Image by Hilary Clark
The concept of participation income (PI) was first introduced by Anthony Atkinson in his 1996 paper, “The Case for Participation Income,” as a basic income given to all citizens who participate in society, whether through formal work, unpaid work, such as care or volunteering, or cultural or creative activities. The principle is that anyone who is contributing to society in some way should be eligible to enjoy its rewards. Society can be understood as the commons: the collective shared space owned, sustained and maintained by all and for all. The commons includes both physical spaces, such as public parks, and intangibles, such as the explicit values and principles upon which our society is based. Activities that support the commons typically do not have a market value, since no single party benefits more than any of the rest: all receive the same benefits. Thus, participation income is a method of paying for the maintenance of the commons by taxing those whose wealth is dependent upon its stability and integrity.
Here, Malcolm Torry summarizes the principle argument against PI, outlined at greater length in his 2016 book, citing “research results which reveal the difficulty of administering a Participation Income, and … calculations that show that on Tony Atkinson’s ‘participation’ criteria only 1.2% of the UK’s population would be excluded from his Participation Income at considerable administrative cost.”
So, if the administrative overheads of PI are high, and the criteria for receiving PI are nearly universal, why not save the expense of administration and just introduce a universal basic income?
The value of PI is that it addresses both the definition of a citizen and the moral hazards of UBI.
No substantive discussion has been had on the merits or demerits of decentralising the process of defining what counts as valid participation. The conversation has been largely about what can be done about inequality, and PI has been dismissed out of hand—as though defining participation in an efficient manner, without creating more bureaucracy, were an insurmountable challenge.
But by democratising the definition of participation, you could remove the administrative costs to a central authority, and forestall accusations of paternalism. To pre-empt the objection that such a process would be far too complex, think of representative democracy. Our democratic frameworks were developed in a period when there were legitimate question marks over whether people had the technology, communications infrastructure and literacy levels required to implement a free and fair voting system. Yet today the arguments over whether people have the capacity to choose their elected representatives are largely marginal. Now that virtually everyone is online, effectively voting with likes, follows, claps and angry emojis, in a grand social validation game funded by advertising, the technology to implement granular voting systems and liquid democracy is nearly ubiquitous. New applications are launched nearly every day, able to handle similar levels of complexity to those we would need to implement a participation income system.
We may question the wisdom of the electorate, but we now know that democracy is “the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.” Someday, we may think of participation income as the worst form of wealth redistribution—except for all the others that have been tried.
The Problem: Inequality
Economic inequality is increasing rapidly due to what economists know as the Matthew effect: “To those who have much, more shall be given; from those who have little, everything shall be taken.”
This theory was formalised in 1896 by Vilfredo Pareto, who showed that approximately 80% of the land in Italy was owned by 20% of the population. Wealth inequality increases over time, reducing economic and social mobility. The reasons for this range from regulatory capture, to financial influence on politics, access to social and commercial networks and differences in educational and healthcare availability. But its root cause is that, in any game, the greater the inequality the greater the capacity of more fortunate players to make or amend the rules in their favour, which further increases inequality.
For example, feudal lords may have gained power through force, and kept it through competent administration or conquest or both. But the introduction of blood right—the hereditary privileges of nobility—directly modified the conventions of social mobility. Society was no longer meritocratic: heritable, immutable qualities determined one’s status for life. Blood right is a way of ensuring that the strategies that allowed the winners to take power are no longer available to those who come after them. This further increases inequality—often leading to upheavals like the French revolution.
Not all inequality of outcome is caused by the corruption and duplicitousness of a conspiratorial elite. Differences in ability can be significant, and these differences can and do compound over time. But the mere possibility that legitimate inequality leads to the capacity to generate illegitimate inequality by allowing the powerful to change the rules in their favour will often lead disempowered people to consider revolt, to flip over the board so that everyone starts from zero: true equality.
The tendency for a person or group to pull the ladder up after them has generated resentment and provoked violence in societies: from the Roman Republic’s civil war between plebeians and patricians to the communist revolutions of modernity.
Violence tracks the Gini coefficient, the measure of inequality, as Martin Daly argues in his book Killing the Competition:
Criminologists have known for decades that income inequality is the best predictor of the local homicide rate, but why this is so has eluded them. There is a simple, compelling answer: most homicides are the dénouements of competitive interactions between men, and where desired goods are distributed relatively inequitably and competition for those goods is severe, dangerous tactics of competition are relatively appealing. A high homicide rate is just one of many unfortunate consequences.
In a 2002 paper that surveyed 39 countries between 1965 and 1995, Pablo Fajnzylber, Daniel Lederman and Norman Loayza found that “crime rates and inequality positively correlated within countries and, particularly, between countries, and this correlation reflects causation from inequality to crime rates, even after controlling for other crime determinants.”
A Gallup survey of May 2018 asked 148,000 people in 142 countries about their perceptions of crime and how safe they felt, using four measures: whether they trusted the local police; whether they felt safe walking home alone; whether they had ever had property or money stolen; and whether they had been assaulted over the past year. The findings showed that “the correlation between these questions and the amount of income inequality in any given country shows a strong and positive relationship.”
If outcomes are unequal enough, then, individuals and groups will be pushed to the brink of violence and revolution. Faced with the perceived duplicitousness of an elite political, economic or corporate class, a disenfranchised but cynical actor might well foment discord through misinformation and bad faith arguments.
If we want to avoid descending into a cycle of increasing violence and authoritarian responses, we must expand the number of ways in which people can productively contribute to society, thus giving the greatest possible number of people a place and status in society. In other words, we must pay people for positive participation.
What Is Good Participation?
If people are game playing machines, but they are playing a bad game, then they will be bad people. People want to be good. But if the signalling mechanisms for goodness are easily gamed by bad actors, then the strategically optimal decision is to be bad, but to signal goodness.
A player who wishes to engage only with good players must build a game that makes it easy for good actors, but difficult for bad actors, to signal that they are good.
In a multiplayer game, it is not possible for a single player to unilaterally determine what is good, because that player will always be incentivised to present good and good for that player as synonymous.
It is also not optimal for players to outsource their definition of good to a third party, since that party will also be incentivised to say that good and good for them are synonymous.
Good must be good according to most people.
But for a large number of people, good and good for us are synonymous. Though what is good for most of us might be very bad for a few.
Good must be uncontroversially good according to all people. In other words, the few must have a veto over the majority opinion.
To alleviate the pressure caused by inequality, the system must provide a wealth redistribution mechanism that incentivises good behaviour—participation in the commons—and that has very low administrative overheads. People would need to consent to the definition of good behaviour within the existing democratic framework, and it would need to be transparently defined within the rules of the system, such that all parties who opt in are reasonably satisfied that the system is fair.
This is the basis of all functioning welfare systems. This new system would complement, not replace, existing welfare infrastructure, while slowly, incrementally, taking over many of the functions of the administratively costly welfare state.
There will need to be debate on the exact parameters, but in the beginning broad political support is not important, and probably a waste of time. Since all players will argue in favour of their relative interests, and the system must be designed to be fair, it will probably be extremely unpopular in theory, but extremely popular in practice—as shown by revealed preferences.
Real compromise pleases nobody in particular.
The Basics
Assume that a small country that controls its own currency, such as Iceland, Armenia, Finland or New Zealand, were to adopt the participation income system in a single district, as a trial, exclusively for registered residents of that district. It is important that the district include both taxpayers and welfare recipients, so it can be considered a representative sample of the country’s overall level of inequality.
A conditional recurring payment would be paid to each participant abiding by the rules of the system.
In order to receive their payments, participants must post an activity, with a description and appropriate evidence. The designers of the scheme might institute the following rules:
Your activity must be posted publicly, where people who vote can also comment, or report on it.
Your activity must have a location, even if it is a purely digital activity undertaken from your home.
Your activity must be tagged with relevant keywords, so that people can easily find it.
Your activity can be recurring or continuous. You can post once and keep getting verified for the same activity. It can even be a one-off—although in that case it will need to be of significant scale. As long as you can convince one person each payment cycle to verify your activity that is all that matters.
Of course, people can also post multiple activities.
Validation: Was it good?
For taxpayers to accept that activities are good for society, so that in general the activities benefit them.
You must achieve a minimum number of votes (this minimum can be low).
You must have a minimum ratio of, for example 80%, positive to negative votes, to ensure activities are uncontroversially good.
Verification: Did It happen?
Taxpayers must feel secure that the activities actually happened.
For each payment cycle, you must have verification from one person outside of two degrees of separation from you.
You may only be verified by the same person a maximum number of times within a specified period, e.g. 10 times per year, or per 10 years.
Network data is determined by votes of validation, i.e. if Person A has voted or received a vote from Person B, and Person B has voted for an activity posted by Person C, then Person A is deemed to be within the network of Person C, and thus cannot verify her activity.
These parameters may need to be adjusted based on population density.
Cultural or charity organisations may provide validation to their own members and volunteers, by registering with the system and allowing them to use their logos as badges of credibility.
Importantly, in order to create a market for verification, a smaller payment would also have to be paid to people verifying activities. Each participant may verify one activity per week.
We might propose that a person’s verification income is set at 20% or one-fifth of participation income. People who wish to verify an activity must solicit an active participant to verify them. Thus, the person doing the activity may confirm or deny the right of this person to verify her, by viewing his profile to see if he is an active participant himself. It is expected that people will be discerning, in that they will only wish to verify or be verified by honest participants. People with a lot of downvotes, a lack of references, a lack of any known organisational affiliation, or with negative references, will find it more difficult to gain acceptance to either verify or receive verification.
The Income
Payment cycles can be assumed to be weekly.
Above a minimum threshold, each person must be paid according to her market rate to justify her participation economically. The market rate of a person with a high income can be determined by the amount of income tax she pays. This payment is distributed as a tax deduction, or an increase in tax-free credits for the period in question.
The amount of money distributed via tax deductions or cash would be non-negotiable. Recipients decide how much effort they are willing to put into the activity in order to receive the payment. For example, one might set the amount to represent a day’s worth of effort in the market for each participant, based on the local minimum wage or an estimate of the participant’s day rate based on the income tax he pays. Some people might receive $100, others $500—even for the same effort—because the higher earner incurs greater opportunity costs as a result of participating.
Who Pays?
But, if taxpayers receive more participation income than low earners, who will pay for this? How can this be redistributive?
In the beginning, few taxpayers will be on board, and thus the participation income of all participants will be paid for in the aggregate by non-participating taxpayers, or, via inflation, by the government simply printing money.
Once the majority of taxpayers are participating, the big losers will be those taxpayers not participating, though even participating taxpayers will benefit less individually. The system creates a sort of reverse prisoner’s dilemma for taxpayers. If very few participate, then the greatest benefactors will be the few who do. If all taxpayers participate, then the number of net benefactors will decrease, until the only net benefactors from a tax/income perspective are the lowest earners or the unemployed.
A teacher or nurse who pays tax may post that his participation is teaching, and will not need to do anything additional to what he already does, if his peers validate the activity as worthy of payment.
But someone who works in a cigarette company will probably not post her profession, so she will have to think of something supplementary to her work, or pay the tax. If the person volunteers her time or donates her participation income directly to a lung cancer research charity, this is in effect a tax on the externality costs of her labour.
Failure of Consensus
In principle, it is possible for everyone to downvote each other, so that no payments are distributed. In that case, the state has fewer financial liabilities (and thus collects less tax) until a community consensus has been reached on which activities are worthy of payment. If people want the income, they have to come to a consensus as to which activities contribute to civic integrity: which things are good and which are bad for society.
You can find out more about participation income by joining the discussion on our subreddit, or by following me on Twitter.
16 comments
I don’t see how this plan would be easier or give a better result than a UBI. This would have far more overhead, be easier to game, and overall be a much harder sell. If 98% of people will qualify for this plan than using a UBI seems to cut out the middle-man and give the same results.
Lots of reasons:
– No consensus amongst UBI proponents:
Because UBI is a false consensus. The UBI splits between welfare socialists (give the income on top of existing supports) and libertarian anti-paternalists (give the income in place of existing supports). UBI proponents also define a citizen differently. Should migrant workers receive the UBI? (This couldn’t be implemented in the EU, for example, where all workers must be treated equally, until the whole EU implemented it).
– No reciprocity (moral hazard)
Taxpayers will reject it in the voting booth, but will not engage in debate, since for them UBI is just theft, unless you go with the libertarian camp and that will split the UBI community.
Participation Income is designed to not require broad political support before first implemented, and to grow incrementally, adjusting the parameters and improving the validation and verification to generate electoral consent.
Can you tell me how you would game the system? I think you’ll find it much more difficult to game than you think at first glance.
Ciarán Carroll IS AN AN ISLAMOPHOBIC. HE IS ANTI MUSLIM. I WILL INFORM ALL HIS TWITTER FOLLOWERS ABOUT HIS ANTI MUSLIM COMMENTS AND INFORM HIS WIFE. CAROLL IS A HATER
ALLAH IS REALITY AND CARROLL GO AGAINST REALITY. AREO MAGAZINE IS AN ANTI ISLAM WEBSITE. I WILL CLOSE THIS PLACE DOWN
A==B==D L==O==M==A==X
> What kind of activities are “good for society” is an ideological question and one that does not lend itself to any kind of consensus in a complex and heterogeneous nation. Using the measurements the author suggests, the people of rural Alabama would decide on each other in much different ways than the people of Seattle. A libertarian and a socialist will have dramatically different views on what is “good” or “bad” for society. Not only does this scheme imply an extreme economic tyranny of the majority (80% positive votes on worthiness), moreover, this extraordinarily unwieldy system of voting on each other would not solve the problem of administrative costs and, more seriously, administrative power. Who would be in charge of redistributing according to the votes? Who would determine those “degrees of separation” and ensure that they actually exist?
I think you missed the part of the minority rule. All of the above is addressed in the piece. Ideologically possessed people would be marginalised and excluded from payment, but most people are not ideologically possessed. In Seattle and Alabama what would be consented to as good for society would be broadly similar, maybe nudged to one direction of the political spectrum or the other.
In regards to the parameters, these would all be negotiated in the normal political process. They’d be set at some default and adjusted, and then when new jurisdictions implemented they’d go with the default parameters that are effective at increasing civic integrity in previous implementations. Its a normal political process, like deciding how to spread tax liabilities or set the minimum wage. Nobody specifically is in charge, thats the point, thats why its consensus based.
> Finally, this plan has the same problem as other ambitious strategies to “solve social problems.” How would you get there from here? Convincing a few other reddit contributors is a long way from getting universal public agreement. The author writes “[i]n the beginning few taxpayers will be on board.” Well, if few of them are on board, that means they don’t support the scheme, in which case some set of planners would be imposing it on them without their permission. Frankly, for my own part, I’d be so opposed to anything like this that I’d do everything I could to stop its implementation and, in the highly implausible case that it were actually adopted, to wreck its functioning. And I’m certain I would not be alone. So much for consensus.
I’m not sure you understand what consensus means. There are always going to be people who feel marginalised by a consensus. That is addressed in the piece. Some people will be dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century. The alternative of increasing inequality, and thus violence and eventually revolution, authoritarianism and inter-state conflict in a nuclear armed world is far far worse than trying to please every quack.
“[i]n the beginning few taxpayers will be on board.” In the beginning there will be almost no people involved, so the tax liabilities will be tiny. Thats the point. It would increase incrementally, and the parameters set and adjusted to suit the population so that most people are comfortable that it is fair and the activities are valuable.
As far as the administrative cost is concerned, this would be tiny. People already vote extensively on social media for nothing. And behind the scenes these platforms run programmatically, with a relatively tiny number of staff, far less than an existing welfare state.
I understand that this is novel, but your response is an emotional one, and doesn’t address the particulars of the piece.
Thanks for the thoughtful, if somewhat condescending reply. On your first point, a brief look at the results of the General Social Survey in any given year will tell you that Americans in fact have a wide range of ideological views on what is or is not good for society, so your claim here simply does stand up to empirical evidence. Shifting somewhat, you say that those who don’t sign on (in your tendentious phrase are “ideologically possessed”) will not receive payments. But they won’t be excused from paying the taxes from which those payments come. So, they will have to support value-based sociopolitical judgements with which they disagree.
On your second point, I can’t imagine where you would get the idea that in “the normal political process” … “no one is in charge.” If you will review the idea of politics, from Aristotle through Max Weber, you will see that putting individuals or institutions in charge is precisely what political processes are all about. To give our tax system as an illustration of no one being specifically in charge and everything being simply agreed by consensus is particularly bizarre. If you will look at debates over tax policy, you will see that there is nothing about taxation that operates simply by consensus.
Now, on that word “consensus,” yes, I know it exactly what it means. It comes to us from a fourth declension Latin noun of the masculine gender that means agreement on opinion, harmony, or unanimity. I could refer you back to the GSS on the absence of unanimity of opinion in our large and complex society, but you could also attend a Trump rally and then take part in a BLM protest to get a better idea of how sociopolitical values and opinions really are. Or just read a newspaper.
Interesting, on that note, that you give social media as an example of how costs would be reduced. In the first place, social media have intensified the political and cultural divisions in our society (again, that problem of “consensus”). In the second, although social media are relatively inexpensive for users, they have also encouraged the growth of a technological oligopoly. They concentrate not only wealth, but control.
To label those who disagree as “quacks” who must be “dragged kicking and screaming” into the century is a very odd way to oppose authoritarianism. Obviously, I strongly disagree with this scheme. as my final paragraph suggests. But, no, the response is not “an emotional one.” It is a disagreement, based on clearly stated reasons. An objection to far-reaching “novelty” in social planning is one of those reasons, not an emotional reaction to the unfamiliar.
> Thanks for the thoughtful, if somewhat condescending reply.
I responded in a tone equivalent to that of your comment, which was highly emotional and low effort.
> On your first point, a brief look at the results of the General Social Survey in any given year will tell you that Americans in fact have a wide range of ideological views on what is or is not good for society, so your claim here simply does stand up to empirical evidence. Shifting somewhat, you say that those who don’t sign on (in your tendentious phrase are “ideologically possessed”) will not receive payments. But they won’t be excused from paying the taxes from which those payments come. So, they will have to support value-based sociopolitical judgements with which they disagree.
The range is not relevant. What matters is that the bulk of those things are common, which is in fact true. Most people believe elderly people should be cared for by family and neighbours at home for as long as possible. Most people believe there shouldn’t be litter on the ground, that music is good and important, and that youth sports is good and important, that teaching and mentorship is good and important and difficult to make a living at.
> On your second point, I can’t imagine where you would get the idea that in “the normal political process” … “no one is in charge.” If you will review the idea of politics, from Aristotle through Max Weber, you will see that putting individuals or institutions in charge is precisely what political processes are all about. To give our tax system as an illustration of no one being specifically in charge and everything being simply agreed by consensus is particularly bizarre. If you will look at debates over tax policy, you will see that there is nothing about taxation that operates simply by consensus.
Ok, nothing to say here. You don’t think democracy results in decisions that are balanced to the greatest degree possible. That may be because where you live is dysfunctional and democracy is breaking down. I can forgive you of that. Where I live democracy still functions mostly as it should.
> Now, on that word “consensus,” yes, I know it exactly what it means. It comes to us from a fourth declension Latin noun of the masculine gender that means agreement on opinion, harmony, or unanimity. I could refer you back to the GSS on the absence of unanimity of opinion in our large and complex society, but you could also attend a Trump rally and then take part in a BLM protest to get a better idea of how sociopolitical values and opinions really are. Or just read a newspaper.
Consensus does not mean absolute harmony, nor unanimous.
Noun
consensus (countable and uncountable, plural consensuses)
A process of decision-making that seeks widespread agreement among group members.
Widespread is the important word. Consensus doesn’t need to listen to the kooky ideologically possessed fringes. Most people are sick of these people.
> Interesting, on that note, that you give social media as an example of how costs would be reduced. In the first place, social media have intensified the political and cultural divisions in our society (again, that problem of “consensus”). In the second, although social media are relatively inexpensive for users, they have also encouraged the growth of a technological oligopoly. They concentrate not only wealth, but control.
I am an expert in this field, I know exactly how social media works. They are built as centralised social validation slot machines, based off of techniques generated by behavioural psychologists in the machine gambling industry. None of that suggests the cost of administering the system would be high, nor would it have to be architected based upon the same degenerative paradigm of contemporary social media.
> To label those who disagree as “quacks” who must be “dragged kicking and screaming” into the century is a very odd way to oppose authoritarianism. Obviously, I strongly disagree with this scheme. as my final paragraph suggests. But, no, the response is not “an emotional one.” It is a disagreement, based on clearly stated reasons. An objection to far-reaching “novelty” in social planning is one of those reasons, not an emotional reaction to the unfamiliar.
I’m responding in your tone. Be nicer and you’ll be treated with more the same.
I’m astounded that you find me somehow not being nice. Come on, friend, I am not attacking you personally. I called your argument interesting and thanked you for a thoughtful reply, although I did find it condescending. There’s no snarkiness there – I actually did find the article thought-provoking, if, to my lights, wrong. Look, I disagree with you and I find your argument unrealistic. I’m criticizing your argument, not insulting your intelligence or your motivations. Other social schemes that I would find interesting but unrealistic and destructive in practice include those of Rousseau, Marx, and Henry George. I would not be offended to be placed in that company,
I am perfectly willing to accept that you are an expert in social media. But that isn’t a response to my point, it is an argumentum ab auctoritate. I’m an academic expert in a number of areas related to this topic, but that doesn’t make me right.
The objection to labeling people as “quacks” or as members of “kooky ideologically possessed fringes” is not one of concern over your tone in responding to me. It is a more general concern about what I see as the intolerance inherent in expanding ideas of consensus and consigning those who dissent from ideas about what the consensus is or ought to be to the fringes.
I certainly hope you don’t find any kind of an offensive tone in this reply.
> But as a social and economic program, I’d have to rate it as pure crackpottery.
Your response was low effort and dismissive and rude. The counters to your points are contained in the original document, they are not even questions in search of clarifications. The proposal is much more robust than you have grasped. Read again without projecting please.
Just one more thing because I don’t want to do your thinking for you:
> In the second, although social media are relatively inexpensive for users, they have also encouraged the growth of a technological oligopoly. They concentrate not only wealth, but control.
WordPress, Linux, Android, Chromium
The “crackpottery” remark was directed at the practical application of the plan, not the person. I’d also say that about the plans of Rousseau or Henry George. But I’m sorry if you that as a personal attack. It was not.
I think maybe as a full professor who has published over 30 books and several hundred peer reviewed articles, I might be able to do my own thinking a little bit. Of course, I could be wrong throughout, but not from a lack of thought. The latest forthcoming book, by the way, deals in one of its chapters with how new technologies contribute to polarization while also concentrating wealth and market control. On this point, take a look at the net worth of Linus Torvald, the business model of red hat software, or how Android is connected to that behemoth, Google. A technological oligopoly indeed.
You’re really not making an effort, sorry.
Since you ignored my responses you should just go back through your comments and then take the passages in the text that respond to your points, or failing that the parts of my responses.
And don’t move the goalposts with sprawling non-specific points about Linus Torvald. The sounds and associations that you make in your head are not by default rational enquiries. And for all I know your 30 books are like these posts, screeds of motivated reasoning, reasoning to a desired conclusion.
Do better and show other people the respect for their work that you desire.
>Consensus does not mean absolute harmony, nor unanimous.
>Noun
>consensus (countable and uncountable, plural consensuses)
>A process of decision-making that seeks widespread agreement among group members.
Google tells me that consensus means a general agreement. Also a list of synonyms of consent is agreement, harmony, concord, like-mindedness, concurrence, consent, common consent, accord, unison, unity, unanimity, oneness, solidarity, concert, general opinion/view, majority opinion/view, and common opinion/view.
Synonyms are not exact matches.
You can have absolute consensus, what you are describing, and broad based or widespread consensus, which is a large majority of people in the centre of the bell curve.
This is interesting as an abstract theory but it would be disastrous if you ever tried to put it into practice. What kind of activities are “good for society” is an ideological question and one that does not lend itself to any kind of consensus in a complex and heterogeneous nation. Using the measurements the author suggests, the people of rural Alabama would decide on each other in much different ways than the people of Seattle. A libertarian and a socialist will have dramatically different views on what is “good” or “bad” for society. Not only does this scheme imply an extreme economic tyranny of the majority (80% positive votes on worthiness), moreover, this extraordinarily unwieldy system of voting on each other would not solve the problem of administrative costs and, more seriously, administrative power. Who would be in charge of redistributing according to the votes? Who would determine those “degrees of separation” and ensure that they actually exist?
Finally, this plan has the same problem as other ambitious strategies to “solve social problems.” How would you get there from here? Convincing a few other reddit contributors is a long way from getting universal public agreement. The author writes “[i]n the beginning few taxpayers will be on board.” Well, if few of them are on board, that means they don’t support the scheme, in which case some set of planners would be imposing it on them without their permission. Frankly, for my own part, I’d be so opposed to anything like this that I’d do everything I could to stop its implementation and, in the highly implausible case that it were actually adopted, to wreck its functioning. And I’m certain I would not be alone. So much for consensus.
So, I appreciate this as an intellectual exercise. But as a social and economic program, I’d have to rate it as pure crackpottery.