Keith:
A BI sounds wonderful but it is a
theoretical solution that runs absolutely counter to human nature. Human
society is about relative status. Not only human society, but primate society.
And not only primate society but any social mammalian society. We really need
to understand this first before we can suggest quite new social structures
that will satisfy our basic instincts -- and, if possible, basic incomes also.
But not before then. Extending welfarism beyond what we have now in most
developed countries, desirable though it might sound (and I don't object to it
on moral grounds), is already running itself into the ground.
Keith, sorry, but you say the
damndest things with utter certainty! Human society is about all kinds of
things, depending very much on what people want it to be and agree that it
should be. Status may be very important in American and European society,
but I've dealt with small societies in northern Canada in which a person's
importance depended on what he or she could do for the community. There
were no contests around who could do the most for the community and therefore
had the most status.
Native land claims negotiators were guys who had a
better command of English than most others in the community. But it wasn't
a status thing. It was because they had a better chance of understanding
what the whiteman was saying with his forked tongue. Regrettably, once a
land claim had been negotiated, those societies became stratified because people
had to fill jobs at various levels and different rates of pay. That's when
status began to move in and longstanding egalitarian principles began to
come apart.
I mentioned the cooperative
movement in an earlier posting. In that movement, people cooperated
because it was in the interests of their communities and themselves to do
so. There were no contest around who was the best cooperator.
There are many historic examples of people who gave away everything to
deliberately unstatisfy themselves, people like Francis of Assisi and Peter
Waldo in the 12th and 13th Centuries, who gave away everything, but for
spiritual reasons, not because they were in any kind of race to the
bottom.
So give us a break and allow us our complexity of motives.
And besides, I feel that a Basic Income is entirely feasible economically and
would probably pay off. Any money received by the poor would likely
be spent immediately, and not be put into long term investments. It's
a question of political will. As long as we have neo-con governments, it's
far less likely to happen than Bush's tax breaks for the rich.
Ed
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday, December 05, 2003 1:35
AM
Subject: RE: Slightly extended (was Re:
[Futurework] David Ricardo, Cavema n Trade vs. Modern Trade
Arthur,
At 16:16 04/12/2003 -0500, you
wrote:
As my colleague who was born in India says, the first picture of a
Canadian child dying with a distended belly will be the spark that ignites
governments to end this current (farcical) set of activities. There will
be no starvation in Canada. There will be panhandlers on street
corners and panhandlers using the food banks. Dignity is lost all
around: Those who receive and those who give (although they feel mighty
righteous at the moment.) We can end poverty. There can be a
basic income. Somehow there is little incentive to
change. Unfortunately (or not), a Basic Income would be
impossible. All over the western world, taking all the developed countries
into account (that is, they are all welfare states now to a greater or lesser
degree), we have already reached the limits of taxation. No government could
ever be elected on this basis. And no government could stand for a single day
if it proceeded to bring it about. Not only is there "little incentive", there
would be the most almighty outburst of anger -- not from the rich only, but
the midcdle-class (who do most of the sophisticated work that keeps the flimsy
thing we call civilisation together) and the de-skilled, badly-educated
working class who, in the last few decades, have only just started to receive
an income that satisfies them (while they're in work). (Even so, this has
declined in real terms in the last 20 years in the most developed country --
America.)
Indeed, with the declining birth rate in developed countries,
and the ageing population, we are already proceeding towards a sort of BI and,
as my piece + articles of yesterday ("The poverty of nation-states") clearly
shows, nation-states cannot afford it -- not for more than a decade or so
longer, anyway, before total collapse ensues (unless the most amazing reforms
are made very soon).
A BI sounds wonderful but it is a theoretical
solution that runs absolutely counter to human nature. Human society is about
relative status. Not only human society, but primate society. And not only
primate society but any social mammalian society. We really need to understand
this first before we can suggest quite new social structures that will satisfy
our basic instincts -- and, if possible, basic incomes also. But not before
then. Extending welfarism beyond what we have now in most developed countries,
desirable though it might sound (and I don't object to it on moral grounds),
is already running itself into the ground.
Keith
We live in a democracy. As Amartya Sen
said, there is no history of starvation in democracies. As I said
in my earlier posting, the current system may be remarkably
stable. arthur
- -----Original Message-----
- From: Ed Weick [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
- Sent: Thursday, December 04, 2003 1:12 PM
- To: Cordell, Arthur: ECOM; [EMAIL PROTECTED];
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
- Subject: Re: Slightly extended (was Re: [Futurework] David
Ricardo, Caveman Trade vs. Modern Trade
- So what if all the righteous
middle class people stopped sending their unused canned goods to the food
banks? Well the hungry people might just vote in a government that
promises radical change. Right now everyone wins: political
parties promise change and don't; middle class feels good about sending
food to the food bank; working poor can supplement their foodstock by
heading to the food bank. The system may be quite stable.
Maybe there really is no wish to change.
- arthur
- I'm on the Board of a downtown foodbank and
have spent a little time there. The people who came to pick up food
fell into several groups. There were older men, fifty plus, who had
migrated to Ottawa because there was nothing for them in the valley
communities. Their education and skills were limited, so there was
nothing in Ottawa either. There were young mothers, some with
children, who gave you every impression that they didn't want to be there;
they hurried in and they hurried out. There were a number of cocky
young people, some perhaps students, some living at the "Y", who acted as
though they were indulging the foodbank with their presence. None of
these people acted as though they wanted to change the system. All
they wanted was the food - except for the older guys who also seemed to
want to hang around and talk a little.
- There's an aura of powerlessness about
it. The churches that operate the foodbank know that if they didn't
do it, nobody would. So they keep doing it and their members keep
bringing the cans of tuna and the packages of pasta. The churches
might want to take an advocacy position, but that might infringe on their
charitable status. The politicians get themselves elected and their
promises become mere promises, not commitments. Most of the people
who use the foodbank hate doing it, but they need to eat. Watching
it without having to depend on it, I wish it would all go away. But
it won't. It's what the world is like and how it will stay.
Perhaps Canadians, as people who live in the developed world, should feel
fortunate that they can afford foodbanks. Ever so many parts of the
world can't, and people starve.
- Ed
- -----Original Message-----
- From: Ed Weick [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
- Sent: Thursday, December 4, 2003 9:08 AM
- To: Thomas Lunde; [EMAIL PROTECTED]
- Subject: Re: Slightly extended (was Re: [Futurework] David
Ricardo, Caveman Trade vs. Modern Trade
- Thomas, very good posting. Ontario
has just raised the minimum wage from peanuts to peanuts. Many of
the poor are working full time and even double time, but are still unable
to meet the rent or buy enough food, let alone get their kids the kinds of
in toys ("status goods") that are going around. They can try eating
freedom and justice, but they don't taste very good when you can't make
ends meet.
- Ed
- ----- Original Message -----
- From: Thomas Lunde
- To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
- Sent: Thursday, December 04, 2003 3:36 AM
- Subject: Re: Slightly extended (was Re: [Futurework] David
Ricardo, Caveman Trade vs. Modern Trade
- They don't need money, Thomas. They need justice and the
freedom to enjoy it.
- Harry
- Thomas:
- In a way, you are right. Being poor and working with the poor as
customers and neighbours let's me see the many ways the poor are lacking
justice. A recent article in the paper made the outstanding
statement that 37% of workers in Canada are not covered by the Labour Code
and laws. When wages for the poor are kept artificially low, then
the only way to compensate to maintain a survival standard is to work
more. Of course, there are about 4 to 5% who are mentally incapable,
or physically disabled or in the case of single mothers, family
challenged. However, the work more solution has only produced the
working poor, who still have to use food banks and subsidized housing, if
thet can get it. Not only that, as you suggest, they do not even
have the freedom to enjoy what little they have. I would agree, that
justice and freedom would go a long way to compensating for money - or as
you might suggest, make the earning and spending of money a by product of
an effective system of justice and the freedom and thereby create a
surplus to enjoy.
- Respectfully,
- Thomas Lunde
Keith Hudson, Bath, England,
<www.evolutionary-economics.org>
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