Why the world should adopt a basic income

Precisely when Paine wrote about. If I hadn't understood it, I would not have quoted it. Logic and common sense would suggest that this is a fair inference.

 

Mostly an anti-government rant: "how politicians extract your money" etc etc.

And yet you are against a just extraction (via taxation) of money, from those who have benefitted the most in our post industrial AI and IT society, where reward has little to do with actual effort expended by individuals, and where reward can reach astronomical levels (eg Jeff Bezos, who is after all a retailer).
(Besides, even the toilet cleaner is an important part of a company's morale).

But back to your 10% flat tax for all taxpayers: can you say whether this will raise more, or less, or about the same amount for govt. coffers, as the present system?

Obviously if less, we have even less funds for Health and Education and Infrastructure.

 

"Social democracy thus aims to create the conditions for capitalism to lead to greater democratic, egalitarian and solidarity outcomes"

Gosh mate, you are splitting hairs (imo) with 'Mr. Truth', who has pointed out that one of the founding fathers, Paine, actually believed in Government "to promote the common welfare" (literally - it's in the preamble to the US constitution), before Marx was born.

 

At least you are owning up to your "survival of the fittest" world view - in which starvation, war and poverty must be allowed to determine the outcome for individuals.

(btw, I'm not against abortion of non-viable or hopelessly disabled fetuses).

 

One problem with your view stated above: the incredibly simplistic view of "entitlement", and how people "earn" money.

Eg, one John Paulson became an instant multi-billionaire during the GFC, funded, ultimately, by millions of people whose retirement funds were decimated, and whose mortgages were foreclosed, etc etc. - all part of the 'joy' of unregulated capitalism.

Basically you, like James, are promoting a "survival of the fittest" world view, in which starvation, war and poverty must be allowed to determine the outcome for individuals.

(As expected, supremacist Trump has dumped the Arms Treaty with Russia...a better course (life-affirming) would be for Trump to strike a deal with the other members of the UNSC and outlaw war, by handing authorisation of use of military force to a SC in which no permanent member has a veto. But life-destroying forces are still in the ascendency).

"More than 1.3 billion live in extreme poverty — less than $1.25 a day. 1 billion children worldwide are living in poverty. According to UNICEF, 22,000 children die each day due to poverty".

 

I doubt that even Schweizer would deny the government the power extract money form productive labor, but only a flat tax would prevent the super rich from avoiding taxes.

I think most ordinary Americans across the spectrum would support maintaining tax revenues at current levels so long as the revenue is transferred into their own individual vest accounts so that they can meet can pay for their own critical needs without the government middleman.

Power from government and to the people would be very appealing to all American voters across the spectrum.
It would be castor oil for our corrupt bipartisan ruling political class.

 

It's the truth.

So... criminal activity and unethical business practices justify taking from others who earned it and giving it to those that didnt?

Why are Democrat socialism supporters unable to defend their agenda without bringing up the wealthy?

How do you know what I support?

What I realize is that people are motivated by selfish individualism. That's a fact. Nobody goes to work everyday so the homeless guy (for whatever reason) down the street is taken care of. Most people accept that some of the taxes withheld from their checks will support the homeless guy, but that isnt why people work.

People have to be incentivized in order to be contributing members of society. The method of incentivizing is established and balanced with our monetary system. In short, people go to work because they want money.

At a minimum, people should acquire enough money to sustain their basic needs. At a minimum.

What is constantly advocated by the Democratic Socialists is that people should he afforded some standard... for nothing. Conveniently, they dont want to talk about where the money comes from to support some basic standard that people are unwilling to provide for themselves.

Now, most often its justified by saying "there is enough wealth, the rich can afford it", but what is never discussed is the creation of an entitlement mentality to remove the incentive to contribute.

*rolls eyes* that's just a ridiculous statement

What the hell does that have to do with anything?

You think that can be fixed by stealing the wealth of others and providing for them?

Not to mention, the corruption, greed, and fighting that would commence.

Then, what you would have effectively done, is made everybody poor, just not impoverished.

Then, these same impoverished people will continue to breed out of control, in resource poor regions, and sink everybody else.

What a terrible terrible plan, robin hood idealism at its worst.

 

Only a flat tax?

It would be interesting to see what level that flat tax would need to be, in order to maintain current tax revenues. I suspect a flat tax at the rate you have in mind won't raise sufficient revenue.

While the flat tax idea has simplicity in its favour, this idea is a nightmare of complexity, that doesn't take into account cost of living pressures for the lower paid. (Not to mention the traps into which people are drawn by unethical advertising to gamble, consume alcohol, and generally over-consume).

Agreed! (How's that for "bipartisanship"!).

 

I'll return to your post later, but to answer this specific point (….so you can understand supporters of "Democrat socialism"....)

1. The attractiveness of the concept of just and sufficient access to the world's resources (not the same as 'equality of outcome').

2. Increasing inequality is not sustainable, obviously.

3. "Capitalism needs the welfare state in order (for Capitalism) to survive" (a phrase I heard recently), though I acknowledge there are 'good' and 'bad' examples of "welfare states".

 

Revenue Max courtesy of the Laffer Curve.

 

Paine is dead. I am talking about the present. The past is only recorded memory.

The US has done NOTHING since Paine to bring about a common welfare. It sends its kids off to get killed in wars, whilst others "go to university" and take top-jobs at top-pay - which is the reason why the US has the worst Income Disparity of any developed nation.

Aint no way to run a country ...

 

In most free countries, such as the United States, people do have equal access to those resources. It is one of things that makes the country so great.

The United States is relatively new when considering the historic civilizations that have existed. Many other recent societies have also adopted the economic policies of free trade originally identified in the Mediterranean region. This adoption has been responsible for the most equitable societies the planet has ever seen.

I agree with the concept of social safety nets and shared expenses when in the best interest of everybody in society. What I oppose is an Eat the Rich mentality in order to impose social engineering and justice which only benefits a few.

 

do you think a survival of the least fit world view creates more or less suffering? Why? notice how a liberal has to be led toward thinking?

 

we have Republican capitalism to bring about common welfare which has rendered the very poor, very rich. The very poorest get state of the art free housing, free healthcare, free education, free military, free infrastructure, meaning that we probably do too much for common welfare, not too little.

 

Maybe we should run it like France. The govt collects 45% of GDP in taxes for the poor and the poor people riot in the streets because they still cant make ends meet!

 

Soviets and Red Chinese tried to regulate capitalism and killed 120 million. Whoops!!
USA tried to regulate capitalism and we got Great Depression/WW2, and more recently 2008 housing crisis. NOw do you understand?

 

liberalism kills every one of those kids! China just switched to Republican capitalism and instantly eliminated 40% of all the poverty on the planet.Guess who opposes Republican capitalism?

 

exactly, and how did the Constitution propose to promote the common welfare: With very very limited govt because govt had been the source of evil in human history!

 

Just extraction so even more millions can sit around depressed and suicidal on welfare? that's your solution? France extracts at gunpoint almost double what we do and the poor are rioting in the streets!! Tax more from Bezos so he has less to grow his business and create more new jobs? Always deadly and backwards!!

 

Except it is a mythology that people in the U.S. have equal access to those resources. Access to resources largely depends on where in the U.S. you are born and how much money your parents have. Just take schools for example. Someone living in a wealthy neighborhood has access to excellent free public education. Those living in poorer areas tend to have underfunded pretty terrible public education. To make matters worse, social mobility has declined significantly.

Furthermore, given the centuries of slavery, decades upon decades of Jim Crow laws, and decades more of housing, employment, and other forms of racial discrimination (redlining, etc.), white families have accumulated far more wealth over time on average than black families, resulting in a racial disparity in access to resources.

I agree that having equal access to resources makes a country great. But the country you describe is not the United States of America.

 

SNAP benefits lift millions of children out of poverty in the United States.
Social Security keeps 1.7 million children out of poverty.
Social Security keeps 22 million Americans of all ages out of poverty.
Medicaid reduces mortality rates among the poor.

What horrible liberal programs these are!!

 

39.7 MILLION AMERICANS

When a country has, by neglect, 40 million people living below the Poverty Threshold, there's much that needs to be done. And nobody wants to do anything to change the status-quo - because had they wanted to do so never ever would Donald Dork have got elected.

From the USC Center for Poverty:

Above, that first column should read "Weighted average thresholds, total income by family size."

Ever try to live on less than $25K a year in the US? It's a great motivator for thievery as attests America's crime rate!

PS: For further info regarding poverty-thresholds: What are the poverty thresholds today?

 

FAR TOO MUCH

You are escaping the key question regarding taxation. Which is, "Is the American taxation fair or unfair".

Economists have a means for obtaining a measure of fairness, which they call the Income Disparity coefficient. Here it is for a number of countries:

The US is the most unfair developed nation on earth in terms of Income Disparity.

Far too much is going to far too few and the reason is the great unfairness of upper-income taxation that has been persistently reduced by the Replicants since Reckless Ronnie*.

So, we should grin and bear it ... ?

*In fact, it was JFK/LBJ who first reduced upper-income taxation. It was brought down from 90% to 70% (which are not the actual tariffs of taxation paid).

 

I said that "most ordinary Americans across the spectrum would support maintaining tax revenues at current levels" I did not say they support the current tax code which has been crafted to serve the needs of the special interests that have funded its creation.

The only way to achieve more fairness would be a 1 page, or better yet, a 1 paragraph flat tax law. Of course, that will never happen, but the revenue collected by any version of the current corrupt tax code could be diverted from the now vast government structure to the control of individual productive workers.

I think voters will support any politician who runs on proposals like that. "Power to the People" was always sham - Money and Power to the People is a far more politically appealing and credible proposal.

 

Money is far more important to Americans than it is to Europeans. Which is why Europe has adopted for itself as a Social Democracy.

If you take a dollar sign off an object or even an idea, Americans get very bored, very quickly. It is an unfortunate societal phenomenon ....