Robley George: SOCIOECONOMIC DEMOCRACY: A Realizable Democratic Socioeconomic Utopia
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Depending upon the degree and direction of technological development, this democratically set, societally guaranteed minimum income for all could be sufficient to satisfy the typical individual's minimum subsistence needs. Alternatively, society might democratically decide to set the guaranteed amount at only a partial subsistence level, for a variety of legitimate reasons. There are as many different forms of UGI (ranging from Basic Income (BI) to Negative Income Tax (NIT)) as there are reasons to establish some form of UGI.
It is noteworthy that the state of Alaska in the USA is at present the only governmental entity in the world that has a form of UGI (though Iraq may soon), namely the Alaska Permanent Fund, which provides each and every resident (one-year residency) an annual sum determined by revenues from the state-owned oil fields and recently ranging somewhat around $2,000 per year per resident. It is also the case, however, that the pioneering "Lula," President of Brazil, is seriously developing steps toward adoption of the basic idea throughout the country of Brazil.
MAW. In the ideal theoretical model, the participants of the democratic socioeconomic system would understand that all personal material wealth above the democratically determined allowable amount would, by due process, be transferred out of their ownership and control in a manner specified by the democratically designed and implemented laws of the land.
All economic systems create economic incentive, for good and for bad and for whom. Socioeconomic Democracy creates the economic incentive to reduce, significantly and simultaneously, a large number of acknowledged-to-be-serious societal problems. Basically, this is accomplished by aligning the legitimate self-interest of the individual (via the economic incentive created by the democratically set MAW limit) with the legitimate self-interest of society at large. The synergy of the society is thereby significantly increased, allowing realization of higher human goals that are unattainable with present-day inefficient and inconsistent economic systems.
Likewise, all economic systems have a few basic tenets, or assumptions, that guide and attempt to legitimate their prescriptions and their practices. Socioeconomic Democracy assumes (some of) the same major assumptions of what is called "neoclassical" economic theory, the dominant economic theory behind, among other things, increasingly expanding and increasingly opposed, globalizing capitalism. Combining these basic assumptions of neoclassical theory with the globalizing popular desire for a more meaningful and just democracy results in Socioeconomic Democracy.
Hence, a "rational, self-interested, insatiable, and law-abiding" (as the neoclassical saying goes) extremely wealthy participant in the democratic socioeconomic system, who is at or near the upper bound on allowable personal wealth and who further desires increased personal wealth would be economically motivated, that is, have economic incentive to actively work to increase the well-being of the less materially wealthy (less "better off") members of society. Only in this manner can these (still-wealthiest) participants persuade (a majority of) the also rationally self-interested less wealthy participants of the democratic society to vote to raise the legal upper limit on allowable personal wealth -- thus allowing those wealthiest participants to legally acquire and retain the increased allowable amount of personal net wealth and worth they so crave.
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