What is the Human Commonwealth Fund?

Right now, it’s just an idea.

It’s not a new idea, exactly. Cities, regional governments, and countries have had sovereign wealth funds for more than a century, with lots of new adoption since the early year 02000. A sovereign wealth fund is an investment fund owned by a government, typically for the public good. They may be used to fund education, state pensions, and other projects. Like any investment fund, they may buy all kinds of different assets in order to manage the funds under their stewardship.

The Human Commonwealth Fund is like that, but intended to be global in scope.

The purpose: to broadly share the benefits of global industrial society with every human being, directly.

The practical means of meeting that purpose would be to pay a periodic dividend to every human being currently alive, based on the return of the assets.

Obviously, to do something like that would take massive investment, likely over generations. The Human Commonwealth Fund is a big idea. It would take much time and effort over decades to establish it. The governance, management, and administration of a project of this scale would need both deep thinking from dedicated minds in diverse fields like finance, political science, and technology. Its growth and maintenance would take the engagement of an enormous group of volunteers and, eventually, professional staff from all around the world.

Assuming we- that is, humanity- could mobilize that kind of effort, numerous questions arise about how to govern, manage, and administer the fund. Should the people in charge of the fund be picked by existing governing bodies like the UN? Should they be voted on by the population of the world? How could someone even begin to administer a global election? How would funds be managed until such time as a dividend could be paid? How would disagreements about how to administer the fund be resolved?

In addition to these questions, the author anticipates problems. Contrary minds may oppose the operation of the fund in their countries. Thieves, frauds, and even governments may attempt to embezzle money from the fund or misuse the fund’s name to swindle people. Disasters may render the fund useless. Rival countries may attempt to disrupt the flow of funds to their opponents.

On this page, you will find a first draft of a charter for the Human Commonwealth Fund. The charter tries to answer these questions and build a governance structure capable of addressing those problems.

That first draft is certainly in need of review and revision. It will need people to ask hard questions about how things might go terribly wrong. It will, the author hopes, inspire discussion, debate, and better thinking about how to build an institution for this mission. It may even inspire some intrepid people to try and establish the Human Commonwealth Fund. Perhaps multiple such groups will form to try and put forward their competing visions for how the fund should be run, even as others are still debating.

All of this should be expected and would be an exciting first step towards making the Human Commonwealth Fund a reality.

The author of the charter is currently operating this site alone, but hopes to attract interest from like-minded people who can contribute to the project.