basic income


jts

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Ayn Rand encountered this idea in the form of social credit and was horrified by it, so I guess the horror file cabinet is a good place to put it. Rotten as the idea may be, the speaker makes it sound like almost a half decent idea. Could something like this be done without violating capitalism?

 

 

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3 hours ago, jts said:

Ayn Rand encountered this idea in the form of social credit and was horrified by it, so I guess the horror file cabinet is a good place to put it. Rotten as the idea may be, the speaker makes it sound like almost a half decent idea. Could something like this be done without violating capitalism?

 

 

The best argument for Social Credit I ever read  was by Robert A. Heinlein (when he was young).  Later  on he reversed himself.   He came to the position that any social arrangement that destroyed ones incentive  and desire to sustain one's self by one's own efforts  was a Bad Thing.  

He came to a position that was compatible  with that of Ayn Rand, even though he himself, was never a Randian.

 

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4 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said:

The best argument for Social Credit I ever read  was by Robert A. Heinlein (when he was young).  Later  on he reversed himself.   He came to the position that any social arrangement that destroyed ones incentive  and desire to sustain one's self by one's own efforts  was a Bad Thing.  

He came to a position that was compatible  with that of Ayn Rand, even though he himself, was never a Randian.

 

You did not listen to the video. If you did, you would know that the speaker presents experimental evidence that the basic income does not destroy incentive and desire to sustain one's self by one's own efforts.

 

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4 hours ago, jts said:

You did not listen to the video. If you did, you would know that the speaker presents experimental evidence that the basic income does not destroy incentive and desire to sustain one's self by one's own efforts.

 

I recalled Heinlein's position.  I have no position on Social Credit.  I assume some people will flourish under the system and others will perish.   TED talks are proof by youtube.  If I want a serious account I read refereed scientific journals.   Economics and Sociology  are not sciences  so I pay no attention to them.  Arguments for Social Credit (or Basic Income)  are hypothetical and since there is no real way of either falsifying them or corroborating them by actual experiment I disregard the matter.  If Basic Income  is adapted by Government,  we both will pay to find out if it works. 

The only non-empirical  arguments I pay attention to are mathematical  proofs.  They have no direct connection to the real solid world and are exercises in abstract logic.   One can check a proof empirically to see if it is kosher.   Once cannot do that with political, economic,  sociological,  or ethical arguments  unless they are totally reduced to mathematics.  Then at least the proofs can be checked even if the theory does not connect to the real world. 

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I recalled Heinlein's position.  I have no position on Social Credit.  I assume some people will flourish under the system and others will perish.   TED talks are proof by youtube.  If I want a serious account I read refereed scientific journals.   Economics and Sociology  are not sciences  so I pay no attention to them.  Arguments for Social Credit (or Basic Income)  are hypothetical and since there is no real way of either falsifying them or corroborating them by actual experiment I disregard the matter.  If Basic Income  is adapted by Government,  we both will pay to find out if it works. 

The only non-empirical  arguments I pay attention to are mathematical  proofs.  They have no direct connection to the real solid world and are exercises in abstract logic.   One can check a proof empirically to see if it is kosher.   Once cannot do that with political, economic,  sociological,  or ethical arguments  unless they are totally reduced to mathematics.  Then at least the proofs can be checked even if the theory does not connect to the real world. 

In your (own) perfect world. You pay a lot of attention to things that aren't science. It's not hypocrisy and can't be dumnness. I think you're purblind from inside your so-called scientific compartment to what's outside and when you're outside you think you're inside but you aren't. When you're inside OL you're outside. As for economics and sociology I agree with you 100% about the latter and 95% about the former as to their worth. Neither are science. Neither Ayn Rand nor Nathaniel Branden were ever properly grounded in science and thought so broadly of it real science was invisible to both.

--Brant

The philosopher and the scientist should be friends!

The philosopher and the scientist should be friends!

(the musical is forthcoming)

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In your (own) perfect world. You pay a lot of attention to things that aren't science. It's not hypocrisy and can't be dumnness. I think you're purblind from inside your so-called scientific compartment to what's outside and when you're outside you think you're inside but you aren't. When you're inside OL you're outside. As for economics and sociology I agree with you 100% about the latter and 95% about the former as to their worth. Neither are science. Neither Ayn Rand nor Nathaniel Branden were ever properly grounded in science and thought so broadly of it real science was invisible to both.

--Brant

The philosopher and the scientist should be friends!

The philosopher and the scientist should be friends!

(the musical is forthcoming)

That is me.  Blind to most things  other than logic, physical science and math.  If find science fiction  entertaining but I do not take it seriously.

Nerd I was, Nerd I am and Nerd I will be.

I also subscribe to Sturgeon's Hypothesis.  85 percent of most things  is Crap. 

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One thing "crap" is good for--neurological functioning. It's like lifting weights.

--Brant

muscle bound

You want mental exercise.   Try resolving the Collatz Conjecture.   Even you can understand it....

From wiki:  The conjecture can be summarized as follows. Take any positive integer n. If n is even, divide it by 2 to get n / 2. If n is odd, multiply it by 3 and add 1 to obtain 3n + 1. Repeat the process (which has been called "Half Or Triple Plus One", or HOTPO) indefinitely. The conjecture is that no matter what number you start with, you will always eventually reach 1.

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  • 3 months later...

Basic Income: does it violate capitalism?

It depends on your definition. If by "capitalism" you exclusively mean "an economy where all the means of production are privately owned and the government's only permissible role is to enforce contracts, property rights and prohibit force/fraud/coercion and can ONLY extract the absolute-minimum tax money required to do this, then yes, a basic income guarantee does violate capitalism.

But let us look at how Basic Income is usually supported by pro-market advocates; as a replacement for the current welfare state and for current public services.

When judged by this criterion, a Basic Income is actually an extremely attractive alternative for the following reasons:

1. It allows the firing of a huge number of bureaucrats and the abolition of an immense number of government departments. This solves several Public Choice problems with large, entrenched governments and public sector unions, without allowing those snakes to use "the poor!" as a human shield to justify their own job security.

2. Replacing a welfare system that is designed basically to modify behavior and manipulate what people do with a system that enables individual choice increases the liberty of welfare recipients and lessens the government's ability to engage in social engineering.

In other words, the same "safety net" could be made much less expensive and much less coercive/managerial. A safety net could be provided at both a reduction in the cost-to-liberty and the cost-to-taxpayers than that represented by the current system.

In addition, it could be justifiably argued that an unconditional direct income transfer to someone is LESS coercive than an economic regulation; a transfer requires only the extraction of the tax money (one instance of coercion). An economic regulation requires BOTH the extraction of tax money to fund the regulators and enforcers (one instance of coercion) AND inflicts a second coercion in that it forbids businesses from engaging in a particular course of action (or mandates businesses engage in a particular course of action). You could make the argument that ceteris paribus, the regulatory state is a more important target than a social safety net (and further, that certain kind/s of social safety net are worse than others). 

Personally I think the Basic Income Guarantee (as a replacement for the current benefits system) would be a fantastic way to slim down the welfare state, decrease government social engineering and decrease the overall cost of government, and doing so would be politically palatable since it would retain the safety net. It would represent a net increase in liberty relative to the current system. 

Honestly, I don't think that the 100% abolition of all safety nets is possible, and arguably it is not even particularly desirable. I think the smallest possible government (without some sort of titanic improvement in general moral character of most people) will include a safety net, and the Basic Income Guarantee is the best way to do it.

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  • 7 months later...

I want to point out a difference between UBI (universal basic income) and welfare that I suspect most people don't know or forget. In pointing this out, I do not mean UBI is a good idea or better than welfare, merely that there is this difference.

Imagine you are living on welfare. Along comes a job. If you take the job, you get cut off welfare. The job pays less than welfare. Do you take the job? You might take the job out of pride but you can understand that this setup is a disincentive to take the job.

Imagine you are getting the UBI instead of welfare. Along comes a job. If you take the job, you still get the UBI. You don't have the disincentive that you had before.

Imagine you are back to welfare. Imagine nobody wants to hire you because you have no skills and so you go back to school to learn some skills. Then you get cut off welfare because you don't have permission to go back to school.

Under the UBI you could go back to school and still get the UBI.

I do not believe it is possible to know just by armchair thinking whether the UBI would lead to mass laziness.  Intuition in this matter is likely to be misleading. Experiments with UBI seem to produce results that are counter-intuitive.

 

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On 10/17/2016 at 9:05 AM, jts said:

You did not listen to the video. If you did, you would know that the speaker presents experimental evidence that the basic income does not destroy incentive and desire to sustain one's self by one's own efforts.

Efficiency in social constructs is a totalitarian's language. And before a politician can give he has to steal.

--Brant

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2 hours ago, jts said:

I want to point out a difference between UBI (universal basic income) and welfare that I suspect most people don't know or forget. In pointing this out, I do not mean UBI is a good idea or better than welfare, merely that there is this difference.

Imagine you are living on welfare. Along comes a job. If you take the job, you get cut off welfare. The job pays less than welfare. Do you take the job? You might take the job out of pride but you can understand that this setup is a disincentive to take the job.

Imagine you are getting the UBI instead of welfare. Along comes a job. If you take the job, you still get the UBI. You don't have the disincentive that you had before.

Imagine you are back to welfare. Imagine nobody wants to hire you because you have no skills and so you go back to school to learn some skills. Then you get cut off welfare because you don't have permission to go back to school.

Under the UBI you could go back to school and still get the UBI.

I do not believe it is possible to know just by armchair thinking whether the UBI would lead to mass laziness.  Intuition in this matter is likely to be misleading. Experiments with UBI seem to produce results that are counter-intuitive.

Get rid of job licensing requirements and excuse them from taxes for several years if they get off welfare. Etc. Don't substitute shit for vomit.

--Brant

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  • 2 years later...

I get the feeling we are heading in this direction, given the expanding power of automation. When machines are doing 95% of the labor and the final price has dropped to where its almost 'too cheap to meter' we would be in such a state by default anyway.

Granted, it is probably going to take a few more generations to get there, we probably won't see it, not unless they figure out how to put our brains in a robot body.

 

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  • 5 months later...

Since we are socialist to begin with and there is no turning back from that (see Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged" and various other works; Leonard Peikoff's  "The Ominous Parallels"; Isabel Paterson's "The God of the Machine"--I could go on and on),  I see no problem with a "Universal Income" scheme.  We have previously the same thing already with the "Social Security" scam and fraud, as it is nothing more than a tax and spend Ponzi method of robbery.  So what's the difference?

If I were emperor and had my way with things--count on having zero socialist programs for anyone or any reason or anything at all. I would crush anyone trying to rob my people, yes, even in the name of the children, with great and immediate violence. That being said,  so long as we are in fact socialist and have been at it for a long time now, I think it perfectly reasonable to dole out a universal income.  I would simply transform the Social Security Administration.  Everyone has a Social Security number already and those who are working are paying in, with the money going to the beneficiaries and to the government and to the banksters who are robbing it.  Some still suffer the delusion that their money is being saved in their individual account, but the reality is the Social Security beast is simply eating hand to mouth.  So be it.  Determine who is eligible for basic universal income and send them monthly checks, just as they are already to the beneficiaries.  Do this until the system crashes, which it inevitably will, and we look like the former Soviet Union in the late 1980s and through the 1990s.

Iceland had a good method of dealing with these financial crooks as of late.  Instead of awarding their bankers and government gangsters for creating disasters with our money and bailing them out and giving them bonuses, the Icelanders simply put the banksters and government gang-bangers in the slammer.  Putin did the same thing in his Russia with the "Oligarchs", as they were called.  We need to do that here in Post-USA North America, too.  Soon.  ASAP.

No central banks.  Read Article 1 Section 8 of the Constitution and do it.  

Leave my money alone, i.e., leave me alone, i.e., Liberty or Death.  The End

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6 hours ago, The Unabashed Pragmatic said:

Since we are socialist to begin...

Unabashed,

I don't accept this. Just because we are sick with cancer doesn't mean we have died of it.

6 hours ago, The Unabashed Pragmatic said:

If I were emperor and had my way with things...

This is where our perspectives don't join. I never think like this.

I don't want to be emperor.

Ever.

Not even in a thought experiment.

Freedom has to be fought for. That was true in the beginning--where it didn't exist at all except de facto in sparsely populated places--and it has been true all throughout US history.

President Reagan (who I am not that big on) said:

Quote

Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same.

I think he nailed it.

This is a human nature thing. Bullies and power-mongers will always be among humans, just as the potential for any individual to become one will be.

What to do about it? Well, bullies need to be popped in the nose when they act up and power-mongers need checks and balances where they can acquire legitimate power, otherwise, they need to be popped in the nose, too. Short of killing them off (which basically means collective suicide), those are the only things I have seen that have worked up to now to contain the damage they do.

They're cunning, so they encroach. But they all have noses...

(Also, we can and need to educate the young with good ideas, just look at the current generation educated with bad ones, but that's too long to elaborate on right now.)

Laying down and letting the bad guys take over so we can blow up the world is not the only way to get freedom or keep it.

6 hours ago, The Unabashed Pragmatic said:

Instead of awarding their bankers and government gangsters for creating disasters with our money and bailing them out and giving them bonuses, the Icelanders simply put the banksters and government gang-bangers in the slammer.  Putin did the same thing in his Russia with the "Oligarchs", as they were called.  We need to do that here in Post-USA North America, too.  Soon.  ASAP.

No central banks.

Here our perspectives join.

🙂 

Michael

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4 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Unabashed,

I don't accept this. Just because we are sick with cancer doesn't mean we have died of it.

This is where our perspectives don't join. I never think like this.

I don't want to be emperor.

Ever.

Not even in a thought experiment.

Freedom has to be fought for. That was true in the beginning--where it didn't exist at all except de facto in sparsely populated places--and it has been true all throughout US history.

President Reagan (who I am not that big on) said:

I think he nailed it.

This is a human nature thing. Bullies and power-mongers will always be among humans, just as the potential for any individual to become one will be.

What to do about it? Well, bullies need to be popped in the nose when they act up and power-mongers need checks and balances where they can acquire legitimate power, otherwise, they need to be popped in the nose, too. Short of killing them off (which basically means collective suicide), those are the only things I have seen that have worked up to now to contain the damage they do.

They're cunning, so they encroach. But they all have noses...

(Also, we can and need to educate the young with good ideas, just look at the current generation educated with bad ones, but that's too long to elaborate on right now.)

Laying down and letting the bad guys take over so we can blow up the world is not the only way to get freedom or keep it.

Here our perspectives join.

🙂 

Michael

Who is fighting for freedom?  Name them, please, so we can all join in the fray. I should like to win.  In less than four months America was reduced to a slave state with this Covid nonsense.  Where are the heroes in this fight?  

I am perfectly fit to be emperor.  All I am good for is raising hell and destruction.  So long as hell and destruction is wrought upon the right people, I'm good to go.  In my job as emperor I have no intention of building anything, but doing the one and only thing government is good for: wrecking everything it touches.  And those who need wrecking are first on my list.  Of course I have no illusions about becoming emperor, but for my own sanity I need keep important things in perspective.  

The cry-bullies and power-mongers are everywhere among us and they are winning, top to bottom.  You can't go to church, to your loved one's funeral or to the grocery store without permission, and when you do you'd better be wearing your slave mask.  And you will shelter in place upon command--but thugs running the streets shoulder to shoulder armed with bricks and molotov cocktails and burning down cities is not only perfectly acceptable, but openly encouraged.  

Just because the USA died a long time ago does not mean freedom is dead.  We now have a USA without freedom, so that experiment is long over.  We'll now have to get our freedom without a USA.  Yes, freedom must be fought for, must be taken, not given.  Where are the takers?

Violence is golden and violence puts you in control.  So I have no problem with those fed up with a corrupt system tearing it down by kinetic force.  But their wish is to become the power and corruption all over again.  My wish is to replace it with nothing, to be done with it, to be free.  We'll have to wait some more and see what happens.  The populists of Post-USA North America, Western Europe, Hungary and Poland surprised us all in the mid 20teens, with the election of Drumpf, with Brexit, etc.  Victor Orban refused EU mandates and kept Islamic invaders out of his country and protected the people. Poland, too, unlike Western Europe, esp. Germany, France, UK, who opened their borders for all comers and permanently shifted and possibly destroyed their demographic and their culture.  Then the Yellowjackets, etc.  Then the movement fizzled out.  Then came Covid.  Now... there's nothing.  Where to?  What next?  Who is doing the fighting?  I can't see them.

 

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2 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

 

Me, too. 

Andrew Jackson said, correctly, "One man with courage is a majority." I love that!

 

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U,

Ayn Rand also said the individual is the smallest minority on earth.

I feel so oppressed...

Poor me...

🙂 

Actually, I've always done what I want to do irrespective of the law. And I lived in Brazil during the military dictatorship.

The few times I have had trouble with the law, I learned how to find corrupt officials or find loopholes and did what I had to do.

I once heard a saying I really like (I don't know who originally said it), and it goes for all countries: The government is a cad, but the law is a whore.

I stay free because I keep a long way away from cads and whorehouses. And when I do go into a whorehouse, I remember another saying I learned a long time ago. Treat a lady like a whore and a whore like a lady.

All in proper context, for course...

(Man, am I feeling naughty. I have a feeling the OL women are not too pleased with me right now. That's what I get for overextending a metaphor... 🙂 )

Michael

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Let me say all that better.

Since I don't want to rule anyone (in the control freak or dictator manner), real freedom, to me, means having a way to avoid control freaks and not being obligated to micromanage anyone.

There are situations and situations (like doing the traffic cop thing on OL), but they are specific and limited to projects or inherent conditions outside of myself. And even then, what a pain in the ass...

🙂 

Michael

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7 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

U,

Ayn Rand also said the individual is the smallest minority on earth.

I feel so oppressed...

Poor me...

🙂 

Actually, I've always done what I want to do irrespective of the law. And I lived in Brazil during the military dictatorship.

The few times I have had trouble with the law, I learned how to find corrupt officials or find loopholes and did what I had to do.

I once heard a saying I really like (I don't know who originally said it), and it goes for all countries: The government is a cad, but the law is a whore.

I stay free because I keep a long way away from cads and whorehouses. And when I do go into a whorehouse, I remember another saying I learned a long time ago. Treat a lady like a whore and a whore like a lady.

All in proper context, for course...

(Man, am I feeling naughty. I have a feeling the OL women are not too pleased with me right now. That's what I get for overextending a metaphor... 🙂 )

Michael

I love that Rand quote.  I am an individual.  I am THE minority.  For sure.

I, too, do what I wish.  

I control no one.  No one controls me, save the tax man, who requires me to complete income tax forms once per year.  I make no pretense about being a law abiding, honest taxpayer or other jive and nonsense.  I do it because if I don't they will stick a gun to my head and put me in jail.  No other reason.  But for now his intrusion into my life is minimal.  But I recognize him for what he us, a highwayman, a robber.  He is nothing else.  Scum.

The ladies will not like what you've said, no.  Neither will the whores.  I treat everyone with equal respect,  unless I just don't like them, and even then I do not disrespect them,  rather I just keep my distance.  Some of my favorite people are whores.  The ladies of the night make my world go round.

I lived in Thailand under martial law for two years.  It was easy. Just pass money under the table to the immigration officials on every ninety day visit. You can stay and do what you like.  Get caught speeding? Hand the cop two hundred fifty baht (about ten bucks) and your license and you'll be on your way no questions asked. 

 

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6 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Let me say all that better.

Since I don't want to rule anyone (in the control freak or dictator manner), real freedom, to me, means having a way to avoid control freaks and not being obligated to micromanage anyone.

There are situations and situations (like doing the traffic cop thing on OL), but they are specific and limited to projects or inherent conditions outside of myself. And even then, what a pain in the ass...

🙂 

Michael

I hate telling people what to do.  If they need help, fine, I'm there for them.  If they just don't want to get to work, I will be hiding my shoe somewhere near their shirt tail.  And I am confrontational.  If someone tries to manage me I get right in their face and straighten them out. I do my job better than anyone.  I don't need any telling.  If they persist, one of us has got to go.  In my experience, the control freak always hangs himself anyway,  so no problem there.  But if he doesn't,  I will hang him first chance I get.  He'll be looking for a new gig lickety-split when I have my way about it, or he'll be getting a transfer. I won't tolerate it.  To hell with tyrants.   

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