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Peter Barnes argues that because of globalization, automation, and winner-take-all capitalism, there won’t be enough high-paying jobs to sustain America’s middle class in the future. Therefore, to survive economically, our middle class needs—and deserves—a supplementary source of nonlabor income.To meet this need, Barnes proposes to give every American a share of the wealth we own together— starting with our air and financial infrastructure. These shares would pay dividends of several thousand dollars per year—money that wouldn’t be welfare or wealth redistribution but legitimate property income.

The commons — those creations of nature and society we inherit together and must preserve for our children — is under siege. Our current version of capitalism — the corporate, globalized version 2.0 — is rapidly squandering this heritage. Now, Peter Barnes offers a solution: protect the commons by giving it property rights and strong institutional managers. Barnes shows how capitalism — like a computer — is run by an operating system. Our current operating system gives too much power to profit-maximizing corporations that devour the commons and distribute most of their profits to a sliver of the population. And government — which in theory should defend the commons — is all too often a tool of those very corporations.Barnes proposes a revised operating system — Capitalism 3.0 — that protects the commons while preserving the many strengths of capitalism as we know it. His major innovation is the commons trust, a market based legal entity with the power to limit the use of scare commons, charge rent, and pay dividends — in both cash and services — to everyone. In Barnes'vision, an array of commons trusts would institutionalize our obligations to future generations, fellow citizens, and nature. Once established, they'd use markets and property rights to create a better world for us all. Capitalism 3.0 offers a practical alternative to our current flawed economic system. It points the way to a future in which we can retain capitalism's virtues while mitigating its vices.