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You need the taxation power of a state to force rich people to pay for it. That's how basic income works -- everyone gets 1000€, but some people pay more than
by loumf 11y ago
You need the taxation power of a state to force rich people to pay for it. That's how basic income works -- everyone gets 1000€, but some people pay more than 1000€ in extra tax. The net is 0.
How to use technology to do this:
1. Make up a scheme where 70% get net positive income (make models, etc)
2. Make up persuasive material (interactive visualizations?)
3. Spread it
4. Harness the enthusiasm into actions
Ultimately use this to elect people who will pass it.
- halotrope 11y agoHi, thats frankly a good idea for introduction. However I think to make this work it would be unwise to tax the rich as they have de facto a lot of influence and would I would assume have the power to stop something like this. I have thought about baking something like a community tax directly into the currencies so that everyone would benefit for a very tiny fraction of the economic prosperity of a whole country e.g
- dragonwriter 11y agoIf you aren't disproportionately taxing the rich to fund it, and you are giving everyone the same amount of money, then you are either (in net) redistributing upward from the poor to the rich, or you are doing nothing.
- halotrope 11y agoWell right now the rich and poor are equally taxed with value added tax of 19% for everything they consume here (except for food and book 7%) whick means that it would be technically possible since it is already happening, right? VAT in Germany is generating about 20bn a month in revenue
- loumf 11y agoThere is nothing equal about it. The poor are paying a higher percent of their income in VAT and the average rich person is probably paying more actual euros than the average poor person. You need an income/wealth based approach to get more tax. If you keep raising the VAT, you eventually stop economic activity (or push it to black markets)
- halotrope 11y agoI think this is happening in greece at the moment to some extend. True. Again I was much rather asking for some potentially crazy way to implement this that I could not think of.
- escherize 11y agoActually the net is less than zero, thanks to government inefficiencies. Usually the fact that it's less than zero-sum is swept aside and covered up by selling the future taxing power of the state via increasing the debt.
- loumf 11y agoMost schemes have basic income replace other gov't programs as something far simpler to administrate -- so, it's probably net-positive.
- escherize 11y agoLet's say I take $1 from you, and give x (where x < 1) cents to someone else, when my friend used to take $2 from you and give y (where y < 2) cents to someone else. Which of these situations constitutes a net gain?