Universal Welfare

We need a new welfare state.

Since the early days of human civilization, the state has played a fundamental role in the protection and promotion of the socio-economic wellbeing of its citizens. Today, at the onset of the planetary age, a universal welfare program addressing every human being on the planet has become a necessity, in order to raise the human race beyond its default ‘survival mode’ setting and move on together as a species towards ‘higher’ forms of conscious organization.

The new economy must be ethical. The narrative of interbeing must inspire a new set of economic rules and incentive mechanisms designed to provide for the material needs of each person on earth, thus granting everyone an equal opportunity to realize his/her individual human potential within the planetary boundaries of ecological sustainability.

Already back in the 3rd century BCE, Emperor Ashoka of India had put forward his innovative model of welfare state inspired by the dharma (righteous path) of buddhism. Many new measures were implemented for people’s and even animal welfare. Ashoka “renounced war and conquest by violence and forbade the killing of many animals. Since he wanted to conquer the world through love and faith, he sent many missions to propagate Dharma” worldwide.

In our time, the emerging planetary ethos cannot rely on the enlightened leadership of an extraordinary ruler like Ashoka. Hence, it must become embedded in the structural design of the network itself, and maintained by the collective effort of all its users.

In this new model, the function of the state is performed by the network. Just as the state would allocate funds for the maintenance of the service and transport infrastructures, the Cooperative Network of the WAM must now provide a dedicated welfare program for each of its members.

We will discuss the World Ethos in more detail in the Eden Planet section, whereas here we will focus only on its socio-economic implications:

• Universal Basic Income

A monthly wage in the form of a world reserve currency, received by each member of the network directly on its personal account. As explained in the currency section, you become a member by opening up a new node and setting it up as a gate for others to enter the network. Basically, everyone earns some money just by sustaining and expanding the network.

• Time Bank

In addition to the UBI, members can receive extra funds for dedicating their time to socially useful activities such as parenting, healthcare or education services, research, government, etc. The allocation of these grants will be decided by a transparent and user-generated feedback system.

• Ecological Incentives

Sustainable and regenerative practices like living in an ecovillage, cleaning up a river bed or planting some new trees will also be rewarded. In this case, applicants must present standardized self-reports which can be later verified by third party enquiries.

• Ethical Regulations

Excessive interest rates, financial speculation and unethical business practices will either be strongly discouraged or made outright impossible by design. Since the history of each person’s transactions will be recorded and available to everyone doing business with that person, breachers of the ethical code can and will be held accountable by the network.

• Wealth Cap

To prevent the formation of monopolies, a universal Wealth Cap is applied to all accounts. It can either be an absolute value adjusted for inflation or a fixed wealth gap ratio between the richest and the poorest. Any capital exceeding that cap will be automatically transferred to the redistribution scheme.

• Redistribution Scheme

A small flat tax will be automatically applied to all transactions. Along with the extra capital generated by the members, this funds will constitute the network’s welfare budget that is to be assigned every month according to a redistribution algorithm.

Feel free to leave any comment or question below, and join the discussion on the dedicated forum.

Also in Coop Network:

• Distributed Web — Common internet infrastructure
• Mutual Credit — Smart contracts platform
• Circular Economy — Regenerative business model

Other WAM! publications:

Life Tribe

A new humanity

Conscious Forum

A new consciousness

Eden Planet

A new world