The Usufruct Economy

The Usufruct Economy maximizes the flow of value by increasing the scope of lease and rent in an economy, instead of private ownership.

An economy relies on the timely and relevant flow of exchangeable value, as goods and services.

This natural flow is commonly checked by selfishness that violates relationality and commonality.

This selfishness best manifests as private property which is regarded as sacred in modern economic systems.

Land, resources, and even ideas are fenced off, hoarded, and traded for speculative gain. The result is stagnation and poverty and inequality for those who lack access to or benefit from such property.

This can be seen in:

• land that is kept undeveloped, hoping for its value to increase without spending anything
• idle inventory that is not released in the hopes that its price will rise
• stuff in your room that you don’t need but don’t give away either

The Flaws of Private Ownership and Public Ownership

The main flaw with private property is that it emphasizes ownership instead of productivity.

In theory, a rich person can buy most of the land in a country and do nothing with it. All he needs is to pay property tax to keep the government running.

Obviously, this lead to a great decline in the GDP of the nation.

The money that paid off the original owners might be used for services, such as how Singapore has a tiny land yet high GDP.

But it would make the country vulnerable to a food crises and energy crises. And so private ownership is not the best economic policy.

Some socialist countries agree to this, and so they put ownership to the public sector instead.

But this is also problematic, as seen in Venezuela where private industries were taken and given to the government.

This led to a huge decline in the economy.

Productivity, Not Ownership

Maximum production in the economy will provide a congenial environment for more investment, more industrialization, more employment, increasing purchasing capacity and increasing collective wealth in an ever progressive manner.

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PR Sarkar PROUT in a Nutshell

The best policy would be focus on productivity. This means that property can be transferred to those who can make the land most productive.

This can only be done if productivity, not ownership, is the main principle of the economy.

This can be achieved better in a barter-credit system, where hoarding is discouraged, than in a money system where hoarding is the norm.

The economy should be organized so that it can innately produce more and more. Money should be invested and kept rolling rather than hoarded so that the collective wealth of society is continually increased.

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PR Sarkar PROUT in a Nutshell

The 3rd Law Solution: Usufruct

The 3rd Law of Supereconomics goes with the grain-based valuation of the 1st Law that pushes for relationality and commonality.

It adds an overarching idea of usufruct from the Latin usus et fructus — “use and enjoyment of fruits”.

Usufruct is the legal right to temporarily use and derive benefit from property that belongs to another — on the condition that you take care of it.

In a usufruct economy: