Human beings have a collective moral right to assert public property claims. We have a collective moral duty to do so, too. Public property rights (and property rights generally) are human rights. Human rights are an example of natural law. As a kind of natural law, human rights must be respected. Public property rights include the collective right of the people to benefit from commons resources (wealth made by natural processes, not human effort). Public property rights include a shared right to decide overall limits to humans' impact on the environment. These collective rights imply corresponding shared moral duties to create systems of governance that assure that natural wealth is shared equitably and that limits on pollution and on rates of taking of natural resources are consistent with the will of the people at large. No society can hold together in the long run in the absence of a respect for basic rights. Economic justice, the stability of our society and the future health of the planet all depend on us recognizing these rights and carrying out these shared responsibilities. Natural phenomena emerge in the cosmos according to natural law. Moral precepts can be seen as natural laws of social interaction, while the emergence of civilization can be seen as a particular kind of natural phenomenon. But civilization as we've made it thus far exhibits some serious flaws related to our near-total neglect of a basic moral precept. There is broad agreement on the idea that human beings have a collective right to define limits to pollution and limits to the rate of taking of natural resources, yet we have thus far failed to carry out our collective duty to establish those limits in reality--limits that are in accord with the average opinion of the people. This neglect of a basic democratic principle impairs economic justice. Neglect of principle impedes efforts to build a sustainable society. We have a civilization that is plagued by widespread extreme poverty and we are threatening to produce a planetary ecological disaster. We are challenged by circumstances to create a sustainable and more just civilization. Civilizations thrive then collapse because, first, conditions emerge that make them possible, then they grow beyond what the natural environment can sustain. Economies boom then bust because they grow beyond what their resource bases can support. The arc of civilization and the boom and bust of the business 'cycle' are similar phenomena seen at different scales. These sometimes wild swings may appear to be cyclical variations, but they actually reflect chaotic instabilities. A closer adherence to basic principles would mean a dampening of these gyrations to the point that they would no longer pose an existential threat to the system. Fees on the taking or degradation of natural resources could be applied as a mechanism to moderate human economic activity, with the aim of keeping overall environmental impacts within limits that most people find acceptable. (We might assume that people will identify as acceptable that which they believe is sustainable--a society that is democratic in terms of limits to environmental impacts is more likely to be sustainable.) We could use a system of random surveys to discern whether more people want to see more strict limits on emission of various types of pollution and on the rates of taking of resources, or more want to be more lenient, or whether there is a balance between the number of people holding one view vs. the other. A fee is a lever or mechanism that society could use for applying incentives to influence the behavior of those who use natural resources. Fees for particular kinds of environmental impacts would rise or fall, as need be, when the actual conditions do not match what most people want to see. Fees would be held steady when the reality matches what the largest number of people say is the best balance between the alternative positions: Freedom vs. constraint; More vs. less impact on the environment. [There is an implicit trade-off that translates restraint now into more opportunities later, as stricter limits on environmental impacts now leads to a more healthy and resilient environment and more abundant mineral reserves in the future. (This mirrors the challenge that confronted traditionally nomadic, hunter-gatherer humans who had begun to settle in choice spots several thousand years ago: After a dry year, they were faced with the choice to either eat their seed grain, or sacrifice now so that they might prosper in the future.)] Defining appropriate limits to humans' environmental impacts is a primary function of government in an advanced industrial society. Such a system as that described above would ensure that the basic human right to collectively decide limits would be embodied in practice. The hope and expectation is that people will in fact choose to keep overall impacts within limits that the larger environment can sustain. Apparently, eternal vigilance is the price citizens must pay to ensure that a human population that has the ability to exceed what the Earth can support in fact does not go beyond those limits. Citizens (even those who are not 'environmentally conscious') would have a natural inclination to call for less impact on the environment (higher fees) because the sum of all proceeds from these fees would be a monetary representation of wealth owned by all. The money collected would be shared to all. Equal sharing of fee proceeds would manifest in reality the idea that we all own natural resources in common. A vote for less environmental impact will translate to a larger natural wealth stipend. Equal distribution of this money would buffer the downward slide of a shrinking economy, because the entire human population would continue to receive a modest income from shared natural resource wealth, independent of income from work, family inheritance or investments. A 'floor' on the loss of human confidence that causes or contributes to business contractions would be created. Spending in support of basic human needs would continue. Resources would continue to flow to the sectors of the economy that provide essential goods and services. With a modest income assured, people would continue to spend in ways that support the most vital economic activities. Sharing natural wealth will mean that economic sectors devoted to meeting basic needs would be insulated from the worst vicissitudes of the business 'cycle'. Swings in the economic climate would be moderated. With demands on renewable biological resources (e. g., forests and fish stocks) kept sufficiently low and with availability of minerals extended farther into the future through a fee mechanism, civilization becomes a more sustainable phenomenon. With extreme poverty ended and disparity of wealth reduced through equal sharing of fee proceeds, society rests on a stronger foundation of justice, which would further contribute to social stability. We can imagine an equal payment to all people that would protect every person against extreme material deprivation. This natural wealth stipend would be drawn from the proceeds of fees charged to those who take or degrade natural wealth in pursuit of profit. Those who are at the greatest disadvantage under the current system will be better off with this policy. Respect for public property rights would significantly improve the material condition of those who experience the greatest economic hardship. We will no longer have vast regions of the world populated by mostly dispossessed people. Everyone benefits when the economy adapts to the pricing of natural resource wealth. This adaptation is implicit in the transition away from an economy that allows economic externalities to go uncompensated. Externalities are the hidden costs (or benefits) of economic activity. For example, the cost of pollution (born by the human community and the larger community of life) is hidden from investors, corporations and consumers when producers do not pay a fee proportional to the amount of pollution that they cause. If there is no monetary payment made when pollution is created, then pollution costs are not reflected on the financial balance sheet. Economic actors are unable to see costs that are off the balance sheet and therefore hidden from view. They cannot properly take account of these costs. Because environmental impact costs are hidden, all choices about what manufacturing process to adopt, what products to buy, what mode of transport to use, what to eat, etc., are skewed toward more environmentally-harmful acts and away from sustainability. Putting a price on natural resource wealth moves us toward an economy that embodies the concept of public property rights in its structure and accounting. Industrial processes and business models will be redesigned to improve resource efficiency. Individuals will change habits toward more sustainable practices. People will choose more environmentally-friendly lifestyles--even if they are not trying to do so because they are temperamentally inclined to be concerned about environmental issues. This means improved conditions for everyone: More ecological health and more personal health. (Environmental impact pricing would favor whole foods, locally-produced foods and plant-based diets.) A sustainable human society built on a broader moral foundation is good for all Earthlings. Taking ownership of our environment is also good for us in ways that may not be immediately obvious. For example, if we were to decide that advertising billboards are an adverse environmental impact due to their contribution to unwanted visual blight, then fees could be charged to those who post such ads, to assure that the prevalence of billboards on the landscape is kept within acceptable limits. Maybe signage in earth-tones would be considered less offensive. (What would a random survey reveal?) There could be a graduated fee structure. Now imagine that every kind of television or radio broadcast is a sort of billboard in the public space (the public airwaves). If we want to manage the use of the airwaves in a way that is consistent with the will of the people, we could charge a fee for certain uses of the broadcast spectrum that promote private or commercial interests rather than the public interest. We could pay a stipend to broadcasters and/or producers who offer programming that a random survey indicates would make a valuable contribution to the public interest or public good, in the view of most people. Shaping or tilting our use of the broadcast spectrum toward the public interest might change the character of broadcast television and radio in profound ways. We could get an idea about how these changes would affect our culture if we start asking the pertinent questions. Given a multitude of choices for how to use the broadcast spectrum, how might we best promote the public interest? Making channel space available for distribution of programs according to what random surveys show would promote the public interest will likely produce a menu of programs that would serve the public interest more effectively than what we have now. The current system favors quantity (size of audience) over quality (depth of engagement with topics that matter). We can make the world more what we want it to be. By changing our relationship with our political and economic systems--by changing the way we participate in them--toward a fuller respect of our basic principles, chief among them, respect for truth in pricing and fairness in sharing the wealth bestowed by nature, we transform our society and ourselves. With a change in the rules toward greater respect of primary values, we can build a global civilization that is both sustainable and more just.
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