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There’s a lot of research on this in the effective charity set. See [1]. First, it is highly paternalistic to tell people what to spend money on. Second, it
by jnwatson 7y ago
There’s a lot of research on this in the effective charity set. See [1].
First, it is highly paternalistic to tell people what to spend money on.
Second, it takes a huge bureaucracy to manage and enforce controls. Folks still sell their food stamps.
1: https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2017/08/07/541609649/how-to-fix-poverty-why-not-just-give-people-money https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2017/08/07/5416096...
- tomp 7y ago> First, it is highly paternalistic to tell people what to spend money on. Indeed, and that's kind-of the point: (1) you eliminate bullshit spending (on things like alcohol, tobacco, lottery) that many people are prone to do, but that they arguably shouldn't (to some extent, those products are "predatory"); (2) it provides a minimal standard (survival) yet incentivizes people to work (be productive) to increase their standard of living (e.g. to be able to buy alcohol); (3) avoids inflation, as only a very limited set of products would be affected by increased demand (in particular, not real estate, as "free" housing would only be available in government-owned real estate) that the government can plan in advance. My prior is that "bureaucracy" can be reduced significantly with modern IT technologies.
- TheSpiceIsLife 7y ago> eliminate bullshit spending (on things like alcohol, tobacco, lottery) How do you propose to prevent people acquiring drugs, and gambling?
- tomp 7y agoI don't! I fully support people's freedom to spend their own money for anything they want! Just not the tax-payer's money, that's why I'm in favor of things like food-stamps (that could only be exchanged for some "basic" staples), government-provided housing, ...