C1.5 Universal Wealth Access
Material Security. Can the system provide material necessities reliably and universally?
Pass threshold
≥80% population with an active wealth-accumulation pathway
What it asks
All participants access wealth-building mechanisms, not merely income transfers. Prevent a permanent wealth-excluded underclass — measured by breadth of access, not by the resulting distribution's evenness (that is now C1.2b's question, not this one).
Why it matters
Systems limiting wealth-building access to a subset of participants — whether by capital ownership, employment status, or cooperative membership — leave the excluded group structurally dependent regardless of how equitable the wealth distribution is among those who do have access. Universal access is a distinct requirement from bounded concentration: a system could hypothetically score well on C1.2b (low overall Gini) while still leaving a meaningful population segment with no accumulation pathway at all — for instance, a strict membership-gated cooperative sector that is internally quite equal but reaches only part of the population, which is exactly Market Socialism's documented profile (Section 6, C1.5 legacy anchor; Appendix H.7v2 below).
How it differs from nearby criteria
Equality of access (required — this criterion) from equality of outcomes (not required, and never was) and from bounded concentration (a separate question, now C1.2b — see Section 12.2 for why these were split apart rather than left combined).
How it is measured
Percentage of population with an active wealth accumulation pathway (not just eligibility, but an actual mechanism producing asset growth).
Note on the threshold
Gini clause removed, moved to C1.2b, Paper Section 12.2 (commentary moved out of the threshold in v2.0).
How scores are anchored
1.0, pass
Broad-based access not contingent on prior wealth or narrow membership. Nordic Social Democracy (1.0): "Approximately 70% have wealth accumulation pathways... meets the threshold for broad-based access" — the same qualitative-tolerance judgment call already documented in H.7's own C1.5 entry above carries over unchanged, since it was never about the Gini clause.
0.5, partial
Access exists but is gated such that a meaningful population segment is excluded. Market Socialism (0.5): "Members have wealth access, but require cooperative membership. Unemployed, between jobs, or unable to work lack access."
0.0, structural failure
Access concentrated among those already positioned to have it. Libertarian Minarchism (0.0): "Wealth concentration accelerates without redistributive mechanisms... only those born with capital have genuine wealth-building access."
This band's reasoning is unchanged from legacy C1.5's anchors (H.7 above); narrowing the threshold doesn't change which systems clear an access-breadth bar, only removes a second, now-separate test that used to ride alongside it. v2.0 (Session 45): this criterion's Pass Threshold was reworded without a change of bar (W; NEEC_Criteria_v2_s45.md); the band texts stand.
Normative roots
From N4 (Universal Wealth Access) + N7 (Anti-Capture) — unchanged from legacy C1.5..
How the systems score
1.0, pass
0.5, partial
CCO-PTF-CIP-SZH, Participatory Economics, Degrowth Economics, Market Socialism, Sovereign Wealth Fund Statism, Islamic Finance, State Capitalism / Singapore, MMT + Job Guarantee, Status Quo Market Capitalism, State Capitalism / China, Stakeholder Capitalism
0.0, structural failure
Integral, Georgism / LVT, Ostrom Commons, Mutual Credit / LETS, Universal Basic Income, Universal Basic Services, Fully Automated Luxury Communism, State Capitalism / Qatar, Doughnut Economics, Libertarian Minarchism, Centrally Planned Socialism
Sources
Definition: Paper Section 12.3; restated in v2.0 (NEEC_Criteria_v2_s45.md, Appendix V). Anchors: Paper Appendix H.7v2.