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Unnecessariat

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Re: Unnecessariat

#251

Post by unprepare »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #250
unprepare wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Another solution is a basic job - basically a basic income, but you need to work for it (e.g., fixing our crumbling infrastructure and providing free child care for working mothers). So you want to nationalize the construction and child care industries? This is radically more communist than any basic income scheme i've ever heard of.

When did I say that? All I propose is putting people on welfare to work on all the left wing's favorite projects. This will save money (we can reuse the existing pool of welfare money rather than finding new money to pay Davis-Bacon wages) and reduce work disincentives (either do a sucky government job or go be a maid).

You are talking about the government providing jobs to citizens in private companies? How does that work? The government interviews you and places you with a construction company who has no say in who is hired?

Thats nationalization of an industry

Re: Unnecessariat

#252

Post by shimn »

douche wrote: post #242
collyw wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try living somewhere that has no / very little taxes, you will notice a complete lack of infrastructure. You want to live in a "developed" country where you have water, police, roads, schools.....

I live in a state with no income taxes, no sales taxes, and fairly low property taxes. Next door are states with far, far higher tax rates, of all assorted varieties. Infrastructure in my state is far, far better than infrastructure in those states. Corruption is far lower, however, and that probably makes all the difference.

What state would that be?

Re: Unnecessariat

#253

Post by yummyfajitas »

unprepare wrote: post #251
yummyfajitas wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When did I say that? All I propose is putting people on welfare to work on all the left wing's favorite projects. This will save money (we can reuse the existing pool of welfare money rather than finding new money to pay Davis-Bacon wages) and reduce work disincentives (either do a sucky government job or go be a maid).

You are talking about the government providing jobs to citizens in private companies? How does that work? The government interviews you and places you with a construction company who has no say in who is hired? Thats nationalization of an industry

I'm proposing to have them work directly for the government, FDR style. You go to the government and say you can't find work, and they say "go to X location and do what the foreman says, you get paid $7.25 x 8 hours at the end of the day".

Re: Unnecessariat

#254

Post by EGreg »

pitay wrote: post #204
vintermann wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Matt Bruenig (yes, the guy who was recently hounded out of his job for calling a powerful Hillary supporter a scumbag) had an interesting description of this argument, or rather this series of arguments. First, he says, libertarians defend inequality through desert: * People should keep their money, they worked hard for it! Then Bruenig points out that there is capital income, which does not come from work. Capital w…

I just want to add that tragedy of the commons is NOT most certainly true. It is if 'people could just take as they please', but that is not what people are asking for, and not what happens in practice. I will refer the following article to show how tragedy of the commons did not happen in common land in the last couple of centuries: http://www.thelandmagazine.org.uk/articles/short-history-enc...

It is actually called the "tragedy of the UNMANAGED commons".

Re: Unnecessariat

#255

Post by vintermann »

sokoloff wrote: post #248
vintermann wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That you're able to isn't much of a belief, the question is whether you should be able to. Yes, you said so explicitly, and I acknowledged it. But you're, as I said, not justifying it with desert now. You think you deserve to be able to do as you wish with your money. But why do you deserve that? It can't be because you worked for it, because in giving money to people who didn't work for it (e.g. your kids), you ackn…

Inherent in a property right is the right to give or trade it to someone else. If I have property rights over a steak or a measure of rice, I can cook it and share it with my family. Likewise with my house, car, or abstract medium of exchange (money). I don't see that as "might makes right", but rather as "that's inherently what property rights are".

It's easy to imagine countless non-transferable or otherwise limited forms of property, and our societies have always had them, for entirely understandable social reasons (e.g. primogeniture, instituted for social stability reasons). Property rights don't have to be unconditional in my dictionary.

But let's use your dictionary where property rights are always unconditional. In that case, we have never had property rights and it doesn't seem like a good idea to get them!

Re: Unnecessariat

#256

Post by pitay »

EGreg wrote: post #254
pitay wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just want to add that tragedy of the commons is NOT most certainly true. It is if 'people could just take as they please', but that is not what people are asking for, and not what happens in practice. I will refer the following article to show how tragedy of the commons did not happen in common land in the last couple of centuries: http://www.thelandmagazine.org.uk/articles/short-history-enc...

It is actually called the "tragedy of the UNMANAGED commons".

Yes, people fail to make that distinction though.
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