The social dividend is the return on the natural resources and capital assets owned by society in a socialist economy.
[1] Although the social dividend concept has not yet been applied on a large scale, similar policies have been adopted on a limited basis.
However, the exact institutional arrangement varies among different proposals, for example, there might be certain constraints on the receipt of the dividend payment imposed on the unemployed.
[10] Notable economists and political scientists who have articulated social dividend models in their models of socialism include Oskar Lange, Abba Lerner, James Meade, James Yunker, John Roemer, Pranab Bardhan, David Schweickart[11] and Yanis Varoufakis.
As a precursor to the social dividend concept, Léon Walras, one of the founders of neoclassical economics who helped formulate the general equilibrium theory, argued that free competition could only be realized under conditions of state ownership of natural resources and land.
[12] In Karl Marx's critique of political economy, property income is a component of surplus value, which refers to the net value above the total wage bill.
The aim would be to make the dividend large enough, through greater economic growth and efficiency, to cover the basic needs of every citizen.
[16] For the American economist James Yunker, as a function of public ownership of the means of production the social dividend represents the most important and fundamental benefit of a socialist system.
As firms are publicly owned, the dividend payments are divided equally among all adult citizens instead of accruing to a small class of private owners.
The goal of the proposed social dividend fund is to share the results of reform and development of Shenzhen's state-owned enterprises.
The study concluded that basic income would have mixed results and not be an efficient tool for reducing poverty, creating gainers and losers, with those currently receiving earnings-related or means-tested benefits suffering a decline in their living standards.
In the urban village of Huaidi in Shijiazhuang, Hebei, all citizens have been received an annual social dividend funded by collectively owned land development rights since 1995.
[24] In response to the socialist contention that passive shareholders and owners can be substituted for publicly owned institutional investors, Ludwig von Mises claimed that the private dividends of capitalists and speculators are necessary for calculating the opportunity costs of capital goods.
The speculators and investors expose their own wealth, their own destiny..."[27]MacKenzie asserts that John Roemer's proposed socialist "stock market" fails to provide a sufficient basis for efficient capital investment, and that equalization of stock ownership precludes an efficient division of labor between those who do and do not have a comparative advantage in planning capital projects.