Thomas:
I see a Basic Income as a method of creating a floor to poverty and a ceiling on wealth. It is obscene to let individuals claim a billion dollars of wealth while millions cannot meet basic neccisities. Why does no one challenge the concept of unlimited wealth as a right. After all, after 10 million or so for personal and family use, the rest is scores among the big boys/
Respectfully,
Thomas Lunde
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From: Keith Hudson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: RE: Slightly extended (was Re: [Futurework] David Ricardo, Cavema n Trade vs. Modern Trade
Date: Fri, Dec 5, 2003, 1:35 AM
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 <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:[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 <http://www.evolutionary-economics.org/> >
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