Common Wealth Dividends: History and Theory

“This book blazes a new frontier in economic thinking: the potential use of co-inherited wealth to pay lifelong dividends to everyone. It is must-reading for heterodox economists—and anyone else seeking ways to share the fruits of markets more equitably.”
-Peter Barnes, author of Who Owns the Sky? and With Liberty and Dividends for All

“A tour de force of the history of wealth sharing and a welcome addition to the literature exploring ways to mitigate the harmful effects of concentrated natural resources. Ranalli helps to keep alive the spirit of Alaska's pioneering Governor Jay Hammond.”
-Todd Moss, author of The Governor's Solution: Alaska’s Oil Dividend and Iraq’s Last Window.

“This is a book I’ve been waiting for.”

-Gregg Erickson, economist, trustee of the Robert Schalkenbach Foundation

Common wealth dividends are universal cash payments funded by fees on the private use of common resources like land, minerals, and the atmosphere as a carbon sink. Thomas Paine’s 1797 pamphlet Agrarian Justice and Alaska’s Permanent Fund Dividend are staples in the literature on Basic Income, but there is much more to common wealth dividends beyond these highlights, and common wealth dividends have a distinctive ethical justification and distinctive policy implications that merit discussion. This monograph, the most comprehensive study of common wealth dividends to date, will be of interest to students, teachers, and advocates of Basic Income and those in the field of environmental studies, including sustainable development, natural resource management, and climate policy.


Brent Ranalli is a policy practitioner who consults for public-sector clients at The Cadmus Group, LLC. His writings on common wealth dividends, Basic Income, and other policy topics have been published in Basic Income Studies and Basic Income News and in the USBIG discussion paper series, as well as in the Journal for Refugee Studies, the Journal for Sustainability Education, Foreign Affairs, and Controversies in Globalization, 2nd edition. Mr. Ranalli co-edits Environment: An Interdisciplinary Anthology for Yale University Press and serves as editor of the Thoreau Society Bulletin.