Francis L. Goodwins
on December 19, 2013 at 4:55 am
Title should have been: “A Bureaucrat Responds to the Basic Income”.
In a nutshell: a Basic Income would be great, so long as it’s not a Basic Income. It needs to be a conditional, means-tested, restrictive centrally-managed state program in which high paid professional bureaucrats (educated and certified by other high paid bureaucrats) make decisions for other people, who obviously are just a bunch of dummies who need to have professionals who know best how to make all the important decisions for them.
Yea! Great idea. Let the state decide who gets what, since it is certain the people whose lives are affected certainly aren’t qualified to make the proper Rawlsian,
Senian, or perhaps Hayekeian judgements.
Oh, but wait. That’s what we have now, massive state bureaucracies which exercise absolute control over the “wards” of the state as the price of meager half-way assistance, rewarding those who work in and with their bureaucratic apparatus, but crushing those who oppose them. And of course there is no corruption here, no favoritism, no factionalism, no careerism. Just honest hard working pros.
Perhaps the author might come to realize that
Universal Unconditional Basic Income Guarantee is a whole new animal, if he starts from premises different from those he has adopted.
-1- A Basic Income is not charity. It is a citizen’s right to economic security, just as citizens have rights to legal and military security.
-2- Basic Income is not a socialist solution to economic inequities, requiring massive state intervention, but a free-market solution which empowers individuals to solve their own problems within a market economy, and does so in the most efficient and cost effective way possible, without the bureaucracies, and with minimal disruption to the workings of the existing system.
Jonah
on December 19, 2013 at 8:02 pm
Francis, you give a very unfair reading of Bruenigs position and arguments.
The basic income component of the mixed policy that Bruenig proposes is not conditional on anything other than age.
The issue with disability is important but you seem to brush it aside. Think of a person with no ability to move any body part below the neck. What standard of living do you think that person would get if given only the same basic income as everyone else and then left to fend for him-/herself as all other public programs including health care programs are abolished?
“Basic Income is not a socialist solution to economic inequities, requiring massive state intervention, but a free-market solution which empowers individuals to solve their own problems within a market economy”
That is simply false. It is not a true depiction of the rich and varied history that the concept of a basic income has. Please read the history of basic income ides from the bien website: https://basicincome.org/bien/aboutbasicincome.html#history
You may try to argue for a normative ideal along the lines of libertarian principles but with a minimal basic income. But please note that there is a significant literature available that shows serious flaws with such a view. If you are interested in the ideas you should take the time to read up on that.
Francis L. Goodwins
on December 20, 2013 at 6:05 am
Thanks for your response, Jonah. But I do not think I have treated Bruenig unfairly, because to me unconditional means unconditional. Everything in his article reeks of monstrous bureaucracy, and the strategy he describes is just to toss in a little Basic Income for flavoring. As I tried to point out, this is the result of his [unstated] assumption that Basic Income is charity, a form of state-administered charity. He seems to be trying to tidy up the “welfare mess” by reducing it to 3 forms of charity: Charity for Children, Charity for Adults, and Charity for Seniors. Then he adds in the “need-specific top ups” for good measure, and then stands back and asks, “How’s THAT for a salad!”
My premise is that Basic Income is not charity, it is a citizens’ right, based on the mandate which the people of a democracy give to the state through its constitution. Just as the people of the United States have mandated that the state provide legal and military security, so this new mandate has evolved through the powers which the state has regarding the economy. This evolution has been tumultuous and entirely driven by politics up to the present, and I see uuBIG as the way to solve the problem “permanently” by implementing a 28th Amendment to the Constitution which incorporates what we’ve learned about economics and the corruption of politics in the last 226 years.
The main thing we’ve learned is that big bureaucracies are a formula for disaster. The free-market is our best hope, if we can get the state to insure its fair and efficient operation. The universal unconditional basic income guarantee (uuBIG) turns out to be the best way to do this, by providing the US Treasury with what is essentially an algorithm to regulate the economy — and maintain stable prices — by scientifically setting the level of the BIG at a median level, and by setting a single-bracket tax-rate that everyone pays equally, with no deductions, and with no reporting to the government of anything but personal gross income and its sources. [Corporations continue to provide full accounting of their business transactions, information necessary for the government to scientifically regulate the economy, and they must pay a flat tax-rate on net profit, again with no tax-breaks or deductions possible.] But note that the uuBIG is not funded by deficit spending, and is perfectly compatible with a demand for a balanced budget.
I mention all of this so that you can see why Bruenig’s proposals are so unhelpful, because they entirely ignore the power which uuBIG can bring to bear on solving our impending economic catastrophe.
You accused me of trying “to argue …. along the lines of libertarian principles … for a minimal basic income”, but in fact I am not concerned with ethical arguments at all (and all the libertarian arguments I’ve seen are ethical arguments), and I am not arguing for a minimal basic income, but for a median basic income, set at least as high as that soon to be voted on in Switzerland. I’m arguing along the lines of scientific economics in the service of the principle of individual liberty wed to the concept of a state that must treat everyone the same (unless there is an overwhelming majority of people who agree to consensual social action with discriminatory or differential results). My guiding economic light is the Nobel prize-winning scientist Frederick Soddy.
I suppose all of this should wait for a separate article, but just for completeness, I’ll address
your concern about the disabled. Disability can have all sorts of causes, some of which are outside the responsibility of those affected, some not. In any case, help for the disabled is charity, or state charity, and as such falls within the realm of political discourse, if not handled on a voluntary basis. Either way, whether citizens of a community decide to tax themselves to pay for assistance to those in need, or whether they decide individually to assist on a voluntary basis, the issue is entirely unrelated to the problem of insuring economic security to the citizens of a democratic state in the capital intensive automated global economy of the 21st century. Nonetheless, if you would look at the current disbursements to the disabled through the state bureaucracies, I think you’ll find that most would receive a greater benefit than they get at present if every adult citizen received between $2500 and $3000 per month through the uuBIG.
Finally, thanks for the reference to BIEN’s history of income guarantees. It does appear that the idea has evolved from one of state charity to the current concept of citizen’s rights over the past 500 years!
Jonah
on December 20, 2013 at 8:53 pm
@Francis
First a note on language and argument. If you portray something as “reeking” and being “monstrous” then of course that something will sound bad. But those figurative value terms do not add any argumentative force. Tone down such rhetoric please.
You object to Bruenig for giving basic income the status of “charity”. What is your precise evidence for claiming that Bruenig considers the basic income component of his policy suggestion to be “charity”? Does he explicitly claim that it should have the status of charity? No he does not. So what then is your argument for thinking so?
You also do not give a clear definition of how you use the term “charity”. In one common usage the term means roughly “aid that the recipient does not have a claim right to and that the aiding party does not have an enforceable obligation to provide”. If that is what you mean by charity then Bruenigs basic income component is clearly not charity.
If you have some other definition of the term charity then you need to first explain it, second make clear in what way you think Bruenigs proposal fits that definition and third argue what you think the problem with charity in that sense is.
“The main thing we’ve learned is that big bureaucracies are a formula for disaster.”
In your second to last paragraph you I get the impression that you seek to separate questions about distributive polices with regard to people with disability from the topic of a basic income. I see no good reason to make such a separation. Both are part of the subject of social justice.
Francis L. Goodwins
on December 21, 2013 at 10:52 am
Hey Jonah,
How about a few words regarding strategy. As you’ve said, you and I “disagree completely”. That’s fine, I can respect your right to have a different opinion without respecting your opinion in the least. My rhetoric against the monstrous bureaucracy will remain as it is, because to me this is the crux of the problem, and this is why I am such an ardent advocate of a universal, unconditional Basic Income Guarantee: it is a realistic way to liberate humanity from the monstrous bureaucratic apparatus that is now on the verge of destroying our entire planet.
Is that too melodramatic for you? Here’s my example to counter your “empirical literature on happiness”: take a look at how the government bureaucracy in Japan, in collusion with American-based corrupt corporate power, has handled the world-threatening crisis at Fukushima: http://www.cultureunplugged.com/documentary/watch-online/play/11961. Let’s start with the fact that the government bureaucrats, for three months, concealed the fact … and the associated dangers … that three nuclear-reactor cores had melted down. Or how about the bureaucratic solution to the fact that enormous amounts of radiation had leaked from the plant: just increase the “safe” limit 20 times, from 1 millisievert to 20 millisieverts, then tell the people they have nothing to worry about. If you watch the video just referenced, I don’t think you’ll find the people of Fukushima prefecture agreeing with your ideas about bureaucratic happiness.
One woman interviewed in the film made the following comment: “People were afraid of the radiation, but they didn’t have the money to move.” This would not be the case if Japan had a uuBIG. When funds are made available to every citizen equally, individuals can make decisions for themselves, without relying on a paternalistic government bureaucracy to make decisions and provide solutions for them, and without having to suffer the consequences when those bureaucracies are monstrous, corrupt, self-interested and dishonest.
So you see Jonah, I’m passionate about individual liberty and empowerment, and I don’t think much of your state-socialism. But, getting back to the question of strategy, I don’t expect to argue anyone into changing their mind about anything. I’m here to show people who are interested that there is a workable solution to the enormous problems facing us today, and its name is universal, unconditional Basic Income Guarantee. With this idea, we can disempower the corrupt forces that will soon end human civilization if we don’t stop them in time. I want people to think about the idea, and my hope is that if everyone will simply do the calculations for themselves, then about 80% of them will realize they stand to do much better with a uuBIG than with any other alternative out there. And if we can get 80% of the citizens of the USA to realize this, then we can pass the 28th amendment to the Constitution — by the alternate method provided by the Founders for the case where the Congress is too corrupt to enact the will of the people. I believe we can do this by 2015.
Finally, as to the details of the argument about the definition of charity and the distinction between uuBIG and Disability Insurance in distributive policy, well, I’m not really interested in trying to win the argument. Let’s just agree to disagree. But I will make one point to suggest the direction of my reasoning. Take Child Charity. There is a most glaring bit of absolute corruption here, for you and Matt appear willing to allow the bureaucrats to decide on some basis how much each child should get, as opposed to how much adults or seniors should get, and then GIVE THAT MONEY TO THEIR LEGAL GUARDIANS. I can’t imagine a situation more ripe for corruption. Start with the fact that you’ve now given some people a strong incentive to have more children so that they can increase their income. But of course, now you will need some way to monitor these legal guardians to insure that they don’t spend the child allowance on filling the cabinet with Johnny Walker Red, so now you’ll need armies of professional bureaucrats — social workers — to collect all sorts of data about these people, perhaps to visit their homes for periodic inspections, etc, etc ad nauseum. Please note that all of this arises because the government views the assistance it provides as special-case charity, instead of a universal and unconditional right, and therefore can place differential obligations on the recipients in exchange for special treatment. The only solution is to treat everyone the same — that is every adult citizen, since in fact children belong to their parents until legal age.
Jonah
on December 25, 2013 at 10:56 pm
@Francis
Since you continue to use rhetoric instead of argument I will not waste time reading past the first paragraph of your post. Sorry that you wasted time to write any further.
Title should have been: “A Bureaucrat Responds to the Basic Income”.
In a nutshell: a Basic Income would be great, so long as it’s not a Basic Income. It needs to be a conditional, means-tested, restrictive centrally-managed state program in which high paid professional bureaucrats (educated and certified by other high paid bureaucrats) make decisions for other people, who obviously are just a bunch of dummies who need to have professionals who know best how to make all the important decisions for them.
Yea! Great idea. Let the state decide who gets what, since it is certain the people whose lives are affected certainly aren’t qualified to make the proper Rawlsian,
Senian, or perhaps Hayekeian judgements.
Oh, but wait. That’s what we have now, massive state bureaucracies which exercise absolute control over the “wards” of the state as the price of meager half-way assistance, rewarding those who work in and with their bureaucratic apparatus, but crushing those who oppose them. And of course there is no corruption here, no favoritism, no factionalism, no careerism. Just honest hard working pros.
Perhaps the author might come to realize that
Universal Unconditional Basic Income Guarantee is a whole new animal, if he starts from premises different from those he has adopted.
-1- A Basic Income is not charity. It is a citizen’s right to economic security, just as citizens have rights to legal and military security.
-2- Basic Income is not a socialist solution to economic inequities, requiring massive state intervention, but a free-market solution which empowers individuals to solve their own problems within a market economy, and does so in the most efficient and cost effective way possible, without the bureaucracies, and with minimal disruption to the workings of the existing system.
Francis, you give a very unfair reading of Bruenigs position and arguments.
The basic income component of the mixed policy that Bruenig proposes is not conditional on anything other than age.
The issue with disability is important but you seem to brush it aside. Think of a person with no ability to move any body part below the neck. What standard of living do you think that person would get if given only the same basic income as everyone else and then left to fend for him-/herself as all other public programs including health care programs are abolished?
“Basic Income is not a socialist solution to economic inequities, requiring massive state intervention, but a free-market solution which empowers individuals to solve their own problems within a market economy”
That is simply false. It is not a true depiction of the rich and varied history that the concept of a basic income has. Please read the history of basic income ides from the bien website:
https://basicincome.org/bien/aboutbasicincome.html#history
You may try to argue for a normative ideal along the lines of libertarian principles but with a minimal basic income. But please note that there is a significant literature available that shows serious flaws with such a view. If you are interested in the ideas you should take the time to read up on that.
Thanks for your response, Jonah. But I do not think I have treated Bruenig unfairly, because to me unconditional means unconditional. Everything in his article reeks of monstrous bureaucracy, and the strategy he describes is just to toss in a little Basic Income for flavoring. As I tried to point out, this is the result of his [unstated] assumption that Basic Income is charity, a form of state-administered charity. He seems to be trying to tidy up the “welfare mess” by reducing it to 3 forms of charity: Charity for Children, Charity for Adults, and Charity for Seniors. Then he adds in the “need-specific top ups” for good measure, and then stands back and asks, “How’s THAT for a salad!”
My premise is that Basic Income is not charity, it is a citizens’ right, based on the mandate which the people of a democracy give to the state through its constitution. Just as the people of the United States have mandated that the state provide legal and military security, so this new mandate has evolved through the powers which the state has regarding the economy. This evolution has been tumultuous and entirely driven by politics up to the present, and I see uuBIG as the way to solve the problem “permanently” by implementing a 28th Amendment to the Constitution which incorporates what we’ve learned about economics and the corruption of politics in the last 226 years.
The main thing we’ve learned is that big bureaucracies are a formula for disaster. The free-market is our best hope, if we can get the state to insure its fair and efficient operation. The universal unconditional basic income guarantee (uuBIG) turns out to be the best way to do this, by providing the US Treasury with what is essentially an algorithm to regulate the economy — and maintain stable prices — by scientifically setting the level of the BIG at a median level, and by setting a single-bracket tax-rate that everyone pays equally, with no deductions, and with no reporting to the government of anything but personal gross income and its sources. [Corporations continue to provide full accounting of their business transactions, information necessary for the government to scientifically regulate the economy, and they must pay a flat tax-rate on net profit, again with no tax-breaks or deductions possible.] But note that the uuBIG is not funded by deficit spending, and is perfectly compatible with a demand for a balanced budget.
I mention all of this so that you can see why Bruenig’s proposals are so unhelpful, because they entirely ignore the power which uuBIG can bring to bear on solving our impending economic catastrophe.
You accused me of trying “to argue …. along the lines of libertarian principles … for a minimal basic income”, but in fact I am not concerned with ethical arguments at all (and all the libertarian arguments I’ve seen are ethical arguments), and I am not arguing for a minimal basic income, but for a median basic income, set at least as high as that soon to be voted on in Switzerland. I’m arguing along the lines of scientific economics in the service of the principle of individual liberty wed to the concept of a state that must treat everyone the same (unless there is an overwhelming majority of people who agree to consensual social action with discriminatory or differential results). My guiding economic light is the Nobel prize-winning scientist Frederick Soddy.
I suppose all of this should wait for a separate article, but just for completeness, I’ll address
your concern about the disabled. Disability can have all sorts of causes, some of which are outside the responsibility of those affected, some not. In any case, help for the disabled is charity, or state charity, and as such falls within the realm of political discourse, if not handled on a voluntary basis. Either way, whether citizens of a community decide to tax themselves to pay for assistance to those in need, or whether they decide individually to assist on a voluntary basis, the issue is entirely unrelated to the problem of insuring economic security to the citizens of a democratic state in the capital intensive automated global economy of the 21st century. Nonetheless, if you would look at the current disbursements to the disabled through the state bureaucracies, I think you’ll find that most would receive a greater benefit than they get at present if every adult citizen received between $2500 and $3000 per month through the uuBIG.
Finally, thanks for the reference to BIEN’s history of income guarantees. It does appear that the idea has evolved from one of state charity to the current concept of citizen’s rights over the past 500 years!
@Francis
First a note on language and argument. If you portray something as “reeking” and being “monstrous” then of course that something will sound bad. But those figurative value terms do not add any argumentative force. Tone down such rhetoric please.
You object to Bruenig for giving basic income the status of “charity”. What is your precise evidence for claiming that Bruenig considers the basic income component of his policy suggestion to be “charity”? Does he explicitly claim that it should have the status of charity? No he does not. So what then is your argument for thinking so?
You also do not give a clear definition of how you use the term “charity”. In one common usage the term means roughly “aid that the recipient does not have a claim right to and that the aiding party does not have an enforceable obligation to provide”. If that is what you mean by charity then Bruenigs basic income component is clearly not charity.
If you have some other definition of the term charity then you need to first explain it, second make clear in what way you think Bruenigs proposal fits that definition and third argue what you think the problem with charity in that sense is.
“The main thing we’ve learned is that big bureaucracies are a formula for disaster.”
I disagree completely. The empirical literature on happiness in recent decades have discovered evidence that big governments with well run bureaucracies generates happier citizens. Start here: http://edition.cnn.com/2013/09/25/opinion/radcliff-politics-of-happiness
In your second to last paragraph you I get the impression that you seek to separate questions about distributive polices with regard to people with disability from the topic of a basic income. I see no good reason to make such a separation. Both are part of the subject of social justice.
Hey Jonah,
How about a few words regarding strategy. As you’ve said, you and I “disagree completely”. That’s fine, I can respect your right to have a different opinion without respecting your opinion in the least. My rhetoric against the monstrous bureaucracy will remain as it is, because to me this is the crux of the problem, and this is why I am such an ardent advocate of a universal, unconditional Basic Income Guarantee: it is a realistic way to liberate humanity from the monstrous bureaucratic apparatus that is now on the verge of destroying our entire planet.
Is that too melodramatic for you? Here’s my example to counter your “empirical literature on happiness”: take a look at how the government bureaucracy in Japan, in collusion with American-based corrupt corporate power, has handled the world-threatening crisis at Fukushima: http://www.cultureunplugged.com/documentary/watch-online/play/11961. Let’s start with the fact that the government bureaucrats, for three months, concealed the fact … and the associated dangers … that three nuclear-reactor cores had melted down. Or how about the bureaucratic solution to the fact that enormous amounts of radiation had leaked from the plant: just increase the “safe” limit 20 times, from 1 millisievert to 20 millisieverts, then tell the people they have nothing to worry about. If you watch the video just referenced, I don’t think you’ll find the people of Fukushima prefecture agreeing with your ideas about bureaucratic happiness.
One woman interviewed in the film made the following comment: “People were afraid of the radiation, but they didn’t have the money to move.” This would not be the case if Japan had a uuBIG. When funds are made available to every citizen equally, individuals can make decisions for themselves, without relying on a paternalistic government bureaucracy to make decisions and provide solutions for them, and without having to suffer the consequences when those bureaucracies are monstrous, corrupt, self-interested and dishonest.
So you see Jonah, I’m passionate about individual liberty and empowerment, and I don’t think much of your state-socialism. But, getting back to the question of strategy, I don’t expect to argue anyone into changing their mind about anything. I’m here to show people who are interested that there is a workable solution to the enormous problems facing us today, and its name is universal, unconditional Basic Income Guarantee. With this idea, we can disempower the corrupt forces that will soon end human civilization if we don’t stop them in time. I want people to think about the idea, and my hope is that if everyone will simply do the calculations for themselves, then about 80% of them will realize they stand to do much better with a uuBIG than with any other alternative out there. And if we can get 80% of the citizens of the USA to realize this, then we can pass the 28th amendment to the Constitution — by the alternate method provided by the Founders for the case where the Congress is too corrupt to enact the will of the people. I believe we can do this by 2015.
Finally, as to the details of the argument about the definition of charity and the distinction between uuBIG and Disability Insurance in distributive policy, well, I’m not really interested in trying to win the argument. Let’s just agree to disagree. But I will make one point to suggest the direction of my reasoning. Take Child Charity. There is a most glaring bit of absolute corruption here, for you and Matt appear willing to allow the bureaucrats to decide on some basis how much each child should get, as opposed to how much adults or seniors should get, and then GIVE THAT MONEY TO THEIR LEGAL GUARDIANS. I can’t imagine a situation more ripe for corruption. Start with the fact that you’ve now given some people a strong incentive to have more children so that they can increase their income. But of course, now you will need some way to monitor these legal guardians to insure that they don’t spend the child allowance on filling the cabinet with Johnny Walker Red, so now you’ll need armies of professional bureaucrats — social workers — to collect all sorts of data about these people, perhaps to visit their homes for periodic inspections, etc, etc ad nauseum. Please note that all of this arises because the government views the assistance it provides as special-case charity, instead of a universal and unconditional right, and therefore can place differential obligations on the recipients in exchange for special treatment. The only solution is to treat everyone the same — that is every adult citizen, since in fact children belong to their parents until legal age.
@Francis
Since you continue to use rhetoric instead of argument I will not waste time reading past the first paragraph of your post. Sorry that you wasted time to write any further.