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The Libertarian Case for a Basic Income

66 points by bhauer 13y ago

api 13y ago
I consider myself a left-libertarian, and I strongly support a basic income. I'm also a supporter of some amount of public health care. In theory I support the elimination of taxation and a purely volitional society, but I recognize that such a thing is likely a very long way away. What we have now is not even close, and trying to shoehorn it into that vision prematurely will not work. That kind of moral futurism should not blind us to chances to radically improve human life here and now while working pragmatically within the bounds of the political realities we have. One also must ask the question: given that the abolition of force and fraud is a moral long term goal, what sort of society would we want to build that would be likely to evolve in that direction? I don't think crony capitalism with fascist tendencies and no social safety net seems like what you'd want. Seems like that would be more likely to regress back to feudalism... which is exactly the historical path that we seem to be on. Regression to feudalism takes us further -- much further -- from that goal. Seems to me that the precursors to a volitional libertarian state are radical reductions in violence both within and between nations, a highly educated and healthy populace that is capable of taking care of itself, and the abolition of caste systems (e.g. sexism, racism, classism, guild systems, etc.). A basic income is a step in that direction.
- nickff 13y ago
  "Public health care" is interesting, because it usually involves first forcing everyone to pay for a government healthcare system, then (usually) regulating the private system into oblivion, or destroying it outright. "Public health care" is fundamentally incompatible with liberty. Your third paragraph is interesting, because you appear (to me at least), to endorse liberty, yet without believing in it. >"given that the abolition of force and fraud is a moral long term goal, what sort of society would we want to build that would be likely to evolve in that direction" My answer to your question, (as quoted above,) is that I believe liberty would allow for people to prosper, and all the fascist, feudal, and that regressive tendencies we see are a product of coercion. I do not understand your answer to the question, as it seems to open the door for any type of coercive means with the stated intent (but not necessarily with the result) of improving the welfare of the populace. The ends which you describe in the last paragraph are all interesting, and nice goals, but do not (in themselves) justify the use of coercive means; especially since the coercion presents many discrimination problems due to the discretionary powers granted to those who would 'solve' the problems.
  - dragonwriter 13y ago
    > "Public health care" is interesting, because it usually involves first forcing everyone to pay for a government healthcare system, then (usually) regulating the private system into oblivion, or destroying it outright. You seem to be using a strange definition of "usually" -- every OECD country has "some degree of public healthcare" (what the grandparent post suggested support for), and yet most of them have some degree of a private system.
    - nickff 13y ago
      I would pose a question to you: In what area of healthcare has a government in the OECD reduced its 'participation'? If the answer is 'a few' or 'not many', then I would say we are experiencing the destruction of private health care right now.
      - dragonwriter 13y ago
        If you define "destruction" that way, your argument is circular, as you've just made it: 1. Public health care usually leads to destroying private health care, and 2. "Destroying" private health care means the government not decreasing the public role in health care.
        nickff 13y ago
        I left unstated the fact that many OECD governments are greatly increasing their roles in healthcare, because I thought it was readily apparent. Perhaps I should have been more clear. My point is that many OECD states are (greatly) increasing the portion of the healthcare market controlled by the government, and few if any are decreasing it substantially (or at all). I define 'destroying' the private market in healthcare as the government taking over previously private activities, in effect nationalizing the industry.
        dragonwriter 13y ago
        > I left unstated the fact that many OECD governments are greatly increasing their roles in healthcare, because I thought it was readily apparent. Perhaps I should have been more clear. It wouldn't change the basic problem; you first started with the claim that public health care usuually means destroying private health care and have progressed to define "destroying" private health care as government either not decreasing (your penultimate post) or increasing (your last post) its role in health care. Which means that, stripped of the peculiar definition of destruction, your claims is that public health care means the government either not decreasing or increasing its role in health care. Which is trivially true, of course, but absolutely vacuous.
- orblivion 13y ago
  > Seems to me that the precursors to a volitional libertarian state are radical reductions in violence both within and between nations, a highly educated and healthy populace that is capable of taking care of itself, and the abolition of caste systems (e.g. sexism, racism, classism, guild systems, etc.). A basic income is a step in that direction. Does the libertarian within you believe that the State will accomplish this goal, without worse repercussions? Why remove the state at all if you think it can engineer society for the better in this way?
  - tokenizer 13y ago
    A libertarian could be a minarchist, and anarchist, or simply someone who looks at our current governance architecture (state control focusing on finance and asset wealth growth) as counter intuitive. > Does the libertarian within you believe that the State will accomplish this goal, without worse repercussions? The libertarian in my worries that a state would either abuse a system for the benefit of a small elite, or purposefully skew results in favor for their brand of narrative (didn't work, too expensive, just not possible, abolishing labour laws because it needs to be done!, etc...). Personally it depends on the policy details to me. If this leads to the abolishment of all other forms of social assistance, and can reduce the amount of government employees who simply decided who got them in our older models, then sign me up. A system would also have to not discriminate, neither down nor up in regards to income. That said if our choices are current social assistance, negative income tax based minimum income, or minimum income for all without deductions, then both NIT-MI and MI work for me.
  - api 13y ago
    If you remove the state from a violent, fraud-ridden, still very feudal system, you will simply unveil the underlying less centralized tyranny latent in that system. There's also a massive blind spot in most conventional libertarian thought with regard to soft power and indirect coercion. Eliminating direct coercion but leaving caste systems in place only frees those who are rich or powerful enough to evade those caste systems. The rest are consigned to poverty and oppression through manipulation instead of force. So yes, I do think the state can play some role at this time in history at uplifting the human condition and empowering the general population in ways that could -- given a lot of time -- eventually lead to a future that is better and freer in multiple ways. Or it could not. The state can't be trusted, but I also don't think we can dispense with it (yet). Simple reductio ad absurdium: imagine actually dispensing with the US Federal Government. Most US states in the interior would establish theocratic feudal totalitarianism along Christian Reconstructionist / Dominionist lines, and the coasts and anywhere resource-rich would probably be invaded.
- craigyk 13y ago
  I'm confused as to how you think libertarianism is the path to get to that society, the only path, or even the best path. If we are dreaming futures, the goals you mention could just as easily be met by a system in which super-sentient AIs plan all the details, and robots provide all the labor. After all, the only monetary 'freedom' that is better than having complete control over one's money, is the freedom of not having to even worry about it.
natmaster 13y ago
The problem with the whole premise of this analysis is that libertarianism is some kind of idealistic belief to appeal to the pillars. This is wrong. Libertarianism is about pragmatism, and a basic income would simply drive up costs of all basic things needed to survive especially if any of those are scarce. This would likely hurt those just above that poverty barrier the most as they would no longer be able to afford basic shelter even though they are gainfully employed. Because of this, those people will find it better to move out to land no one cares about and just 'do nothing' as decreasing costs is the only way for them to live decently. These people will not provide value to society, resulting in net loss of value (read: happiness, whatever you want to call it) for all.
- orblivion 13y ago
  > This is wrong. Libertarianism is about pragmatism What libertarianism is about has been a subject of debate between libertarians for decades. There are others who see it as an idealistic belief.
  - craigyk 13y ago
    It is an idealistic ethos. In my mind it's as naive as centrally planned socialism, but just at the other end of the spectrum.
    - warfangle 13y ago
      I fail to find ethics in libertarianism. Unless you're talking randian ethics, which are a far cry from ethics themselves.
    - mindcrime 13y ago
      Far from it. Libertarianism is the most realistic and non-naive system around, exactly because it is the one system that does not pretend that we can fix all the flaws in human nature and socially-engineer a perfect society by just passing enough laws and creating enough rules and regulations and bureaucracies. At it's core, libertarianism makes no statement about outcomes, but simply demands that people be free to make their own choices without being subject to force or fraud, and are then responsible for the outcome of their actions. Nobody is making any Pollyanna'ish guarantee that such a system will result in the most possible desirable outcome for everybody involved. The claim is that it's just the right thing to do, that most people will be better off (economically) than under other systems, and that you accept that every system - this one included - has its pathologies. You can't get much less naive than that.
tokenizer 13y ago
As a libertarian-socialist, I'd love for us to collectively and indiscriminately provide everyone with a fair and appropriate basic minimum income. The only problem with this policy is how you pay for it. You can abolish all other forms of social assistance -but only if you can adequately justify the elimination of the bureaucratic government jobs associated with them. For an all inclusive basic income, no bureaucracy would be needed. You could tax the wealthy heavily -in effect making the basic income a negative income tax policy. This also seems like a worthy policy worth investigating. You could borrow the money by way of government securities. The only problem with this scheme however is that already you have people like myself, who are extremely skeptical of the long term health of the current world financial make-up of West versus Rest, which is already changing quickly. Personally I dismiss all arguments regarding a basic income harming poor people in the form of "inflation". We're currently in a deflationary crisis according to the big banks, and the social and political benefits to these policy changes would make it extremely hard to simply get rid of due to "bubbles and pops" as we have that plenty as it is. Can someone try to explain why something like this isn't possible? What if we increased taxes in the top most income bracket, abolished all forms of current social assistance, and took on more debt, hoping this can pay for itself (or to simply continue down the trajectory of more debt every year). Can someone try to explain why something like this could be more simple than I'm guessing?
- dllthomas 13y ago
  You would still need some bureaucracy to make sure people are not double-collecting, that people stop collecting after death, etc.
  - farmdawgnation 13y ago
    Yeah, I was thinking the same. I'm wondering how much of that could be automated, though, through appropriate system design. The IRS knows when people are dead. Presumably, that system could then alert the BIG system to stop dispatching checks. That's just one solution to one problem in a sea of them, but I think it's a representative example.
socalnate1 13y ago
This is the most even handed treatment of this topic I've read yet. One topic not addressed (but important) is what we do when someone spends the entirety of their basic income and has nothing left for food or shelter. Do we just let them starve to death in the street? Or do we create a "secondary" safety net that prevents this? If so, don't we just end up with the same sort of inefficiencies and problems that plague our current system?
- bendmorris 13y ago
  >Do we just let them starve to death in the street? I imagine private charity would pick up some of the slack at this point. I feel that, if someone is given enough to live on but uses it irresponsibly, the state no longer has any obligation to provide for them (they already have.) It would fall to individuals to decide whether they personally have an obligation to assist them.
  - nickff 13y ago
    You are correct to point out that the article poses a counter-factual which is unsupported by the evidence.
  - dllthomas 13y ago
    Also, if someone is demonstrably, persistently unable to take care of themselves, help should probably take a form other than food stamps.
- nawitus 13y ago
  The secondary safety net is private. That's why even Nordic social democracies have "bread queues".
- mindcrime 13y ago
  > One topic not addressed (but important) is what we do when someone spends the entirety of their basic income and has nothing left for food or shelter. Do we just let them starve to death in the street? If you want to help, voluntarily, that is, of course, your choice. But if no one chooses to help them, well... the idea of individual responsibility for the outcome of your choices exists for a reason. By what possible argument can I claim that I should be able to blow all of my income on anything I want, except food and shelter, and then demand that someone else provide me food and shelter?
ihnorton 13y ago
This is worth a read, especially for this point: However attractive libertarianism might be in theory, “Libertarianism…Starting Now!” has the ring of special pleading, especially when it comes from the mouths of people who have by and large emerged at the top of the bloody and murderous mess that is our collective history. Social justice libertarianism? I was not expecting that. Very interesting. (the website is beautiful, too)
- anExcitedBeast 13y ago
  I think it's fair to call 'libertarian' a descriptor of political, economic, or philosophical ideas. There are many different types of libertarians who have occasionally conflicting positions. The only thing they share is a vaguely similar anti-state "flavor". I think it's about as precise as 'liberal' or 'conservative', which is to say it isn't precise at all.
liquidise 13y ago
Hold on now. While i am going to do my best to avoid a No True Scotsman here, i have never spoken to a self-described libertarian who supports in reparation or affirmative action. This is not by chance either. The idea of fiscal freedoms comes at the cost of fiscal safety nets. Where you draw that line is a sliding scale of course, but i still fair to see how this article is speaking a libertarian mindset.
- tokenizer 13y ago
  > Where you draw that line is a sliding scale of course I disagree. As a libertarian-socialist, I think we can take care of ourselves while pursuing freedom in regards to economics. In our current system, we judge people based on their employment, history, and need, and then select people to give benefits to. There are problems with this. Bureaucracy, favouritism, politicking, etc. With a basic income, we can reduce spending by abolishing all social assistance, reduce the amount of government employees by firing the bureaucrats who used to deny/approve people for benefits, and simply guarantee everyone a minimum amount of support. This has the benefits of reducing bureaucracy, favouritism, and politicking.
  - liquidise 13y ago
    > With a basic income, we can reduce spending by abolishing all social assistance I would love to see the numbers that show a no-questions-asked basic income would be cheaper than the present social assistance monies. There are a lot of logistics here. How do we prove you did not already get your check? What about those without mailing addresses. Or ID's? Is the basic income adjusted for families of 1 vs 7? This idea of a minimalist ruleset for financial assistance seems like it is great at first, but will inevitably just get more and more bloated (and costly) as you actually implement it.
    - nawitus 13y ago
      >How do we prove you did not already get your check? What about those without mailing addresses. Or ID's? Is the basic income adjusted for families of 1 vs 7? Most Nordic social democracies already know the answers to those questions. Basic income could be used to reduce spending. I advocate a basic income model which doesn't reduce countries to these countries, though.
yummyfajitas 13y ago
This article is almost self refuting - objection (2) is killer. Immigration is probably the most important issue of our time. If we have a BI, we can't have immigration in any form remotely resembling what we have today, let alone some ideal situation where we have drastically more immigration. It's as simple as that. The cost of a BI (and the welfare state in general, really) is that millions of people are stuck in Haiti, India, Afghanistan and other desperately poor locales. http://econfaculty.gmu.edu/bcaplan/pdfs/whyimmigration.pdf http://econfaculty.gmu.edu/bcaplan/pdfs/whyimmigration.pdf http://dipeco.uniroma3.it/public/WP%20163%20Liberati%202012.pdf http://dipeco.uniroma3.it/public/WP%20163%20Liberati%202012.... I'm not an open borders activist. Most of the countries I mentioned are desperately poor due primarily to the people living there - any immigration policy needs to turn Haitians and Sudanese into Americans rather than turning the US into Haiti. But at the same time we need to recognize the tremendous humanitarian benefits of immigration. If we prevent a Haitian person from selling his full time labor to an American employer for $7.25/hour, we are cutting his income by 90% (Haiti has a GDP/capita of $1300, cost of living adjusted). I can't see any benefits from a BI that would remotely justify doing this to millions more people. In fact, near as I can tell, virtually any policy which requires further restricting immigration is almost certainly a nonstarter for this reason. A much better policy is the Basic Job, which is like Basic Income but you need to work for it (see FDR's CCC, jobs are things like improving public parks, planting trees, etc). This also has no disincentive effects and you get some productive labor out of the people who choose to make use of it.
- tokenizer 13y ago
  Simple solution, have X amount of savings, or a job lined up. I'd love your opinion on the merits of anyone else being allowed into a country without X amount of savings, or a job lined up.
  - yummyfajitas 13y ago
    A glib response: I'd love your opinion on the merits of deporting unemployed Americans with $0 in savings to Liberia. More seriously, suppose we had no BI or other welfare state - what is the harm of allowing an Indian to show up in NY with no money or job? The only cost I see is that he might annoy 30-100 potential employers before he finds someone to pay him $7.25/hour to wash dishes, making him richer than 95% of his countrymen. He might sleep on the street for a little while. Now, there are real worries - he might eventually become a citizen and vote for Indian-style governance (see, e.g., the voting behavior of Mexican Americans), contribute to a corruption-tolerant culture, or other such things. But those are second order worries.
billpg 13y ago
Next week, a communist case for the private ownership of the means of production.
- Finster 13y ago
  i.e. China's economic system?
mindcrime 13y ago
Background: I consider myself a Voluntaryist or Anarcho-Capitalist libertarian, and I can't see how I could ever support anything that violates NIF[1][2]. --- That was more interesting and enlightening than I expected, to be quite honest. My initial thought was that there would be no way to reconcile a "basic income" with the NIF principle, unless said basic income is paid entirely voluntarily. But the historical rectification argument strikes me, at first blush anyway, as having some credence. That said, I'm a long way from fully onboard with this as long as it's rooted in our present system of taxation which is fundamentally based on coercion / force, or threat of same. [1]:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-aggression_principle http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-aggression_principle [2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Initiation_of_force http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Initiation_of_force
jganetsk 13y ago
Has anyone analyzed the impact on monetary policy and macroeconomics? The Fed has a dual mandate of low inflation and maximal employment, and as a result, is currently printing money indefinitely. The ECB only has a mandate of low inflation, and has had an excellent track record. However, the Eurozone is currently having an unemployment crisis. The BI (potentially with abolition of the minimum wage) would then mitigate the impacts of unemployment. With basic income, couldn't the Fed become more like the ECB, and drop the employment mandate? Then, we could potentially greatly curtail our money printing. Also, what are the effects on macroeconomics? Couldn't BI attenuate the boom-bust cycle? Deflation would even be constructive: the real value of the BI is increased without raising the nominal value. The Fed can then take its time, during recession, in deciding when to start the printing presses again.
AnthonyMouse 13y ago
I want to point out that that there is no difference between a basic income and a negative income tax. Suppose you have a negative income tax rate of 30% up to $50,000, then an income tax rate of 30% thereafter. Compare this to having a $15,000 annual basic income and a flat 30% income tax rate starting from $0. They are the same thing using different words. But the words matter, which is why I don't like calling it a negative income tax. Because if you call it that, people start asking questions like why should someone making up to $50,000 be getting the "subsidy"? And then people want to do something silly like make the negative income tax be something like 60% up to $25,000, then 0% to $50,000 and 30% thereafter, which is obviously very stupid if you stop to do the math on who gets screwed by that and what incentives to work it creates at the bottom: It's equivalent to a $15,000 basic income with the same tax brackets, and it makes no damn sense whatsoever for someone making $25,000/year to be paying a 60% marginal tax rate. But calling it "negative income tax" encourages people to think that way and expect high marginal rates on the poor to be Good when they are really quite Bad.
notahacker 13y ago
If the ethical case for redistribution rests on the view that (A) inequality is partly the consequence of injustices that need restitution and (B) some people really need the money, and probably deserve it because of A, I can't see why that would leave you favouring a crassly simply form of redistribution like BI over another hypothetical form of welfare system which is better at focusing the redistribution on suffers of injustice and things people really need. That probably wouldn't be identical in design to the current US welfare system, but it wouldn't be difficult to argue that many of the features present in most actual welfare states are better at delivering A and B than a simple monthly transfer of a small amount of income to everybody. Which leaves us with two main lines of argument against some more traditional form of welfare state. It's "paternalistic", but so are employers when they impose conditions upon people that expect to receive money or expenses from them, and I so don't see anyone making the case that expecting minimum standards of behaviour from people in return for giving them money is in general a bad thing. Secondly, it's expensive to administer, but potentially not as expensive and wasteful as the adverse consequences of an overly-generous basic income (or as deadly as an insufficient basic income). On the whole, better to have lots of subtly wrong things than one big politically-sensitive number that can make or break your economy. Once you've conceded the case that centralised large-scale distribution is inherently justifiable and worthwhile, saying no to "big government" starts to look more like a slogan than an argument...

66 points by bhauer 13y ago

api 13y ago

I consider myself a left-libertarian, and I strongly support a basic income. I'm also a supporter of some amount of public health care. In theory I support the elimination of taxation and a purely volitional society, but I recognize that such a thing is likely a very long way away. What we have now is not even close, and trying to shoehorn it into that vision prematurely will not work. That kind of moral futurism should not blind us to chances to radically improve human life here and now while working pragmatically within the bounds of the political realities we have. One also must ask the question: given that the abolition of force and fraud is a moral long term goal, what sort of society would we want to build that would be likely to evolve in that direction? I don't think crony capitalism with fascist tendencies and no social safety net seems like what you'd want. Seems like that would be more likely to regress back to feudalism... which is exactly the historical path that we seem to be on. Regression to feudalism takes us further -- much further -- from that goal. Seems to me that the precursors to a volitional libertarian state are radical reductions in violence both within and between nations, a highly educated and healthy populace that is capable of taking care of itself, and the abolition of caste systems (e.g. sexism, racism, classism, guild systems, etc.). A basic income is a step in that direction.

nickff 13y ago
"Public health care" is interesting, because it usually involves first forcing everyone to pay for a government healthcare system, then (usually) regulating the private system into oblivion, or destroying it outright. "Public health care" is fundamentally incompatible with liberty. Your third paragraph is interesting, because you appear (to me at least), to endorse liberty, yet without believing in it. >"given that the abolition of force and fraud is a moral long term goal, what sort of society would we want to build that would be likely to evolve in that direction" My answer to your question, (as quoted above,) is that I believe liberty would allow for people to prosper, and all the fascist, feudal, and that regressive tendencies we see are a product of coercion. I do not understand your answer to the question, as it seems to open the door for any type of coercive means with the stated intent (but not necessarily with the result) of improving the welfare of the populace. The ends which you describe in the last paragraph are all interesting, and nice goals, but do not (in themselves) justify the use of coercive means; especially since the coercion presents many discrimination problems due to the discretionary powers granted to those who would 'solve' the problems.
- dragonwriter 13y ago
  > "Public health care" is interesting, because it usually involves first forcing everyone to pay for a government healthcare system, then (usually) regulating the private system into oblivion, or destroying it outright. You seem to be using a strange definition of "usually" -- every OECD country has "some degree of public healthcare" (what the grandparent post suggested support for), and yet most of them have some degree of a private system.
  - nickff 13y ago
    I would pose a question to you: In what area of healthcare has a government in the OECD reduced its 'participation'? If the answer is 'a few' or 'not many', then I would say we are experiencing the destruction of private health care right now.
    - dragonwriter 13y ago
      If you define "destruction" that way, your argument is circular, as you've just made it: 1. Public health care usually leads to destroying private health care, and 2. "Destroying" private health care means the government not decreasing the public role in health care.
      - nickff 13y ago
        I left unstated the fact that many OECD governments are greatly increasing their roles in healthcare, because I thought it was readily apparent. Perhaps I should have been more clear. My point is that many OECD states are (greatly) increasing the portion of the healthcare market controlled by the government, and few if any are decreasing it substantially (or at all). I define 'destroying' the private market in healthcare as the government taking over previously private activities, in effect nationalizing the industry.
        dragonwriter 13y ago
        > I left unstated the fact that many OECD governments are greatly increasing their roles in healthcare, because I thought it was readily apparent. Perhaps I should have been more clear. It wouldn't change the basic problem; you first started with the claim that public health care usuually means destroying private health care and have progressed to define "destroying" private health care as government either not decreasing (your penultimate post) or increasing (your last post) its role in health care. Which means that, stripped of the peculiar definition of destruction, your claims is that public health care means the government either not decreasing or increasing its role in health care. Which is trivially true, of course, but absolutely vacuous.
orblivion 13y ago
> Seems to me that the precursors to a volitional libertarian state are radical reductions in violence both within and between nations, a highly educated and healthy populace that is capable of taking care of itself, and the abolition of caste systems (e.g. sexism, racism, classism, guild systems, etc.). A basic income is a step in that direction. Does the libertarian within you believe that the State will accomplish this goal, without worse repercussions? Why remove the state at all if you think it can engineer society for the better in this way?
- tokenizer 13y ago
  A libertarian could be a minarchist, and anarchist, or simply someone who looks at our current governance architecture (state control focusing on finance and asset wealth growth) as counter intuitive. > Does the libertarian within you believe that the State will accomplish this goal, without worse repercussions? The libertarian in my worries that a state would either abuse a system for the benefit of a small elite, or purposefully skew results in favor for their brand of narrative (didn't work, too expensive, just not possible, abolishing labour laws because it needs to be done!, etc...). Personally it depends on the policy details to me. If this leads to the abolishment of all other forms of social assistance, and can reduce the amount of government employees who simply decided who got them in our older models, then sign me up. A system would also have to not discriminate, neither down nor up in regards to income. That said if our choices are current social assistance, negative income tax based minimum income, or minimum income for all without deductions, then both NIT-MI and MI work for me.
- api 13y ago
  If you remove the state from a violent, fraud-ridden, still very feudal system, you will simply unveil the underlying less centralized tyranny latent in that system. There's also a massive blind spot in most conventional libertarian thought with regard to soft power and indirect coercion. Eliminating direct coercion but leaving caste systems in place only frees those who are rich or powerful enough to evade those caste systems. The rest are consigned to poverty and oppression through manipulation instead of force. So yes, I do think the state can play some role at this time in history at uplifting the human condition and empowering the general population in ways that could -- given a lot of time -- eventually lead to a future that is better and freer in multiple ways. Or it could not. The state can't be trusted, but I also don't think we can dispense with it (yet). Simple reductio ad absurdium: imagine actually dispensing with the US Federal Government. Most US states in the interior would establish theocratic feudal totalitarianism along Christian Reconstructionist / Dominionist lines, and the coasts and anywhere resource-rich would probably be invaded.
craigyk 13y ago
I'm confused as to how you think libertarianism is the path to get to that society, the only path, or even the best path. If we are dreaming futures, the goals you mention could just as easily be met by a system in which super-sentient AIs plan all the details, and robots provide all the labor. After all, the only monetary 'freedom' that is better than having complete control over one's money, is the freedom of not having to even worry about it.

natmaster 13y ago

The problem with the whole premise of this analysis is that libertarianism is some kind of idealistic belief to appeal to the pillars. This is wrong. Libertarianism is about pragmatism, and a basic income would simply drive up costs of all basic things needed to survive especially if any of those are scarce. This would likely hurt those just above that poverty barrier the most as they would no longer be able to afford basic shelter even though they are gainfully employed. Because of this, those people will find it better to move out to land no one cares about and just 'do nothing' as decreasing costs is the only way for them to live decently. These people will not provide value to society, resulting in net loss of value (read: happiness, whatever you want to call it) for all.

orblivion 13y ago
> This is wrong. Libertarianism is about pragmatism What libertarianism is about has been a subject of debate between libertarians for decades. There are others who see it as an idealistic belief.
- craigyk 13y ago
  It is an idealistic ethos. In my mind it's as naive as centrally planned socialism, but just at the other end of the spectrum.
  - warfangle 13y ago
    I fail to find ethics in libertarianism. Unless you're talking randian ethics, which are a far cry from ethics themselves.
  - mindcrime 13y ago
    Far from it. Libertarianism is the most realistic and non-naive system around, exactly because it is the one system that does not pretend that we can fix all the flaws in human nature and socially-engineer a perfect society by just passing enough laws and creating enough rules and regulations and bureaucracies. At it's core, libertarianism makes no statement about outcomes, but simply demands that people be free to make their own choices without being subject to force or fraud, and are then responsible for the outcome of their actions. Nobody is making any Pollyanna'ish guarantee that such a system will result in the most possible desirable outcome for everybody involved. The claim is that it's just the right thing to do, that most people will be better off (economically) than under other systems, and that you accept that every system - this one included - has its pathologies. You can't get much less naive than that.

tokenizer 13y ago

As a libertarian-socialist, I'd love for us to collectively and indiscriminately provide everyone with a fair and appropriate basic minimum income. The only problem with this policy is how you pay for it. You can abolish all other forms of social assistance -but only if you can adequately justify the elimination of the bureaucratic government jobs associated with them. For an all inclusive basic income, no bureaucracy would be needed. You could tax the wealthy heavily -in effect making the basic income a negative income tax policy. This also seems like a worthy policy worth investigating. You could borrow the money by way of government securities. The only problem with this scheme however is that already you have people like myself, who are extremely skeptical of the long term health of the current world financial make-up of West versus Rest, which is already changing quickly. Personally I dismiss all arguments regarding a basic income harming poor people in the form of "inflation". We're currently in a deflationary crisis according to the big banks, and the social and political benefits to these policy changes would make it extremely hard to simply get rid of due to "bubbles and pops" as we have that plenty as it is. Can someone try to explain why something like this isn't possible? What if we increased taxes in the top most income bracket, abolished all forms of current social assistance, and took on more debt, hoping this can pay for itself (or to simply continue down the trajectory of more debt every year). Can someone try to explain why something like this could be more simple than I'm guessing?

dllthomas 13y ago
You would still need some bureaucracy to make sure people are not double-collecting, that people stop collecting after death, etc.
- farmdawgnation 13y ago
  Yeah, I was thinking the same. I'm wondering how much of that could be automated, though, through appropriate system design. The IRS knows when people are dead. Presumably, that system could then alert the BIG system to stop dispatching checks. That's just one solution to one problem in a sea of them, but I think it's a representative example.

socalnate1 13y ago

This is the most even handed treatment of this topic I've read yet. One topic not addressed (but important) is what we do when someone spends the entirety of their basic income and has nothing left for food or shelter. Do we just let them starve to death in the street? Or do we create a "secondary" safety net that prevents this? If so, don't we just end up with the same sort of inefficiencies and problems that plague our current system?

bendmorris 13y ago
>Do we just let them starve to death in the street? I imagine private charity would pick up some of the slack at this point. I feel that, if someone is given enough to live on but uses it irresponsibly, the state no longer has any obligation to provide for them (they already have.) It would fall to individuals to decide whether they personally have an obligation to assist them.
- nickff 13y ago
  You are correct to point out that the article poses a counter-factual which is unsupported by the evidence.
- dllthomas 13y ago
  Also, if someone is demonstrably, persistently unable to take care of themselves, help should probably take a form other than food stamps.
nawitus 13y ago
The secondary safety net is private. That's why even Nordic social democracies have "bread queues".
mindcrime 13y ago
> One topic not addressed (but important) is what we do when someone spends the entirety of their basic income and has nothing left for food or shelter. Do we just let them starve to death in the street? If you want to help, voluntarily, that is, of course, your choice. But if no one chooses to help them, well... the idea of individual responsibility for the outcome of your choices exists for a reason. By what possible argument can I claim that I should be able to blow all of my income on anything I want, except food and shelter, and then demand that someone else provide me food and shelter?

ihnorton 13y ago

This is worth a read, especially for this point: However attractive libertarianism might be in theory, “Libertarianism…Starting Now!” has the ring of special pleading, especially when it comes from the mouths of people who have by and large emerged at the top of the bloody and murderous mess that is our collective history. Social justice libertarianism? I was not expecting that. Very interesting. (the website is beautiful, too)

anExcitedBeast 13y ago
I think it's fair to call 'libertarian' a descriptor of political, economic, or philosophical ideas. There are many different types of libertarians who have occasionally conflicting positions. The only thing they share is a vaguely similar anti-state "flavor". I think it's about as precise as 'liberal' or 'conservative', which is to say it isn't precise at all.

liquidise 13y ago

Hold on now. While i am going to do my best to avoid a No True Scotsman here, i have never spoken to a self-described libertarian who supports in reparation or affirmative action. This is not by chance either. The idea of fiscal freedoms comes at the cost of fiscal safety nets. Where you draw that line is a sliding scale of course, but i still fair to see how this article is speaking a libertarian mindset.

tokenizer 13y ago
> Where you draw that line is a sliding scale of course I disagree. As a libertarian-socialist, I think we can take care of ourselves while pursuing freedom in regards to economics. In our current system, we judge people based on their employment, history, and need, and then select people to give benefits to. There are problems with this. Bureaucracy, favouritism, politicking, etc. With a basic income, we can reduce spending by abolishing all social assistance, reduce the amount of government employees by firing the bureaucrats who used to deny/approve people for benefits, and simply guarantee everyone a minimum amount of support. This has the benefits of reducing bureaucracy, favouritism, and politicking.
- liquidise 13y ago
  > With a basic income, we can reduce spending by abolishing all social assistance I would love to see the numbers that show a no-questions-asked basic income would be cheaper than the present social assistance monies. There are a lot of logistics here. How do we prove you did not already get your check? What about those without mailing addresses. Or ID's? Is the basic income adjusted for families of 1 vs 7? This idea of a minimalist ruleset for financial assistance seems like it is great at first, but will inevitably just get more and more bloated (and costly) as you actually implement it.
  - nawitus 13y ago
    >How do we prove you did not already get your check? What about those without mailing addresses. Or ID's? Is the basic income adjusted for families of 1 vs 7? Most Nordic social democracies already know the answers to those questions. Basic income could be used to reduce spending. I advocate a basic income model which doesn't reduce countries to these countries, though.

yummyfajitas 13y ago

This article is almost self refuting - objection (2) is killer. Immigration is probably the most important issue of our time. If we have a BI, we can't have immigration in any form remotely resembling what we have today, let alone some ideal situation where we have drastically more immigration. It's as simple as that. The cost of a BI (and the welfare state in general, really) is that millions of people are stuck in Haiti, India, Afghanistan and other desperately poor locales. http://econfaculty.gmu.edu/bcaplan/pdfs/whyimmigration.pdf http://econfaculty.gmu.edu/bcaplan/pdfs/whyimmigration.pdf http://dipeco.uniroma3.it/public/WP%20163%20Liberati%202012.pdf http://dipeco.uniroma3.it/public/WP%20163%20Liberati%202012.... I'm not an open borders activist. Most of the countries I mentioned are desperately poor due primarily to the people living there - any immigration policy needs to turn Haitians and Sudanese into Americans rather than turning the US into Haiti. But at the same time we need to recognize the tremendous humanitarian benefits of immigration. If we prevent a Haitian person from selling his full time labor to an American employer for $7.25/hour, we are cutting his income by 90% (Haiti has a GDP/capita of $1300, cost of living adjusted). I can't see any benefits from a BI that would remotely justify doing this to millions more people. In fact, near as I can tell, virtually any policy which requires further restricting immigration is almost certainly a nonstarter for this reason. A much better policy is the Basic Job, which is like Basic Income but you need to work for it (see FDR's CCC, jobs are things like improving public parks, planting trees, etc). This also has no disincentive effects and you get some productive labor out of the people who choose to make use of it.

tokenizer 13y ago
Simple solution, have X amount of savings, or a job lined up. I'd love your opinion on the merits of anyone else being allowed into a country without X amount of savings, or a job lined up.
- yummyfajitas 13y ago
  A glib response: I'd love your opinion on the merits of deporting unemployed Americans with $0 in savings to Liberia. More seriously, suppose we had no BI or other welfare state - what is the harm of allowing an Indian to show up in NY with no money or job? The only cost I see is that he might annoy 30-100 potential employers before he finds someone to pay him $7.25/hour to wash dishes, making him richer than 95% of his countrymen. He might sleep on the street for a little while. Now, there are real worries - he might eventually become a citizen and vote for Indian-style governance (see, e.g., the voting behavior of Mexican Americans), contribute to a corruption-tolerant culture, or other such things. But those are second order worries.

billpg 13y ago

Next week, a communist case for the private ownership of the means of production.

Finster 13y ago
i.e. China's economic system?

mindcrime 13y ago

Background: I consider myself a Voluntaryist or Anarcho-Capitalist libertarian, and I can't see how I could ever support anything that violates NIF[1][2]. --- That was more interesting and enlightening than I expected, to be quite honest. My initial thought was that there would be no way to reconcile a "basic income" with the NIF principle, unless said basic income is paid entirely voluntarily. But the historical rectification argument strikes me, at first blush anyway, as having some credence. That said, I'm a long way from fully onboard with this as long as it's rooted in our present system of taxation which is fundamentally based on coercion / force, or threat of same. [1]:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-aggression_principle http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-aggression_principle [2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Initiation_of_force http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Initiation_of_force

jganetsk 13y ago

Has anyone analyzed the impact on monetary policy and macroeconomics? The Fed has a dual mandate of low inflation and maximal employment, and as a result, is currently printing money indefinitely. The ECB only has a mandate of low inflation, and has had an excellent track record. However, the Eurozone is currently having an unemployment crisis. The BI (potentially with abolition of the minimum wage) would then mitigate the impacts of unemployment. With basic income, couldn't the Fed become more like the ECB, and drop the employment mandate? Then, we could potentially greatly curtail our money printing. Also, what are the effects on macroeconomics? Couldn't BI attenuate the boom-bust cycle? Deflation would even be constructive: the real value of the BI is increased without raising the nominal value. The Fed can then take its time, during recession, in deciding when to start the printing presses again.

AnthonyMouse 13y ago

I want to point out that that there is no difference between a basic income and a negative income tax. Suppose you have a negative income tax rate of 30% up to $50,000, then an income tax rate of 30% thereafter. Compare this to having a $15,000 annual basic income and a flat 30% income tax rate starting from $0. They are the same thing using different words. But the words matter, which is why I don't like calling it a negative income tax. Because if you call it that, people start asking questions like why should someone making up to $50,000 be getting the "subsidy"? And then people want to do something silly like make the negative income tax be something like 60% up to $25,000, then 0% to $50,000 and 30% thereafter, which is obviously very stupid if you stop to do the math on who gets screwed by that and what incentives to work it creates at the bottom: It's equivalent to a $15,000 basic income with the same tax brackets, and it makes no damn sense whatsoever for someone making $25,000/year to be paying a 60% marginal tax rate. But calling it "negative income tax" encourages people to think that way and expect high marginal rates on the poor to be Good when they are really quite Bad.

notahacker 13y ago

If the ethical case for redistribution rests on the view that (A) inequality is partly the consequence of injustices that need restitution and (B) some people really need the money, and probably deserve it because of A, I can't see why that would leave you favouring a crassly simply form of redistribution like BI over another hypothetical form of welfare system which is better at focusing the redistribution on suffers of injustice and things people really need. That probably wouldn't be identical in design to the current US welfare system, but it wouldn't be difficult to argue that many of the features present in most actual welfare states are better at delivering A and B than a simple monthly transfer of a small amount of income to everybody. Which leaves us with two main lines of argument against some more traditional form of welfare state. It's "paternalistic", but so are employers when they impose conditions upon people that expect to receive money or expenses from them, and I so don't see anyone making the case that expecting minimum standards of behaviour from people in return for giving them money is in general a bad thing. Secondly, it's expensive to administer, but potentially not as expensive and wasteful as the adverse consequences of an overly-generous basic income (or as deadly as an insufficient basic income). On the whole, better to have lots of subtly wrong things than one big politically-sensitive number that can make or break your economy. Once you've conceded the case that centralised large-scale distribution is inherently justifiable and worthwhile, saying no to "big government" starts to look more like a slogan than an argument...