Who owns the wealth beneath the ground?
The fund: which assets go in, who holds them, and what safeguards protect it from a government that wants to plunder it.
The essentials
As a sovereign republic. The system must not be designed as a single sack called a sovereign wealth fund. It must be structured as a system of four legally separate compartments coordinated under a single law: a Stabilization and Emergency Fund, an Intergenerational and Pension Fund, a Strategic Infrastructure Fund, and a Human Capital and Social Resilience Fund. The absolute, non-negotiable, expressly written rule is that the principal of each compartment is untouchable.
As the 51st State. In today’s Venezuela, the subsoil belongs to the Republic: the nation’s deposits, administered by the central state through PDVSA. In the United States the regime is different: minerals follow ownership of the land—the private owner of the surface is usually the owner of the subsoil beneath it—and where the land is public, the royalties go to the government that owns it, whether federal or state.
The admission act of the State of Venezuela must transfer to the new state—not retain in federal hands—ownership of Venezuela’s public lands and their mineral rights, with the specific exceptions that every admission negotiation defines: parks, defense installations, particular reserves.
Owner, the state. Operator, whoever wins the concession. Beneficiary of the flow, the citizen, through the fund. Each piece watches the other two.
From the book The 51st State, Parts VI and VIII.
The sources
- Alaska Statehood Act, Public Law 85-508 (July 7, 1958) akleg.gov (accessed October 2, 2026) · archived copy
- Constitution of Alaska, Article IX, Section 15 (1976 amendment) ltgov.alaska.gov (accessed October 2, 2026) · archived copy
- Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation, financial reports and institutional materials.
- Norges Bank Investment Management, Government Pension Fund Global nbim.no (accessed October 2, 2026) · archived copy
- Santiago Principles: Generally Accepted Principles and Practices for Sovereign Wealth Funds (2008). IFSWF ifswf.org (accessed October 2, 2026) · archived copy
- OPEC Annual Statistical Bulletin 2025 and U.S. Energy Information Administration, Country Analysis: Venezuela.
- The 51st State, Parts I, V, VI, and VIII.
Developed in Volume 03 of the series: Who owns the wealth beneath the ground, and how is it armored so that it finally protects the people?