Geonomics

A Commons-oriented solution for protecting the environment and land:

Description

"One can receive a share of the value of nature and all can conserve the health of nature at the same time. It’s not a political change, such as designating land as common, but an economic change, a redirection of rent (all the money we spend on the nature we use, for sites, resources, and ecosystem services) from present few owners and lenders to all members of society.

The words “own” and “owe” were once one word - and “ought” was the past tense - back when the duty of owners to contribute rent to community was widely understood. That understanding has eroded away. Which is understandable. Rent got paid in, but not paid back out, getting captured by lords in the past and by politicians today. Since paying rent did not benefit payers, it made little sense to keep paying rent.

The new/old policy of geonomics would make paying rent make sense. To recover rent, geonomics would replace taxes with land dues. To share rent, geonomics would replace subsidized services with a citizens’ dividend. When owners pay other members of their society, and the other members pay owners, together they accomplish mutual compensation; each member compensates all others for the land he exclusively occupies and is compensated by all others for being excluded from the sites they occupy.

Receiving rent shares, people would want to extract resources, but to conserve them as well. It’s not maximal use of land that maximizes land value but optimal use, a mix of use and nonuse. In urban areas, a neighborhood’s land values are higher with a public park versus lower without a public park; in rural areas, a region’s land values are higher with healthy forests and clean rivers versus lower with clear-cutting and eroded silt choking streams. Keeping ecosystems healthy keeps site values highest and the rent shares fattest, aligning the interests of self and society, of people and planet. Sharing rent would effectively motivate humans to turn Earth into the commons and themselves into Earthling stewards, as both trustors and trustees.

While land dues are rare, land taxes have often been levied. Plus there is a model of the public receiving shares of rent - the Alaskan oil dividend. This oil share has its limitations but it is a start toward sharing Earth via sharing her worth. It countermands the implicit assumption that the value of nature belongs to only a few owners rather than to all humanity. Natural bounty belonging to everyone is an understanding expressed in many moral traditions, including Christianity."

More Information

The Geonomics Foundation is at http://www.progress.org/geonomy/

The proposal of Geonomics is related to the issues of the Basic Income and the Citizens Dividend