2 ms·

> I'm a fan of the idea of eliminating coercive taxation but I do not see it as something politically achievable in the foreseeable future. It is also question

> I'm a fan of the idea of eliminating coercive taxation but I do not see it as something politically achievable in the foreseeable future. It is also questionable whether basic income itself is politically achievable. The beauty of the non-coercive voluntary approaches to basic income is that it can be implemented right now by any group without requiring or waiting on any political gesticulation.

api 11y ago
I'm curious about this. Any references? The problem I see is that you already have this huge taxation burden which soaks up surplus wealth that might power such things. Implementing basic income at the government level would redirect this firehose, but I don't see how decentralized voluntarist approaches would achieve that.
- itistoday2 11y ago
  > I'm curious about this. Any references? Yes, see my post above for links about one possible cryptocurrency approach called Group Currency (disclaimer: I am one of the contributors to that idea). Group currencies can be thought of as "company-tribes" where relationships are familial instead of exchange-based. We'll post a simplified version of this scheme to https://blog.okturtles.com https://blog.okturtles.com soon. The TLDR of the simple method is: (1) members of the company-tribe all accept payment for their products and services to the group's account. (2) Funds are divided evenly until a basic income has been reached for each member (say, for the month), after which all additional funds go to the member who is generating them. > The problem I see is that you already have this huge taxation burden which soaks up surplus wealth that might power such things. Implementing basic income at the government level would redirect this firehose, but I don't see how decentralized voluntarist approaches would achieve that. This is a great point, and one that needs to be considered and discussed. It is possible for a group to both pay taxes and provide its members with a basic income (and campaign for an end to mandatory income taxes ;).
tjradcliffe 11y ago
Basic income schemes are getting seriously discussed in Canada right now (they were first mooted in the 1980's, to no effect, but have been lurking in the background since then). The concensus amongst economists is that they are very expensive if you provide a genuine living with a reasonably low phase-out (which is required to not have insanely progressive tax rates on the working poor.) Still, these are practical problems that may turn out to be solveable, and the efficiencies that basic income schemes give are potentially large, as they would wipe out a lot of government workers whose sole job it to manage redundant arrays of independent welfare schemes. Some badly formated discussion here: https://storify.com/bis_pilot/canadian-economists-on-basic-income-pilot https://storify.com/bis_pilot/canadian-economists-on-basic-i...

api 11y ago

I'm curious about this. Any references? The problem I see is that you already have this huge taxation burden which soaks up surplus wealth that might power such things. Implementing basic income at the government level would redirect this firehose, but I don't see how decentralized voluntarist approaches would achieve that.

itistoday2 11y ago
> I'm curious about this. Any references? Yes, see my post above for links about one possible cryptocurrency approach called Group Currency (disclaimer: I am one of the contributors to that idea). Group currencies can be thought of as "company-tribes" where relationships are familial instead of exchange-based. We'll post a simplified version of this scheme to https://blog.okturtles.com https://blog.okturtles.com soon. The TLDR of the simple method is: (1) members of the company-tribe all accept payment for their products and services to the group's account. (2) Funds are divided evenly until a basic income has been reached for each member (say, for the month), after which all additional funds go to the member who is generating them. > The problem I see is that you already have this huge taxation burden which soaks up surplus wealth that might power such things. Implementing basic income at the government level would redirect this firehose, but I don't see how decentralized voluntarist approaches would achieve that. This is a great point, and one that needs to be considered and discussed. It is possible for a group to both pay taxes and provide its members with a basic income (and campaign for an end to mandatory income taxes ;).

tjradcliffe 11y ago

Basic income schemes are getting seriously discussed in Canada right now (they were first mooted in the 1980's, to no effect, but have been lurking in the background since then). The concensus amongst economists is that they are very expensive if you provide a genuine living with a reasonably low phase-out (which is required to not have insanely progressive tax rates on the working poor.) Still, these are practical problems that may turn out to be solveable, and the efficiencies that basic income schemes give are potentially large, as they would wipe out a lot of government workers whose sole job it to manage redundant arrays of independent welfare schemes. Some badly formated discussion here: https://storify.com/bis_pilot/canadian-economists-on-basic-income-pilot https://storify.com/bis_pilot/canadian-economists-on-basic-i...