(3) Let us consider the problem of the exploitation of oil, minerals, gold, silver, diamonds and other gifts of nature. Millions of people have died in fights over land and natural resource control. [40] Oil and other natural resource extraction should be made strictly on the basis of (1) agreement of those living near the extraction sites; (2) on a not-for-profit basis yet with fair returns to labor and capital; (3) clearly detailed environmental rules and regulations and (4) full socialization of the resource rents (surplus value/unearned income). Natural resources and their rents should be carefully utilized and fairly distributed in order to uplift the standard of living of all. Careful stewardship of mineral resources would entail maximum efforts for recycling as well as using the resource rents to fund renewable energy and other needed public goods local to global. [41]
The Alaska Permanent Fund (APF) is an important model for establishing fair share rights to oil and other mineral resources. [42] The APF, with a current total fund value of over $75 billion, collects substantial oil royalties based on the Alaska State Constitution [43] as the state retains the rights to all minerals and other natural resources. [44]
The APF Dividend Program [45] gives each person in Alaska an annual payment based on an equal share of the dividend amount. The 2022 Permanent Fund Dividend was $3,284, the highest ever in the history of the Fund. For a family of four this would be over $13,000. [46]
(4) Many tax havens are controlled by the Crown for which you now bear major responsibility. Tax havens as you would know are generally small islands with mostly immigrant foreigners engaged in the trades of banker, lawyer and accountant. These "Crown Dependencies" operate out of the control of the UK Government and Parliament.
Cahill's research shows us that these territories "handle most of the trillions of dollars held outside the main financial systems..." He informs us that the UK and the world as a whole has lost countless billions in tax revenue due to these tax havens. [47] Tax havens should not exist. UK chancellor Gordon Brown asserted that he would "return the tax havens to the status of holiday resorts". [48]
John Christensen, a forensic auditor and economist who chairs the board of the UK based Tax Justice Network (TJN),[49] tells us that tax havens enable the "systemic looting of oil and mineral resources and of the syphoning of proceeds of embezzlement and fraud to the financial markets of London, New York and Zurich." He estimates that up to $36 trillion of privately owned financial assets are managed from tax havens which enable the laundering of multi-billions of dollars, pounds and Euros acquired from illicit activities such as drug dealing and human trafficking. [50]
As King you are in a key position to stop the kleptocrats from continuing in their nefarious world damaging ways. John Christensen would surely be delighted to receive your assistance in addressing the multifarious inequities of the tax haven system. I urge you to contact him at the Tax Justice Network. Since unearned income derived from tax cheating and the looting of natural resources is so often used to buy real estate, land-based taxes can capture significant amounts of this money and use it to advance the common good.
At the World Bank Conference on Land and Poverty I presented a paper titled "Socializing Land Rent while Untaxing Production." [51] This paper begins with this succinct statement from the founding document for the UN Center for Human Settlements (Habitat): "The unearned increment resulting from the rise in land values resulting from change in use of land, from public investment or decision or due to the general growth of community must be subject to appropriate recapture by public bodies (the community)."
"Socializing Land Rent while Untaxing Production"[52] is a good summary of the key ideas I am writing to you about and presents a clear way forward beyond right and left that harmonizes the needs of both the individual and society. The sufficiency of rent from unearned income for funding public goods is set forth in both theory and practice.
I hereby request that you consider playing a major role in the 2024 Earth Day celebration held at the United Nations on the Spring Equinox. We will bring forth the key principles and policies of Earth Rights - both caring for and sharing Mother Earth.
John McConnell was the founder of this original equinox Earth Day, first proclaimed by the City Council of San Francisco in 1970. McConnell was clear about principles for the global economy and for an economics of peace. When he spoke of justice he meant "economic justice" which he defined as "an equal sharing in all the worlds' natural resources." In his "Planetary Inheritance Declaration" he wrote:
Among the equal rights of men is the right to an equal share in nature's bounty, a right of each man to his planetary inheritance - his share of land, water, minerals" No one can, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity or any other man's posterity, of the right to his portion of Earth. [53]
We can address and remedy the systemic roots and intent of organized violence, of what my colleague and UK author Fred Harrison calls The Predator Culture. "Understanding the territorial basis of political power and wealth is the pre-requisite," he says, "for making sense of issues as diverse as genocide, narco-gangsterism, terrorism and fascism. The struggle over land and resources is at the root of all of today's global crises."[54]
Charles, my dear astrological twin brother, will you help the Commoners of the world turn the world away from the forces of dispossession, depopulation, and destruction and to move into a consciousness of profound respect for the creative forces unfolding evolution, of harmoniously blending with the "autopoesis"- life's capacity to be self-organizing. There is a universal wisdom that is so much deeper than any human science. This wisdom can help us put in place an economic system that will enable each and every member of our human family to secure basic material needs while protecting the earth's ecosystems for future generations. Everyone can then enjoy the adventure of mental, creative and spiritual expansion during their brief sojourn on Mother Earth.
You come from the bloodlines of the ancien regime. I ask that you stand with all of humanity. I ask that you use your power of good will for all by joining with us with the clear intention of securing the birthright of all people to the Earth, our planet home, that we may ALL take responsibility for her care and protection. How we hold the earth is how we hold each other. Securing the birthright to the Earth for each and every one of us is part and parcel of the environmental sustainability that you espouse.
Billions of us know that this life on our small planet has brought you to a position of enormous privilege and power. You have vast potential to set the world aright. In closing, I trust you will use all that you have been given with great care and wisdom.
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