Brexit: Too Small of an Idea

At its best, the focus of democratic politics is on ideas, not personalities. Brexit is an idea. It is a big idea. It is, however, too small of an idea. We (humanity) need a Big Idea.

Remainers’ typical characterization of people who voted for Brexit is that they are disgruntled losers who are falling behind the curve in the evolution of society, which has led them to seek external validation in xenophobic delusions of nationalist grandeur. Look, though, at the benefits to society as a whole that supporters of Brexit have touted.

Whether any or all of those claims are realistic or not is beside the point. What matters is that those claims represent a clear desire for a society in which everyone is better off. Perhaps people who voted for Brexit were expressing a more or less conscious intuition that what is needed at this point is a new Big Idea.

Viewed in that light, the problem with Brexit is its smallness as an idea. In a brazen nutshell, Brexit would make those sharing the British economic ‘pie’ better off by reducing the number of people who would be sharing it (while purportedly increasing its size, too).

It must be allowed that supporters of Brexit have tradition on their side. I submit that there is a better approach to making society better: implementing a “democratically distributed income” (DDI). I have been developing this idea, working out the details and addressing the various issues such an audacious idea necessarily entails, over a considerable period of time. [For the record, I do have an M.A. in economics.]

Implementing a DDI would provide the means to eliminate unemployment (at no cost to anyone) and poverty (without having to redistribute anything) for all citizens. The process could be used to fund government, eliminating the need for taxes/public debt. Sustainability would be inherently enhanced.

The amount of the DDI would be based on the current median income. The money for it would be created as needed, so it would be available for an unlimited number of people. It would be paid to eligible citizens: though it would not be paid to all citizens, any citizen — any number of citizens — could become eligible for it. It would thus be an absolutely, positively guaranteed minimum income for all citizens.

The total of that income would form the supply of money for the economy. To prevent inflation money would have to be returned to its point of origin (which could be either the central bank or a newly created Monetary Agency), but people and businesses could retain plenty of money and, unlike taxes, no money would be collected from any person or business before it could be used for purchases or investing.

Now, that is a Big Idea. If interested, “By Request: How to Transform the Society of any Nation (summarized for a ‘5 min read’)” is available here in Medium. (There I call the DDI, more neutrally, the “allotted income.”) Or, “A Truly Great Idea” relates the gestation of the idea.