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Basic Income (aka universal welfare) is bullshit because it is authoritarian. It depends on throwing people who refuse to hand over a share of the currency they
by aminok 10y ago
Basic Income (aka universal welfare) is bullshit because it is authoritarian. It depends on throwing people who refuse to hand over a share of the currency they receive in private trade in prison, where they are confined like captive animals, so that the rest of the population is cowed into handing over the demanded amount.
Likewise, the author's arguments for social welfare are bullshit:
>There are two reasons why those four risks call for social state intervention. The first is their high criticality. A risk is critical if it is highly probable: for instance, most of us are bound to get old (dying young, fortunately, remains a small probability). A risk is also critical if, however improbable, it can have a devastating impact on your life: having cancer can ruin you if you don’t have health insurance; losing your job can plunge you into a devastating spiral towards poverty, etc. By definition, criticality is probability times impact.
That does not explain why we have to resort to state intervention.
>The other reason why these risks are not well-covered on the insurance market is that they are all affected by what economists call market imperfections. Moral hazard, a well-known imperfection, “occurs when one person takes more risks because someone else bears the cost of those risks”: it plays a key role when it comes to covering the unemployment risk.
This does not explain why we need state intervention. It sounds like market insurance doesn't want to cover these things for sound economic reasons, so he wants the government to cover it instead (even though it faces all of the same micro-economic problems, like moral hazard).
>Another frequent imperfection on insurance markets is adverse selection: if given the choice, an insurer will refuse to cover those who present signs of a high level of risk, thus providing insurance only to those who eventually don’t need it.
False. An insurer will cover a person who pays a premium that accounts for the risk.
This has the economically necessary effect of encouraging people to get insurance before they get sick and need it.
- k-mcgrady 10y ago>> "it is authoritarian. It depends on throwing people who refuse to hand over a share of the currency they receive in private trade in prison" If that's what you believe then any tax would meet the criteria and you would have to consider almost every government in the world authoritarian. Is that the case?
- aminok 10y agoNot all taxes demand a share of the currency we receive in private trade. A split rate property tax for example does not require making such a demand. My preference is to replace all taxes with user fees for use of government services and assets (like roads), and a heavy split rate property tax, and compensate property owners for the loss of value in their real estate that this tax shift causes.
- k-mcgrady 10y agoInteresting. >> "replace all taxes with user fees for use of government services and assets (like roads)" I'm guessing with this we would also have to drastically reduce the number of services the government is providing? For example there will be certain services that they few people use but cost a lot to provide so if we aren't all contributing they can't continue to offer them. As for a split rate tax I hadn't heard of it before but after a quick glance it looks interesting. However I don't understand how you can think tax on trade is authoritarian yet other tax forms aren't.
- aminok 10y agoYes, moving to the tax system as proposed would require a massive reduction in government spending. >However I don't understand how you can think tax on trade is authoritarian yet other tax forms aren't. Land, and to a lesser extent the property that's built on it, can more justifiably be taxed, because an individual has less of a natural right of ownership over it. This is due to land being a natural resource, that derives almost all of its value from its natural form, rather than the value the party that appropriated it added to it.
- anexprogrammer 10y ago> That does not explain why we have to resort to state intervention. Having a country where people fall, through no fault of their own (unless you count their genetics), to such an extent that they live in tents and sewers is enough indication that there's inadequate state protection.
- aminok 10y agoHaving a country where people are thrown in prison for refusing to help other people who, through no fault of the imprisoned individual's own, are in unfortunate circumstances, is a basic indication of authoritarianism. Like something the Sparrows in GoT would justify.
- chillwaves 10y agoThat's every society that has taxes and social programs, which is what.. every society? Sounds like you are not happy with the compromise democracy has to offer. Not sure what to tell you, but if most people want BI then it would be authoritarian to not give it to them in a democracy.
- aminok 10y agoAuthoritarianism is authoritarianism, no matter how many countries practice it. >but if most people want BI then it would be authoritarian to not give it to them in a democracy. That's not how authoritarian is defined. The majority have no right to violate the right of the minority. More to the point, I'm arguing that we should try to change the minds of the majority, because the majority held viewpoint is authoritarian.
- chillwaves 10y agoI don't know what authoritarian means in this context. My understanding is the government has a monopoly on violence, and when I disobey laws that other people pass (through the process of democracy), I will be on the receiving end of government violence. What you call authoritarian is to me what folks call democracy. I also don't understand the distinction for private trade, in that without a functioning government to support a marketplace, such trade would not exist.
- specialist 10y agoGovernment stimulates the demand for money with taxes. No taxes, no economy.
- aminok 10y agoI hope this is really skillful trolling and not an actual belief you have about how economies work.
- dredmorbius 10y agoIt's similar to concepts from modern monetary theory (MMT). Which I'll add isn't without its critics. Money introduces the question of "how do you ensure that people want your currency?" A problem Bitcoin (and other cryptocurrencies or blockchain currencies) face. In the case of dollars specifically, demand is derived from: 1. The obligation to pay US taxes in dollars. 2. The status of the dollar as the international reserve currency. 3. The status of the dollar as the currency for all petroleum commerce. (Consider what would have happened to Saudi Arabia, Mexico, Venezuela, Russia/USSR, Kuwait, Iraq, and Iran, had their national currencies been the basis of their own oil trade.) There's also the economic output of the US itself, of course. But there's a tremendous intrinsic demand for US dollars as a consequence of this mandated trade. And yes, taxes are an element of this. Other national currencies have other bases, though not as broad a demand foundation as the US dollar.