Preface
1. A Simple Idea
2. The Tragedy of Our Middle Class
3. Fix the System, Not the Symptoms
4. Extracted Rent
5. Recycled Rent
6. The Alaska Model
7. Dividends For All
8. Carbon Capping: A Cautionary Tale
9. From Here To The Adjacent Possible
Join The Discussion
Appendix: The Dividend Potential of Co-Owned Wealth
Notes
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Index
Peter Barnes is a writer and entrepreneur who has started and run several successful businesses. He cofounded Working Assets Long Distance (now Credo Mobile) and is the author of five previous books, including Capitalism 3.0.
“Peter Barnes takes the national discussion on inequality to a new
and important level. Enormously thoughtful, insightful, and
valuable.”
—Robert B. Reich, former US Secretary of Labor
“Peter Barnes offers a market-based way to support our lower and
middle classes and protect our planet at the same time. Anyone
tired of Washington’s stale political clichés should read this
book.”
—Van Jones, author of Rebuild the Dream
“I loved this book. It is clear and fast-paced and offers a
breathtakingly logical solution to widening inequality and
ecological degradation.”
—Susan Witt, Executive Director, Schumacher Center for a New
Economics
“Peter Barnes’s solution to the decline of our middle class is so
left-wing that Sarah Palin has championed a version of it in
Alaska.”
—Timothy Noah, author of The Great Divergence
“When you apply a brilliant business mind like Peter’s to the
common good, you get great ideas like this one: dividends from
wealth we own together. Let’s do it.”
—Marjorie Kelly, author of Owning Our Future
“While Thomas Piketty proposes to tax private wealth, Peter
Barnes’s solution is to pay everyone dividends from wealth we own
in common. Both approaches should be taken very
seriously.”
—James Boyce, Professor of Economics, University of
Massachusetts
“In this unprecedented time, Peter Barnes’s splash of common sense
is just what’s needed to spark a movement.”
—Frances Moore Lappé, author of Democracy’s Edge
“Writing from a free-market perspective, I have long been concerned
about the radical transformation that is occurring in our society.
With this book, Peter Barnes shows how a system of universal
dividends can simultaneously undergird a broad middle class and
make possible a thriving market economy.”
—Dwight Murphey, author of A “Shared Market Economy”
“In the last three decades, the wealthy have received most of the
benefits of economic growth, with typical workers seeing little or
no gains. Barnes’s proposal to reverse this process with an equal
distribution of income from co-owned wealth is worth serious
consideration.”
—Dean Baker, author of The End of Loser Liberalism
“If you’re concerned about ever-growing inequality, you must read
this book. It brings light to where there’s only been heat and
points us toward a solution that will work for all.”
—Richard Parker, author of The Myth of the Middle Class
“It takes wisdom to transcend seemingly irreconcilable tensions on
the issue of inequality. Peter Barnes’s ‘simple idea’ is grounded
in such wisdom.”
—John Fullerton, President, Capital Institute
“Elegant, powerful, pragmatic, and hopeful. This book will
change the debate about what’s mine and what’s ours.”
—David Morris, cofounder, Institute for Local Self-Reliance
“In this eloquent and powerful book, Peter Barnes identifies a
major step toward a fair and just society. Better, he does so in
the tradition of our Founders, who worked hard to ensure that every
citizen would enjoy equal access to common sources of
well-being.”
—Barry Lynn, author of Cornered
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