Entitlements are all very well but they must first be defined.
Traditional societies handled the entitlement issue, however
imperfectly, by family and village responsibilities. As Steve Kurtz
pointed out (on the Futurework list, anent Professor Sen's remarks on
entitlement), GDP is a very poor (in fact useless) measure of quality
of life. Someone has already mentioned Kerala, which has a very low GDP
but a very high quality of life by all accounts. It is obious to most
that the planet cannot sustain anything approaching Noth American
consumption levels for all the world's population. I would suggest that
the human psyche cannot long sustain the level of amization and
alienation prevalent in North America, either.
The first question is therefore entitlement to what? I would suggest as
a first cut, to basic education, to food and shelter adequate by the
local social norms, and to the freedom of expression and assembly.
Philosophers and economists from the physiocrats to Henry George
pointed out that all wealth comes ultimately from human labour applied
to natural resources, and that great disparities in wealth are almost
always based on the private appropriation of those resources (including
human knowlwdge) which have been provided for the sustenance of all.
Geonomists like Jeffery Smith, dollowing this tradition, have argued
that the means to provide a geo-dividend for all could be provided by
capturing the economic rent for all natural resources for the common
good, and providing for public access to all patent rights by requiring
patent applicants to state a fee for which they would be willing to
license the patent and requiring them to pay an annual patent
protection fee which would gradually increase until after 20 years (or
whatever) it equalled the full license fee.
Capture of most the rental value of natural resources (including land
and the ability of the environment to absorb and detoxify waste
products) for the public good is a necessary precurser to effective
entitlements.
Caspar Davis
Victoria, B.C., Canada
A wall of infinite dimension stands before the course of human evolution.
It is the finitude of the earth and its resources.
--Steve Morningthunder
