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>What about the marginal utility of time? Everyone gets 24 hours in a day. The 'copious amounts' of free time of welfare recipients is capped. The same canno

>What about the marginal utility of time? Everyone gets 24 hours in a day. The 'copious amounts' of free time of welfare recipients is capped. The same cannot be said of monetary wealth. Therefore the marginal utility of time has a lower limit that does not exist for the marginal utility of monetary wealth. >In a protection racket, I am worse off than I would be if the racketeer and I never encountered each other. In the proposed uber for welfare scheme the recipient is better off. In both scenarios the disadvantaged party cannot walk away from the transaction without loss in value. In this case, your implicit definition of 'better off' is 'lose less than they would otherwise'. If you have just crawled out of a desert on the verge of death of dehydration and I sell you a cup of water for $100,000 and a pinky finger you may be 'better off' under your definition. Would you say that it is overall a value positive transaction?

yummyfajitas 11y ago
Therefore the marginal utility of time has a lower limit... So what? If we were to impose some cap on income (say $1B/year) would it suddenly be "exploitative" to charge any income tax? If not, then this argument is a red herring. Would you say that it is overall a value positive transaction? Yes. Of course, your analogy is silly - a better comparison would be a resort near the desert which charges $2.50 for a bottle of water. All anyone is proposing is that welfare people get a job that pays the same rates that the workers supporting them get paid.
- clavalle 11y ago
  >If we were to impose some cap on income (say $1B/year) would it suddenly be "exploitative" to charge any income tax? Maybe not at $1B/year (that marginal dollar is damn near infinitesimal at that point). But maybe if the cap was, say, $50K (or in that rough ballpark) a year characterizing income tax as exploitative could be a concept worthy of exploring. Especially if we are talking about taking 40% their usable income or more as the article is proposing for the poor assuming they are expecting them to work 8 hours a day.

yummyfajitas 11y ago

Therefore the marginal utility of time has a lower limit... So what? If we were to impose some cap on income (say $1B/year) would it suddenly be "exploitative" to charge any income tax? If not, then this argument is a red herring. Would you say that it is overall a value positive transaction? Yes. Of course, your analogy is silly - a better comparison would be a resort near the desert which charges $2.50 for a bottle of water. All anyone is proposing is that welfare people get a job that pays the same rates that the workers supporting them get paid.

clavalle 11y ago
>If we were to impose some cap on income (say $1B/year) would it suddenly be "exploitative" to charge any income tax? Maybe not at $1B/year (that marginal dollar is damn near infinitesimal at that point). But maybe if the cap was, say, $50K (or in that rough ballpark) a year characterizing income tax as exploitative could be a concept worthy of exploring. Especially if we are talking about taking 40% their usable income or more as the article is proposing for the poor assuming they are expecting them to work 8 hours a day.