“Therefore, businesses are incentivized to join the network because they gain access to a new base of consumers. However, since participants can set their own tax rate, why can’t businesses set their own rate to zero and avoid paying anything? While they could do this, it turns out that their customers’ BI would increase with a higher tax rate. A business which set its tax rate higher would have customers with higher BIs, so consumers will generally look for businesses with high tax rates. Presumably, this will reach an equilibrium where businesses are paying fairly high taxes but not so high that they don’t make a profit. In a sense, the tax rates themselves are set by the market.”

This part I also explicitly dislike. It seems to simply reward those customers and sellers who are most bitter, most unwilling to contribute to the to the experience of others, least compassionate, least able to enjoy the joy of others. Concentrating whatever real wealth is enclosed in the Market in their hands in the long run. Much alike today’s market economy.

We should not more and more forfeit that what is ours, the currency we chose to create by consent, and the Land, to some who are least inclined to give back, just for the reason that that’s how they roll (welcoming em into our community we can still do, of course.). An income to all unique participants, paired with a demurrage or similar seems sensible for a currency, if we want to keep the volume of currency stable (or growing if number of users grows), while keeping distribution dynamic. And whatever we come to agree to do about Land access, be it taxes or community management or similar, we can do that in context with that, should it appear desirable. The link posted by Jen is worth a read by the way, if you’ve not heard of Mary Mellor yet, here’s an introductory video series on money by her as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IZRWQn5jgk&list=PLu5uG1sCEDiiUllfodXXsOzS3EI7adhDp

Now for something slightly different: While the following was a ‘charity’ rather than a ‘right to use the Land and community currency’, this basic income project did quite successfully show that regardless of economic development, the concept is pretty functional. http://www.basicincomela.com/who-is-who/abu-bakr/

Of course I’d want to have the basic income introduced on the premise of it being a sort of Charter of the Forest for the 21st century, a Land use right that also considers network effect and economies of scale (and of course economic opportunity in general) as part of the Land, rather than as a ‘charity’. Not to say that I’m for increasingly enclosing Land in the market either way. I see in the basic income an opportunity for people to build and reclaim Land outside of the market process, too. But to the extent that there’s Land enclosed, a basic income can be something to introduce to counterbalance that enclosure, via a process of deliberation.