Article I
Regarding Concentrations of Wealth, Their Disruption to Democracy and Proposed Remedies
Problems To Solve
Arbitrary, self-serving, self-perpetuating concentrations of wealth and power that create a de facto “ruling class” of owner-shareholders that undermines democracy. This is primarily due to:
- Inherited material assets and cultural capital maintain wealth inequality
- Illicit enlargement of capital via political cronyism, clientism and regulatory capture
- Extraordinary and widening income inequality
- Engineered disruption of economic mobility through subsistence wages, increased debt burden, and dependent consumption
- Sabotage of democratic process via political campaign financing, gerrymandering, media capture and voter disenfranchisement
- Insulation of corporate holdings and accountability through corporate personhood and pro-corporate judicial activism
- Monopolization and consequent disruption to constructive competition and innovation
- Aggressive promotion of neoliberal agenda via media, democratic processes, public policy and all branches of government
Proposed Solutions
- Disrupt “business as usual” & pro-capitalist PR campaigns
- Eliminate corporate personhood & right to free speech via Constitutional Amendment
- Institute greater direct democracy at all levels of government
- Create citizens councils via civic lottery
- Limit all political campaigns to public funding & a cap of gifted media advertising
- Migrate away from shareholder ownership of production to common and worker ownership
- Eliminate corporate monopolies
- Establish collective and transparent deliberation over industry-wide salaries and highest-to-lowest pay ratios (via some combination of direct democracy, citizens councils and worker voting)
- Create new community-centric schema & structures for enterprise
- Subjugate profit incentives to civil society, rather than civil society to profits.
- Create non-profit infrastructure & essential services sector of competing enterprises & social credits system (i.e. a Universal Social Backbone)
- Enlist the wealthiest elite as change agents
- Institute 30% tithe on all inheritance and migrate away from private ownership towards common ownership (i.e. a Level 7 property position)
- Reform the stock market & fiat money, and end speculation without value (see Article IX)
Design Principles Applied to Create More Distributed & Diffused Wealth & Power
- Civic Engagement at the Community Level
- Expanded Direct Democracy in All Levels of Government
- Commons-Centric Production and Worker-Ownership
- Collective Orientation to Freedom & Civic Responsibility (Integral Liberty)
- Minarchy, Subsidiarity and Polycentric Governance
- Egalitarian Efficiency & Diffusion
- Sustainable Design
- Critically Reflective Participatory Action
- Revolutionary Integrity
- Ending the Tyrannies of Monopoly and Private Ownership
- Change in Property Orientation and Valuation
- Self-Nourishment and Moral Evolution
- Precautionary Principle & Pilot Principle