, national, and global assemblies around the world. These shares allow them to vote and receive dividends like stock in any large corporation. Continuing with the analogy, they can trade their shares on a stock market or sell them for cash. This doesn't just go for the rich- with ratification, all of someone's net worth is converted into an equivalent amount of credits.
In exchange for giving us their excess economic power, we give them an equal and proportional amount of political power. To ensure they use this power responsibly, profits are tied to social welfare as measured by a public survey. This has worked really well in Bhutan, where instead of just focusing on how much money citizens make, they account for happiness, community vitality and the environment. True social "growth" and "development" is multifaceted; it can't be measured in dollars alone.
The biggest problem with today's economic system is that you can make as much money as you want- and money is all that matters. If we want to create a better world, people need to come first, not profits. For the first time in history, government and corporate profits will be legally tied to social welfare (this includes the pay of all assembly employees). That's the short of it. Here's how it works in detail.
It's all about incentives.
Today, giving the wealthy more votes would be disastrous. Their interests don't align with our interests, and they already have a superabundance of economic power. We'd be reduced to slaves.
After transition, it's not like that anymore. All businesses within a community are reorganized and the shares distributed among the workers and residents. Businesses are now owned and operated by the people, for the people. They become public services like libraries or schools, and surplus goods are traded for extra cash between cities. Most importantly, all profits go directly to the citizens instead of the 1%.
For more information on community-owned businesses and why they matter, click here.
Community-owned businesses solve all the problems we have with big business today: They won't poison us, bribe our politicians, pollute the environment or exploit our workers: Because the people who live there and own the business won't let that happen. It just makes sense. Why should we let people who live halfway around the world control our economic destiny? Money, just like power, should remain local and be used to for the benefit of the people.
In order to get there, we need to convince the people who already own these businesses to invest in society by making a trade. We need a new social contract- one that guarantees the economic security of all mankind and ends the class war for good.
In the Global Assembly, the greed of the rich is turned into a public asset. Market forces of self-interest and competition are re-channeled towards positive social aims. When it comes to Contributism, yes- greed really is good. The wealthy only get a return on their investment by approving beneficial government policies which make people happier, help the environment, or generally improve society. Simply, the rich can't get rich without making the rest of us "rich". How does it work?
The same way any restaurant works. If you provide good service to your customers (citizens), customers will reward you with more dollars (taxes). The Global Assembly works because government doesn't have the ability to force people to pay taxes anymore. In order to make money, assemblies must first provide services people enjoy- and as a thank you, people will voluntarily donate to keep them running. Other revenue sources include money from community-owned businesses, service fees and land rentals.
There's also another big incentive to donate. Donating a percentage of your income gives you a proportional amount of shares in the lower assembly, and thus a chance to shape government policy. The more you give, the more you get. The more shares you get, the more dividends you receive from whatever excess revenue is left over at the end of the year.
This leads to a perfect storm where all the incentives we have today that lead to terrible government, corruption, and selfish 1%ers are reversed- creating a self-reinforcing cycle of social rebirth, charity and joy. Governments around the world compete to receive the most investment and citizens by creating the best policies.
You can begin to see how this changes everything. The unholy alliance of the rich and big government that screws everybody over today is forced to do the unthinkable- work together for the common good.
Government and the rich act as a check on each other's power. Since "old money" can only invest in entities devoted to the public good, wealth is channeled to humanity's benefit.
The rich, on the other hand- still as profit-minded as ever, only care about the bottom line. They will not fund bad governments any more than they fund corporations running at a loss. Corrupt governments which abuse their power will lose money, lose investors and go bankrupt very quickly. The assembly can then be bought out on the cheap by more benevolent investors that elect good management. "Hostile takeovers" are welcome here- because whoever allows their community to fail to the point of takeover deserves to be replaced.
You may be wondering what the rich will do with all that extra cash they're making. Why, they'll do what they always do- reinvest it in the economy in an attempt to make more money and create more public benefits!
The Survey
The wellbeing survey is key to the system, so key that it's created and administered by an independent body to prevent fraud. Everyone receives the same survey and is asked to complete it each month. We measure 9 main indicators that closely correlate with subjective quality of life like community, education and health. The valuable data obtained gives locational & demographic breakdowns of which groups aren't doing well, and why they are unhappy. This critical tool is essential to helping assemblies around the world design better policy (and make more money).
To cement it's importance, the survey acts as a multiplier against leftover quarterly revenue. Gross Happiness will never exactly equal one (it's impossible for everyone to be 100% happy), so whatever decimal received is multiplied by the subtotal.
For example, if Gross Happiness is 0.75 and excess revenue is $1 million, $750,000 goes to shareholders as dividends and $750,000 returns to the general fund. For more information about the survey, click here.
Lower Assembly Structure
As described in "lawmaking in the global assembly", the lower assembly is another name for the shareholders, which serve as a check on the democratically-elected upper assembly. All regulations, budgets and laws must be approved by both. Since the lower assembly represents economic interests, spending bills originate there.
The lower assembly is empowered to take action on it's own, however. It's solely responsible for approving and implementing community projects along with local investment. The lower assembly elects a project management committee (similar to a board of directors) which implements all project proposals after they have been voted on by the shareholders.
Shareholders don't physically meet, voting instead on measures through the internet. This is in contrast with the upper assembly, which is is a traditional physical legislature. Shares in assemblies are distributed by creating an IPO using colored coins. As the global assembly develops further and gathers steam, business owners will be given the opportunity to sign up.
Criticisms
There are many criticisms, (too many to address here). The biggest one is that this will somehow allow the rich to take over the world! It just doesn't hold up. Any law has to pass both the lower assembly and the democratically-controlled upper assembly, so even if the shareholders all voted to abolish the surveys and directly hand out money, it wouldn't work. If by some miracle a ridiculous law passes both houses, the people still have the right to overturn it through referendum. Removing the surveys outright would require a constitutional amendment.
The wealthy have already taken over the world. As you can see from our current society, having political power is far less important than having economic power. Democratizing the economy is a net-benefit for the poor.
The second criticism has a lot to do with the first, and it shows the same basic misunderstanding- that the lower assembly favors the rich. This is done by design as a way to get the wealthy to support transition, and any effect it has is canceled out by the other assembly.
Nothing will change unless we can get at least some of the rich on board. By allowing them to incrementally buy-in to the new system, we let people "get their feet wet" and encourage them to have their friends join the party. Most of the 1%'s wealth is in corporate stocks and bonds, but everyone will have an equal chance to buy stock in various assemblies based off of their current net worth. And again, in this system, the rich making more money is a good thing because it means the government is doing it's job. Most of the major political decisions happen at the local level in the first place, insulating them from the marketplace. Regional and National assemblies are only money pools to fund common projects too big for a single community to complete on it's own. Contributing more money means you're taking on more risk, and deserve a proportionally greater say over how the money is used.
The third, and most important criticism is that there's no way to prevent corruption- maybe the shareholders will corrupt the community project process and create kickbacks. They might, but the citizens will know and it will hurt their bottom line severely. With the surveys, what we're really doing is creating a feedback loop between citizens and their government. The citizens' scores have a big impact not just on profits, but salaries for all government employees at that level. This provides a powerful incentive for public officials to be the best they can be.
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