In the two previous chapters I made two promises: I said that the owner of this network is the people, and I said that each country has an equal vote in its administration. But these promises remain mere slogans until it is made clear exactly how ownership and profit are divided among the people.
This chapter is the very place where the ideal of justice turns into figures and mechanisms.
How the people are owners
First I must make clear what “popular ownership” means.
In this model the network does not belong to a number of capitalists or to a few powerful states; its ownership is spread among the people of the world by way of those same financial instruments of which I spoke earlier — such as sukuk and shares. Every human being can hold a share, however small, of this network and benefit from its real profit. And governments, as I said in the chapter on governance, are in this the representatives of the people of their own country; they represent their nation’s share in the Consortium.
A boundary we do not cross: the sovereignty of nations
And here I must make one very important principle clear.
The world Consortium pays to each country its just share — determined by the measure of its participation and by the extent of the project upon its soil. But how each government distributes or spends that share within its own country among its own people is a matter for that nation itself and for its own economic laws, and not for the Consortium.
One country may hand over its share to its citizens in the form of publicly held stock; another may pay it into a national wealth fund; another may spend it upon public services such as education and medicine. The Consortium does not interfere in this internal decision — it neither can nor wishes to determine a mechanism for governments.
This respect for national sovereignty is both wise and just: one cannot impose a single mould upon a hundred and ninety-five different economic systems. The responsibility of the Consortium ends where the just share has reached each nation; from that point on, the choice belongs to that nation itself.
How the profit is divided
Now we come to the heart of the matter: the division of profit.
The principle is simple. At the end of each period, what remains after the deduction of all expenses is the “net profit”. But before this profit is divided among those to whom it belongs, a portion of it is set aside for the common good — for a network built upon justice cannot think only of the profit of investors.
This portion, before the division, embraces several purposes: the encouragement and reward of the specialists and the gifted who build the network and keep it running; welfare and aid for the deprived and for those stricken by disaster; endowment, as a permanent capital for the general body of the people; reinvestment for the development of the network; and the education and empowering of the poor and vulnerable sections of society.
To speak more plainly, my proposal for the division of the net profit is this: ten per cent to the Network Development Fund, for future expansion and improvement; five per cent to the Guarantee and Emergency Fund, for days of crisis and unforeseen events; five per cent to the Endowment Fund and aid to low-income countries; and the remaining eighty per cent divided among the shareholders — that is, among the countries in proportion to the share of each.
But I must emphasise that these proportions are my proposal, not a final verdict. The definitive decision upon these percentages and upon how they are to be spent rests with the Consortium, which puts it to the vote and approves it. In this way, even the manner of dividing the profit is determined democratically and with the participation of all the nations.
A value beyond the cost of building
A point to be borne in mind is that the value and the income of this network do not come from the sale of tickets alone. Its income springs from various sources: the carrying of passengers and goods, the leasing of commercial spaces, logistical services, the rise in the value of land around the stations, digital and data services, the sale of energy, and indirect economic effects.
It is this very diversity that makes the flow of income stable and creates the profit that is divided among all. (We shall see further detail of valuation and of costs in the next chapter.)
A shield against monopoly
And now we come to one of the most important principles of this chapter; the principle which guarantees that this project shall not fall into the very trap against which I gave warning in the earlier parts: monopoly and the concentration of wealth.
The anti-monopoly mechanism is woven into the structure of ownership itself. How? Because the ownership of the network is spread among millions of human beings and a hundred and ninety-five countries, no individual, company or government can take possession of it. Unlike companies of which a single very wealthy man might buy the greater part of the shares and so come to dominate them, here the shares are so widely spread that a concentration of power becomes impossible.
Beyond this, rules can be laid down that set a ceiling upon the share of any one actor, so that no one can go beyond a certain limit. In this way the network remains for ever in the hands of the general body of people and does not become an instrument of domination for a few.
This is precisely the answer I set against that dark picture of “the monopoly of technology in the hands of the elite”: instead of wealth and power being heaped up in a few hands, they are spread through the body of humanity.
Justice is no longer a slogan
If we set all these principles side by side — popular ownership, respect for the sovereignty of nations, the just division of profit with priority to the deprived, and the anti-monopoly mechanism — we see that justice in this project is no longer a beautiful wish; it has become a set of practical and measurable mechanisms.
And this is perhaps the greatest difference between this project and many of the great schemes of history: that in it, justice is not a promise made after the building, but a part of the drawing itself.