Ch13: Footnotes
A Bill of Rights
Human Rights
Adequate Income
Inheritance Bond
The Bonded Slave
Union Action Hurts
Where I Work
Brazil
Ch13: Footnotes
A Bill of Rights
Human Rights
Adequate Income
Inheritance Bond
The Bonded Slave
Union Action Hurts
Where I Work
Brazil
It is a legal instrument which makes a nation's wealth the possession of all its citizens, giving to each the terrestrial means of transforming his labour into his needs of life. It is the convergence of political extremes. It is the ultimate fusion of capitalism & socialism.
Like any country, the United Kingdom contains, within its borders, a vast reservoir of economic resources:
• land • materials • energy • buildings • machinery
It also contains a huge population, the vast majority of whom possess or control none of them. These economic resources are all owned and controlled by a favoured few. Nevertheless, these economic resources are the only means by which human labour is able to be transformed into the needs of life. Without their use, all would die.
On a macroscopic scale, a capitalist economy appears to work well. The favoured few hire the labour of the dispossessed many, in return for a minimal wage, and apply it to the economic resources they possess to provide the needs of life for those who can afford to buy them.
On a microscopic scale, however, the picture is not quite so rosy. The favoured few are not obliged — either individually or collectively — to hire the labour of any one of the dispossessed many. Consequently, no individual has the inalienable right of access to any of the country's economic resources in order to turn his labour into his needs of life — or into a wage with which he can buy his needs of life. As a result, anyone can be arbitrarily and undeservedly sentenced to a life of poverty.
Every human being — be he one of the favoured few or the dispossessed many — equally brought nothing to this planet (and in particular, this country) upon his arrival, nor will he remove anything from it when he leaves. I therefore declare it right and just that, while he is here, he should have equal access to, and use of, what it provides.
To this end, I declare that each individual should, by right of birth, for the duration of his working lifetime, be unconditionally deemed to own his fair share of the economic resources within the boundaries of his native country, for the purpose of transforming his labour into his needs of life. These should be regarded as his rightfully inherited capital to deploy as he sees fit.
I propose that for this purpose, every individual's birth certificate should include an Inheritance Bond, which, upon his reaching adulthood, will entitle him to take possession of his fair share of the nation's wealth-generating resources for 50 years.