Comments
Great post. Reminds me of "Seeing like a State" by James C Scott.
We take the position that since minerals are a shared inheritance, it is our responsibility to ensure the next generation receives either the minerals, or their full value. If we achieve that, we may consume the income. So we are recommending 3 steps are necessary for owners of minerals (a) sell the mineral for zero loss, ie, capture the full economic rent (b) invest everything in a new "non-wasting" asset - we recommend a Norway style fund, also a part of the commons, and (c) since the minerals are owned in common, so is the fund, and any real income should simply be distributed as a commons dividend. A loss is a loss the people and all future generations.
Of course, this depends on clearly understanding who the owner is - which Dr. Jules has shown is disputed. However, it remains a dispute over the beneficiaries of the commons - no one has the right to consume the capital.
We found in Goa, India, for iron ore mining, over a 8 year period, the Goa government as the public trust owner of the minerals, lost more than 95% of the economic rent. Nor is this an outlier. We found similar results for iron ore in other parts of India (92% loss) over a decade. Fossil fuels had already exceeded 50% losses by 2005. These are all losses in step 1. Note that a loss is effectively a per head tax, imposed equally on the billionnaire and beggar, with the rent seekers benefiting. See more here: http://goxi.org/xn/detail/5786733:BlogPost:86008?xg_source=activity
Step 2 is also constantly breached. This is primarily because mineral receipts (royalty) are called revenue or taxes, and are accounted for as revenue. Revenue can be spent, and is spent in myriad wasteful ways. If we see mining as the sale of our family gold, royalty is automatically a capital receipt from the sale of an asset. See more here: http://goxi.org/xn/detail/5786733:BlogPost:100120?xg_source=activity
Our overall perspective also takes the environment into account. https://medium.com/@thefutureweneed/what-is-the-future-we-need-8ae3de8d55a3
Hi Rahul. Thanks for your edifying comment and stressing that 'no one has the right to consume the capital'...it's basic (common) business sense! Many thanks for those useful references on a subject that's becoming increasingly preoccupying..i.e.
I'm far from a PhD just a Community Relations Practitioner working in most challenging environment in eastern DRC...As I write these lines I'm busy trying to address a very tricky community-related risk
Jules,
Thank you for addressing а lot more in-depth what I shared on before here
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&sou...
or here https://www.contrepoints.org/2013/08/26/136491-rendre-leurs-droits-...
I think the main cause of the problem addressed here is that the central governments of mineral rich underdeveloped countries like DRC and Tanzania dishing out the people’s heritage of non-renewable mineral deposits mostly to foreigners for taxes which are tiny fractions of the revenues generated from their exploitation, are not earning much of what they and the people deserve from their exploitation.
Simply because the highest mineral taxes we have or could be earned in the world are still tiny fractions of fractions of the mineral revenues they source from/ or the shares of mineral revenues nations deserve from the exploitation of their mineral resources.
Deploying measures which would enabled the people and/or their governments at different levels of their national societies to become one of the main shareholders of the ongoing exploitation of the non-renewable natural wealth inherent in their mineral deposits is what the central governments of mineral rich underdeveloped countries like DRC and Tanzania should have done and ensure they and the people at different levels of their national societies would earn deserved shares of the revenues generated from the exploitation of their non-renewable mineral deposits.
It is the approach which produced some the positive results i.e. Norway, Royal Bafokeng you mentioned.