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Obviously this is not a new idea... Twenty years ago I sat around with college mates, in Canada, listing the merits of the "Guaranteed Income" and quite frankly
by whyme 13y ago
Obviously this is not a new idea... Twenty years ago I sat around with college mates, in Canada, listing the merits of the "Guaranteed Income" and quite frankly I still support the idea today.
If you took all the salaries, property and operations cost associated with distributing old age security, welfare, disability, unemployment wages etc etc, it would probably pay for much of the cost associated with the Guaranteed Income (even if you had a small group dedicated to counter fraud abuse).
I could list out the many benefits and the nay-sayer objections with counter arguments, but after twenty years I've come to realize money distribution is not the problem. The problem is money = power and society is hell bent on gaining power.
The real solution is to move to a resource managed economy that eliminates money all together. But quite frankly we as a society are not there yet and I doubt we will be in my lifetime.
- baddox 13y agoSurely the only society that could stably operate as a "resource managed economy that eliminates money all together" would be a post-scarcity society.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- justinmk 13y ago> The real solution is to move to a resource managed economy that eliminates money all together So, rationing? I wonder if that's been tried before. Money is a repesentation of resources. And resources cannot be allocated efficiently by central authority, because of the calculation problem[1]. But maybe some college dorm discussions will bear some other solution. [1] http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_calculation_problem http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_calculation_problem
- thebooktocome 13y ago"Resource-managed economy" does not imply a centralized authority, which is where your snide rejoinder comes off the rails.
- sliverstorm 13y agoHow the hell do you allocate resources with maximal efficiency, without either a central authority or trade? Maybe I'm just an old stick in the mud, but those two are "I tell you what you want" and "You tell me what you want", and I don't see the third option.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- brianpgordon 13y agoYou could manage (distribute) the resource of money, and allow people to spend it how they like within a free market. Of course, I'm aware that whyme said "eliminates money all together" so this might not be what he meant.
- whyme 13y agoI don't think it matters which. We are potentially going to go from 7 billion people to 9 billion people. At the 7 billion mark we would need 5 planets worth of resources if everyone were to consume at the level Americans do, so where does that leave us is a few decades while the poorer nations are evolving at such a rapid pace? Ideally we get engineers and scientists to start with x amount of resources and x number of people then learn along the way.
- pdonis 13y agoAt the 7 billion mark we would need 5 planets worth of resources if everyone were to consume at the level Americans do You're assuming that we are already making maximal use of all available resources. We aren't; we're not even close. The reason the "poorer nations" are poor is politics, not lack of resources.
- whyme 13y agoWhat indication did I give you that leads you to believe I'm making that assumption? I didn't make any claim to suggest why poor nations are poor, did I? I simply suggested that as poor nations evolve, their people will consume more.
- conanbatt 13y agoI agree with this sentiment, and money is without a doubt a huge obstacle in properly reassigning and redistributing resources. It allows hoarding more than any other asset, being so abstract and thats a fundamental flaw in its mechanics.
- Florin_Andrei 13y ago> The problem is money = power and society is hell bent on gaining power. A major source of trouble now is that money is tightly coupled with politics. It boggles the mind how it's not universally understood that politics should be entirely de-coupled from private money. All of politics should run 100% (including elections) on a public fund. Unless this is done, very few things of true substance will be fixed. > The real solution is to move to a resource managed economy that eliminates money all together. I don't think that's doable unless we've made work entirely optional. When AI and robots could do any job we don't want to do, then you could instate some form of basic income, or even your more radical idea. But until then, it's going to be very, very hard to change things in a fundamental way.
- iopq 13y ago100% on a public fund? So I should be paying for the elections of Republicans and Democrats even though they are private parties that may for no reason exclude me?
- justinreeves 13y agoOr.... you could still run, but not as a Republican or a Democrat?
- iopq 13y agoAnd lose, like everyone else who tried. When was the last time a president wasn't a Republican or a Democrat? That's right, when he was a Whig.
- justinreeves 13y ago>And lose, like everyone else who tried. You mean like everyone else who's tried before moving to public funded elections, with restrictions on campaign donations? Of course I can't guarantee that one change will result in a third-party getting meaningful representation, but it's at least a start.
- 13y ago
- atom-morgan 13y ago...that eliminates money all together You can't eliminate money. It's a natural creation of human interaction. Even prisoners have money.
- mekael 13y agoIf we can create , then we can destroy just as easily.
- hueving 13y agoIdiotic equivalence. There are very few processes that can be reversed just as easily. Radiation, waste heat, carbon dioxide - the list goes on and on.
- atom-morgan 13y agoMarkets are powerful.
- PeterisP 13y agoIt's not enough to 'destroy' money, you'd have to prevent it from reappearing. Since it's easy for communities to create 'money', destroying it won't bring any freedom or radical change; just disruption. It's just as with anarchy - you can destroy government, but you can't prevent "government"(s) from springing up to replace them, and usually worse than the ones before.
- stcredzero 13y agoIt's not enough to 'destroy' money, you'd have to prevent it from reappearing. If you can't get rid of drugs and prostitution, you won't be able to get rid of money.
- atom-morgan 13y agoHistory has shown that black markets are extremely resilient. Those two are great examples.
- im_a_lawyer 13y ago>> If you took all the salaries, property and operations cost associated with distributing old age security, welfare, disability, unemployment wages etc etc, it would probably pay for much of the cost associated with the Guaranteed Income (even if you had a small group dedicated to counter fraud abuse). Not even close. Do the math and also keep in mind that just recently our government was operating at a trillion dollar deficit (almost 30% of their entire budget) and even if you could operate at extreme deficits forever, that still wouldn't be enough.
- _Robbie 13y agoI support the basic income, but I have also thought about alternatives that do not require government support. Consider e-currency with a time based demurrage (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demurrage_(currency) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demurrage_(currency)) fee. The demurrage fees would be paid out equally to all consumers. The demurrage fee plays the same role as a job in the current economy by circulating currency from producers to consumers. Since it is an e-currency, it would be independent of governments. The good news is that if in the future wealth inequality causes economic output to shrink, businesses might be forced to accept these types of currencies in order to grow.
- adharmad 13y agoAnd where will the source for the Guaranteed Income come from? It will surely be taxes - income, sales, other. All taxes in some way or the other depend on the state of the economy. What if the economy goes into a recession or has severe fluctuations from year to year? Will "Guaranteed Income" be continued if there isn't sufficient wealth and production to pay for it? Ultimately, it is another form of "spending other people's money" which runs out at some point or the other. Any guaranteed entitlement scheme that does not account for the source of the funding will run into the same problems, sooner or later. (Just see the fate of a number of guaranteed pension funds in some parts of the country).
- orthecreedence 13y agoYet, somehow, welfare, food stamps, medicaid, social security, etc etc etc still keep writing checks when the economy is down. Ok, so wipe all those out (including the significant overhead of running each one by its own, separate organization), and send the checks to everyone who's a citizen. > Ultimately, it is another form of "spending other people's money" which runs out at some point or the other. This is already happening. See above. It doesn't run out if you have a functioning economy. I'd also argue that GBI would make the economy function a lot better by opening up business opportunities to those who don't have access currently.
- jfmiller28 13y agoMost could come from the money diverted from existing anti-poverty programs. The rest could be made up by the increased taxes collected on the jump in spending by those receiving the BI. (Those at or below the poverty line spend more then 100% of every dollar they receive.)