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Finland Begins To Shape Basic Income Proposal (yle.fi)
jones_supa writes: The Finnish social insurance institution is to begin drawing up plans for a citizens' basic income model. If eventually deployed after an experimental phase, the model could revolutionize the Finnish social welfare system. Under basic income all citizens would be paid a taxless benefit sum free of charge by the government. The proposal's director Olli Kangas says that the model would see Finns being paid some 800 euros a month in its full form, 550 euros monthly in the model's pilot phase. The full-fledged form of the model would make some earnings-based benefits obsolete, but in the partial pilot format benefits would not be affected, and housing and income support would remain as separate packages. We first mentioned this plan a few months ago, and at the start of the year touched on a program that tied a basic income program with the Fimkrypto cryptocurrency.
This is really the difference between capitalism as a means to exploit the weak, and capitalism as a means to voluntarily exchange for mutual benefit.
Most people want to work - I have enough money to never need to work another day in my life, yet I still enjoy being productive. Those who say they don't, and that they only work because they have to - those who project their negative image of themselves on the whole of humanity - those who, surprisingly enough, nevertheless seem keen with the idea of earning more than the minimum - are welcome to retire. And to see how it goes for them. Technology doesn't require everyone to be employed 40+ hours/week to keep everyone fed, clothed and housed.
The problem with all these basic income schemes is that they will cause (or speed up) a gradual, but eventually overwhelming, shift in power from regular people to the super rich.
If you draw a simple diagram of how money must flow in the economy you will see that the only long-term sustainable way to fund a basic income scheme without creating massive inflation is by taxing the rich and/or the corporations that they own. This sounds great, until you realize that once the rich pay all the taxes and the rest of us pay virtually no taxes, the rich will effectively own the government. It will no longer seem corrupt when the government does their bidding. Kids will learn in school that the big corporation and their glorious and intelligent owners own the government fair and square and are the source of all of our wealth.
And of course, once the rich literally own the government the rest of us will pretty much have to settle for whatever they care to give us.
The current system is far from perfect, but it is a system where the government gets its money from the hands of regular people and therefore has to at the very least make believe that it is serving regular people.
I totally support something like this, and believe in the future, a basic income system will be inevitable in most modern societies. The current welfare systems are too complex, shaped by special interests, people exploiting loopholes, or gaming the system for benefit. There is too much abuse, wastage and a large chunk of the population feels a sense of resentment.
Shift to a basic income for all, and you now have a level playing field. It is more efficient, it is harder (or impossible?) to abuse, and no one can argue that laziness or poor health decisions or poor financial decisions are being rewarded. All, from CEOs to Rockstars to unemployed alcoholics are being given a basic income.
The two downsides to something like this :
1) It will be much harder to find individuals willing to do certain categories of high risk or menial labor. You would end up having to pay a LOT more.
2) Inflation for certain goods and services could eat away any gains that a system like this could bring. It is similar to how lowering interest rates does not increase house affordability or put more people in homes, instead it just causes house prices to go up and affordability to remain the same.
- Tempestdata
Your selfishness does not offend me as much as your stupidity. "Your money"? What makes you think its entirely your money? You belong in, and benefit from, a society that gives you a foundation on which you can make "your money." Unless you handle your own water, sewage, transportation, security, etc. etc. you are directly and indirectly benefiting from having an organized society and government.
It appears stupidity and selfishness is a deadly combination, leading to idiots like you.
And now to make your metaphor more realistic, let's count the loaves of bread that you acquire and those that the Finnish government takes:
1 loaf of bread is 1.77 euros.
In the fiscal year 2011 your first 8813 loaves of bread were tax free.
Of the next 4293 loaves of bread that year the government only took 279 (6.5%).
Of the next 8248 loaves of bread that year the government took 1443 (17.5%).
Of the next 17175 loaves of bread that year the government took 3692 (21.5%).
And every third loaf of bread from there.
Now, I don't know how much bread you eat, but I wouldn't go hungry because of those taxes. But I understand that whining about being able to get 1 yacht instead of 2 doesn't get the same sympathy...
There is a huge difference between "winning the lottery" and "basic income".
Some people would be happy to sit at home and do nothing except watch TV all day. So?
Other people would keep working in order to afford more options.
Some would keep working because they enjoy the job they do.
Some would keep working because they were not happy sitting at home watching TV all day.
The question is, is the group of people who are happy-not-working large enough to bankrupt the group of people who would keep working?
By your logic, you should never have to pay rent either. You have entered into a contract and in return from certain state-provided services you pay taxes. In case you didn't know, you can enter into contracts through conduct even though I'm sure you have done it many times - e.g. by parking your car in a certain lot. In the case of taxes the conduct is that you choose completely freely to reside in a certain area in which you indeed do benefit from what is funded through taxes. Your example further fails for you as an individual because the history in your case is that you received a shitload of services and benefits before you were even able to defecate on your own - let alone wipe your own ass. You got protection from foreign military threats, criminal threats and had e.g. emergency services were you to have needed them. All that was set up before you were born so you cannot argue as if a bunch of people got together and set it up now against your will. And before you were able to produce any value whatsoever yourself, you had received a lot more. But unlike a typical landlord, you're perfectly free to leave (any Western democracy) without paying anything back of what you have received. You only need to pay whilst you choose to stay and benefit from the state (and if you cannot pay because you don't earn anyhing, you don't even get "evicted" - you don't even have to pay then!). Now, on a more general level it's obvious to any rational person that your system (anarchism/libertardianism) fails because no such society has survived as is evident by looking at the world. If you wish to prove me wrong you can go to the handful of unclaimed areas in the world and do whatever you like there. Attract like-minded people perhaps? If your system is as good as you imagine, it should turn any such area into an appealing place for many. Personally, I suspect, though, that you'd at best reach a Somalia level of society. If there's no enforcement mechanism of your precious property rights, it's indistinguishable from a situation in which you don't have property rights. Then whoever has a bigger gun than you, gets whatever they want from you. And I suspect that that would be a lot more than current taxes.
This is the next step for a modern post-scarcity economy and society - the ultimate consolidation of wealth transfer into one basic package. I wish Germany would be this close to conditionless basic income.
But with Pegida, the ongoing Greece bailouts and the conservative right crawling out of their holes and popularising conspiracy theory bullshit and fascism once again, I'm afraid Germany is moving away from this sort of thing again.
It's a shame actually.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Murder and taxes are not so different. If one person, or a small group of people, control all the resources everyone else starves to death. Taxation and more generally limits on what an individual or group of individuals can down and control prevent that.
You also have to remember that you are not entitled to monetary wealth by some kind of natural law. Money only has useful value because society recognizes it. You were only able to enjoy your wealth because society enabled you to. Even if you live self-sufficiently off the land in your remote cabin somewhere, society provided an army and legal system to protect you. In exchange for this, you are required to pay taxes.
As I said before, you want to opt out then you need to get out. Otherwise, no matter how self sufficient you are, you are still ultimately leeching off society without holding up your end of the deal.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
At some point, those that are doing a disproportionately greater amount of work than the rest will say "to hell with this" and stop producing
At some point, those doing the work will all be machines. If they go on strike, we'll have bigger problems. :)
There has to be incentive to work.
Fear of homelessness or starvation is not the best incentive to work. It's only enough to keep someone showing up; it's not going to produce much inspired output. At some point mankind needs to advance beyond the slave "he who does not work does not eat" mentality and find more meaningful reasons for working.
Things that are given without being earned have no value.
I'm sure you'll keep that truism in mind if you're ever starving and someone offers you some food.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
If the $27 trillion that the banks have gotten for free since 2008 hasn't caused inflation, why would $7 trillion, going to actual human beings?
You are welcome on my lawn.
Most people I know would MUCH rather not work even if it is good for them.
I think it would be more accurate to say that most people would much rather not work at shitty, tedious, mind-numbing, soul-destroying, low-paying jobs that they hate.
I suspect that most people would happily work at a job that fit their interests, and that they found psychologically rewarding; the problem, of course, is that most jobs (and especially the kinds of jobs that are available to untrained/uneducated people) are of the tedious and mind-numbing variety.
On the optimistic side, computers and automation provide us with the opportunity to let machines to the tedious necessary work, freeing up people to find jobs that are more compatible with their own tastes. Of course, it's likely that many of the jobs that people would choose for themselves would not be particularly economically productive -- in a previous era, they would be referred to as "hobbies" -- but that is not a problem in a society where machines provide a surplus of wealth so that humans no longer need to be dragooned into service on threat of starvation.
If nothing else, being able to quit a job you hate without fear of starvation and/or homelessness frees people up to look for a different kind of employment that they would like better, and it frees people to get the education necessary to do that job competently. The endgame is a society with more people doing jobs they want to do rather than jobs that they are forced to do, and therefore a society where more people are enthusiastic and therefore good at their jobs.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Wow, where do you get such a negative attitude toward taxes?
Look the best way to look at it is the following: just by existing, you require stuff. Food, clothing, shelter, and then the slightly more luxurious things such as heating your home in winter (unless you use lumber you chopped yourself exclusively), or using internet to leave the comment. Unless you don't use the internet or electricity and don't have a job and feed yourself exclusively through farming, then you use or require something provided by the public.
Oh, but "I pay for my own internet/electricity/whatever", right? Something like $1 of every internet bill I get is a "Universal Access Fee", which gives people in the middle of nowhere access. Why? because business decided that it's not worthwhile to support you, and we as a society decided it was worthwhile to do. So, we pay a fee (tax, really) that subsidizes costs. Electricity is generated from things dug up from the ground, and that may have caused environmental issues to another region. To be fair to them, we help them clean it up. Goods are trucked in via roads that were paid for by the public. Your healthcare, even if you paid totally out of pocket for doctor and medicine, largely came about due to the US government guaranteeing student loans for doctors (otherwise, banks would not provide such a large amount of money with no collateral) and the fact that public tax money helps subsidize medical research (even if that research ends up owned by a private company, but that's an ethical issue for another day...).
Essentially, by existing, you require stuff, and some of that stuff is not something a free market will support. Too much risk, not enough reward, whatever. So, we as a society get together every once and while and say "Well this needs done anyway, so if business won't do it, how do we pay for it?". We negotiate a small amount every citizen pays into the pool to do these things, and send everyone a bill for the services. This bill from the government is called "taxes".. What, you expect everything to be for free?
Taxes is the bill you get for society to provide you with a modern lifestyle. Now the nice thing about it is that this bill is somewhat negotiable; through voting and our system of representatives, you are more than welcome to be part of the process and haggle for cost and even which services we consider important enough to do/offer. If all you do is complain online and never be involved in government affairs, you're kind of missing the point of living in a democratic society.
So, stop complaining and pay your damn bills. If you're not happy with the service/cost, feel free to get involved in government and change it. At least you have a chance with government... if you're unhappy with your private sector service, they just tell you to get lost.
But to build a park bench? Buy art? Take money and give it to everyone, even if they don't need it? Give money to warlords, overthrow foreign governments and put puppets in place of them? Build, create, and do all sorts of non-essential things?
You're acting like you don't get anything in return for that taxation. Not only do you get a nice park (which you may or may not use) but you end up living in a nicer area (which you may or may not care about) but at the end of a day there's every likelihood that close proximity to that now nice park with benches has increased property value which is something that has a direct impact on your financial base.
You give people basic income, that can have a benefit as well in the form of them not trying to sleep on your front lawn or breaking into your house overnight and stealing your food for survival. As for overthrowing foreign governments come back and cry to me when you pay a proper price for your resources. America doesn't overthrow governments for shits and giggles, the running joke is the only government safe from America is one without oil.
I don't understand the concept that if I have a loaf of bread, that I worked all day for...
I may be able to help there...
Money isn't something tangible, like bread. Money is a game token. It's like D&D hit points. It has value in the context of game, because other players are playing by the same rules. My dwarven cleric has 43 hit points, and my American corporation has three million dollars. Same principle.
If you just bake a loaf of bread, nobody cares. But if you convert your bread into game tokens, then other players will expect you to play by the game rules. If the local game rules include a tax on your tokens, and you hide tokens under the table, then the other players might accuse you of cheating.
Now, I'm not saying our local game rules are perfect. Maybe they'd benefit from a revision. But if you start thinking of money as something real, rather than as a game token, you're going to get confused. You're speaking in terms of "stealing," when you should be speaking in terms of revising rules to improve the game.
On the separate question of whether our game rules should include tax, I'm not an expert. But I found a list on of countries by taxes as a percentage of gdp. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
For the most part, countries on top half of the list seem like nicer places than countries on the bottom half. There are exceptions, but overall it's hard to deny the trend. So I'm not sure lower taxes actually lead to a better-functioning game system.
Right now, I pay a lot of taxes. If I moved to Hati or Guatemala, house rules would allow me to accumulate tokens faster. But I'd rather stay here. Our local rules seem to make fo a better game, despite the annual drain on my tokens.