I just ordered a book by economist Peter Barnes called With Liberty and Dividends for All. The
thesis is simple. When private companies are permitted to privatize the
Commons, they should pay dividends to the people. Like Alaska's oil
dividend. If really vigorously effected, such a system could transform
our economy and save the Middle Class. The reality is that Republicans
really DO believe in Welfare. Welfare for the privileged and powerful,
in the form of Ag subsidies, subsidized resource extraction, facilitated
tax evasion, subsidized financial sector wealth extraction. We can
reverse all of those things and make the nation's wealth support its
citizens. The old 20th Century paradigm of consumer capitalism is so
obviously failing. The solution, which would also make environmental
national action much easier to accomplish, is a mixed economy where
private wealth must pay rents not to private extractors, but to the
ultimate owners: the people.
Pie in the sky? Only if we accept that defeat. http://www.amazon.com/With-
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