But I think the solution needs to be a bit more radical, since you are asking for change WITHIN the current paradigm.

What we are seeing at the moment is the replacement - courtesy of mechanisation/technology/IT/Internet etc - of a gazillion horny-handed sons of toil with what is known as "Intellectual Property".

The fallacy at the heart of conventional - anthropocentric - Economics is that the Sun of Capital goes around the Earth of Labour.

So that when a factory is automated through large Capital inputs the last remaining worker, who switches the factory on and off, has become infinitely "productive".

As I argued in a paper at the University of Lancaster's Institute of Advanced Studies

http://www.opencapital.net/papers/Valueknowledge-based.pdf

this daft conclusion comes about because of what are, I believe, erroneous and unrealistic metaphysical assumptions as to the nature of "Value".

IMHO it is neither Labour nor Capital which is productive, but rather the relationship between them.

Now, the point I am getting to is that Intellectual Property - which consists of the privatisation of the "Commons" of Knowledge - is fundamentally inequitable without some sort of compensation to Society.

I believe - following Henry George's "Single Tax" approach for a Land Value tax - that those who have exclusive right of use of a Commons should compensate those they exclude.

The consequence of this approach would be to apply a levy on land value rentals and also on the rentals that derive from the use of intellectual property.  Such a levy could then be pooled and redistributed to all as a Basic Capital Distribution/ Dividend.

I would dispense with Corporation Tax and replace it with a tithe on the gross revenues of Corporations as one of the mechanisms to achieve this - a Limited Liability Levy, perhaps.

If we then also apply a levy (maybe 10%) on an individual's time (ie Labour) and again pool and redistribute as a "Basic Income" then we have two "pre-distributive" mechanisms which would tend to act against the current concentration of wealth in fewer and fewer hands.

The vehicle for the change of paradigm necessary to give rise to this is the emergence of the new risk and revenue-sharing forms of "property" rights which I term "co-ownership".

One idea I'd add to it is a policy of governments to match the initial investment up to a certain amount -- (say) $1,000, just to pick a random number -- for people earning less than a certain income.  We've had pilot programs for parents along these lines that, from what I've read, enjoyed a reasonable degree of success.

Where's your motherf*%&ing flag pin?

But if capital ownership is such a great idea in this era of globalization, why don't more people cut back on consumption to save more and become capitalists? Who knows, but instead of ranting about people wanting useless luxury items like SUV's and plasma TV's I'll argue that most people know nothing about capital ownership having become such a great idea. They aren't being wage earning capitalists because they don't know how good it would be for them.

Most people in the world are not wasting their money on SUV's and plasma tvs. They are wasting their money on food, shelter and clothes for themselves and their families. This is also true for much of the western world.

How your swiftian proposal will help aleviate the imbalances of globalisation I do not know.

To encourage norwegians to save again, two tax exemption programmes were instituted in the mid 1980's. One was "Boligsparing for ungdom (BSU)" (Youth home savings programme), the other was "Aksjesparing med skattefradrag (AMS)" (Stock savings with tax relief).

BSU is generally considered a success, and still exists. AMS was cancelled in 2000, among other things because of the influence it had on wealth distribution in society. As you can see in this graph, the financial capital of the top 10 percent richest norwegian households grew rapidly from the end of the recession up until 2000.

To be honest, this probably has more to do with the ballooning bourses of the time, althought the top decils of income earners were the ones that most agressively took part in the programme.

But still - what is your argument? That there would be a bigger difference in Norway without the AMS programme?

Even with a generous progressive taxing of stock saving, one cannot escape the fact that if you push more money into the market by small investors, the large investors will be the ones that earn the most from the excess cash. Simply because they start with so much more. Your plan might actually in an extreme example lead to more inequality instead of less.