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My own private basic income

opendemocracy.net

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Re: My own private basic income

#31

Post by wmeredith »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #6

> I lucked into money. The basic point is that he gets paid more whilst not doing more "work". For those whom "Work" is the only lever they use to convert into money, they see inequitable work:cash ratios as "unfair" (a morality statement). Market economies do not function on work, but on value. He did the same work in a high value scenario. A glass of water provided in the middle of a developed city is worthless and…

> Low placed people may not be able to "work" their way to upper echelons, but they can invent, intuit or otherwise create high value leverage of their's and others' work.

How would you suggest slave-labor in Qatar, who's lives are literally disposable to our global society, create this leverage? [serious]

Re: My own private basic income

#32

Post by opportune »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #21
opportune wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I couldn't disagree more. As a society (and this goes from a community to a global scale) we should make it a priority to give everyone the resources to meet their maximum potential. I don't mean that we should give everyone a million dollars to invest of their own. What I mean is that we should ensure that everyone gets provided with a good education and food/water/shelter, etc. The author specifically mentions the…

Entrepreneurs have incentive to ensure everyone meets their maximum potential because this is the place where there is the most to extract. If my value is $10 per day and someone makes my value $20 per day, there is $10 per day worth of value for us to negotiate over. We _both_ have an incentive to maximize my potential. Also: >we should ... thats a morality statement but without a canonical source of ethics that som…

Real life isn't just an elaborate Austrian economics simulator. In this case, there are a lot of complex dynamics at play: will workers emigrate elsewhere if trained well (Basically the IIT problem)? Are constituents/subjects ok with reductions in their quality of life so that other people can be provided these resources.

To act as if the market will magically fix this is lazy and not realistic.

Also yes of course I used "should", as I am giving my opinion on this situation.

Re: My own private basic income

#33

Post by thetwentyone »

OJFord wrote: post #26

> [in the US] people who don’t need their income are taxed less than people who do I'm not American; I don't know the tax structure. But I can't even imagine that this could possibly be true, or what is true that is meant. Without looking it up, I would assume that the USA subscribes to progressive taxation, under which the richer pay more tax in both absolute and relative terms. Even if it has a flat rate of tax, (a…

I believe the author is referring to the lower tax on capital gains than on income in many situations. I haven't read it personally, but I understand that Thomas Piketty's “Capital” discusses this at length where there's a built-in structural favoring towards capital's rent over labor's wages.

Re: My own private basic income

#34

Post by Retric »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #21
opportune wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I couldn't disagree more. As a society (and this goes from a community to a global scale) we should make it a priority to give everyone the resources to meet their maximum potential. I don't mean that we should give everyone a million dollars to invest of their own. What I mean is that we should ensure that everyone gets provided with a good education and food/water/shelter, etc. The author specifically mentions the…

Entrepreneurs have incentive to ensure everyone meets their maximum potential because this is the place where there is the most to extract. If my value is $10 per day and someone makes my value $20 per day, there is $10 per day worth of value for us to negotiate over. We _both_ have an incentive to maximize my potential. Also: >we should ... thats a morality statement but without a canonical source of ethics that som…

Your assuming there is just one person. In the real world finding someone well trained is almost always much cheaper and lower risk than training someone.

Re: My own private basic income

#35

Post by [deleted] »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #21
opportune wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I couldn't disagree more. As a society (and this goes from a community to a global scale) we should make it a priority to give everyone the resources to meet their maximum potential. I don't mean that we should give everyone a million dollars to invest of their own. What I mean is that we should ensure that everyone gets provided with a good education and food/water/shelter, etc. The author specifically mentions the…

Entrepreneurs have incentive to ensure everyone meets their maximum potential because this is the place where there is the most to extract. If my value is $10 per day and someone makes my value $20 per day, there is $10 per day worth of value for us to negotiate over. We _both_ have an incentive to maximize my potential. Also: >we should ... thats a morality statement but without a canonical source of ethics that som…

[deleted]

Re: My own private basic income

#36

Post by dragonwriter »

opportune wrote: post #32
maerF0x0 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Entrepreneurs have incentive to ensure everyone meets their maximum potential because this is the place where there is the most to extract. If my value is $10 per day and someone makes my value $20 per day, there is $10 per day worth of value for us to negotiate over. We _both_ have an incentive to maximize my potential. Also: >we should ... thats a morality statement but without a canonical source of ethics that som…

Real life isn't just an elaborate Austrian economics simulator. In this case, there are a lot of complex dynamics at play: will workers emigrate elsewhere if trained well (Basically the IIT problem)? Are constituents/subjects ok with reductions in their quality of life so that other people can be provided these resources. To act as if the market will magically fix this is lazy and not realistic. Also yes of course I…

> Real life isn't just an elaborate Austrian economics simulator.

Well, yeah; for one thing, given that Austrian economics is more normative than predictive, I'm not sure what such a simulation would do.

Re: My own private basic income

#37

Post by hartator »

I think it's awesome to make critics about how capitalism is bad by using Qatar where basically no freedom exists and everything is controlled by the state. Not even mentioning actual slavery.

Re: My own private basic income

#38

Post by chickenfries »

MichaelRenor wrote: post #14

> My first big lucky break happened in 2009 when Georgetown University hired me as a philosophy professor on their campus in Qatar Apparently going to high school, studying and passing the SAT, applying and being accepted into university, studying, passing, and graduating university is just luck. Have we we reached peak luck yet? Is there nothing ever we can do to improve our circumstances and our lives? This is like…

> Apparently going to high school, studying and passing the SAT, applying and being accepted into university, studying, passing, and graduating university is just luck.

Well all of those things do have a lot to do with what kind of opportunities in life you started out with. Look at the SAT [1] or college graduation rates [2].

> Is there nothing ever we can do to improve our circumstances and our lives?

I think this is a hyperbolic reading of of this article. Obviously the author knows they worked hard. They just know that they had opportunities which other hard working people didn't have. What's wrong with that?

[1]: https://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2014/10/07/sat-scores-and-in... [2]: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/poor-students-drop-even-finan...

Re: My own private basic income

#39

Post by greedo »

OJFord wrote: post #26

> [in the US] people who don’t need their income are taxed less than people who do I'm not American; I don't know the tax structure. But I can't even imagine that this could possibly be true, or what is true that is meant. Without looking it up, I would assume that the USA subscribes to progressive taxation, under which the richer pay more tax in both absolute and relative terms. Even if it has a flat rate of tax, (a…

He's using the "I feel guilty" metric. It's useful in a lot of cases, but in his, it seems to cloud his reasoning to a large degree.

Re: My own private basic income

#40

Post by the_cat_kittles »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #17
Sodman wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is for a lot of people, they'd need something more like a 10x multiplier or more. (Eg the folks he references trapped working as cheap labor that can't even leave without the company's permission, who likely can't even afford travel).

for the record I'm speaking of a "Real" multiplier (taking in account inflation / standard of living) . IMO if every generation is 2x-ing their parent's lifestyle, its nearly instantaneous wealth in the scale of humanity. In the developed world today's poor live like kings of old. In 1000 yrs I would imagine that their poor will live better than our wealthy "Playboys" of today. I see nothing wrong with people being i…

i agree that improving your circumstances is the best thing.

i also dont dismiss standard of living arguments, i think they are valid. but i think they aren't the whole picture. i think alot of how we feel depends on how we compare to those around us. 100 thirsty people in a desert are much more pissed off if you add 1 person with excess water standing right next to them not giving them any. so, some consideration to the overall shape of the distribution of wealth is necessary in my opinion.

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