to inequality that is hiding in plain sight. It’s not subsidies or tax credits, just smart and fair management of wealth we inherit together. Thomas Paine pointed the way two centuries ago; Peter Barnes shows how to do it today.”
Chuck Collins, Institute for Policy Studies, author of The Wealth Hoarders: How Billionaires Pay Millions to Hide Trillions
“Twenty years ago Peter Barnes asked Who Owns the Sky? and his answer inspired a new way of addressing the ownership of common assets. Now, by tackling head-on the inadequacy of present property rights, he is more comprehensive and just as inspiring. Both concrete and visionary, Ours points the way to a market economy that automatically generates income for everyone and simultaneously curtails its destruction of nature.”
David Morris, founder, Institute for Local Self-Reliance
“This long-awaited book is a distillation of wise thinking over decades. Barnes shows how unconstrained use of common assets leads inexorably to wide discrepancies in human wealth and degradation of the natural world. His carefully detailed solution is a new form of universal property, neither public nor private, to be held in trust for the benefit of all living beings in this and future generations.”
Susan Witt, Executive Director, Schumacher Center for a New Economics
Ours
The Case for Universal Property
Peter Barnes
polity
Copyright © Peter Barnes 2021
The right of Peter Barnes to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in 2021 by Polity Press
Polity Press
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Cambridge CB2 1UR, UK
Polity Press
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Suite 300
Medford, MA 02155, USA
All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.
ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-4484-4
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Barnes, Peter, 1942- author.
Title: Ours : the case for universal property / Peter Barnes.
Description: Cambridge, UK ; Medford, MA : Polity Press, 2021. | Includes
bibliographical references and index. | Summary: “How we can rewire
private property to work for people, not corporations”-- Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021000325 (print) | LCCN 2021000326 (ebook) | ISBN 9781509544820 (hardback) | ISBN 9781509544837 (paperback) | ISBN 9781509544844 (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Property. | Equality. Classification: LCC HB701 .B367 2021 (print) | LCC HB701 (ebook) | DDC 330.1/7--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021000325 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021000326
The publisher has used its best endeavors to ensure that the URLs for external websites referred to in this book are correct and active at the time of going to press. However, the publisher has no responsibility for the websites and can make no guarantee that a site will remain live or that the content is or will remain appropriate.
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Acknowledgments
I could not have written this book without the continued love and support of my partner, Cornelia Durrant.
Others who inspired me with ideas and feedback include Marcellus Andrews, William Arnone, Joseph Blasi, David Bollier, Matthew Bruenig, Robert Costanza, Gus diZerega, Layla Forrest-White, Natalie Foster, Robert Friedman, John Fullerton, John Garn, Sam Hammond, Robert Hockett, Alex Howlett, Chris Hughes, Edward Kirshner, George Lakoff, Mary Lehmann, Wendy McLaughlin, Christopher Mackin, Ioana Marinescu, David Morris, Griffin Murphy, Janelle Orsi, George Owers, Lenore Paladino, Richard Parker, Brent Ranalli, Mike Sandler, Scott Santens, Jeremy Sherman, Fraser Murison Smith, Gus Speth, Guy Standing, Marshall Steinbaum, Steve Randy Waldman, Karl Widerquist, and David Sloan Wilson. In addition, I am grateful to Tom White and the Vedanta Society of Northern California for providing me with beautiful spaces to think and write.
I am also deeply indebted to a long line of original thinkers, including Thomas Paine, Henry George, John Maynard Keynes, Arthur Pigou, James Meade, E. F. Schumacher, Louis Kelso, Herman Daly, and James Lovelock. And special thanks to James Boyce for years of friendship and intellectual collaboration.
Finally, as always, I am deeply grateful to my extended family: Zachary Barnes Miller, Eli Barnes, Leyna Bernstein, Pam Miller, Valerie Barnes Jordan, and Jess Almendarez.
Foreword
James K. Boyce
Ours introduces a transformative idea whose time is coming: universal property.
Universal property is a birthright belonging equally to all. It is individual, it is inalienable, and it is perfectly egalitarian. Unlike private property, universal property cannot be bought and sold, owned by corporations, or concentrated in a few hands. Unlike state property, income derived from the use of universal property flows not to governments but directly to the people themselves.
As Peter Barnes explains in this lucidly written book, universal property can help address some of the gravest failures in the functioning of markets and governments alike: above all, the growth of extreme inequalities of wealth and income and the destabilization of the Earth’s climate by rampant carbon emissions. We urgently need innovative solutions that will reduce inequality without increasing carbon emissions, and reduce carbon emissions without increasing inequality.
In making the case for universal property, Barnes breaks from the well-worn state-versus-market divide that has delimited conventional
