Okay. I’ve had it. This has been stewing in my mind long enough. I’m just going to say it.
Here’s the deal: There’s a global market, but there’s no global polity. The UN is a forum for discussion, but not a re-distributor of wealth. It can’t systematically ensure justice. Cosmetically, maybe. As a band-aid polity, at best. But it’s not a polity. It’s not a government.
Government, among other things, aims to ensure the fair distribution of resources. We live in a world where those in power agree that markets–and their careful political management–are the best way to distribute resources. This dogma is fine, I guess. Whether or not we like it, it’s not going anywhere.
But we need to think more politically in a global market context. Polity must catch up with markets. Injustice reigns otherwise.
We need a global tax code. We can’t have countries going around doing whatever the hell they want without paying into some kind of institution that at least aims to ensure equal distribution of the global social product.
Nations do this, sort of. Unfortunately, in terms of markets, nations haven’t meaningfully existed for some time. The global nation, whose only common culture is price fluctuation and exchange, has existed for a long time, but we haven’t given the strength it needs to play its proper role.
It’s not a question of whether this global nation exists. It’s a question of making it functional so we don’t destroy each other.
What’s does a polity look like for a nation whose culture is price and exchange? A tax code.
Here’s my proposal. It’s called “The Average is Best.”
Using some globally recognized measure of asset value (GDP is probably best), countries should be taxed according to their asset value’s variance from the world median average of that value.
The country with the median GDP pays no taxes. Countries that have more than the median pay a credit to the global polity proportionate to that excessive variance (the difference between the median GDP and the country’s GDP). Countries that have less than the median go into debt to the global polity proportionate to that deficient variance (again, same proportion, only this time it’s a debt, not a credit).
Wealth is redistributed according to the credits and debts: the money that countries over the median GDP pay to the global polity goes toward the debts of the countries under the median GDP. The global polity determines what amounts go to what countries based on other dimensions of need, such as those reported in the Human Development Index. Countries under the median use that money to pay back their debt by the next global fiscal year. If they don’t, the debt rolls over to the next year. Etc.
For example, here is the CIA World Factbook list of GDP by country from 2010. There are 216 countries reporting GDP on this list. The 108th country is Nepal, with a GDP of US$15,840. The first country is the U.S. with a GDP of US$14,660,000. Here’s how much the U.S. would pay the global polity:
14660000 – 15,840 = US$14,644,160
The second country is China, with a GDP of US$5,878,000. They’d pay the global polity US$5,862,160.
On the opposite end of the spectrum is the last country, Niue. They’re GDP is US$10. Here’s what they owe the global polity:
15840 – 10 = US$15, 830.
Niue owes the global polity $15, 830. The amount collected by the polity from the countries in excess of the median will be funneled to Niue, and countries like it, in order that they may pay their debt. If they can’t pay it by the end of the next fiscal year, their debt rolls over. Whatever they couldn’t pay goes back to the polity. They try again.
There. I said it. What does anyone think?
