Art of Climbing Trees

Getting to Equality – Fair Resource Distribution and Democracy

The UE Portal

Because so many of us need to thrive on a greatly reduced budget, it should be obvious we will need limits on individual ownership. As it stands, those with large salaries and assets are actually morbidly rewarded with extra powers to destroy the planet/other people/themselves*.

‘We cannot think in the way we’ve thought before: ‘Oh, this smells of Communism’, and opposing enforced sharing and so on. We have to take the situation we find ourselves in as humans and individuals on a threatened planet and choose economic models and political development from that viewpoint.’
Erik Dammann, Tree 318

If we view the economy as a rigged game of monopoly¹¹⁴, then it’s easier to think that it’s perfectly reasonable to reimagine the game, redistribute the ‘play money’ and start playing again. We are however deeply stuck in the trappings of capitalism, in a current of cash flows, held captive by our habituation and lack of imagination. Blockchain technology could assist:

The UE Portal
A blockchain wallet (that is by nature decentralised) is created for every citizen who is already plugged into industrial society and has a bank account or passport. The wallet securely stores your financial balance, all transactions, and stewardship assets (see ‘Resources – Property/dwellings’ below). The wallet can also give secure access to polycentric democratic circles and voting**. Every person on Earth is entitled to a UE Portal/wallet if they want it, along with the material and voting benefits it provides. However, we want to avoid a colonial-style globalist expansion into tribal communities, for example, and allow those people to choose this access, should they want it.

When the UE Portal system is stable, secure and live – and all citizens have access – then all old-world bank-based/digitised savings and debts will be void; all banks, offshore accounts and other financial institutions will instantly mean nothing. Monetary equality will, at least, be complete as we each begin the new paradigm with the same Universal Basic Income deposit. Most profoundly, perhaps, there will no longer be international currency inequality***. 

With a humbler system fit for purpose pre-prepared to replace the old, chaos and violent disorder needn’t reign; the corrupted power isn’t even switched off but simply made irrelevant. It’s an uber-Jubilee year, where not only debts but (largely made-up) financial assets are wiped away. 

For many, this scaling back of expectations will be extremely shocking, especially for those of us in over-developed countries, who have become accustomed to privilege and feel entitled to living beyond the carrying capacity of the planet****. We can expect waves of grief and anger as powers and opportunities are taken away from – in reality – a relatively small minority of the world’s population. To this end, the UBS budget may be invested in ‘Privilege demotion therapy’. (As a WCA³⁵, I may sign up for a few sessions myself). A clear plan and timeline for how and when our new world will blossom could also help the previously over-privileged to cope.

However, the vast majority of humans will receive a much larger share of the resources than previously, with the opportunity to greatly improve their standard of living. It wouldn’t just be resources gained but liberation. For most, this reset will be a great emancipation! 

Research suggests that over an income of about £50,000, we’re no happier. This threshold represents security, freedom, independence, and mobility (in the 2020s Western economy). Happiness/contentment is, of course, related to the individual’s inner peace but is also related to comparative wealth (financially poor people can be happy if everyone around them is equally poor, and rich people can be unhappy if everyone around them is even richer). 

Eight billion of us can have the individual spending power of as much as (2020s) £50,000, but our UBI/UBS and GRREE budget (below) will make it feel that way, in the sense of our ‘Private sufficiency, public luxury’. We need access to many of the things we use rather than ownership. I won’t go quite as far as to say we’ll ‘Own nothing and be happy’, but we’ll undoubtedly own a lot less while having access to much more. 

Optional: To avoid the shock of losing entitlement, the Asset Cap could be lowered over time in a TEQs fashion (see below). To safeguard democracy during this period of financial equalisation, those with assets above a certain threshold could have their voting rights and political involvement curtailed. (If you want to participate in decision-making, you have to give away your excess assets. Hmmmm?)

This proposal is about redistributing materials and rebuilding/reshaping each of our Maslow’s pyramids to share wealth and power and, in the long run, give opportunity to all, including the biosphere, to self-actualise/Transcend. 

This levelling mechanism reduces the need for a witch-hunt for psychopaths¹¹⁴ to give room for empathy to guide us and diffuses a society that currently asks us to sacrifice the best parts of our humanity. We also put an end to the problem of the Parable of the Tribe¹¹⁴ by limiting any one person’s or people’s power. It’s the kindest way of allowing our altruism to come to the fore. 

We can be motivated to greatly equalise consumption for the sake of ideologies such as fairness, but this cap on wealth is primarily about allowing the largest number of people to survive the climacteric without one group suffering under another group, as the world is organised today. 

I’m also espousing a cap on resource access based on knowing myself: even as a semi-conscious individual, I struggle to stick to ethical consumerism with my money/power. How can I expect anyone else to change their lifestyles if I need incentives, pressure, and limits to change mine? 

Levelling our access to resources will be the single most significant action, with profound ripple effects on our motivations, incentives, and power dynamics. 

Optional/for consideration: Could the PAC be made available in local geolocated cryptocurrencies that work seamlessly with a local cash currency to encourage the trade of Local Green Resources? (Numbered paper notes, which correspond to their crypto counterparts and a system that keeps the notes being used twice by the same user). Local currencies could be swapped for any other local or official global currency (all holding the same value). We might limit currency boundaries to avoid the development of currency conurbations, i.e., several regions creating a single currency until the benefits of local currencies to incentivise localism are lost.

Please try using the (efficient) ‘Six Thinking Hats’ method of parallel thinking for sharing your ideas.
It helps us to organise our thoughts and feelings. Wear the Black Hat for critisism/doubts; the Green hat for creative suggestions; the Yellow for positive responses, Red for gut feelings; White for information. I am wearing the Blue Hat now, when I say we are here to design Eutopia.

Simply write ‘Black’, ‘Yellow’, ‘Green’, etc, before your given response. Then, start a new paragraph for ideas of a different coloured hat.