Explore the building blocks of a better economy
Here you’ll find the essential tools, visuals, and policy briefs that explain how The Prosperity Loop works—and how it can work for you.
The Prosperity Loop is more than a theory—it’s a practical framework for economic renewal grounded in fairness, sustainability, and shared prosperity. Whether you're a policymaker, journalist, educator, or engaged citizen, this page offers a gateway into the core principles and actionable solutions behind our model.
Visualizing the Loop: How Prosperity Circulates
Sometimes the clearest way to understand a complex system is to see it. These downloadable infographics break down the central components of The Prosperity Loop—how wealth flows, how balance is maintained, and how everyday people benefit.
The Prosperity Loop Diagram
An elegant overview of our economic model showing how the four Structural Loops—Free Market Engine, Environmental Resource Fees, National Wealth Fund, and Freedom Dividend—reinforce each other in a cycle of regenerative prosperity and equity.
Extractive vs. Regenerative Economy
Compare traditional economic systems that extract and discard with a toroidal system that recycles wealth, resources, and opportunity.
Where the Money Comes From—and Where It Goes
An elegant overview of our economic model showing how the four Structural Loops—Free Market Engine, Environmental Resource Fees, National Wealth Fund, and Freedom Dividend—reinforce each other in a cycle of regenerative prospeiryt and equity.
Glossary of Terms
Policy language can sometimes feel like a foreign tongue. Our glossary provides plain-English definitions for the key terms and concepts that shape The Prosperity Loop. This is economics—translated.
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Definition: A systems-based approach to economics in which value—whether in the form of money, energy, or opportunity—is continuously cycled back into the community and environment, rather than being extracted and concentrated.
Relation to the Prosperity Loop: This concept underlies the entire structure of the Prosperity Loop. Each of the four Structural Loops (Free Market Engine, Commons Fees, National Wealth Fund, Freedom Dividend) represents a stage in a circular flow—value is generated, channeled, grown, shared, and regenerated.
Examples:
Carbon fee revenue returned to citizens as dividends
Public investment returns funding a basic income
Community wealth funds reinvesting in local ecosystems
Locally-owned food systems that replenish soil and community wealth
Public investment in green infrastructure that also provides jobs
Policies that reduce emissions while growing community equity
Intellectual Lineage: Draws from systems thinking (Donella Meadows), circular economy models (Ellen MacArthur Foundation), and doughnut economics (Kate Raworth). John Fullerton (Capital Institute), ecological economics (Herman Daly), Indigenous knowledge systems, and regenerative finance movements.
Key Characteristics:
Feedback loops
Avoidance of linear extraction-growth-waste cycles
Systems-thinking and place-based design
Circular material and financial flows
Emphasis on long-term well-being and balance
Tagline: From growth to regeneration—value that comes full circle.
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Definition: Policy tools that collect public value from the use of shared natural or digital resources, including carbon pricing, spectrum auctions, resource extraction fees, and financial transaction levies.
Relation to the Prosperity Loop: This loop functions as the outer boundary of the Prosperity Loop model, enforcing ecological ceilings while generating revenue for redistribution or investment. It ensures that private use of public goods yields a public benefit, helping to fund the National Wealth Fund and the Freedom Dividend.
Examples:
A carbon tax per ton of CO₂ emissions
Fees on offshore drilling leases
Auction revenue from 5G spectrum licenses
Intellectual Lineage: Builds on Elinor Ostrom’s work on governing the commons and Thomas Paine’s idea of shared inheritance from natural resources. Nicholas Stern (climate as market failure), Arthur Pigou (externalities), and Raworth’s ecological ceiling in Doughnut Economics.
Key Characteristics:
Fee-for-use structure
Non-distortive to markets when carefully calibrated
Generates revenue while discouraging harm
Tagline: Earning together from what belongs to us all.
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Definition: Universal Basic Income (UBI) is a recurring, unconditional cash payment provided by the government to all members of a political community—typically citizens—regardless of employment status, income level, or background. It is designed to guarantee a minimum level of economic security and ensure that everyone has the financial means to meet basic needs.
Purpose: To establish a social foundation beneath which no one can fall. UBI provides income stability, reduces poverty, and increases individual freedom by enabling people to make life choices—such as caregiving, education, entrepreneurship, or part-time work—without the constant threat of economic destitution.
Key Characteristics:
Universal: Paid to all citizens, not just those in need.
Unconditional: No work requirements or means testing.
Regular: Paid monthly or quarterly to ensure stability.
Cash-based: Recipients decide how to use it, respecting autonomy.
Relation to The Prosperity Loop: The Freedom Dividend serves as the bottom ring of the Prosperity Loop. It ensures that the benefits of economic and ecological productivity are distributed fairly, so that all individuals have the freedom to thrive. Funded in part by Commons Fees and investment returns from the National Wealth Fund, the Freedom Dividend transforms shared wealth into individual security.
Intellectual Lineage: Philosophers and economists from Thomas Paine to Martin Luther King Jr., Philippe Van Parijs, and Guy Standing have supported UBI as a tool for justice, real freedom, and economic resilience in the face of automation and inequality.
Tagline: “A secure foundation. A springboard to thrive.”
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Definition: refers to the legal, regulatory, and normative systems that enable private enterprise, innovation, and investment to flourish within a competitive and rules-based economy. This includes protecting private property rights, enforcing contracts, promoting fair competition, and fostering entrepreneurial freedom, all of which create the structural conditions for productive economic activity.
Purpose: To uphold the economic flow of the Prosperity Loop by ensuring that individuals and firms have a secure footing to invest, innovate, and contribute to national prosperity. These foundations act as the engine of value creation in the overall toroidal system.
Relation to the Prosperity Loop: This pillar anchors the productive core of the Prosperity Loop. It ensures that economic freedom and individual initiative remain protected while the other structural loops (Commons Fees, National Wealth Fund, and Freedom Dividend) ensure that the wealth generated is distributed fairly and used sustainably.
Key Components Include:
Clear and enforceable private property rights (including for land, labor, and ideas)
The rule of law and an independent judiciary
Open markets with anti-monopoly protections
Entrepreneurial access to capital and credit
Institutional support for labor mobility and fair wages
Examples:
Small businesses developing new products
Inventors securing patents and licensing them
Property owners investing in energy-efficient upgrades
Intellectual Lineage: Draws from classical liberal economic theory (Adam Smith), institutional economics (Douglass North), and development economics emphasizing property rights as a driver of long-term growth (Hernando de Soto).
Key Characteristics:
Incentives for innovation and efficiency
Secure ownership and contract enforcement
Foundation for inclusive prosperity when paired with redistribution
Tagline: Fueling prosperity through innovation and ownership.
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Definition: A multidimensional indicator of well-being that evaluates national progress through health, equity, sustainability, and life satisfaction rather than output alone.
Relation to the Prosperity Loop: GNH complements GDP as a core metric. It aligns Prosperity Loop outcomes with human flourishing rather than just financial growth.
Examples:
Bhutan’s national development strategy
OECD’s Better Life IndexUN’s World Happiness Report
Intellectual Lineage: Pioneered by Bhutan; influenced by Amartya Sen’s capability approach and well-being economics.
Key Characteristics:
Holistic and multidimensional
Tracks mental health, education, trust, and environmental quality
Policy-guiding rather than merely descriptive
Tagline: Measuring what truly matters.
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Definition: A Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF) is a publicly owned investment fund that collects and manages national resources—such as taxes, royalties, or asset sales—and invests them in diversified financial assets (e.g., stocks, bonds, real estate) to generate long-term returns. The goal is to build shared national capital that can provide dividends to citizens, stabilize the economy, and finance public priorities across generations.
Purpose: To convert finite or unearned public revenues (e.g., from oil, carbon fees, spectrum auctions) into perpetual, shared wealth. SWFs enable nations to accumulate savings from the commons and distribute the gains to all citizens—either as direct dividends or public services.
Key Characteristics:
Public Ownership: The fund is held collectively by the nation, not by private shareholders.
Professional Management: Operated by public fiduciaries or independent boards to maximize long-term returns.
Revenue Source Diversity: Capitalized from Commons Fees, surplus revenues, royalties, or financial taxes.
Intergenerational Equity: Designed to benefit current and future citizens, smoothing volatility and ensuring sustainability.
Relation to The Prosperity Loop: The National Wealth Fund represents the capital reservoir of the Prosperity Loop. It receives inflows from Commons Revenue Instruments and grows through reinvestment. Its returns are then used to support the Freedom Dividend and other social guarantees. Like Alaska’s Permanent Fund or Norway’s Oil Fund, it embodies the principle that shared assets should yield shared income.
Intellectual Lineage and Precedents:
Thomas Paine’s idea of a “citizen’s dividend” from land rents
Elinor Ostrom’s theory of managing shared resources
Alaska’s Permanent Fund Dividend (1982–present)
Norway’s Government Pension Fund Global
Contemporary proposals such as the American Solidarity Fund (People’s Policy Project)
Tagline: Turning public assets into shared prosperity.
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Definition: Pre-distribution is a policy and economic design approach that seeks to prevent inequality at its source by structuring markets, institutions, and ownership systems in ways that produce fairer outcomes before government redistribution (like taxes or welfare) takes place. It emphasizes democratizing access to assets, income, and opportunity through upstream reforms.
Purpose: To create an economy where prosperity is broadly shared not through after-the-fact transfers, but through the way wealth is generated, owned, and distributed in the first place. This helps ensure that economic systems serve the many, not just the few.
Core Strategies:
Expand ownership of capital through public investment funds or worker co-ops
Enforce fair labor standards and inclusive market access
Set rules on digital, financial, and natural resource use that return value to the public
Limit monopolies and constrain rent-seeking behaviors
Invest in public goods (education, infrastructure, data, energy) that enable economic participation
Relation to The Prosperity Loop: The Prosperity Loop is built on a pre-distributive foundation. Its structural loops—like Commons Fees, the National Wealth Fund, and the Freedom Dividend—reshape who owns the economy and how returns are shared. Rather than taxing inequity after it happens, the system prevents concentrated extraction and ensures that everyone has a rightful share in national prosperity from the start.
Tagline: “Don’t just redistribute. Design it right the first time.”
Key Thinkers: Jacob Hacker, Mariana Mazzucato, Elinor Ostrom, Thomas Piketty, Samuel Bowles, and Peter Barnes.
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Definition: An economic system that restores, renews, and revitalizes its own sources of capital—natural, social, and financial—rather than depleting them.
Relation to the Prosperity Loop: The Prosperity Loop is designed as a regenerative model—aligning economic flows with ecological cycles and social renewal.
Examples:
Locally-owned food systems that replenish soil and community wealth
Public investment in green infrastructure that also provides jobs
Policies that reduce emissions while growing community equity
Intellectual Lineage: John Fullerton (Capital Institute), ecological economics (Herman Daly), Indigenous knowledge systems, and regenerative finance movements.
Key Characteristics:
Systems-thinking and place-based design
Circular material and financial flows
Emphasis on long-term well-being and balance
Tagline: An economy that heals what it uses and grows what it shares.
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Definition: A holistic economic framework shaped by the geometry of the torus—a circulating ring—where flows of wealth are designed to stay within ecological boundaries and lift all members of society.
Relation to the Prosperity Loop: Toroidal Economics is the theoretical foundation of the Prosperity Loop. It transforms abstract systems theory into actionable public policy.
Examples:
The four-loop model (market → commons fee → shared fund → universal dividend)
Feedback-based fiscal mechanisms like dividend-capped SWFs
Budget-neutral climate policy that recirculates revenue
Intellectual Lineage: Kate Raworth’s Doughnut Economics, systems theory (Donella Meadows), and post-Keynesian policy modeling.
Key Characteristics:
Interconnected loops instead of linear growth
Embedded social and ecological thresholds
Self-reinforcing feedback between innovation, equity, and sustainability
Tagline: An economy that flows—balanced, regenerative, and inclusive.
Policy Briefs & White Papers
Here you’ll find downloadable documents that explain the nuts and bolts of The Prosperity Loop’s policy design. These are written to bridge the gap between rigorous economics and common-sense clarity—for voters, lawmakers, and journalists alike.
Toroidal Economics: Integrating Loops for Emergent Resilience (Theory Paper)
A theory paper, showing how our four Structural Loops work together to create systemic balance, shared wealth, and long-term stability.
The Impacts of Rolling Back EPA Regulations (Policy Paper)
This policy paper explains how rolling back EPA regulations threatens public health and climate stability, and demonstrates why a carbon tax—central to the Toroidal Economic Model—is the most effective, business-friendly solution for sustainable U.S. prosperity.
Turning the DOGE Check into a National Wealth Fund (Policy Memo)
A concise 2-page proposal aligning short-term stimulus with long-term dividends, modeled on successful programs in Alaska and Norway.
What Is a Freedom Dividend? (Explainer Brief)
A plain-language introduction to the concept of a universal basic income funded through resource revenues and shared ownership of national assets.
Interactive InsightMaker Simulation of The Prosperity Loop Model
Explore the dynamic flow of The Prosperity Loop—our toroidal economic framework—in this interactive InsightMaker model. Visualize how the four Structural Loops (Free Market Engine, Environmental Resource Fees, National Wealth Fund, and Freedom Dividend) circulate value to balance economic growth, social equity, and ecological sustainability.
Use the model to test scenarios, understand feedback loops, and see how integrated policy levers shape both GDP and national well-being over time.