DEAR
DIARY
Imagine
a world where everyone's basic human needs are taken care of, a world
with no homelessness or poverty. In this same world, people are paid
a basic wage, simply for being who they are. Difficult though it may
be to imagine, it's a world which doesn't have to be too far away. In
fact, it's one we could live in right now, if we think differently.
Not as a hive mind, but as a colony.
Here's
a radical idea: Imagine if data were taxed. That's not to say that we
– the average internet user – should pay a tax on all the data we
access for free. Rather, the companies who make huge profits from
mining and selling our personal data, would pay a rate of tax on the
volumes of information they use. It's not an entirely new idea, but
it's still radical and would require a lot of work to come to
fruition. But it's an idea which could work, and which could solve
many other problems as a fortunate side-effect. Big ideas need big
money though. New ideas need new money. Is there such a thing as
social capitalism?
For
over a generation now, human kind has had free access to more or less
all human knowledge. That's the internet by design, and the way
things should be: sharing and co-operation, mainly for the greater
good. The cost of this free access is personal data, which is a fair
exchange for most, although there remain those who are ignorant of
this: Some people really do think they can have something for
nothing. But when we sign up to Facebook, Google and all the rest, we
agree to give them our personal data in return for the use of their
platform (it's in the Terms & Conditions, which very few people
read). The internet companies then use this data to sell targeted
advertising, keeping their sites free to use, and it's a model which
works well for the most part, and to monetise it in any other way
(subscription sites aside) would go against the whole ethos of Sir
Tim Berners-Lee's genius (my insertion of that hyperlink was the
basis of Sir Tim's brainchild: a link to further information, stored
elsewhere. Rather poetically in this illustration, that's the father
of the internet himself). And yet, here sits this unimaginably huge
thing which we've made through co-operation and altruism. Sir Tim's
wish was for it to remain free forever, and so it should. But might
there not be a humanitarian way to monetise it?
Because
at the same time, we have humanitarian issues to address: causes
which require revenue. Close to home, and close to my heart, is
homelessness. Cutting through many debates to get to a point, is it
not an immoral government which presides over a public, who see a
home as more of a luxury than a necessity? Let's not get into the
many debates about individual liberties and how we got here, this is
about a new idea which – like all – would need development. For
now, I'm trying to keep it on that track. But homelessness is just
one of many social issues which could be addressed by the
introduction of a Universal
Basic Income.
Quite
simply, a universal basic income is amount given to everyone,
regardless of status. It's just enough to put a roof over someone's
head, feed and heat them. It's the means for people to live modestly.
What have they done to deserve this? Unfortunately, that's the most
common question. Instead, I'd ask, what have they done that they
should be deprived a home? We're not talking about Acacia avenue
semis here, but basic accommodation, a bit like I have.
What
I have, is a studio flat: a 12 foot square room, with not even enough
room for a bed, once my other stuff is crammed in. I use a futon,
which I could write a whole blog post as an ode to, as it's at least
a bed. And it's mine. I have a small separate kitchen, and I have a
toilet and shower room off-suite. As I've said before, it's not an
ideal flat, but as a studio which I use as an office, it's fine. It's
as much as I need.
My
rent is covered by the housing benefit I receive from the local
authority, and it's paid to a social landlord. I'm a social tenant,
because I'm recognised as a vulnerable individual with a disability.
Mine is invisible, but I'm no less deserving after the years of work
it took to get to this place in my life. As well as housing benefit,
I receive benefits commensurate with my needs, as I'm mentally unwell
and unable to work in the conventional sense (for anyone else). With
my basic needs taken care of, I can concentrate on being the best at
something which I enjoy. From that, I gain satisfaction, and I hope
that others gain from what I do too.
I'm
perhaps not the best example, but I'm an example nonetheless, of
someone who has been given their basic needs, so that they are free
to do something worthwhile. For many others, this might be finding
work with a company, or forming their own. For some, they may wish to
study, then enter employment later with higher qualifications. And
there will be some, to whom the basic income is enough, because they
want for no more. Even so, the problems of poverty and homelessness
could be solved with a universal basic income. As an ex-tramp myself,
I know that all a human needs is a secure base from which to build
the rest, whatever that may be. As the benefactor of that rare modern
phenomenon, the social landlord, I know how that works. The greater
debate about the way things came to be like this eventually becomes
moot, as people realise what happens when everyone is given their
basic human needs, in order to live as a human being. For the most
part, it's a positive thing.
Society
as a whole needs to adopt a wider view, and just like those given a
home to sort themselves out, so everything that's left behind will
get cleared up too, because people will be free and available to
address those things.
Many
countries already operate a Guaranteed
Minimum Income system: Canada, Ireland, Finland, Denmark,
Iceland, The Netherlands, and many of the United States of America.
Other countries are advocates, including many in the EU (including
the UK, while still a member). And the founders and CEOs of those
online giants are supporters too, because they see the long-term
advantages of happy people and nations. It's those people who hold
the keys.
While
the rest of the world lags without a universal income, such a
societal change requires not only a different mindset, it requires
capital. In the UK at least, we are not of a sufficiently evolved
mindset (as a nation) to accept a simple tax-the-rich policy, but
this overall point I'm striving to make ought to transcend current
politics. Because I believe there is a way to effectively make the
necessary money appear, as if by magic. And all it is, is a radical
idea. At the moment, it's a case of throwing it out there and seeing
what happens.
It's
no secret that the internet giants pay very little tax. That's
another debate which can be left aside for the purposes of this,
because there is another way. It's a far-reaching vision, but many of
the founders and CEOs of those online behemoths are true visionaries
themselves, thinking long-term of future worlds, not necessarily run
by their companies.
Elon
Musk made his money from PayPal. Ask the average person in the
street what PayPal does, and they'll have an idea, but most wouldn't
be able to tell you how the model works, and how that fortune came to
be. And yet the idea is a very simple one. Essentially, PayPal is a
means of exchanging money, which is simple and free. I myself have a
PayPal account, which I use to receive some freelance payments, then
make small online purchases with. For me, it's a micro account which
I run completely independently, and for many people, that's the
simple solution it represents. Others use it in more sophisticated
ways, but in total, there are tens of millions of PayPal users with
sums of money sitting in the limbo which is PayPal, a holding house
between merchant and buyer. Many of those accounts lie dormant most
of the time, and all contain funds. To a business, this is a cash
asset, and it has liquidity. All of those millions of currency can be
used, to invest, to speculate, and to grow. PayPal exists on the
money made from what are effectively stock market cash trades. Give a
good investor your funds, and that investor will grow them for you.
And that's what Elon Musk did very successfully, while providing a
free service for many others. Now we have the Tesla electric car and
all of that company's research into producing power which can be
transmitted, just as Nikola
Tesla himself envisioned. Musk is also one of the pioneers of
commercial space travel and exploration. His long-term vision is to
change the world and humanity. Elon Musk made his initial capital so
that he could pursue this greater goal.
Jeff
Bezos, Founder and CEO of Amazon, envisions a future world where
his company's infrastructure exists in 'cloud cities', manufacturing
and distribution facilities constructed above the earth's surface.
His vision is to return much of the planet to nature, while some of
mankind moves into these vast cloud cities. The sci-fi writer can be
a pessimist in seeing a two-tier dystopia in that, or a natural
utopia. In any case, it's long-term vision. And it's that of the
internet entrepreneur most likely to be labelled a capitalist,
because Amazon sells tangible goods.
Returning
to Google and Facebook, they make the majority of their money from
our personal data, which they sell to advertisers. In return, we
receive free and unlimited use of their platforms. It's a simple
business transaction of an intangible product. But what if we
suddenly said, “Hold on. I realise I'm receiving something in
return for giving you my data, and that it's in the terms and
conditions of our contract. But I think my data is worth more than
that.”
Naturally,
there would be objections and much debate. In an ideal world, we, the
serfs, would say to our governing classes, “Hey, we'd like you to
tax those companies for mining our information. We accept that they
use it for their own gain and to improve their business and our
lives, and we accept that they are very tax efficient with
their business affairs. We also see that you don't have sufficient
means through tax collected, to use that as a government should: to
benefit the tax-payer. So we wonder if perhaps we might make a
suggestion: could you could place a ring-fenced social tax on our
data please?”
Once
the mechanisms are calculated and agreed, the revenue raised from
placing a tax on personal data could be sufficient to finance a
universal basic income sustainably. Like I said, it's a very simple
but radical idea, but one which governments and the internet giants
subscribe to. Unfortunately, the machinations of government
(especially in the UK) are painfully slow. Politics can be
radical, if the elected politicians think differently, or if someone
just thinks differently, perhaps by listening. There is a rumour of
Mark Zuckerberg running for US president. For my part, I've tried to
write all of this in such a way that it's accessible, and I hope
it'll be shared.
It's
power to the people. It's about addressing the balance of power and
returning that to the people. That's anarchy. I just wrote a late
night diary entry.
But
I'm just part of Earth 2.0, the organic supercomputer designed by
Deep Thought in The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, to work out
why the answer is 42. The computer only works if all of the component
parts co-operate to the greater good of the machine.
For
an alternative answer to the greatest question - that of life, the
universe and everything – I wrote a 'Sci-fi Rom Com' (it's now been
called): Cyrus
Song. It's about what happened when three humans were able to
talk to the other people they share this planet with: The animals.
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