Comment by pdonis

The basic analogy underlying this article is wrong. The US is not analogous to a joint-stock company, and the US GDP does not correspond to the revenue or income or profits of a joint-stock company.

The US government could be considered somewhat analogous to a joint-stock company, but the US GDP does not correspond to the revenue or income or profits of the US government either. The proper analogue would be the US government's revenues from taxes and other sources, but of course that just makes this proposal into universal basic income. It doesn't give anyone "ownership of a share in America".

If you want people to feel ownership of a share in America, then owning land in America is indeed one way to do it (as the Homestead Act did, which the article refers to). Another way would be to own a share in a US company. One could even corporatize the US government and give every US citizen a share in it. But none of those things would correspond to giving out shares of the US GDP.

Frankly, I'm disappointed to see Sam Altman making such an elementary mistake.