Even You Can Spread the Wealth Around

Everyday solutions for ordinary non-billionaires

It seems every day we hear new variations on the same old story of growing inequalities. This week the anti-poverty charity Oxfam told us that the world’s ten richest billionaires doubled their share of the world’s income since the pandemic started.

The reminders are beyond disheartening. They can be so demoralizing that we burn out, tune out, give up. I’ve found solace for myself learning about and taking action over the years in ideas and entities of democratized wealth — the basic concept that the collective abundance of human progress should, could, can be shared more readily, more easily accessible, more generally available to all people. They aren’t even new ideas. Many are wider spread than we know. But they’re under the radar and all deserve greater visibility and engagement.

Below I have an intro to some of these ideas and structures of democratized wealth, real everyday places where we ordinary non-billionaires can make a difference. Before we get there, here are some of the underlying assumptions I’m working with when I propose attention, consideration, and support of these things.

• We are so overdue for wider adoption of all notions and iterations of democratized wealth, and we should structure our organizations and behaviors in those more decentralized, democratic, and humanistic directions.
• Value is relative and we can all get richer through many types of voluntary exchange and interaction.
• There are currencies beyond money, values beyond profit, and many components to prosperity.
• Follow the money. As in the big money. The money of power. Then send your dollars elsewhere when and where you can.
• It’s likely that no one is coming to solve our problems and so we best take our own steps forward.
• This is not a Pollyanna Robin-Hoodism. This is not a regime-toppling stance on anything. There is no claim that such efforts will make a big enough difference to make a big enough change.
• It’s working with what we have in front of us, because all we can do is what we can with what we have from where we are. Let the chips fall where they may.
• Referencing the Stephen Covey classic, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Start with your circle of influence such as it may be and work on expanding that circle as you move towards overlapping that with your circle of concern, that larger circle of things you care about.
• Cultivating our sense of agency will help us make gains, which will reinforce our sense of agency, which will support further wins, and so on. Constructive feedback loop!

A Glossary in Progress

A brief guide to some of the ways we can better share and spread the wealth rather than direct transfusion to the top .1%.

B corps

A B corporation is a voluntary business classification that meets the rigorous certification standards for social and environmental performance of B Lab. B Lab describes themselves as “the nonprofit network transforming the global economy to benefit all people, communities, and the planet.” Search an international directory of the 1,700 B corps located in 50 countries. I searched my city and was happy to discover a local brewery and a local coffee chain on the list.

Bartering

We all know that bartering is trading stuff without cash and goes all the way back in history. But these days, there’s the bartering of the informal economy and the on-the-books bartering of the barter and trade industry. The first includes bartering between neighbors, opportunities found on Craigslist, and other unregulated transactions. For individuals, here’s more on how to start a neighborhood bartering club and why to join a bartering club. Notably, the second sort of bartering is treated as normal business income by the IRS, but America’s Barter Exchange lists ten reasons for joining their network that demonstrate the democratic and business-enhancing benefits of formal bartering.

Circular economy

In contrast to the planned obsolescence and use-once-then-throw-away norms of the linear economy, the circular economy is a “model of production and consumption, which involves sharing, leasing, reusing, repairing, refurbishing and recycling existing materials and products as long as possible.” This is the economy of antique stores, consignment shops, secondhand stores, repair shops, and much of Ebay. It’s also the macro-level efforts promoting the circular economy in industry and at the World Economic Forum. Wikipedia highlights the efforts of nine different industries adopting the circular economy, including construction, logistics, agriculture, and renewable energy.

Co-ops, cooperatives

Co-ops are a flexible business model in which users or producers of a business are also its owners/members. They run the business for their mutual benefit rather than for external investors. Urban dwellers may be most familiar with housing and food co-ops. But co-ops are a key part of rural America according to the USDA website. Rural communities are often served by co-op electric and telecom utilities as well as various farm-oriented co-ops. The University of Wisconsin Center for Cooperatives says that co-ops are found in nearly every sector of the U.S. economy.

Community/neighborhood investment cooperatives

Community investment cooperatives are co-ops formed for large numbers of neighbors to pool smaller amounts of money so that together they can invest in and control properties, improvements, businesses, housing, and real estate development in their neighborhoods. The latest purchase of Milwaukee’s Riverwest Investment Cooperative (RIC), for example, saved Falcon Bowl, a neighborhood fixture since 1913, one of the oldest continuously operated bowling establishments in the country. Any Wisconsin resident can purchase a share in RIC for $100 (earns 3% APR) or become a voting member for $1,000 (members earn a distribution of year-end net proceeds). A growing number of CICs (community investment cooperatives) in Canada gives investors the option to move their money from Wall Street to economic development projects in their region and across the country.

Credit unions

Credit unions are nonprofit, cooperative financial institution owned and operated by its members — those who use its banking services (checking, savings, loans, credit cards, retirement planning, etc.). They return their profits to members in the form of lower fees, lower return rates, financial education programs, and increased interest rates on savings. Here are nine more reasons to move your money to a credit union.

Employee-owned businesses

Employee-owned businesses give employees a financial and psychological stake in their workplace, sending all or some of the profits home with workers rather than outside investors. According to the National Center for Employee Ownership (NCEO), over 34 million Americans own a piece of the company where they work, about 14 million through ESOPs (employee stock ownership plans), about 9 million through granted stock options, about 11 million through stock purchase plans, and about 20,000 through worker co-ops and employee ownership trusts. Support these businesses or work for one. Here’s a list of the largest 100 such companies in the U.S.

Ethical economy

The ethical economy is an umbrella term for an economy or elements of the economy guided and conducted by moral principles, which would include the items on this list to the degree they are motivated by such. Adam Arvidsson and Nicolai Peitersen wrote a book, The Ethical Economy, proposing after the financial crisis of 2008 that a new ethical economic system is possible, and Springer devotes a whole scholarly series to the topic of the ethical economy.

Favors economy

The favors economy refers to the informal collection of practices around giving and receiving favors without the exchange of money. Aren’t we all better off when trading in this invisible currency? Favors can be tangible (fixing someone’s car) or intangible (the sharing of useful information), for self or others, work-related or personal.

Free

Despite what some once argued, free is not a business model. Yet free is a valid model for the circulation and distribution of goods, for meeting our own and others’ needs. Many schools give free lunches to all because so many kids need that, because it destigmatizes free lunch, and because it’s often cheaper than the bureaucracy around collecting and policing payments for lunch. For similar practicalities and pro-social benefits, some cities don’t charge for their public transportation. From all things free on Craigslist to the over 7,000 Buy Nothing groups on Facebook, people and organizations everywhere are discovering how free can make us all richer.

Local first

Spreading wealth outside your front door, down the block, in your neighborhood, city, and region is the ethos of 75+ Local First networks in the U.S. Regional organizations of locally-owned businesses, Local First networks promote the benefits of spending your money locally for more sustainable, resilient, vibrant local economies with distinct local flair. The Local First group of West Michigan estimates that 68% of dollars spent at local businesses stays in the community and continues to re-circulate there. Contrast that with the analysis of research org Puget Sound Sage that each new Walmart store reduces the local community’s economic output over 20 years by roughly $13 million.

Sliding-scale pricing

Sliding scale fees are prices that vary depending on how much a customer/client earns, what income bracket they fall into, or how much disposable income they have. You’ll find sliding scale fees most often in healthcare, therapy, and counseling fields, where it’s used by some organizations in order to provide needed and valuable services to all regardless of their insurance coverage or ability to pay market rate. Should you consider sliding-scale pricing for your services?

Small business

Monopolies. Duopolies. Monopsonies. The biggest players in our economy have carved up our geography and the spoils for their own advantage and at everyone else’s expense. The alternative is to support small and independent businesses as much as possible. David Haber in Forbes quotes 43 owners on reasons to seek out indie businesses.

Slow business

The opening of the first Italian McDonald’s in the center of Rome in 1986 sparked the idea of Slow Food. Slow business, in the spirit of other Slow movements that have cropped up since then, is the conducting of business with attention to broader conceptions of wealth and resources (time, relationships, community, health, mental health, environmental health), as well as values beyond profit (commitments to people, quality, craft, enjoyment, sustainability, the good life).

You only have to dive a bit deeper into any of the links in this article to see just how extensive this network of approachable economic alternatives to smash-and-grab capitalism is. We don’t have to re-invent any wheels or set utopian goals to start spreading the wealth around to the extent we can from where we are. We can consider the options on this list and start redirecting our money and attention their way.

Sharon Woodhouse is the owner of Conspire Creative, which offers coaching, consulting, conflict management, project management, book publishing, and editorial services for solo pros, creatives, authors, small businesses, and multipreneurs.