‘I recommend giving the shares directly to the public. This is what I will be doing.’

Elon Musk

There was a very limited amount of media coverage for their announcements, but it's good to see that Anthropic and Elon Musk have taken first steps towards the concept of ‘stock for data and creativity’. It's clear confirmation that a wholly new approach is needed to enable participation in both wealth creation and governance oversight — but there's still a long way to go.

Their two proposals are quite different in character. Anthropic said it will commit 5% of its shares to a a fund (its ‘Public Benefit Fund’) that will make donations ‘for the public good’. Elon Musk said that he would give one of his shares in his rocket company SpaceX, which now owns xAI, to every child in America next year. These are the first definitive moves in the direction of egalitarian capitalism: Meta has also shown interest in the concept of ‘distributed governance’ in recent years, but here is real action being taken.

Meanwhile, Bill Gates clearly recognised the scale of the challenge in his extensive interview with the Observer’s James Harding last weekend, but his potential solutions are based on lots more tax on AI businesses in order to fuel state provision of ‘Universal Basic Income’ — what we describe as welfare subservience. He does, however, recognise the limitations of these ideas:

‘This is a colossal challenge to governments’, he says, ‘and a fundamental reckoning with the character of capitalism. In the current system, the incentive structure is wrong. It's ‘hire the robot, fire the human, and don't look back’. [As AI companies make money but put people out of work], the [tax] revenue for the safety net to help us through this transition will actually be reduced, even though overall prosperity gets better. So this will be a real test of quality of government’. And he goes on to recognise the international challenge of making this work, with polarisation of rich countries, the competition between east and west and geopolitical conflict.

When Share Alliance started its research into ‘stock for data and creativity’ three years ago, the proposal was described as being at step one out of ten on the path towards practical implementation. These steps taken by Anthropic and Elon Musk, volunteered by tech giants rather than being driven by regulators, show that the logic for participation is recognised, even if its application lacks consistency.

Our commentary today draws a comparison between these initiatives and the research work undertaken thus far by Share Alliance.

The Anthropic proposal to move 5% of its shares into a Public Benefit Fund for donations is a good step for philanthropy, but it does little to share control and wealth creation with the huge numbers of young people whose employment is threatened by Anthropic’s Artificial Intelligence services. These donations would be granted at the whim of the fund directors: there are so many deserving causes which would potentially obscure the logic for mass participation in AI wealth creation.

In contrast, Elon Musk's philanthropy is directed to every child in America: somewhat less progressive than Michael Dell's focus on adding funds to the new ‘Trump accounts’ set up for low-income young people, but still a step in the right direction.  What it lacks is not only a focus on real disadvantage but also the need to start addressing the global dimension.

However, these are steps, albeit small, in the direction of a more egalitarian form of capitalism.

Egalitarian capitalism must not be confused with democratic socialism. Socialism is about placing both money and control in the hands of government, whereas egalitarian capitalism is about disintermediation: not centralising control with short-term politicians. Similarly, when control is placed in the hands of that Public Benefit Fund it will also be another form of intermediation, putting control in the hands of the few rather than the many.

The essential characteristic of egalitarian capitalism is individual ownership. Just as is evidently the case when someone owns their own house and cares for it, a sense of ownership brings with it a sense of responsibility. It's also a free choice how to take opportunity from that ownership.

One of its key aspects will be taking part in steering the future strategy of those tech giants, and we need to find a variety of new and imaginative ways to make those connections work. There will need to be a heavy reliance on online access, because this stock ownership will be global — not just for Americans. Many people will wish to have a form of proxy representation, and that’s fine — many others will need literacy and numeracy to be able to take advantage of their participation as a stock owner, and there will also need to be financial training available.

But the key point is that it will be their choice as to how actively to participate, and for what to do with the capital gains and dividends which will flow from their participation in tech wealth creation.

There will need to be a bias in favour of young people, because it is their lives which will be most affected by Artificial Intelligence. This, together with inter-generational rebalancing (in particular, the hypothecation [ring fencing] of inheritance tax receipts so that they provide disadvantaged young people with resources and life skills) will lead to a radically new form of democratic politics, so different from both socialism and wealth-polarised capitalism.

So, there are echoes in both the Anthropic and Elon Musk initiatives which make a start in this direction, but there's a huge amount still to do in terms of changing our economic environment.

If we do succeed in tackling the current intense polarisation of wealth, it will also contribute significantly to increasing awareness of and concern for the climate challenge.

At present, it's only those who don't suffer from financial stress that are able to focus on the environmental challenges: apart from, of course, those who suffer its consequences directly, for example as a result of the impact of wildfires and glacial flooding. Trump is therefore able to make his ‘Drill, baby drill’ calls, and the UK government is able to authorise new drilling in the Jackdaw North Sea gas field without too much push back from the public.

Lining up human priorities is always a big challenge, and discounting the future is unavoidable for those who have to survive real economic hardship in the present. That's why a major move towards egalitarian capitalism would also lead to a much safer physical environment for our children and grandchildren. The BBC Sunday service on 25th October came from Iona, which I visited last week, and it ended with a call for serving, rather than dominating, the planet. A significant move towards egalitarian capitalism would help greatly in bringing this about.

The twin priorities of inter-generational rebalancing and ‘stock for data and creativity’, if applied on a global scale, could therefore lead to a much safer and more stable world, and we should welcome Anthropic and Elon Musk for taking first steps in this direction.

Gavin Oldham OBE

Share Radio