Socioeconomic Democracy and energy.

• Author: George, Robley E.

Fundamental structural improvements in the socioeconomic systems of the planet's peoples are required to satisfactorily resolve the Earth's multifaceted energy problem. Socioeconomic Democracy can contribute significantly to the reduction or resolution of the many problems of energy.

Socioeconomic Democracy (SeD) is a model system wherein there exist both some form of Universally Guaranteed Personal Income (UGI) and some form of Maximum Allowable Personal Wealth (MAW), with both the lower bound on personal material poverty and the upper bound on personal material wealth set and adjusted democratically by all participants of society.

Some of the history and evolution of these ideas are discussed in the book Socioeconomic Democracy: An Advanced Socioeconomic System [1]. Both brief and more extensive introductions to Socioeconomic Democracy are available at the website of the Center for the Study of Democratic Societies [2].

Basic elements

UGI. Society will guarantee each citizen some minimum amount of purchasing power, with that amount determined democratically by all participants of society. Depending upon the degree and direction of technological development, this democratically set, societally guaranteed minimum income for all could be sufficient to satisfy the typical individual's minimum subsistence needs. Alternatively, a different society might decide to set the guaranteed amount at only a partial subsistence level.

There are as many different forms of UGI (ranging at least from Basic Income [BI] to Negative Income Tax [NIT]) as there are reasons to establish some form of UGI. The debate about the growing need and demand for guaranteed income can be found at the website of the Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN) [3], with links to organizations around the globe. The recent Socioeconomic Democracy: A Democratic Basic Income Guarantee [4] indicates how SeD resolves the few major dilemmas impeding the realization of guaranteed income.

MAW. Likewise, in the ideal theoretical model, all participants would understand that all personal material wealth above the democratically determined allowable amount would be transferred out of their ownership and control in a manner specified by the laws of the land and with resources bring used to promote the General Welfare.

Hence, a rational, self-interested, insatiable, and law-abiding (as the neoclassical saying goes) extremely wealthy participant in the democratic socioeconomic system, who is at or near the democratically set upper bound on allowable personal wealth and who, naturally, desires increased personal wealth, would be economically motivated to actively increase the well-being of at least some of the less wealthy members of society. Only in this manner can these participants persuade (at least a majority of) the rationally self-interested participants of the democratic society to vote to raise the legal upper limit on allowable personal wealth.

There is strong economic incentive for those who are at or are near the upper limit on allowable personal wealth to...