bernie sanders proposes wealth fund to give americans stake in ai
Under Sanders’ proposal, leading AI companies would pay a one-time 50 percent tax of stock that would feed into a sovereign wealth fund and it could be as much as $1000 per year for each citizen.
Photo: Jackson Lanier, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Good Standing connects the people who need help to the people you can help. Learn More +
THE PROMPT:
Senator Bernie Sanders has introduced legislation to take a 50% equity stake in the nation's largest AI companies. He proposes to route it through a government-controlled sovereign wealth fund and pay the proceeds to Americans as a recurring dividend. It is a serious answer to a real crisis: the displacement of human labor by AI innovation. We share the diagnosis, but we propose a different cure.
A state-administered dividend answers inequality with a check. An initial $1,000 a year is not enough to buy real economic power or serious agency, and that payout depends on profits the bill's own author concedes may not materialize. We believe this is the wrong answer, not because redistribution is wrong fundamentally, but because this redistribution rebuilds nothing. It subsidizes a broken system instead of replacing it and deepens dependence instead of increasing personal agency. It mistakes a transfer of cash for a transfer of dignity.
There is also the matter of coercion. A one-time tax seizing half a company's equity is a precedent that could be reused in more concerning ways. Compulsion invites capital flight, a decade of litigation, and a politics of resentment, none of which are inspiring or motivating. Sanders’ admittedly flimsy but urgent proposal, to be clear, operates on the assumption that AI itself is sustainable, whether environmentally, economically, etc. and not subject to collapse.
Still, we propose the inverse. What if a citizen movement negotiated with the AI companies, whose profits are built on displacing human labor, to instead invest voluntarily in cooperatively-owned economic development infrastructure: commiissary hubs that produce healthy, sustainable basic needs through collaborative models while delivering education, mentorship, and incubation to the communities they serve? Ownership stays local and value compounds in regional communities, which are connected globally. We call this The Human Lobby, Radiical Systems' Answer #3. This system generates a human dividend: the quantifiable return on investing in the infrastructure people need to thrive.
Where Sanders’ plan would have the state hold the equity and mail us the interest, we would have the community hold the asset and live off the enterprise it builds. One makes you a passive beneficiary. The other turns us-citizens in communities-into owners.
We are looking to build the Human Lobby in concert with the myriad of organizations working on ethical AI. We would also like to work on improving community ownership and economic development models, while bringing expectations into a more realistic future. Let us know if you have ideas how to collaborate and grow this concept.
Join the conversation.
Have a story, solution or perspective to share?
Submit your content here.
