Lieve Vereycken

The Funding Mechanisms of Core Infrastructures in Society (part 1)

The Metropolitan Railway (Met) got in 1854 the permission to build the first line of the Underground what later became the London Metro System (full hitory of The London Underground is here).

What template did the MET use to set up the company ?
1. What is the income stream for the service ?
2. What are the costs to start-up the income stream ?
3. What are the profits we can make ?
4. Define the issue of shares and sell the promise of profits in return to get cash to start up the service.
5. Start-up and run the service, produce jobs and profits.

The first rail roads used the shareholder model, the model was copied by the MET and almost all the infrastructures that followed got funded with it. Shareholders, workers, trade unions and governments got their stories of aligned interests. Society got fueled and power got defined on three axes, namely:
1. Income
2. Say
3. Ownership

But can we hold on on that story ? Let’s consider the investement of Google in Belgium. Does the traditional story of aligned interests between funding, jobs, income, say and ownership really fit ?
We believe we can create a better by reconsidering the funding mechanism for the core infrastructure of the new age.

Nothing is permanent in this wicked world – not even our troubles.

Charlie Chaplin