Re: Basic Income

[Timework Web]

Just saw this in yesterday's National Post:

   National Post Online   
   December 9, 2000
   Chretien eyes cradle-to-grave benefits
   Longing for a legacy, PM creates committee to study guaranteed annual
   income program
   James Baxter   
   Southam News
   
   OTTAWA - Jean Chretien is considering the creation of a
   cradle-to-grave guaranteed annual income program, government sources
   say.
   
   The Prime Minister is reportedly preparing to assemble a high-level
   committee to determine the feasibility of a lifetime guaranteed annual
   income program. One name being touted to lead the committee is Ian
   Green, the deputy secretary to the Cabinet.
   
   Top-level Liberals said yesterday they expect the initiative to
   feature prominently in the upcoming Throne Speech, expected in
   mid-February.
   
   Sources said little is known about whether significant new funds would
   be drawn from the government's ballooning budget surplus or when the
   program might be put in place.
   
   The minimum-income supplement would be developed by merging all or
   parts of the federal child benefit, welfare, employment insurance and
   old age pension programs.
   
   Officials at Human Resources Development Canada said yesterday the
   department plans to undertake a full review of all its current income
   programs and create an inventory of how much gets spent in each of the
   regions. They admitted the federal government is aware that any plan
   of this sort would likely raise concerns in some provinces and that
   significant "horse trading" of powers will be required.
   
   Provinces usually view new social initiatives with considerable
   suspicion, complaining that the government creates new programs and
   then withdraws funding once the programs are up and running. In this
   case, the provinces would likely demand a guarantee of perpetual
   funding.
   
   The Prime Minister's Office and Privy Council Office both refused to
   comment yesterday and would not confirm the existence of the special
   committee. Creating such a program would allow Mr. Chretien to fulfill
   a number of his campaign promises, notably attacking child poverty and
   restoring funding to social programs.
   
   More importantly for Mr. Chretien, a guaranteed income program would
   provide him with a political legacy to rival Pierre Trudeau's
   repatriation of the Constitution or Brian Mulroney's North American
   Free Trade Agreement.
   
   However, people close to the Prime Minister said he was deeply moved
   by the public outpouring of emotion at Mr. Trudeau's death and the
   reverence for what he built.
   
   Aides say privately that, armed with a new mandate, Mr. Chretien
   appears galvanized to "create something of lasting significance."
   
   In a speech on Wednesday, Mr. Chretien hinted his goal for the
   upcoming Parliament will be to wage war on poverty.
   
   "The fact is that our prosperity is not shared by all," the Prime
   Minister said in his keynote address at the Liberal party's
   Confederation Dinner. "There remain, unfortunately, serious social
   problems in the land. Too many children live in poverty. Too many
   aboriginal Canadians live in Third World conditions. As a Liberal, I
   deeply believe that government has the responsibility to promote
   social justice."
   
   While Mr. Chretien's interest in it is new, the concept of a national
   guaranteed income is not. It was originally espoused by noted
   economist Milton Friedman as early as 1962 and, at the urging of the
   New Democrats, was examined by the Liberal government of Lester B.
   Pearson, in whose Cabinet Mr. Chretien first served.
   
   It again saw life in 1971 when it was openly championed by Trudeau-era
   Cabinet heavyweight Marc Lalonde, who at the time was Minister of
   Health and Welfare, in a report titled Federal Income Security
   Protection. The idea was hotly debated, but was never embraced by Mr.
   Trudeau and was eventually shelved.
   
   The idea was resurrected during the 1993 election campaign when the
   Reform Party added it to its platform as a way of streamlining
   Canada's convoluted income-security programs. It was then considered
   as part of the social security reform undertaken by the Chretien
   government in its first term, but was ignored because it was seen as
   potentially too expensive during a period of deficit-cutting.
   
   As the deficit was pared down, the idea again caught the attention of
   then-HRDC deputy minister Mel Cappe, who is now Clerk of the Privy
   Council and Ottawa's most influential bureaucrat. A former executive
   assistant to prime minister Joe Clark, Mr. Green was an associate
   deputy minister under Mr. Cappe at Human Resources Development Canada
   and is considered one of Mr. Cappe's most reliable and trusted
   deputies. Mr. Green moved over to the Privy Council Office in 1998, a
   year before Mr. Cappe became the country's top public serva

Re Basic Income re JK Galbraith

[Thomas Lunde]

Title: Re Basic Income re JK Galbraith 




Tom Walker wrote:

> JKG made a further contribution to economics by siring James K., whose book
> Created Unequal shows that carefully done equations and regressions can
> stand for something after all -- such as debunking the mythology of
> mainstream economists.
>
> regards,
>
> Tom Walker

Dear Tom:

I don't know if was you who posted James K's book, but I have been reading
it.  It's slow going but very insightful.  I have been marking it and intend
- time willing to provide a little summary of his essential points.  If a
few others would get it from their local library, it  could become a source
from which a good list discussion could ensue.  What he is attempting - is
to allow us to change perspective from which classical and monetarist
economics have established explanations - to a different viewpoint using the
existing data that other schools of economics have been using.  I find it a
little head wrenching at times because all I have read and thought about
economics has come from established perspectives - I would imagine others
may have a similar culture shock.

Respectfully,

Thomas Lunde

> http://www.vcn.bc.ca/timework/covenant.htm
>
>
> 

RE Basic Income re JK Galbraith

[Thomas Lunde]

Title: RE Basic Income re JK Galbraith




Tom Walker wrote:

> JKG made a further contribution to economics by siring James K., whose book
> Created Unequal shows that carefully done equations and regressions can
> stand for something after all -- such as debunking the mythology of
> mainstream economists.
>
> regards,
>
> Tom Walker

Dear Tom:

I don't know if was you who posted James K's book, but I have been reading
it.  It's slow going but very insightful.  I have been marking it and intend
- time willing to provide a little summary of his essential points.  If a
few others would get it from their local library, it  could become a source
from which a good list discussion could ensue.  What he is attempting - is
to allow us to change perspective from which classical and monetarist
economics have established explanations - to a different viewpoint using the
existing data that other schools of economics have been using.  I find it a
little head wrenching at times because all I have read and thought about
economics has come from established perspectives - I would imagine others
may have a similar culture shock.

Respectfully,

Thomas Lunde

> http://www.vcn.bc.ca/timework/covenant.htm
>
>
> 

Re: Basic Income re JK Galbraith

[Tom Walker]

Arthur Cordell wrote:

>And I do believe that JK Galbraith was President of the American Economics
>Association.  Forget which year.  So, he is a real live bona fide economist.
>Yes, writing clearly and plainly and not hiding behind a lot of equations,
>regressions, etc., which, upon closer examination, prove to prove very
>little and stand for not much at all.

JKG made a further contribution to economics by siring James K., whose book
Created Unequal shows that carefully done equations and regressions can
stand for something after all -- such as debunking the mythology of
mainstream economists.

regards,

Tom Walker
http://www.vcn.bc.ca/timework/covenant.htm

Re: Basic Income re JK Galbraith

[Cordell, Arthur: DPP]

And I do believe that JK Galbraith was President of the American Economics
Association.  Forget which year.  So, he is a real live bona fide economist.
Yes, writing clearly and plainly and not hiding behind a lot of equations,
regressions, etc., which, upon closer examination, prove to prove very
little and stand for not much at all.

There.  Feel better already.

arthur cordell
 --
From: Ed Weick
To: Thomas Lunde
Cc: List Futurework
Subject: Re: Basic Income re JK Galbraith
Date: Tuesday, May 18, 1999 3:51PM




Picking up a book at the local library, my hand was guided to "A View from
the Stands" by John Kenneth Galbraith.  I never really know how to classify
Galbraith whether as an economist, a liberal who happens to be an economist
or a professional writer who recieved training as an economist.  Most of the
time when I mention Galbraith in discussions with knowledgeable people, I
get a sort of look down the nose as if he is not quite a first rank kind of
academic.

Hi Thomas,

Whether people look down at their noses at Galbraith shouldn't bother you.
Just because he doesn't draw indifference curves or write fancy equations
does not  mean he isn't a good economist.  I would say he is one of the best
this century has produced and if not one of the best economists, as
professional economists might judge their fellows, then certainly one of
this century's most effective thinkers.  His big sin is that he has tried to
make big-ticket economic problems intelligible to the lay person by writing
readable books.  Some of the things he has come up with may not be provable
in a scientific sense, but I can't think of much that I've read by him that
hasn't made me think.  Making people think is probably the most important
thing anyone can do.  Thanks for posting his stuff on a a guaranteed annual
income.  It may revive some interest in the subject.

I'm into reading history.  Here is a quote:



"The stinking puddle from which usury, thievery and robbery arises is our
lords and princes. They make all creatures their property + the fish in the
water, the bird in the air, the plant in the earth must all be theirs. Then
they proclaim God+s commandment among the poor and say, +You shall not
steal+ ... They oppress everyone, the poor peasant, the craftsman ... are
skinned and scraped."

Who said it?  Some disgruntled late 19th Century Marxist?  Why, no!  It was
Thomas Muntzer, one of the leaders of the German Peasants' Revolt of 1525.
He was a very interesting fellow who believed that all property should he
held in common and that it should be used by people in accordance with their
need.  Naturally, he was tortured and killed for believing such things.
Similar things were said in 1381 when the English peasants rebelled and, I'm
sure, many other times in history.  What amazes me is how, in historic times
and contexts that are different yet surprisingly similar, things go round
and round and round and round and round 

Best regards,
Ed Weick

Re: Basic Income re JK Galbraith

[Ed Weick]

Title: Basic Income re JK Galbraith




 
Picking 
up a book at the local library, my hand was guided to "A View 
fromthe Stands" by John Kenneth Galbraith.  I never really 
know how to classifyGalbraith whether as an economist, a liberal who 
happens to be an economistor a professional writer who recieved training 
as an economist.  Most of thetime when I mention Galbraith in 
discussions with knowledgeable people, Iget a sort of look down the nose 
as if he is not quite a first rank kind 
ofacademic.  
Hi Thomas,
Whether people look down at their noses at 
Galbraith shouldn't bother you.  Just because he doesn't draw 
indifference curves or write fancy equations does not  mean he isn't a 
good economist.  I would say he is one of the best this century has 
produced and if not one of the best economists, as professional economists 
might judge their fellows, then certainly one of this century's most 
effective thinkers.  His big sin is that he has tried to make 
big-ticket economic problems intelligible to the lay person by writing 
readable books.  Some of the things he has come up with may not be 
provable in a scientific sense, but I can't think of much that I've read by 
him that hasn't made me think.  Making people think is probably the 
most important thing anyone can do.  Thanks for posting his stuff on a 
a guaranteed annual income.  It may revive some interest in the 
subject.
I'm into reading history.  Here is a 
quote:

"The stinking puddle from which usury, 
thievery and robbery arises is our lords and princes. They make all 
creatures their property — the fish in the 
water, the bird in the air, the plant in the earth must all be theirs. 
Then they proclaim God’s commandment among the poor and say, 
‘You shall not steal’ ... They 
oppress everyone, the poor peasant, the craftsman ... 
are skinned and scraped."
Who said it?  Some disgruntled late 19th Century 
Marxist?  Why, no!  It was Thomas Muntzer, one of the leaders of 
the German Peasants' Revolt of 1525.  He was a very interesting fellow 
who believed that all property should he held in common and that it should 
be used by people in accordance with their need.  Naturally, he was 
tortured and killed for believing such things.  Similar things were 
said in 1381 when the English peasants rebelled and, I'm sure, many other 
times in history.  What amazes me is how, in historic times and 
contexts that are different yet surprisingly similar, things go round and 
round and round and round and round 
 
Best regards,
Ed Weick

Re: Basic Income re Galbraith circa 1966

[Thomas Lunde]

Picking up a book at the local library, my hand was guided to "A View from
the Stands" by John Kenneth Galbraith.  I never really know how to classify
Galbraith whether as an economist, a liberal who happens to be an economist
or a professional writer who recieved training as an economist.  Most of the
time when I mention Galbraith in discussions with knowledgeable people, I
get a sort of look down the nose as if he is not quite a first rank kind of
academic.  However, I find he makes a lot of sense, says things other
writers don't say and pursues the subject of economics from a very liberal
point of view, which I find a lot of agreement with.  In this book, which is
a collection of essays and speech's he has written or presented over the
years, he seems to deal with timeless and timely subject matters within the
same example.  This particular essay was published in 1966.  The lengthy
quote I am posting is - in my mind - as relevant today as it was in those
heady days of 1966.  The title is "The Starvation of the Cities"

Quote  Page 21

Another problem unsolved by economic expansion is that of the people who are
left behind.  Increasing national income benefits only those who participate
in the economy and who thus establish a claim on the income it produces, but
a sizable minority cannot or does not so participate, and it thus has no
share in the improving well-being.

Good public services and sound environmental conditions promote such
paricipation.  Good health services increase the number of people who are
physically and mentally able to take part in the economy.  So does good law
enforcement.  And good, well-located housing.  And effective action against
racial discrimination.  And good urban transportation.

But mostly this is what a good educational system accomplishes.  There is no
single cure for poverty, but we should not, in our sophistication, be afraid
of the obvious.  President Lyndon Johnson has observed that "education will
not cure all the problems of a society ... [but] without it no cure for any
problem is possible."  And he is right.  A community that provides really
superior schools, starting with youngest children, and that allows the pupil
to go just as far at the public expense as his abilities permit will not
have many citizens who are poor; there are few college graduates and not so
many high school graduates who are in the poverty brackets.

So far, my approach to the problem of poverty has been strongly traditional:
we should help them to help themselves.  That is good, whereas merely to
help them has always been considered bad.  Now I venture to think the time
has come to re-examine these good Calvinist tenets, which fit so well with
our idea of what saves money.  We need to consider the one prompt and
effective solution for poverty, which is to provide everyone with a minimum
income.  (Thomas - sounds nice and simple doesn't it!)

The arguments against this proposal are numerous, but most of them are
exuses for not thinking about a solution, even one that is so exceedingly
plausible.  It would, it is said, destroy incentive.  Yet we now have a
welfare system that could not be better designed to destroy incentive if we
wanted it that way.  We give the needy income, and we take away that income
if the recipient gets even the poorest job.  Thus we tax the marginal income
of the welfare recipient at rates of 100 percent or more.

A minimum income, it is said, would keep people out of the labor market.
But we do not want all the pople with inadequate income to work.  In 1964,
of the 14.8 million children classified by the Department of Health,
Education and Welfare as poor, nearly a third were in families headed by a
woman.  And three fifths of the children in families headed by women were so
classified.  Most of those women should not be working.

Idleness, we agree, is demoralizing.  But even here there is a question:
Why is leisure so uniformly bad for the poor and so uniformly good for the
exceptionally well-to-do?

We can easily afford an income floor.  (Thomas: Interesting that in My
Family Basic Income Proposal, I used the metaphor of a Basic Income
providing a floor while at the same time proposing a ceiling on unlimited
wealth as a conceptual model to make a Basic Income financially possible.)
It would cost about $20 billion to bring everyone up to what the Department
of HEW considers a reasonable minimum.  This is a third less than the amount
by which personal income rose last year.  It is not so much more than we
will spend during the next fiscal year to restore freedom, democracy and
religious liberty, as these are defined by the experts, in Vietnam.  And
there is no antidote for poverty that is quite so certain in its effects as
the provision of income.

In recent years we have come to recognize a major defect in the fiscal
system of the United States.  Put briefly, it is that, with economic growth
and rising incomes, the federal government, through the income and
c

RE: basic income scheme

[Ian Ritchie]

Have a look at this

"A Universal Basic Income (UBI) is an unconditional cash payment to
individuals sufficient to meet basic needs."

[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.geocities.com/~ubinz/

also

I have developed a model "Widgets in S-Basic" that demonstrates that a
"Citizen's Dividend" not only can provide a socially beneficial effect
but can actually be structured to cause the greatest rate of growth in
an economy. The model is available on line at:
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/1067/widgets.html 
With explanations and details at:
http://www.geocities.com:80/CapitolHill/1067/c04r4a.html
 and part 2 at:
http://www.geocities.com:80/CapitolHill/1067/c04r4p2a.html

I'd appreciate any comments. Thank you,

J.B. O'Donnell

Tax Privilege, Not People
___
Come visit and see a new economic perspective --
   http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/1067
   Comments/arguments welcome. 
.

> --
> From: Mark Elliot[SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> Sent: Tuesday, 20 April 1999 2:30
> To:   [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject:  basic income scheme
> 
> A while back on this list there was a discsusion
> of basic income schemes. Can anyone give a reference 
> (web or hard) to work on this. I am particularly interested 
> in stuff moddelling the tax/national accounts effects, 
> but general stuff would be good too.
> 
> Thanks
> 
> Mark
> 
> -
> Mark Elliot - 
> CCSR
> Faculty of Economics
> University of Manchester
> Oxford Road
> Manchester
> M13 9PL
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
> Phone number UK: 0161-275-4257
> Phone number international 0044-161-275-4257
> Fax: 0161-275-4722
> 

Re: FW: Re: Basic Income

[Durant]

> Do I seem to recall having been told by the
> economic scientists that Marx's *Labor Theory of Value* 
> is bunk?  
>

I think the jury is still out...

 

> \brad mccormick
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: Basic Income

[Bob McDaniel]

Hi

Thomas Lunde wrote:

> I went to the URL you posted and I must admit that the testimonials were
> awesome.  However when I tried to follow some of the suggestions in red, my
> browser went nowhere - so I'm left with testimonials not content. 

Yeah, so I noticed, too. Figured it must be an oversight on someone's part.
I pointed out the problem in an email to Jeff Gates and he has responded to
assure me that it'd be remedied soon.

Thomas, again:

> My thought was that every time a machine/robot/innovation replaces human
> labour, that labour is still factored into the product price and that
> savings to the producer is not passed on to the customer in the form of
> lower prices or too the shareholder in terms of increased profits, but is
> put into a general pool to pay all those whose work is eliminated by the
> technology.  If one of our goals is to become more efficient, even to the
> point where nobody or only a very small number of people are going to work,
> we have to have someway of taking revenue out of the goods and service
> sector and redistributing it back into the demand side of the economy.

I wonder where the incentive then is to innovate. It seems to me that I once
read somewhere that government might impose a "technology tax" with the aim
you suggest. But, here again, there are implications pertaining to competition
in a global economy. It'd probably be an issue for MAI proponents.

But, if I may challenge my own scenario, there is evidence that, while
automation causes structural unemployment, the total employed seems to remain
pretty stable. Technology may generate as many "jobs" as it displaces. (Jobs
in quotation marks because this mode of employment is fading as it is replaced
by sets of skills marketed by individuals.)

A guaranteed or basic income, however provided, probably should be viewed as a
temporary measure as we "transition" from the Industrial Age to something
else. Just as our present factory-style education system emerged to train and
condition a workforce, so a more durable solution to our economic needs may be
an entrepreneurially-oriented system which will provide students with the
ability to recognize and seize all-too-ephemeral opportunities as they present
themselves. If the appearance of calculus somehow foreshadowed the Industrial
Age, chaos theory may anticipate a key feature of the emerging era.
 
A final thought, if jobs can change and disappear so, too, can the whole
notion of shareholders. It may be another example of quantitative change
giving rise to qualitative change: Massive numbers of electronically-networked
individuals and institutions dealing in a variety of financials products and
consumer products may discover that money or its surrogate has become an
unnecessary (and unduly complicating) intermediary in achieving goals. (Don't
dare ask me about this probe, but interpretations are welcome!) Some issues
(as *figure*), and the rich-poor gap may be one of them, simply cease to be
relevant as the whole *ground* changes.
 
Bob
-- 
___
http://www.geog.uwo.ca/mcdaniel1.html

Re: Basic Income

[Bob McDaniel]

Hi

Thomas Lunde wrote:

> I went to the URL you posted and I must admit that the testimonials were
> awesome.  However when I tried to follow some of the suggestions in red, my
> browser went nowhere - so I'm left with testimonials not content. 

Yeah, so I noticed, too. Figured it must be an oversight on someone's part.
I pointed out the problem in an email to Jeff Gates and he has responded to
assure me that it'd be remedied soon.

Thomas, again:

> My thought was that every time a machine/robot/innovation replaces human
> labour, that labour is still factored into the product price and that
> savings to the producer is not passed on to the customer in the form of
> lower prices or too the shareholder in terms of increased profits, but is
> put into a general pool to pay all those whose work is eliminated by the
> technology.  If one of our goals is to become more efficient, even to the
> point where nobody or only a very small number of people are going to work,
> we have to have someway of taking revenue out of the goods and service
> sector and redistributing it back into the demand side of the economy.

I wonder where the incentive then is to innovate. It seems to me that I once
read somewhere that government might impose a "technology tax" with the aim
you suggest. But, here again, there are implications pertaining to competition
in a global economy. It'd probably be an issue for MAI proponents.

But, if I may challenge my own scenario, there is evidence that, while
automation causes structural unemployment, the total employed seems to remain
pretty stable. Technology may generate as many "jobs" as it displaces. (Jobs
in quotation marks because this mode of employment is fading as it is replaced
by sets of skills marketed by individuals.)

A guaranteed or basic income, however provided, probably should be viewed as a
temporary measure as we "transition" from the Industrial Age to something
else. Just as our present factory-style education system emerged to train and
condition a workforce, so a more durable solution to our economic needs may be
an entrepreneurially-oriented system which will provide students with the
ability to recognize and seize all-too-ephemeral opportunities as they present
themselves. If the appearance of calculus somehow foreshadowed the Industrial
Age, chaos theory may anticipate a key feature of the emerging era.
 
A final thought, if jobs can change and disappear so, too, can the whole
notion of shareholders. It may be another example of quantitative change
giving rise to qualitative change: Massive numbers of electronically-networked
individuals and institutions dealing in a variety of financials products and
consumer products may discover that money or its surrogate has become an
unnecessary (and unduly complicating) intermediary in achieving goals. (Don't
dare ask me about this probe, but interpretations are welcome!) Some issues
(as *figure*), and the rich-poor gap may be one of them, simply cease to be
relevant as the whole *ground* changes.
 
Bob

___
http://www.geog.uwo.ca/mcdaniel1.html

Re: Re Basic Income

[Ed Weick]

>I agree, there are some good economists (those who know and admit their
>limitations) and some bad economists.  The problem is that the bad ones are
>thrust into the public eye because they DO support the system.  We rarely
>hear from the good economists.
>
>Jay


I suppose it depends on where you put your ear.

Ed Weick

Re: Re Basic Income

[Ed Weick]

Thomas,

I have to quit.  Life calls and I'll have to lurk for awhile.  Just a few
comments on your last posting, and that's it.

>Again agreed but the difference seems to be that when their conclusions
>prove to be out of touch with reality, they tend to deny reality.  How so,
>you might ask?  The concept of the GDP has been validly questioned as
giving
>less than a true representation of the economic activities of a nation.
>First, it classifies all activities as positive, for instance the money
>spent recovering from a flood is considered growth in GDP while in
>essence/reality it is a return to a previous state.  Second, it has nowhere
>to measure externalities, such as a mining site that pollutes the water
>causing fish to die which has the effect of reducing tourist traffic which
>has the effect of forcing some businesses into bankruptcy.


Let me assure you that economists are fully aware of this problem.  A lot of
work has been done on the development of systems of national accounts which
integrate the environment, value unpaid work, and avoid the treatment of
negatives as positives.   There are problems in integrating new approaches
into the existing system, however, particularly the problem of period to
period comparability.  If you change this year's accounts to include new
variables, you should go back and include the same variables in the accounts
of former years.  Otherwise you begin to compare apples and oranges over
time.  It's not an easy problem to resolve for something as complex as a
system of national or even regional accounts.  And if you change one system,
it makes it very difficult to provide comparisons with other systems.

There are also problems of valuation.  How, for example, should unpaid work
or damage to the environment be valued?  A few years ago, I did quite a lot
of work on the inclusion of the domestic production (hunting, gathering,
fishing, making things for themselves) of Aboriginal people in a system of
accounts.  You can come up with valuation methods that you think are quite
brilliant, only to have someone come along and tear them apart.  Before
that, I did some work on evaluating the environmental costs of agricultural
pesticides, of acid rain, and of oil and gas production in the Arctic.
Believe me, it aint easy and is awfully inconclusive!


>Data is converted into statistics or conclusions in a report.  We rarely
get
>to question the questions that produced data which led to statistics.  The
>same is true of a report, it is quoted ad nausem because it's conclusions
>tend to support a particular hypothesis.  If other data contradict their
>data, they get into a war of who believes which data rather than
>investigating the collection of the data.

Believe me again Thomas, any economist worth his or her salt will always
question the data they have to work with.  Many of the economists I've known
may have been naive, but very few were stupid.  You may be confusing
economists with politicians or members of the advertising fraternity.

>Ronald Regan on the advise of small group of advisors brought forward the
>concept of supply side economics as a variance on conventional economic
>theory.  This group was able to politically implement policies based on
this
>hypothesis.  How many supply side economists are there now and yet from
1980
>to 1992, that was the dominant hypothesis on which economists based their
>decisions.  Those were not "positive scientists", thse were zealots with a
>dream to impose on others.

I've tried very hard to mentally reconstruct what went on during the Reagan
era, but drew a blank.  So I went back to what I consider one of the better
books that dealt with those times, "Greed it not Enough: Reagonomics", by
Robert  Lekachman, an economist who was with the City University of New
York.  Here is a quote from the very beginning of the book:

"Ronald Reagan must be the nicest president who ever destroyed a union,
tried to cut school lunch milk rations from six to four ounces, and
compelled families in need of public help to first dispose of household
goods in excess of $1,000.

This amiable gentleman's administration has been engaged in a massive
redistribution of wealth and power for which the closest precedent is
Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, with the trifling difference that FDR sought
to alleviate poverty and Ronald Reagan enthusiastically enriches further the
already obscenely rich. Most of the benefits of i98I's tax legislation will
flow to large corporations and their afliuent stockholders, other prosperous
individuals, commodity traders, military contractors, and truly greedy
dabblers in oil, gas, and coal properties. Taxes on capital gains are
sharply reduced. To all intents and purposes, levies on corporate profits
are phasing themselves out. In future, estates passing to surviving spouses
will be exempt from inheritance tax."

Nuff said.

>It was with great surprise I heard that no economist predicted the Asian
>Flu.  The single large

Re: Basic Income/ESOPS

[Steve Kurtz]

Thomas Lunde:
Without having the benefit of Jeff's thought, the question then becomes do
all the citizen who have been issued shares or have borrowed money to buy
shares then spend the rest of their life trading shares as their only
productive activity short of not trading and hoping that the shares you
have
will continue to provide you with a dividend.  My guess is that over time,
those with inside knowledge will end up owning all the shares and the poor
will still be with us and the capitalists will just be so much richer.

Steve:
There are some simple mechanisms which might be used to avoid the above
scenario. First, ESOP shares might be vested as retirement only funds, and
not be tradable. The issuer could redeem at age X only for the original
shareholder or survivor/estate. This is not unlike "insider stock" which
goes at original underwritings to the insiders & must be held for a period
of years before resale.

Second, ESOP shares could be non-marginable - that is, one couldn't pledge
them as collateral for leverage (no loan value). That would make the
"borrowed money" case more difficult. If there were publicly traded shares
of the same company, those could still be openly traded and used as
collateral. If the majority of shares *eventually* (over generations)
became ESOP type, workers would outvote non-workers in company policy
decisions, *IF* they had voting rights - which IMO should be manditory & is
so in US as the shares are common stock. I'm unsure about any current
trading restrictions, but believe that most are in qualified retirement
plans with tax penalties for premature liquidation.

Steve

Re: Re Basic Income (endless training and finite good sense)

[Jay Hanson]

From: Brad McCormick, Ed.D. <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

>I presume Hardin is one of the good ones.  Or is he an
>example of a non-economist doing good economics (my

He's an ecologist (Tragedy of the Commons, etc.)

Re: Re Basic Income

[Jay Hanson]

>Since when did economists in general defend the system?  Some did, others
>did not.  Marx was an economist who both recognized the tremendous
potential

I agree, there are some good economists (those who know and admit their
limitations) and some bad economists.  The problem is that the bad ones are
thrust into the public eye because they DO support the system.  We rarely
hear from the good economists.

Jay

Re: Re Basic Income

[Ed Weick]

>Ed said:
>
>In Economics 101, under "perfectly
>>competitive equilibrium", everybody is paid their full worth, and there is
>>no possibility of monopoly profit, since monopoly does not exist.
However,
>>like the much maligned economist's assumption of "rationality", perfectly
>>competitive equilibrium is an abstraction.  Economists know that it does
>not
>>exist, but that it is nonetheless useful in furthering economic analysis.
>
>Thomas:
>
>If economists know this and continue to defend the system by glossing over
a
>distortion, then how can they claim objectivity and scientific rigor.  On
>the one hand they collect statistics, develop models, create mathematics to
>show relationships, all based on a faulty premise - this is scientific
>fraud.


Dear Thomas,

I am becoming just a little exasperated.  I'm not sure of where this is
going to lead.  But on grounds that some people may be enjoying this debate,
I will continue a little longer.

Since when did economists in general defend the system?  Some did, others
did not.  Marx was an economist who both recognized the tremendous potential
of capital but totally deplored its impacts.  Malthus explored the
relationship between limited resources and growing population, and came to
some pretty dour conclusions.  Keynes, and others, recognized the inability
of capitalism to sustain full employment and the need for fiscal and
monetary intervention in the economy.  Ever so many economists have
concerned themselves with the maldistribution of income, and with
international inequities.  Some have been enormously concerned with the
degree to which industrial activity is sustainable.  Far from defending the
system, economists have been in the forefront of those who question it. Read
Lester Thurow, Paul Krugman, and Herman Daly.  And if you want to go back
just a little further and more to the radical left, read Paul Sweezy (or
Sweezy and Baran) and Samir Amin.

Economists can claim two kinds of scientific rigor.  One is essentially the
same kind as that of the mathematician.  They start with certain premises
and assumptions and follow a train of logic to its conclusions.  The other
is that of the positive scientist.  They formulate a hypothesis and then go
out into the real world to see if there are data out there to substantiate
it.  Both methods are valid.  Both are grounded in what thinking people have
experienced and seen around them, and both have shed light on human
behaviour.  However, economists have never treated either as providing the
be all and end all of knowledge.  They have always seen everything as open
to question.

I do hope this helps.

Ed Weick

Re: FW: Re: Basic Income

[Durant]

If there are no employees, no profits, what is the point of 
shareholders?

Eva


> 
> I once made the simple extrapolation that, if the decision to automate remains
> the prerogative of individual firms, then the collective result may eventually
> be a totally automated economy (a version of "The Tragedy of the Commons)!
> With noone having a job then who will buy the output (shades of Reuther)?
> Having read Louis O. Kelso and Mortimer J. Adler, The Capitalist Manifesto,
> and Peter F. Drucker, The Pension Fund Revolution, I wondered whether all
> people should be shareholders with government, if necessary, buying shares on
> their behalf. 
> 
> Now has appeared Jeff Gates's book, The Ownership Solution, detailing such an
> approach. 
> 
> Whereas Tom Lunde's essay, Basic Income, seems to rely on government to issue
> and control funds, the solution envisioned by Gates relies on the operation of
> business firms through ESOPs (Employee Stock Ownership Plans) and variants
> including other stakeholders, consumers, local communities, etc.
> 
> Bob
> 
> -- 
> ___
> http://www.geog.uwo.ca/mcdaniel1.html
> 
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: Re Basic Income

[Thomas Lunde]

-

>Thomas Lunde:
>
>>In summing up this lengthy rebuttal, I have had to do some soul searching
>>about my concepts.  Basically, I believe people come before profit and
that
>>people are more important than profit.

ed said:
>
>If by this you mean that people should not be economically exploited, and
>that they should be paid the full measure of their worth in productive
>processes, I would fully agree.  However, there remains the problem of
>determining what their full worth is.

Thomas:

No, that is not what I meant, what I meant is that for me, in any evaluation
of the merits of a system, I will determine whether I support that system
based on its effects on people.  That the system is not greater than people.
We invent laws, money, systems to serve people - all people and too often we
end up defending the system instead of defending the people who are at
negative affect of the system.  In using the word "profit" in this
paragragh, I was saying that when the system that puts the rights of some to
make a profit over the misery their activities cause, I come down on the
side of the people affected negatively rather than supporting the rights of
the people using the system in a way that creates that negative by product.

Ed said:

In Economics 101, under "perfectly
>competitive equilibrium", everybody is paid their full worth, and there is
>no possibility of monopoly profit, since monopoly does not exist.  However,
>like the much maligned economist's assumption of "rationality", perfectly
>competitive equilibrium is an abstraction.  Economists know that it does
not
>exist, but that it is nonetheless useful in furthering economic analysis.

Thomas:

If economists know this and continue to defend the system by glossing over a
distortion, then how can they claim objectivity and scientific rigor.  On
the one hand they collect statistics, develop models, create mathematics to
show relationships, all based on a faulty premise - this is scientific
fraud.

Ed said:

>In the real world, there are all kinds of market distortions and
>monopolistic elements which make a logically valid pegging of "full worth"
>pretty nigh impossible.
>
>So other means must be found to avoid the economic exploitation of labour.
>One is collective bargaining - power against power.  Another is
>arbitration - let a higher authority decide.

Thomas:

The other is to become what they want to become - scientists and follow
truth no matter where it leads.

The latter was recently used
>to determine whether women were being paid fairly in the Canadian public
>service.  The matter went before the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal, which
>ruled that women were not being paid fairly in comparison with men doing
>equivalent work.  The result: the Government of Canada is faced with
>billions of dollars in back pay and higher wage levels from women from here
>on.

Thomas:

But that story is not over with, as you well know and the government feels
that it needs another Court decision before it releases funds.  One can only
conclude from watching this charade, that the government has other agenda's
than justice.  From an economic and political standpoint, it would make good
sense to pay that money out, not only would it fall into the demand side of
the economy, producing more jobs, but it would also garner them a great
amount of political good will.

Respectfuly,

Thomas Lunde
>
>Ed Weick
>
>

Re: Re: Basic Income

[Thomas Lunde]

Dear Bob:

I went to the URL you posted and I must admit that the testimonials were
awesome.  However when I tried to follow some of the suggestions in red, my
browser went nowhere - so I'm left with testimonials not content.  However,
to show that this is an area where I have had some thoughts, I will use your
comments to share them.

-Original Message-
From: Bob McDaniel <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: FutureWork <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: September 6, 1998 1:49 PM
Subject: FW: Re: Basic Income


>Hi all,
>
>Another approach to an income for all:
>
>I once made the simple extrapolation that, if the decision to automate
remains
>the prerogative of individual firms, then the collective result may
eventually
>be a totally automated economy (a version of "The Tragedy of the Commons)!

Thomas:

My thought was that every time a machine/robot/innovation replaces human
labour, that labour is still factored into the product price and that
savings to the producer is not passed on to the customer in the form of
lower prices or too the shareholder in terms of increased profits, but is
put into a general pool to pay all those whose work is eliminated by the
technology.  If one of our goals is to become more efficient, even to the
point where nobody or only a very small number of people are going to work,
we have to have someway of taking revenue out of the goods and service
sector and redistributing it back into the demand side of the economy.  In
this I would say Jeff Gates and I are in agreement.  Imagine if we
benchmarked all labour costs in products now and had a set of standards to
evaluate the cost of labour in new products.  Lets imagine product x has a
40% labour component and the company through technology was able to reduce
the labour costs to 15%, the remaining 25% could be put in an Unemployment
pool to provide a Basic Income for displaced workers.  Shareholders were
making a return on investment before the innovation, and consumers were
buying the product before the innovation.  The only difference is that
reduced money paid into labour results in reduced money on the demand side
of the equation.  When this happens often enough - as it has in the last 20
years, then you get overproduction, which is another way of saying, we can
make it, but we can't sell it cause there ain't enough consumers.

>With noone having a job then who will buy the output (shades of Reuther)?
>Having read Louis O. Kelso and Mortimer J. Adler, The Capitalist Manifesto,
>and Peter F. Drucker, The Pension Fund Revolution, I wondered whether all
>people should be shareholders with government, if necessary, buying shares
on
>their behalf.

Thomas:

Without having the benefit of Jeff's thought, the question then becomes do
all the citizen who have been issued shares or have borrowed money to buy
shares then spend the rest of their life trading shares as their only
productive activity short of not trading and hoping that the shares you have
will continue to provide you with a dividend.  My guess is that over time,
those with inside knowledge will end up owning all the shares and the poor
will still be with us and the capitalists will just be so much richer.
>
>Now has appeared Jeff Gates's book, The Ownership Solution, detailing such
an
>approach. <http://www.ownershipsolution.com/>
>
>Whereas Tom Lunde's essay, Basic Income, seems to rely on government to
issue
>and control funds,

Thomas:

Yes, I still see a role for government to control the mechanisms of fund
distribution, though in my plan, it would be a fairly mechanical endeavor -
everyone gets their $15,000 less the amount agreed on to fund defense,
medicare and education and that is given over to the citizen through a vote
mechanism based on a yearly budget proposal.  A person could not lose the
right to get their Basic Income, though they could still use credit in the
marketplace and in that sense pledge it as security against immediate
gratifications.

the solution envisioned by Gates relies on the operation of
>business firms through ESOPs (Employee Stock Ownership Plans) and variants
>including other stakeholders, consumers, local communities, etc.

Thomas:  It nice to think that business would be honourable and altruistic
in respecting it's shareholders.  Current business practices do not always
show this result as CEO's and other managers award themselves high salaries,
stock options and perks.  Secondly, the capitalistic system is a predatory
system with each company working to actively eliminate the competition and
gain more market share.  Therefore someone is losing all the time, while
someone is also winning.  My guess is that in the long run, greed will win
out.

Thanks for your thoughts.

Thomas Lunde
>
>Bob
>
>--
>___
>http://www.geog.uwo.ca/mcdaniel1.html

FW: Re: Basic Income

[Bob McDaniel]

Hi all,

Another approach to an income for all:

I once made the simple extrapolation that, if the decision to automate remains
the prerogative of individual firms, then the collective result may eventually
be a totally automated economy (a version of "The Tragedy of the Commons)!
With noone having a job then who will buy the output (shades of Reuther)?
Having read Louis O. Kelso and Mortimer J. Adler, The Capitalist Manifesto,
and Peter F. Drucker, The Pension Fund Revolution, I wondered whether all
people should be shareholders with government, if necessary, buying shares on
their behalf. 

Now has appeared Jeff Gates's book, The Ownership Solution, detailing such an
approach. 

Whereas Tom Lunde's essay, Basic Income, seems to rely on government to issue
and control funds, the solution envisioned by Gates relies on the operation of
business firms through ESOPs (Employee Stock Ownership Plans) and variants
including other stakeholders, consumers, local communities, etc.

Bob


-- 
___
http://www.geog.uwo.ca/mcdaniel1.html

FW: Re: Basic Income

[Bob McDaniel]

Hi all,

Another approach to an income for all:

I once made the simple extrapolation that, if the decision to automate remains
the prerogative of individual firms, then the collective result may eventually
be a totally automated economy (a version of "The Tragedy of the Commons)!
With noone having a job then who will buy the output (shades of Reuther)?
Having read Louis O. Kelso and Mortimer J. Adler, The Capitalist Manifesto,
and Peter F. Drucker, The Pension Fund Revolution, I wondered whether all
people should be shareholders with government, if necessary, buying shares on
their behalf. 

Now has appeared Jeff Gates's book, The Ownership Solution, detailing such an
approach. 

Whereas Tom Lunde's essay, Basic Income, seems to rely on government to issue
and control funds, the solution envisioned by Gates relies on the operation of
business firms through ESOPs (Employee Stock Ownership Plans) and variants
including other stakeholders, consumers, local communities, etc.

Bob

-- 
___
http://www.geog.uwo.ca/mcdaniel1.html

Re: Re Basic Income

[Ed Weick]

Thomas Lunde:

>In summing up this lengthy rebuttal, I have had to do some soul searching
>about my concepts.  Basically, I believe people come before profit and that
>people are more important than profit.

If by this you mean that people should not be economically exploited, and
that they should be paid the full measure of their worth in productive
processes, I would fully agree.  However, there remains the problem of
determining what their full worth is.  In Economics 101, under "perfectly
competitive equilibrium", everybody is paid their full worth, and there is
no possibility of monopoly profit, since monopoly does not exist.  However,
like the much maligned economist's assumption of "rationality", perfectly
competitive equilibrium is an abstraction.  Economists know that it does not
exist, but that it is nonetheless useful in furthering economic analysis.
In the real world, there are all kinds of market distortions and
monopolistic elements which make a logically valid pegging of "full worth"
pretty nigh impossible.

So other means must be found to avoid the economic exploitation of labour.
One is collective bargaining - power against power.  Another is
arbitration - let a higher authority decide.  The latter was recently used
to determine whether women were being paid fairly in the Canadian public
service.  The matter went before the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal, which
ruled that women were not being paid fairly in comparison with men doing
equivalent work.  The result: the Government of Canada is faced with
billions of dollars in back pay and higher wage levels from women from here
on.

Ed Weick

Re: Re Basic Income

[Thomas Lunde]

Dear Rob:

A small correction on authorship.  The quote was made by the columnist
Weisman, the remarks ascribed to Mr. Krugman refered to "capital accounts".

Thomas

-Original Message-
From: Rob Robinson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: Thomas Lunde <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Cc: Future Work <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: September 5, 1998 7:55 PM
Subject: Re: Re Basic Income


>Thomas Lunde wrote the following quote from Mr. Krugman, economist
>at MIT:
>
> "subordinating the needs of finance to those of people"
>
>What a unique idea!  It's a refreshing change after the '80's mantra
>"Greed Is Good, Greed Is God" popularized by Oliver's Gecko and the
>oil companies' Reagan.  But will it catch on?
>
>rob robinson
>netperson / mark twain democratic club / whitter-la mirada, california
>
>

Re: Basic Income

[Thomas Lunde]

-Original Message-
From: Rob Robinson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: Thomas Lunde <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Cc: Future Work <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; Ed Weick
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: September 5, 1998 7:55 PM
Subject: Re: Basic Income


>Dear Thomas,
>
>Your digitalized debate with Ed Weick is classic.  It's not only
>informative (where did you two *get* all that information!?), it's
>fun and concise and lively and thought-provoking and everything a
>good debate should be.  The Lunde-Weick Exchange is right up there
>with Benny & Allen, Lincoln & Douglas, Dirksen & Johnson (before he
>went bad), and McGovern and Buckley.  After reading your last post,
>I pushed back my chair and said - what I don't say enough after an
>exchange on the Jim Lehrer (how McNeal is missed) News Hour - "now
>*that's* what television (email) should be all about!"
>
>Thank you.
>
>rob robinson
>netperson / mark twain democratic club / whittier-la mirada, california
>
Dear Rob:

Thank you for your kind words, though I must admit, praise makes me squirm.
I was reflecting on why FutureWork is such a good list the other day and of
course one of the reasons is that it has attracted a particular type of
individual.  The avowed purpose of FW is to explore the role of work in the
future and that was probably the reason most people who joined became
involved.  Now I cannot speak for others, but as I examined the concept of
work in the future, it came down to a number of subjects.

1.What have humans done in the past?

2.How does the various forms of governance affect, channel, limit,
support the activity called work?

3.Economics and economic systems have dealt with work in different ways
providing different potentials.  What role does economics play in
work?

4.What does science have to say through it's findings and it's
offshoot - technology have to say about work and where it is going?

So what those of us who are exploring the concept of FutureWork have found
is that we have to talk about the past, the present, economics and science
before we can begin to discuss work in the future.  In many cases these
discussions go around and around, trying to find some consenus from tribal,
agricultural, industrial ideas, and from societies such as hunter gather,
feudalistic, capitalistic, communistic, fascist and socialistic forms of
governance.  In economics, we grapple with what is money, credit,
investment, savings and all these ideas and terms.  And then there are world
views, Christian, Aristotelian, Platonic, Scientific, etc.

So, it seems to me, that what we have attracted is a number of people who
hold strong views backed by thought and study in one or more of these
various viewpoints.  The engagement of these viewpoints around a question,
largely unspoken about where the future of work lies provides a forum for
each of us to put forth our view and in a reasonably polite way challenge
each others ideas.  One of the things that make this work is the basic
respect we give each other in terms of accepting the honesty of the other
debater in being a true seeker.  In other words, we may not agree with their
argument, but we do agree with their right to argue.

The fact that the Internet allows us to have people engaged from Europe,
North America and any other part of the world and that some of those
individuals have had experiences and life stories that are totally foreign
to each other provides a credibility that might be lacking in a one culture
debate or a one topic debate.  Because the quality of debate is high, we
have attracted people who write well, and are well read, we even have a few
that are well educated and still learning.  Perhaps, more important, we have
attracted a few that fill Brad's recent posting on "Szczepanski, J." and his
insightful comments on "individuality" as against those would be classed
within the meaning "individualism".

There are no paychecks on the Internet, no fame in scholarly journals or
invitations to be a talking head on a TV show, so we don't get a large
number of participants who fall into the classification of individualism.
 everybody trying to be even more like everybody else by getting a bigger
piece of the existing sum of goods for themselves)  In that sense, we who
participate, do it from the spirit of play rather than advancement.

Well, I've went on and on and taken some liberties about others motives that
I probably shouldn't have, but these were my thoughts and your posting
became goad that allowed me to put them forth.

Respectfully,

Thomas Lunde

Re: Basic Income

[Durant]

> Countries like Sweden which taxed their wealthy heavily, but allowed for
> display of  wealth, propered, even though the very wealthy left for lower
> taxed regimes. 

Sweden felt the pinch in the last decades with growing
unemployment and stagnation, though ofcourse, the standard
of living is still relatively very high.

>Countries which imposed equality, like the Soviet Union, did
> not. There must be a way to reward high achievers in ways other than money,
> although material benefits don't hurt.

That equality was not really achieved, material and most 
significantly,  privilege - differences were far from extinct.
Also "imposed" things never work well, or very long.

> The advantage of monetary rewards,
> of course, is that the recipient can express the reward in any way s/he
> wants, whereas other rewards depend on the taste or interest of the
> bestower. We need some creativity here, as well as a new god. (some might
> say the old one was perfectly good before He/Her/It was usurped by the
> false Marketplace god)

Given just the physical (enough food/health, tools, materials) and social 
(education/freedom/platform), creativity surges without special 
material awards. People enjoy being creative. People do things they 
enjoy doing, without special awards (I hope you can think of 
examples...).   
Special awards are used in a world where only special awards allow 
enjoyment...

Eva

> 
> David Burman
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: Re Basic Income

[Rob Robinson]

Thomas Lunde wrote the following quote from Mr. Krugman, economist
at MIT: 

"subordinating the needs of finance to those of people"

What a unique idea!  It's a refreshing change after the '80's mantra 
"Greed Is Good, Greed Is God" popularized by Oliver's Gecko and the 
oil companies' Reagan.  But will it catch on?

rob robinson
netperson / mark twain democratic club / whitter-la mirada, california

Re: Basic Income

[Rob Robinson]

Dear Thomas,

Your digitalized debate with Ed Weick is classic.  It's not only 
informative (where did you two *get* all that information!?), it's
fun and concise and lively and thought-provoking and everything a 
good debate should be.  The Lunde-Weick Exchange is right up there 
with Benny & Allen, Lincoln & Douglas, Dirksen & Johnson (before he 
went bad), and McGovern and Buckley.  After reading your last post, 
I pushed back my chair and said - what I don't say enough after an 
exchange on the Jim Lehrer (how McNeal is missed) News Hour - "now 
*that's* what television (email) should be all about!"

Thank you.  

rob robinson
netperson / mark twain democratic club / whittier-la mirada, california

Re Basic Income

[Thomas Lunde]

Dear Ed;

Just a small continuation of my last post in which I argued that:

In summing up this lengthy rebuttal, I have had to do some soul searching
about my concepts.  Basically, I believe people come before profit and that
people are more important than profit.  We could still have Capital, in
terms of savings, accumulated surplus, which are to be use to make life more
comfortable and more productive, but when we introduce the concept of the
rent of capital for profit, then, in my opinion we start putting profit
ahead of people and that does not fit my philosophy.  Money is a tool we
invented to make life easier and more productive.  Profit on speculation is
money misused in my opinion.

Quote from:  Robert Weissman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: Multiple recipients of list STOP-IMF <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Ending the Reign of Wall Street


Nonetheless, it is clear that reclaiming citizen sovereignty from Wall
Street and its equivalents in Tokyo, Frankfurt, London and elsewhere will
require subordinating the needs of finance to those of people, and
imposing controls on the flow of money to protect national economies.

Thomas:

It would seem that the impending meltdown of the world economy - which may
or may not come to pass - is beginning to question the idea of unfettered
capitalism and currency speculation.  A couple of days ago, Krugman an
economist as MIT, stepped outside the box to commit heresy by suggesting
that "capital controls" may be the only way to prevent speculators of
speculative capitalism from totally ruining the world.  But basically, it is
the statement "subordinating the needs of finance to those of people," that
indicate to me that there might be some hope for us yet.

Respectfully,

Thomas Lunde

Re: Basic Income

[Durant]

I think similar high-tax regimes were tried in
some  European countries, it made business
stagnate/uncompetitive due to lower profitability.
An old defunct solution based on capitalism.

Eva

> 
> If the objective is to transfer income from the haves to the have nots, I
> don't understand why it can't be done through the tax system.  Any parent
> without an income could be given a basic credit, hence a "refund", of
> $15,000, plus a diminishing amount for each kid (on grounds that each
> successive kid is less expensive).  This credit would be reduced steeply as
> income (it would probably have to be family income) rose and would then
> become negative, though remaining progressive, at a certain income level.
> All other aspects of the tax system would continue as they now are.
> 
> The main point is that what would be paid out of this extra tax to the poor
> would be recovered from the rich.  For example, if the expenditure bill was
> $10 billion, that much would have to be recovered from incomes above the
> cut-off level.
> 
> Selecting certain types of government expenditures for payment by "premiums"
> has me baffled as well.  What is the difference between a "premium" and a
> tax?  Besides the things you picked, there are other important public
> concerns - e.g. the environment, research and development, justice, internal
> security.  And you should never think that Aboriginal people would give up
> their constitutionally entrenched programming for something that they would
> see as just another form of welfare.
> 
> Ed Weick
> 
> 
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: basic Income

[Thomas Lunde]

Dear Ed:

Thanks for reading my proposal and commenting.

Ed said:
>
>If the objective is to transfer income from the haves to the have nots, I
>don't understand why it can't be done through the tax system.  Any parent
>without an income could be given a basic credit, hence a "refund", of
>$15,000, plus a diminishing amount for each kid (on grounds that each
>successive kid is less expensive).  This credit would be reduced steeply as
>income (it would probably have to be family income) rose and would then
>become negative, though remaining progressive, at a certain income level.
>All other aspects of the tax system would continue as they now are.

Thomas:

First of all, I consider that tax system very flawed.  Secondly, it
stigmatizes the recipient to be singled out as one needing the support of
other members of society.  Third, it requires a considerable amount of
record keeping, policing and it has to have it's appeal procedures and
punishments for transgression.  I want to use the concept of Universality -
everyone gets it, simply, easily, without any judgment or evaluations based
on age, need, citizenship or immigrant status, etc.  Any other type of
system seems to me to be one in which over time the benefits get eroded and
the needy get screwed.  Much like what happened to perfectly good UI system,
which in now a very bad EI situation.
>
>The main point is that what would be paid out of this extra tax to the poor
>would be recovered from the rich.  For example, if the expenditure bill was
>$10 billion, that much would have to be recovered from incomes above the
>cut-off level.

Thomas:

I would change the word "recovered" to the word "recycled" from the rich.
The rich will continue to benefit from this as there will be more money on
the demand side of the equation creating more opportunities for those with
capital to provide goods and services.
>
>Selecting certain types of government expenditures for payment by
"premiums"
>has me baffled as well.  What is the difference between a "premium" and a
>tax?  Besides the things you picked, there are other important public
>concerns - e.g. the environment, research and development, justice,
internal
>security.  And you should never think that Aboriginal people would give up
>their constitutionally entrenched programming for something that they would
>see as just another form of welfare.

Thomas:

In our current system of representative democracy which is really a party
democracy in which a few members of the Cabinet act for the party, we the
citizens have no say in specifics like defense, education or Medicare.  The
creation of three super agencies that have to present ( I know this wasn't
clearly stated in the proposal) yearly budgets to the population or perhaps
three budgets per dept and the citizens in a vote ok or reject the proposals
gives control back to the citizen.  So, if we want the best Medicare system
in the world, we can ask the super agency to provide us with a cost estimate
for that system and we can vote directly for or against that cost.  I would
also expect an active group of interested citizen watchdog groups to be
monitoring and presenting alternatives or questions costs or procedures when
these budgets are produced.

When I pay a premium, I am making a direct payment for a direct service.
When I pay a tax, I am paying into a general fund and someone else is
deciding how that fund is used.  In my opinion, governments continually
misuse these general funds.  I think citizens should have more direct
control and ability to demand accountability.

You will note that I still left the government 50 million dollars or general
fund taxes to do all the other activities, hire game wardens, control the
food and drug inspectors, decide whether to support rape centers, build
embassies in foreign lands, etc.  I want a nation that allows the citizen to
control how the citizens resources are used in three main areas.  Protection
of the nation and of individuals = Army, Navy, Air Force, Secret Service,
Coast Guard and perhaps even RCMP.  Two, in protection against illness and
accident through medical assistance = Medicare and finally through education
as each individual desires to the level they desire.

Frankly, I think the aboriginal people will find this acceptable, however,
let us let them speak for themselves.  I take away none of their rights
regarding land or status, I suggest the change from Treaty payments to the
Basic Income will be preferable to the evaluation of the current Indian
Affairs Dept.  If there are cases were a top up is needed, then I leave it
to the government with it's 50 Billion to make the necessary adjustment.

Respectfully,

Thomas Lunde
>
>Ed Weick
>

Re: Basic Income

[Thomas Lunde]

Dear Ed:

As I read your essay, my face blushed and my stomach churned, sure signs of
the flight or fight sydrome.  I flew.  I had to get some distance from the
logic of your words, for this is truly an impressive essay.  It was only
after several hours, that I was able to compose myself and realize that this
would have got you an "A" in Economics 101.  That's in the box.

Ed said:

Investment is simply the process of building capital.  Capital is built, or
formed, to make us more
productive.

Thomas:

What lovely economic terms.  Investment is made to increase capital.  That
increase is sometimes caused by Marx's
formula of Capital plus labour plus raw materials = commodities which become
Capital again.  I have no problem with that understanding of Capital.
However, investment has come to have a second meaning in which interest is
paid on Capital which is used to speculate on value - not commodities.
According to Joel Smith in The Death of Money, the ratio is now 50 to 1 in
favour of Capital that is used for speculative gains rather than commodity
production.  In this sense, we are using one word to cover two meanings.  It
is one thing to issue a stock offering to raise a million dollars to
increase real production.   It is another thing to invest a million dollars
in a stock with the idea of selling the stock to the next shmuck when the
price of the stock rises.  Nothing productive is accomplished, it is a
speculative investment.

As to Capital, it was originally called savings or perhaps in the case of
turning a stone into an arrowhead, added value through the application of
work and knowledge to use modern terms.  It becomes Capital as Heilbroner so
eloquently argues when it is used as a tool to increase Capital and a
capitalist is one who uses a saving for no other purpose than to gain
profit.  To a capitalist, the use of his capital in whore house is just a
valid as in a food production facility as long as he gets a return on his
capital.  Therefore, as a general rule, a capitalist is one who has no
social responsibility except to engage in activities that make him a profit.
Even if that profit has external negative side effects.

Ed said:

This means that we have to continue to build capital and make it more
productive just to support ourselves.

Thomas:

This is where the difficulty begins and ends.  If Capital was only used to
increase goods and services that are required because there are more and
more of us to support - fine and good.  In reality, Capital is used to make
a profit without the intermediary step of having labour and raw materials to
make a commodity.  Consquently, in reality, we have these immense pools of
capital - really immense - having little or nothing to do with enhancing the
human races ability to support itself, rather existing in some kind of weird
monopoly game in which a small number of individuals, (I recently read, 1%
of the population in the US control the equilvalent Capital that is
represented by 40% of the poorest people.) who have no desire to ever make a
product but want to make a profit and thereby increase their Capital.

Ed said:

In your trip across the country, you drove your car (consumers' capital)
powered by gasoline manufactured and distributed using the producers'
capital of an oil company.  You stayed in people's houses (their capital,
and partly the mortgage company's).  You say your kids swam in lakes
(natural capital?  public capital?).

Thomas:

Yep, we can label everything Capital and it has a logic.  The Aztecs see
their world in terms of the Sun's blessing and it had it's logic.  The Bible
thumper can prove anything because the Bible says, it has it's logic.  But
these in a sense are all religous terms used in the current paradigm =
pattern of our culture.  They are not universal truths, they are just
representations people in cultures use to describe reality.  And some of
them work some of the time but none of them work all of the time - or at
least we haven't as a race yet discoverd one that is universal.  Would you h
onestly believe that our current capitalistic model of a market economy is
the going to be here for another thousand years?  I give it 10.

Ed said:

Capital is not the only answer, but, since time immemorial, it has been the
means by which people have been able to raise their productivity and build
surpluses which have allowed them more options.

Thomas:

Since time immemorial, people have saved some of their surplus, not to make
profit on it but to carry them through till the next time of harvest or
successful hunt.  Capital is a surplus which is used to make more capital -
that is not how savings are used, they are used as a hedge against
shortages.  Barter trade, if the guy made an extra arrowhead was an exchange
of equal values between the parties bartering.  One does not barter to make
a profit but to exchange.  As barter is, in the historical sense not selling
in the modern sense, which is the exchange of goods and servic

FW: Re: Basic Income (pg. 9)

[pete]

: "Thomas Lunde" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

>The Numbers


>In round numbers, Canada’s population is 30 million and if every citizen
>received the Basic Income, the total cost would be $450 billion.  Canada’s
>current budget is $150 billion leaving a shortfall of $300 billion.  Seems
>pretty impossible, doesn’t it?
>
>Just for example, let’s say that it takes $50 billion of our current budget
>of $150 billion to run the country’s infrastructure and we add this to the
>cost of a Basic Income.  This would raise our Budget requirements to $500
>billion.  (The other 100 billion is money paid out to EI, pensions, Indian
>Affairs payments, the Armed Forces, Medicare and all other programs that can
>be discontinued because the Basic Income will replace them.  Plus the single
>biggest expense in the budget which is our National Debt.)

[...]

>As the government withholds $4500 of everyone’s Basic Income and applies it
>to the three Universal Programs plus the debt, this transfer will bring the
>government another $135 billion leaving a shortfall of $150 billion.  (30
>million Basic Income recipients times $4500 equals $135 billion)


You've done a bit of legerdemain here: the government is currently spending
money on the _interest_ on the national debt, not on repaying the debt
itself. These are two quite distinct entities. Thus you can't count
your proposed payment out of  BI towards ND repayment as a reduction
of current budget allotment toward ND interest payment. You must account
for the debt repayment and the interest costs as two separate items.
The total cost will be about $65B in interest (around 40% of the total
budget) plus $60B in principal, in the first year, with the first figure
declining in subsequent years as the total debt declines.



>A. Benefits
>
>1.  The core of this idea is the transfer of wealth from individuals to
>families.  It is not correct to say, just poor families, as some of my
>examples have pointed out.  It is to put adequate resources available to all
>families, no matter what their composition but especially to larger
>families.  One criticism that might be directed at this approach is that it
>would encourage large families.  I don’t know whether this is true or not.

I would suggest two amendments to the structure of BI for minors: first,
the payment should start at around $5K at birth, and ramp to the full
$15K at age 18. Second, the initial rate, and the ramp curve, should
be diminished for children beyond the second in a family (not sure how
to work it for our current predominant system of serial monogamy -
perhaps count only the child number wrt the mother), thus providing
a fundamental policy disincentive for large family size, while not
penalizing the offspring in adulthood.

Re: Basic Income

[Ed Weick]

Thomas,

If the objective is to transfer income from the haves to the have nots, I
don't understand why it can't be done through the tax system.  Any parent
without an income could be given a basic credit, hence a "refund", of
$15,000, plus a diminishing amount for each kid (on grounds that each
successive kid is less expensive).  This credit would be reduced steeply as
income (it would probably have to be family income) rose and would then
become negative, though remaining progressive, at a certain income level.
All other aspects of the tax system would continue as they now are.

The main point is that what would be paid out of this extra tax to the poor
would be recovered from the rich.  For example, if the expenditure bill was
$10 billion, that much would have to be recovered from incomes above the
cut-off level.

Selecting certain types of government expenditures for payment by "premiums"
has me baffled as well.  What is the difference between a "premium" and a
tax?  Besides the things you picked, there are other important public
concerns - e.g. the environment, research and development, justice, internal
security.  And you should never think that Aboriginal people would give up
their constitutionally entrenched programming for something that they would
see as just another form of welfare.

Ed Weick

Re: Basic Income

[Ed Weick]

Thomas,

I've never thought of myself as being in a box, nor have I ever thought of
Keith Hudson as being in one.  And I'm very glad that you had a great trip
across Canada with your children.  It sounds as though it was a lot of fun.

Keith will want to speak for himself, but I will try to clarify the point I
was trying to make with respect to investment.  Investment is simply the
process of building capital.  Capital is built, or formed, to make us more
productive.  All people, since the beginning of time have built and used
capital.  Hunters and gatherers flaked stones into arrowheads or spearpoints
and built dead-fall traps.  Even the earliest farmers used some form of hoe,
and as agriculture advanced used oxen and earth-breaking plows.  In
industrial society, the water wheel and the coal-fired steam engine are
early examples of capital.  In our modern society, we have a vast array of
capital at our disposal.  As Jay Hanson points out, our reliance on capital
may well outrun the energy resources needed to sustain it.

Building capital is a kind of chicken and egg thing.  To build it, time has
to be taken from other pursuits.  The hunter-gatherer had to take time to
make that spear or arrowhead, or to invent that deadfall trap.  He could
only do that if he was sure of getting at least as much back from his
artifacts as he put into them.  If he got more, he could make better
arrowheads or traps.  His main payoff, probably, was time.  The more time he
got back, the more time he could spend on making things easier for himself.
Another concern might have been trade.  Perhaps he could barter some of his
arrowheads for something made by the tribe down the road - something which
made his life at least as easy as keeping the arrowheads would have.

When our hunter-gatherer lived, the world may have contained no more than a
few million people, spread out over the face of the globe.  The capital
available at that time was able to support about that number of people in
reasonable comfort.  Now the world contains six billion people.  We can no
longer sit around flaking arrowheads.  That would not support us.  The
capital we require now is enormous, and enormously complex, in comparison
with any previous age.  And we are always adding new people, far more each
year than the whole of the early hunter-gatherer population.  This means
that we have to continue to build capital and make it more productive just
to support ourselves.

And an important point is that our capital is very unevenly distributed
across the face of the Earth.  In Canada, we have lots of it, so life is
easy for us.  In your trip across the country, you drove your car
(consumers' capital) powered by gasoline manufactured and distributed using
the producers' capital of an oil company.  You stayed in people's houses
(their capital, and partly the mortgage company's).  You say your kids swam
in lakes (natural capital?  public capital?).  Anyhow, you had a great time,
which is good.  But in many parts of the world people can't do these things.
The capital simply isn't there in sufficient quantity, or simply isn't there
at all.  The people in those parts of the world would want their kids to
sing and dance with joy like your kids do.  But the reality is quite
different.  When I was in India several years ago, I saw kids that had been
deliberately maimed in order to make them convincing beggars.  In Russia I
saw pale young children who should have been in school playing accordions
and violins for a few kopecks.

Capital is not the only answer, but, since time immemorial, it has been the
means by which people have been able to raise their productivity and build
surpluses which have allowed them more options.  What happens to those
surpluses is another matter.  In a highly monopolistic society, they may
accrue to a relatively few greedy people.  In an egalitarian society like
Canada, a substantial part of the surplus is distributed via the tax system
and by other means.  If the surplus did not exist, there would be no point
to arguing that we should have a basic income.  Quite apart from these
surpluses, the various forms of producers' capital need people to run them.
This creates jobs.  The more capital, the more jobs.  As a Canadian, used to
high wages, I don't like the thought of Mexicans or Bangladeshis working for
GM or Nike for very low wages, but then I have not asked them for their
opinion.  The fact that they vote with their feet suggests that they want
the jobs.

Capital has recently received a lot of negative publicity because, in the
form of the microchip, it has displaced a lot of labour.  But it has done
this throughout human history because this, essentially, is its function.
Those people are then free to take other jobs.  If they cannot find them,
that is the fault of the society, not of capital.

Hope this clarifies my views.

Ed Weick

Re: Basic Income

[Ed Weick]

Thomas,

I've never thought of myself as being in a box, nor have I ever thought of
Keith Hudson as being in one.  And I'm very glad that you had a great trip
across Canada with your children.  It sounds as though it was a lot of fun.

Keith will want to speak for himself, but I will try to clarify the point I
was trying to make with respect to investment.  Investment is simply the
process of building capital.  Capital is built, or formed, to make us more
productive.  All people, since the beginning of time have built and used
capital.  Hunters and gatherers flaked stones into arrowheads or spearpoints
and built dead-fall traps.  Even the earliest farmers used some form of hoe,
and as agriculture advanced used oxen and earth-breaking plows.  In
industrial society, the water wheel and the coal-fired steam engine are
early examples of capital.  In our modern society, we have a vast array of
capital at our disposal.  As Jay Hanson points out, our reliance on capital
may well outrun the energy resources needed to sustain it.

Building capital is a kind of chicken and egg thing.  To build it, time has
to be taken from other pursuits.  The hunter-gatherer had to take time to
make that spear or arrowhead, or to invent that deadfall trap.  He could
only do that if he was sure of getting at least as much back from his
artifacts as he put into them.  If he got more, he could make better
arrowheads or traps.  His main payoff, probably, was time.  The more time he
got back, the more time he could spend on making things easier for himself.
Another concern might have been trade.  Perhaps he could barter some of his
arrowheads for something made by the tribe down the road - something which
made his life at least as easy as keeping the arrowheads would have.

When our hunter-gatherer lived, the world may have contained no more than a
few million people, spread out over the face of the globe.  The capital
available at that time was able to support about that number of people in
reasonable comfort.  Now the world contains six billion people.  We can no
longer sit around flaking arrowheads.  That would not support us.  The
capital we require now is enormous, and enormously complex, in comparison
with any previous age.  And we are always adding new people, far more each
year than the whole of the early hunter-gatherer population.  This means
that we have to continue to build capital and make it more productive just
to support ourselves.

And an important point is that our capital is very unevenly distributed
across the face of the Earth.  In Canada, we have lots of it, so life is
easy for us.  In your trip across the country, you drove your car
(consumers' capital) powered by gasoline manufactured and distributed using
the producers' capital of an oil company.  You stayed in people's houses
(their capital, and partly the mortgage company's).  You say your kids swam
in lakes (natural capital?  public capital?).  Anyhow, you had a great time,
which is good.  But in many parts of the world people can't do these things.
The capital simply isn't there in sufficient quantity, or simply isn't there
at all.  The people in those parts of the world would want their kids to
sing and dance with joy like your kids do.  But the reality is quite
different.  When I was in India several years ago, I saw kids that had been
deliberately maimed in order to make them convincing beggars.  In Russia I
saw pale young children who should have been in school playing accordions
and violins for a few kopecks.

Capital is not the only answer, but, since time immemorial, it has been the
means by which people have been able to raise their productivity and build
surpluses which have allowed them more options.  What happens to those
surpluses is another matter.  In a highly monopolistic society, they may
accrue to a relatively few greedy people.  In an egalitarian society like
Canada, a substantial part of the surplus is distributed via the tax system
and by other means.  If the surplus did not exist, there would be no point
to arguing that we should have a basic income.  Quite apart from these
surpluses, the various forms of producers' capital need people to run them.
This creates jobs.  The more capital, the more jobs.  As a Canadian, used to
high wages, I don't like the thought of Mexicans or Bangladeshis working for
GM or Nike for very low wages, but then I have not asked them for their
opinion.  The fact that they vote with their feet suggests that they want
the jobs.

Capital has recently received a lot of negative publicity because, in the
form of the microchip, it has displaced a lot of labour.  But it has done
this throughout human history because this, essentially, is its function.
Those people are then free to take other jobs.  If they cannot find them,
that is the fault of the society, not of capital.

Hope this clarifies my views.

Ed Weick

Re: Basic Income(3)

[Steve Kurtz]

Greetings Thomas & all,

This is my last post regarding Thomas Lunde's B.I. Note that my prior
comments were off list( S 2), as were T L's immediately prior to mine from
which quotes T 2 come.
Thomas acknlowledged that scarcities might exist outside Canada. Given
globalization of markets, and increasing mass migrations, the limitation to
a nation-state is a questionable strategy IMO.
 

> Thomas 3
> 
> Steve, I agree except for the comments about experts.  I don't trust their
> opinions or their stats. 

You can make decisions based upon your spacio-temporal first hand
observations and individual analysis. I believe it is hubris to discount
opinions by those peer reviewed as world class experts. 

T 3:
>  ...It is the economic system not the limitations of resources that
> often create these shortage statistics.  

There are myriad reasons (apparent primary causes) in different situations.
Selecting prime causation is speculative and arguable. The opinions I refer
to are about probable duration of supplies of finite resources. Exact times
and specific local situations are not involved. And "often" means what?

T 3:
> I do not dispute that shortages are coming or that we have too many people,
> but reality is often very different than a statistic or an experts opinion.

"often"?? Would you quantify that on a % basis? Why should you be the
expert?

> >T 2:
> > basic income goes for basic food and shelter
> >requirements and with some careful budgeting, perhaps the fulfillment of
> >some goal, like a new camera, etc.
> >
> >S 2:
> >Or alcohol, drugs.. Can't tell what people will choose to do with money.
> 
> Thomas:
> 
> You know, I don't know what's so bad about drugs, some of my best friends
> use them and I've had some mighty fine experiences in altered realities.

Ask medical experts about the health costs *to society as a whole* of
alcohol and drug use. 

> The real problem with drugs is that society has criminalized them which has
> created lots of criminals. 

I agree that criminalization is a poor approach. But who should pay the
costs of the resulting health consequences of usage? Part of my
"resposibilities to society as work behavior" include best efforts at
personal health so as to minimize cost of ones personal health care to
*others*. The polluting/damaging of air, water, soil, forests & ones own
body all cost society. 

>  And I can assure
> you from first hand experience that drugs are used continously in the homes
> of workers and professionals.  The real crime is the politicians won't talk
> about it and use the taxpayers money to make the situation worse.

Agree. Think about heavy taxation on legalized drugs (like tobacco &
alcohol now) to pay for health care. And carbon(pollution) taxes too! 

> >T 2:
> >Given that most of these things fall within the possibility of sustainable
> >resources (with proper management),  I do/did not consider resource use a
> >limiting criteria to the concept of a Basic Income.

You have offered nothing but personal opinion that "most of these things
..."

> >
> >S 2:
> >Please research this claim a bit if you want to use it in your arguments.
> >My reading has shown 100:1 on side of overshoot of carrying capacity &
> >already exceeding limits.

T 3:
> You are absolutely right Steve and if there is one glaring weakness in my
> arguments it stems from the fact that I am Canadian...
> I think if more people had a Basic Income, there might be
> more countries like mine and more people like me.

You haven't addressed the extra-Canadian universe with the glaring
shortages and quagmires. Ed Weick has also responded that more $ chasing
the same supply of basic goods only drives up prices. Sorry, but you are
making a leap of faith. 

> >T 2:
> >The question then becomes to we develop birth control from a population
> >that is unstressed by poverty and lack or do we develop birth control from
> >a society in which an
> >individual can feel a strong sense of security?
> >
> >S 2:
> >The latter is highly unlikely, since even with basic cash income, not
> >enough food/water/fuel etc to deliver currently. Again, I believe what
> >scientists report, & also see violent conflicts over habitat, illegal
> >migrations to greener pastures, backlash from those already there... My
> >idea is free birth control aid & *voluntary* family planning programs, and
> >for those societies who agree to implement these programs, economic aid in
> >the form of food, medicine, technical training, & education. I can't see
> >knowingly increasing fertility (food/medical) without some strings for
> >family planning.

> Thomas 3
> 
> Steve, I disagree with the punishment model. 

It is an affirmative action model, no punishment intended. There are
limited amounts of food, medical, technological, educational aid to offer.
I say offer it to those who recognize the problematique and who are
attempting to work on solutions. There must be a triage ethic if all cannot
be helped. Otherwise the aid effort

Re: Basic Income

[Durant]

> 
> Well said. The * is mine and leads me to say that there is another
> component needed here also. You also need individuals able to respond to
> changing skill demands. For this you need good education, for this you need
> good early socialisation and for this we need a major redistribution of
> educational resources away from the university end and towards the
> playschools/ kindergarten end. I don't know about Canada, but in this
> country and in America, this is just beginning to happen (privately and
> governmentally) but it will probably take at least two or three generations
> for this to become well and truly implanted in the social culture.
>

In the continent universal pre-school education is well established 
for long decades - important and good as it is for the individuals 
and society - it doesn't seem to create more jobs...
Also - why take resources from the university end?
It is as under-funded as all education. 

Eva 
> Keith
> 
> P.S. I hope FWers will forgive me when I sometimes accidentally use my
> commercial signature. I'm not trying to advertise on the fly.  
> 
> 
> 
> ___
> 
> Keith Hudson,6 Upper Camden Place, Bath BA1 5HX, England
> Tel:01225 312622/444881; Fax:01225 447727; E-mail:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> 
> 
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: Basic Income(2)

[Thomas Lunde]

-Original Message-
From: Steve Kurtz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: Thomas Lunde <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: September 3, 1998 10:43 AM
Subject: Re: Basic Income(2)


>Dear Thomas,
>
>I'm pleased to continue - a bit. Just to clarify where our judgements
>diverge.
>
>T 2:
> using the present moment as the
>point of reference, at this moment we are not experiencing any energy,
>agricultural or resource limitation.

Thomas 3:

I probaly should have been more location specific - in Canada.
>
>S 2:
>See the references I posted in response to Eva today. I go with scientific
>consensus that we are way beyond limitations. This is managed somewhat by
>stealing from the future; but food production cannot be geared up as you (&
>Hyman) believe - in the opinion of experts.

Thomas 3

Steve, I agree except for the comments about experts.  I don't trust their
opinions or their stats.  I drove through Northern Ontario this summer and
everywhere I saw farmland going back to trees and abandoned farms.  They
existed for a hundred years and provided a livilihood for families and
communities.  Why are they being farmed today?  Because super farming has
made them uncompetitive.  Are they capable of growing food and livestock -
of course.  It is the economic system not the limitations of resources that
often create these shortage statistics.  I was in a town in Northern Ontario
that produced iron ore for 75 years, is there still iron ore there, yep,
it's just not econically profitable because of a few cents difference in
price on transportation costs.  Oh yes, they scrapped a town, government
buildings and supporting agriculture that existed because the railroad ran
through there.  In Princeton BC, they have a mountain of low grade copper
that has started and stopped 4 or 5 times over the last hundred years
causing great financial hardship because of fluctuating copper prices.  Now
I do not dispute that shortages are coming or that we have too many people,
but reality is often very different than a statistic or an experts opinion.
>
>T 2:
> basic income goes for basic food and shelter
>requirements and with some careful budgeting, perhaps the fulfillment of
>some goal, like a new camera, etc.
>
>S 2:
>Or alcohol, drugs.. Can't tell what people will choose to do with money.

Thomas:

You know, I don't know what's so bad about drugs, some of my best friends
use them and I've had some mighty fine experiences in altered realities.
The real problem with drugs is that society has criminalized them which has
created lots of criminals.  Now, it is not only the poor who use alcohol or
drugs.  When I go down to my local liqour store, it is the middle class I
see walking out with a case of beer and a couple of 26's.  And I can assure
you from first hand experience that drugs are used continously in the homes
of workers and professionals.  The real crime is the politicians won't talk
about it and use the taxpayers money to make the situation worse.
>
>T 2:
>Given that most of these things fall within the possibility of sustainable
>resources (with proper management),  I do/did not consider resource use a
>limiting criteria to the concept of a Basic Income.
>
>S 2:
>Please research this claim a bit if you want to use it in your arguments.
>My reading has shown 100:1 on side of overshoot of carrying capacity &
>already exceeding limits.

Thomas:

Research is one of my weak spots.  I often just use my eyes and then the
thinking part of my brain to ask questions.  Research is a morass where
studies are done but you never know the criteria.  Facts are selective and
conclusions suit the authors bais.  I do that too, except I try to have as
much first hand experience as possible and as little dependence on experts
as possible.  I hang out some with the poor, it's surprising how smart some
of them are.
>
>T 2:
> Do I believe that
>there are resources to provide food, shelter and basic civilized comforts
>like a TV or bicycle for the poor - I guess I do.  I believe that those
>kinds of goods can still be produced in great quantities without making a
>major dent on our energy, resource base or agricultural potential.
>
>S 2:
>I lived in NYC for 27 yrs. Now, after 7 yrs in rural New Hampshire with
>fresh air, plenty of spring water, fairly healthy forests, some arable
>land, I could forget about the 5 +billions who don't have this environment.
>NH has 1 million in the whole state!
>Canada has the least density/natural resources of any country on earth. It
>is easy to develop solutions based upon local parameters that don't fit
>globally.

Thomas:

You are absolutely right Steve and if there is one glaring weakness in my
arguments it stems from the fact that I am Canadian, the second largest
country in the world, voted a num

Re: FW: Re: Basic income

[pete]

 "Dennis Paull" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> sent me this note, and after seeing
the other note which Ed had reposted to the list, I went back and read it
again, and noting the salutation, I believe this was also intended to
go to the list, so I'm forwarding it...


Hi all,


> "Thomas Lunde" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>
>>Thomas:  Population is a problem, but I believe that when people are able to
>>fulfill some of their goals and needs is will become less of a problem.  In
>>those western countries that experience affluence, the tendency is for the
>>birth rate to drop.  I think a Basic Income, over time will act as a form of
>>birth control.
>
>
>Perhaps, but this is a different situation than that which drives low
>birth rates in affluent countries. I wonder what the birth rate is
>among the moderately independently wealthy, that is, those whose
>fortunes allow them to live just comfortably without ever having to
>work. That is a more relevant comparison for people who will have
>a modest but secure income and freedom from financial worries.
>
>It is possible that such security will lead to increased birth rate.
>
>  -Pete Vincent
>

It is also possible that what drive a high birthrate is a "greedy" need
to provide for ones eventual old age. Families tend to serve that purpose.

If this "social security" is provided in other ways, then big families will
be seen as the drag on ones freedom to engage in activities other than
work and child raising.

Of course, not everyone will choose to have small families, but what's wrong
with that?

The "moderately independently wealthy" often like to travel, spend nights on 
the town and engage in other less family friendly activities. My guess is 
that most will choose to minimize their family responsibilities.

Dennis Paull
Los Altos, California

Re: Basic Income

[Thomas Lunde]

Ed said:

>This is an idea that goes way back to Major Douglas and the original social
>credit.  I don't think it can happen that way.  The reason that the poor
>have no money is that they are not on anyone's payroll.  To get on a
payroll
>people have to produce something of marketable value.  To enable them to do
>that, you need investment.* Once you have investment and payrolls, savings
>are possible and so is additional investment.  Simply giving people money
to
>chase nonexistent goods in the hope that those goods will become existent
is
>extremely risky and potentially highly inflationary.
>
>
>Well said. The * is mine and leads me to say that there is another
>component needed here also. You also need individuals able to respond to
>changing skill demands. For this you need good education, for this you need
>good early socialisation and for this we need a major redistribution of
>educational resources away from the university end and towards the
>playschools/ kindergarten end. I don't know about Canada, but in this
>country and in America, this is just beginning to happen (privately and
>governmentally) but it will probably take at least two or three generations
>for this to become well and truly implanted in the social culture.
>
>Keith

Thomas:

Well, you and Ed are trying very hard to get me back in the box and I'm
trying to present some options that are outside the conventional wisdom.
I've discussed my views on investment - Ronald Regans supply side economics,
if you build it they will come - I don't buy it.  I discussed in my essay
the concept that we are sacrificing our young through a lengthy
indoctrination process through education that tries to prepare them to live
in the box.  I resist that, though of course education has many pleasures,
one of which is applying knowledge.  I think we ought to be training
children to be lovers of life, to dance and sing and socialize and interact
with nature and animals.  I think we should be teaching them how to smile
and giggle.  I took my two girls across Canada this summer, every time they
wanted a treat, we stopped, every time there was a lake that looked
inviting, we stopped, every tourist attraction that was free or reasonable,
we stopped.  Everyday we read some books, talked about life, about dating,
about work.  We visited relatives and friends and made new friends along the
road.  We had a dog and a cat along, we enjoyed our animals, on the farm, we
rode horses.  Frankly, if I had the money I would never get off the road and
it wouldn't take much, I don't travel first class.

What did my girls learn?  We'll they learned about the size of our country,
they learned about heat and mosquitoes, they saw how other families lived,
they watched their father relaxed with his friends, they saw how other kids
their age lived and how those families operated, how the household rules of
different houses operated.  They got to see the difference between other
dads and their dad and I got to hear almost daily, "You're the best dad in
the world dad."  As for me, I got to demostrate to them through stories of
where I worked, what I did, my life and the life of my family.  I stopped at
historical signs and we read them together and I told them stories about my
countries history.  I tried my best to counter in the box thinking of school
systems with life.  I taught them that they could stay by themselves while I
went somewhere for an hour, that they could talk to strangers and that yes
life can be dangerous but that they could cope.

So you see, I don't think you and Ed can get me back in the box - I don't
belong there, never did, never want too.  However, each to their own.

Respectfully,

Thomas Lunde
>
>P.S. I hope FWers will forgive me when I sometimes accidentally use my
>commercial signature. I'm not trying to advertise on the fly.
>
>
>
>___
>
>Keith Hudson,6 Upper Camden Place, Bath BA1 5HX, England
>Tel:01225 312622/444881; Fax:01225 447727; E-mail:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>

Re: Re: Basic income

[Thomas Lunde]

-Original Message-
From: pete <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: September 2, 1998 8:46 PM
Subject: FW: Re: Basic income


> "Thomas Lunde" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>
>>Thomas:  Population is a problem, but I believe that when people are able
to
>>fulfill some of their goals and needs is will become less of a problem.
In
>>those western countries that experience affluence, the tendency is for the
>>birth rate to drop.  I think a Basic Income, over time will act as a form
of
>>birth control.
>
>
>Perhaps, but this is a different situation than that which drives low
>birth rates in affluent countries. I wonder what the birth rate is
>among the moderately independently wealthy, that is, those whose
>fortunes allow them to live just comfortably without ever having to
>work. That is a more relevant comparison for people who will have
>a modest but secure income and freedom from financial worries.
>
>It is possible that such security will lead to increased birth rate.
>
>  -Pete Vincent

Thomas:

Of course we don't know and I only threw out my tiny bit of intelligence
which has been garnered from reading.  And as other writers have pointed out
there is the whole cultural/religious viewpoints that would also have to
change.  I guess that this is a question about the Basic Income that I don't
have a definitive answer on.  What I would say though is that we are at 6
billion and growing by 80 million a year, (which is 2 1/2 Canada's every
year) and something is going to give.  That is going to create a need at a
most graphic level for some change, euthanasia, limit children per couple,
write off a few billion by natural disaster, drop a few A Bombs in the
Middle east, make abortion mandatory, who knows.  At some point our
governments and religious leaders are going to have to come out of denial on
this problem and make some decisions.  In the meantime, could we please
start exploring some other ways than our present mess in redistributing
income?

Respectfully,

Thomas Lunde

Re: Basic Income

[David Burman]

Keith hudson describes in his first paragraph the rationale for local
currencies. A locally administered economy => networked with all others to
prevent isolation and permit global trade <= creates economic incentives
and rewards at a basic social level (maybe 5,000 people?) which allows for
social rather than bureaucratic control. People respond at this level of
community where the results fo their actions are immediately evident. The
global economy or even nation state are abstractions which require
tremendous ideological (read religious) reinforcement to make them work.

At 08:16 AM 02/09/98 +0100, Keith Hudson wrote:
>I refer to Thomas Lunde's proposals for a Basic Income.
>
>The idea of a basic income is appealing.  Indeed, I have no objections to
>it in principle.
>
>But it won't work because it ignores one basic fact of human nature: we are
>essentially a tribal species, the product of millions of years of evolution. 
>
>A basic income would work in a society of small governments because
>fairness and equality of transactions would operate visibly. Recipients
>would be seen to pay back their monetary incomes -- as much as they are
>able to do so -- by other forms of non-monetary help and service to the
>population paying the taxes. Malingerers could be readily identified and
>told to pull their weight or lose their basic income.
>
>We cannot institute a basic income when taxes disappear into a distant
>central government maw and are then redistributed (after huge
>administrative expenses have been paid) to people we do not know and cannot
>observe -- and which, besides malingerers, also contain substantial numbers
>of confidence tricksters in their midst. (The situation is bad enough
>already and the welfare state cannot be sustained for a great deal longer.
>In the UK there are twice as many national insurance numbers as the total
>population -- and I cannot imagine that we are unusual in this respect.)
>
>  
>
>___
>
>Keith Hudson,6 Upper Camden Place, Bath BA1 5HX, England
>Tel:01225 312622/444881; Fax:01225 447727; E-mail:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> 

Re: Basic Income

[Steve Kurtz]

Durant wrote:
> 
> > According to scientists,
> > the pie is shrinking as the number seeking slices is increasing.
> >
> 
> Could you clarify on what basis such assumption is made?
-
Not assumption, measured judgement of thousands of senior scientists:
see  http://dieoff.org/page1.htm

SCIENTIFIC CONSENSUS
  RS AND NAS STATEMENT is the official 1992 statement of the Royal Society
and the National Academy of Sciences. 
  WORLD SCIENTISTS' WARNING TO HUMANITY is from the Union of
Concerned Scientists in 1992.
  WORLD SCIENTISTS' CALL FOR ACTION AT THE KYOTO CLIMATE
SUMMIT
  Science Summit" on World Population: A Joint Statement by 58 of the
World's
Scientific Academies.
  ESA Passes Resolution on Human Population from the Ecological Society of
America (1994)

AND FOOD SPECIFIC:

THE MASSIVE MOVEMENT TO MARGINALIZE THE MODERN
MALTHUSIAN MESSAGE, by Albert A. Bartlett. This is a revised version of
an article that was published in The Social Contract Vol. 8, No. 3, Spring
1998,
Pgs. 239 - 251
 LAND, ENERGY AND WATER: THE CONSTRAINTS GOVERNING IDEAL
U.S. POPULATION SIZE by David Pimentel and Marcia Pimentel (1991)
 link to U.S. FOOD PRODUCTION THREATENED BY RAPID POPULATION
GROWTH, the Pimentels (1997)
 link to Food Security for a Growing World Population 200 Years After
Malthus, Still an Unsolved Problem 
  Optimum Human Population Size, by Gretchen C. Daily 
  Restoring Value to the WorId's Degraded Lands, by Gretchen C. Daily
(1995) 
  An exploratory model of the impact of rapid climate change on the world
food
situation, by Grechen C. Daily and Paul R. Ehrlich (1990) 
  FOOD, LAND, POPULATION and the U.S. ECONOMY-FULL REPORT by David
Pimentel of Cornell University and Mario Giampietro Istituto of Nazionale
della
Nutrizione, Rome. November 21, 1994 
  CONSTRAINTS ON THE EXPANSION OF THE GLOBAL FOOD SUPPLY by
Henery W Kindall and David Pimentel (1994) 

  Chronic Famine and the Immorality of Food Aid , by Joseph Fletcher (1991) 
  THE CORNUCOPIAN FALLACIES by Lindsey Grant (1992) 
  IMPACT OF POPULATION GROWTH ON FOOD SUPPLIES AND
ENVIRONMENT by David Pimentel, Xuewen Huang, Ana Cordova, and Marcia
Pimentel (February, 1996) 
  KERMIT OLSON MEMORIAL LECTURE: Food Supply and World Population,
by David Pimentel (March, 6, 1995) 
  Putting the Bite on Planet Earth, by Don Hinrichson, Oct. 1994 
  ENERGY AND POPULATION: Transitional Issues and Eventual Limits. by Paul
J. Werbos (1993?) 
  FOOD, LAND, POPULATION and the U.S. ECONOMY-EXECUTIVE
SUMMARY by David Pimentel of Cornell University and Mario Giampietro
Istituto of Nazionale della Nutrizione, Rome. Executive Summary Released
November 21, 1994 
 
  How and Why Journalists Avoid the Population-Environment Connection, by
T.
Michael Maher, March 1997 
  Negative Population Growth, by John B. Hall, Sept. 1996 
  The Food "Surplus": a Staple Illusion of Economics; a Cruel Illusion for
Populations, by Jim C. Fandrem, Winter, 1988 
  Rethinking the Environmental Impacts of Population, Affluence and
Technology,
by Thomas Dietz and Eugene A. Rosa (1994) 
 
  THE TIGHTENING CONFLICT: POPULATION, ENERGY USE, AND THE
ECOLOGY OF AGRICULTURE, by Mario Giampietro and David Pimentel (1994) 
  LIVING WITHIN OUR ENVIRONMENTAL MEANS: Natural Resources And

  THE LAST OASIS is a Worldwatch book review. 
  NET LOSS is a Worldwatch book review. 
 TOP OF THE NINTH, by Joel Campbell

Re: Basic Income

[Thomas Lunde]

Dear Tom:

Thanks for joining in, your scope of information always blows me away,
either in supporting some of my thoughts or in poking holes in them.  Either
way, I feel the winner.


>Ed Weick wrote,
>
>>Generally, what that research revealed is not really
>>surprising: that the world's richest and most democratic countries have
the
>>most equitable distribution of income while the poorest countries have the
>>least equitable.  What this suggests is that economic development and
rising
>>national prosperity may indeed be the key to greater distributional
>>equality.
>
Tom said:

>Actually it's a bit of a chicken and egg situation. Lars Osberg, from
>Dalhousie University, argues persuasively that the causal link runs the
>other way, from equality to prosperity. There was an article by Osberg on
>this in Canadian Business Economics sometime around 1995. I could look up
>the exact reference if anyone wants it (or maybe someone else has it on
hand).

Thomas:

I agree that these ideas seem counter intuitive to the philosophies we have
all accept from the business community and especially the neo-con
philosophy.  Frankly, I think that if a Basic Income was introduced, it
would make such a fundamental change in society that it would start a newly
labeled age.  A Basic Income is, perhaps, the greatest step towards equality
since the concept of citizen from the thinking of the Age of Enlightment.
That change, I believe would, as Lars Osberg suggested, create a greater
prosperity than we have known to date.
>
>Not quite on the other hand, James Galbraith has recently wrote of an
>"ethical rate of unemployment", the idea that unemployment above a certain
>level leads to an increase in inequality.

Thomas:

The unemployed are not equal in our society.  They have no access to credit.
They cannot avail themselves of expensive services such as lawyers,
counsellors, accountants to protect their interests.  There children are
stigmatized, their time is considered valueless and they are looked upon as
negative citizens, using the resources of productive citizens.  If you don't
believe me, become unemployed for awhile and try it.
>
>The neo-liberal fix runs counter to both of these observations. It
maintains
>that high unemployment is the unfortunate but sometimes necessary price to
>pay for price stability and the inequality is the unfortunate but sometimes
>necessary price to pay for economic efficiency. Both assertions are
>theoretically weak and empirically unsubstantiated. They do however suit
the
>fancy of the coupon clipping classes who would like to believe that
>maximizing their privilege serves a worthwhile social purpose and elevating
>their gain is in the best interests of all.

Thomas:

It's a fine price to pay, as long as someone else is doing the paying.
>
>Thus the two economic dead losses of inequality and unemployment form the
>real ideological core of the neo-liberal dream. "Free markets" and
>"democracy" are the fine sounding words used to peddle this elitist dreck
to
>the peasantry, just like Stalin used the word "socialism" to doll up an
>earlier regime of bureaucratic totalitarianism.

Thomas

I couldn't have said it better myself.
>
>
>Regards,
>
>Tom Walker
>^^^
>#408 1035 Pacific St.
>Vancouver, B.C.
>V6E 4G7
>[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>(604) 669-3286
>^^^
>The TimeWork Web: http://www.vcn.bc.ca/timework/
>

Re: Basic Income

[Thomas Lunde]

Dear Keith:

Thanks for entering the fray.  I appreciate you comments and thinking, I may
not agree with all your points and argue forcibly against some of your
conclusions, but it is through such aggressive dialog that I learn and
change - or not.  So even though we often seem to be at odds, that is the
most valuable area for growth for me.



>Thomas,
>
>(KH)
>>>[Basic Income] won't work because it ignores one basic fact of human
>nature: we are
>>>essentially a tribal species, the product of millions of years of
>>evolution.
>(TL)
>>Thomas:  I would argue that it is because we are essentially a family and
>>tribal species that it will work.  When your total support for life is the
>>other 60 to 80 people in your tribe, you don't set up two or three as the
>>rich guys and make the rest exist at a poverty level.  Tribes work because
>>of the Basic Income of sharing food, skills and supporting each other.
>
>Exactly!  Perhaps I did not make myself clear enough. Basic Income would
>work in a tribal-sized society, but not in the distant, centralised
>governmental set-ups that we have today.

Thomas 2

The government of today, in my opinion is the perfect medium through which a
Basic Income can work.  Governments have developed sophisticated
methodoligies for collecting and redistributing money.  They have a whole
legal and accounting system that has evolved over several hundred years to
redistribute income to individuals and into public goods services.  In fact,
today, through computerization, it can collect and redistribute almost
without cost.  With only some slight modifications, it could accomadate my
Basic Income Plan.  In some ways, this discussion about our tribal geneolgy
is a canard that doesn't need to explored or rationalized.
>
>
>(TL)
>>Capitalism and to a degree, the concept of democracy shift our tribal
>>instincts of cooperation into predatory instincts of "I'll take care of me
>>and screw the rest of the tribe."


Keith said:

>But it's not capitalism that's at fault. It's over-large governments. And
>the larger they are, the more opportunity there is for corruption between
>them and some (I must emphasise "some") capitalists.
>
>"Capitalism" and "capitalists" come in all sorts of shapes and sizes and
>you simply can't use these jargon terms in any meaningful way.
>
Thomas 2

Overlarge governments are mostly the result of continually increasing
services being provided.  At the turn of the century a government was small
because it didn't do much.  It now trys to do many complex and difficult
tasks, often at odds with each other, such as, the social safety net and
helping business being two in which there is conflict as to how resources
are spent.  In fact, from my point a view, a Basic Income plan will reduce
the size of governments and clear up many of the conflicts of resource
distribution.

As to your challenge to my use of language - capitalism is a system whose
purpose is to create profit and as my essay pointed too, I feel that it is
this idea of "profit" which is taken as a defacto truth, not to be
questioned, that basically creates a non sustainable system.  The profits
and wealth accumulation need to be recycled back to the general population
in a more effective and timely way than the current system allows.  It is
these huge pools of accumulated profit chasing ever more profit through
speculation on differences rather than on production of goods and services
which is causing so much misery at the bottom.  I agree that wealth
accumulation provides the stimulus that makes capitalism so dynamic and
should not be discontinued in a socialist or communist model. What I am
suggesting is an upper limit on profit that will still allow all the
benefits of capitalism and still provide surplus money for redistribution
back to the demand side of the economy.
>(KH)
>>>A basic income would work in a society of small governments because
>>>fairness and equality of transactions would operate visibly. Recipients
>>>would be seen to pay back their monetary incomes -- as much as they are
>>>able to do so -- by other forms of non-monetary help and service to the
>>>population paying the taxes. Malingerers could be readily identified and
>>>told to pull their weight or lose their basic income.
>(TL)
>>Thomas:  The concepts of large governments grew out of the development of
>>nation states which, I believe could be argued developed out of the use of
>>energy.
>
Thomas 2

Nit picking here, but gunpowder is a form of energy.  So is the crossbow.
When the discovery of these new forms of energy came into history, they
altered the possibilities of rulers.  I stick by my idea that it was energy
which resulted in weapons and also in windmills and nuclear power plants
which is the foundation of the changes in government from tribal to fuedal
to industrial.  So far, we have not had the historical experience of having
an energy source disappear.  As Jay points out, that may begin to happen
within a few years with

Re: Basic Income

[Keith Hudson]

I refer to Thomas Lunde's original subject and Ed Weick's comments on it.
I'll abstract one para:

(EW)

This is an idea that goes way back to Major Douglas and the original social
credit.  I don't think it can happen that way.  The reason that the poor
have no money is that they are not on anyone's payroll.  To get on a payroll
people have to produce something of marketable value.  To enable them to do
that, you need investment.* Once you have investment and payrolls, savings
are possible and so is additional investment.  Simply giving people money to
chase nonexistent goods in the hope that those goods will become existent is
extremely risky and potentially highly inflationary.


Well said. The * is mine and leads me to say that there is another
component needed here also. You also need individuals able to respond to
changing skill demands. For this you need good education, for this you need
good early socialisation and for this we need a major redistribution of
educational resources away from the university end and towards the
playschools/ kindergarten end. I don't know about Canada, but in this
country and in America, this is just beginning to happen (privately and
governmentally) but it will probably take at least two or three generations
for this to become well and truly implanted in the social culture.

Keith

P.S. I hope FWers will forgive me when I sometimes accidentally use my
commercial signature. I'm not trying to advertise on the fly.  



___

Keith Hudson,6 Upper Camden Place, Bath BA1 5HX, England
Tel:01225 312622/444881; Fax:01225 447727; E-mail:[EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: Basic Income

[David Burman]

I read with interest Thomas's sun god analogy, which I think is brilliant.
I would only add that perhaps our sun god is "the Marketplace" with its
"invisible hand." The work ethic is more like an archaic ritual habit in
service of this god. The habit, like all habits, formed when our northern
European culture was struggling to prosper agriculturally against
unfavourable climatic conditions. It took a lot of hard work and ingenuity,
which led to technological developments and industrial development. This
process was helped greatly by following the dictates of the Marketplace
god. And truly, those who prospered under this system, either by hard work
or ruthlessness and cunning, could point to their having been favoured by
God for their devotion. 

Does this help?

David

At 06:13 PM 01/09/98 -0500, Thomas Lunde wrote:
>To all FW'ers:
>
>I will be leaving for Amsterdam in a couple of days to present a paper I
>wrote entitled "The Family Basic Income Proposal" at the BIEN Conference.
>The genesis of this paper came from a challenge by a FW participant arising
>from some comments I made in a thread called "Some Hard Questions on Basic
>Income" last February.  I tried posting my rebuttal to the challenge as an
>attachment several times but for some reason the server did not put the post
>through.  After several months, I privately posted it to several list
>members asking for feedback but received consideration from only one
>individual.  I then became aware of BIEN, a European organization that has
>been exploring the concepts of a Basic Income in Europe and of their
>upcoming Convention in Sept.  I submitted my paper and it was accepted and I
>have been invited to present it.
>
>This summer, I had the opportunity to travel across Canada for 6 weeks and
>visit friends and family.  In each instance I tried to open conversations on
>the concept of a Basic Income.  In each and every conversation, the idea was
>ridiculed and conversely I had trouble explaining the whole concept because
>in conversation, it is difficult to fully develop a complex idea.  Out of
>the frustrations of those conversations, I feel I learned a lot.  Most
>important, I learned that those I spoke to, a farmer, a small business
>owner, a lab technician, a bus driver, an artist, a housewife, a government
>employee, that each was totally indoctrinated with the concept that work was
>so important that the thought of giving all Canadians the security of a
>Basic Income was basically unthinkable to them.
>
>Out of the anger my questions and explanations my subject had generated, I
>have come to a tentative conclusion that until the "middle class", primarily
>those who work by selling their time and skills can be convinced of the need
>for a massive change in the redistribution of income, the concept of a Basic
>Income will not become a reality.  I found myself sitting down and writing a
>rebuttal to this attitude which I called "A Message to the Middle Class on
>the Financing of: The Family Basic Income Proposal".  It is a long essay but
>sometimes it takes some time to develop a new viewpoint.  I am going to post
>this by E Mail tonight in 5 separate posts, each representing a page of the
>complete essay.
>
>Today, I was investigating for the first time our new Web Page and it was
>with some surprise, that I read about BES, a Conference held in Ottawa on
>June 3 this year to explore the concept of "Basic Economic Security" for
>Canadians.  Many of the questions raised at this Conference were questions
>that I wrestled with in putting together my paper.  I had to make choices
>and develop an economic explanation of how my choices could be financed.
>The choices I made are not necessarily "right", only the choices that I made
>but they are a start from which a critique or support could rally around and
>as such, I believe they have value.  Because my circle of friends do not
>include "experts" and my time and financial resources are very limited,

>there may very well be glaring errors in my assumptions.  If so, I will try
>to accept criticism gracefully.
>
>I plan to put my original paper on the list in E Mail format on Thursday,
>allowing for some time for response to my first paper.  This message is to
>inform those who may choose not invest the time to just file or delete the
>ten or so posts that I will be sending under the Subject heading - Basic
>Income.  So, let the adventure begin.
>
>Respectfully,
>
>Thomas Lunde
> 

Re: Basic Income

[Thomas Lunde]

Thomas:
>
>As I said in my intro, this is only half the posting.  And it was basically
>to answer the middle class knee jerk reactions to the concept of a Basic
>Income.  My plan was only done for Canada, so I can't respond to your
>information.  I think when you see the actual concepts of redistribution I
>developed, it may not sound as far fetched as your figures indicate.

Sorry, Thomas, but as I read your piece, I was under the impression that you
were concerned with global income security.  Perhaps it was the following
passage that led me to believe that:

Thomas 2

Good point Ed, I guess in my zeal to make my argument I slipped from
national to international assumptions and you were quite right to challenge
that sloppiness.

"The world has 6 billion people, I’m told and .05% of 6 billion is a very
small figure and yet even that small percentage amounts to 30 million
people. (This is equal to the population of Canada.)  I am optimist enough
to believe that everyone except 30 million would answer "yes" to the above
question, for who could want for more than they can possible have and still
deny another a pittance.  This leads to a following question, "What system
could we devise that reduced no one, encouraged everyone (less 30 million)
and provided a Basic Income sufficient for food, shelter, cleanliness and
the possible opportunity of exploring some of their desires to every person
within a nation.  (or on the whole planet)"


Don't give up Thomas.  I rather like the idea of a basic income.  I'm not
sure that I agree with Keith Hudson that it should be done on a local or
regional basis, but he may be right.  But here is a thought: In Canada and
in other liberal-democratic countries many services that people require are
paid for via the tax system - health, welfare and education being among the
foremost.  What about a system that puts the money people now pay in taxes
back into their pockets as part of their basic income.

Thomas 2

Very astute Ed, of course I say that because your ideas agree with mine in
this area.  When I post my actual plan today, I think you might find it
interesting how I have attempted to integrate, health care, education and
defense into my Basic Income Plan.

Re: Basic Income

[Durant]

> In some research I did a few months ago, I found that the now rapidly dying
> neo-liberal dream of free markets and democracy for all may not have been so
> far off base.  Generally, what that research revealed is not really
> surprising: that the world's richest and most democratic countries have the
> most equitable distribution of income while the poorest countries have the
> least equitable.  What this suggests is that economic development and rising
> national prosperity may indeed be the key to greater distributional
> equality.
> 

I query this statement. The difference between rich and poor is 
widening in the richest countries. perhaps this data on the 
distribution of incomes left out those who have no income at all.
These "prosperous" countries are going from one recession to the 
next, with no economist/politician having the foggiest about  next 
day, not to mention the years ahead. (Not that they care.)

With the instability and lurking environmental meltdown
this is a total bankrupcy of this - now global -  system.

Eva

> Your essay raises the question how much income would have to be distributed
> from the rich to the poor to ensure that the latter had a livable income.
> UN data indicate that in 1995 the 4.8 billion people living in "Low and
> Middle Income Countries" had an average per capita GNP of $1,090, whereas
> for the 0.9 billion people living in "High Income Economies" GNP per capita
> averaged $24,930.  What would the rich have to give up to make a noticeable
> difference to the poor.  A bit of arithmetic shows that a doubling of the
> per capita GNP of the poor world, to an average of $2,000, would require an
> approximate 20% drop in the per capita GNP of the rich.  A tripling of the
> income of the poor would require a 40% drop.  You can imagine the turmoil
> that would cause.  And there is always the question of whether a doubling or
> tripling of the income of the poor be enough to really make a difference.
> 

So in an average family in the high income countries
is 4 x $24,930 =  $99,720  Even on this superficial way
one can see that the 40% drop of this;   cca$60,000   wouldn't be
scuffed at by a majority of families - definitely not here in the UK.
However, it could be never done this way without structural change. 
Why would capitalist regimes work to dry up the sources of cheap
raw materials, cheap labour, unlimited destruction of the 
environment?   Why should they help other people to be 
self-sufficient, thus stop being a market? Etc, etc.


> What I would suggest is that providing a more equitable distribution of
> income is not something that can proceed in the same way nationally and
> globally.  Nationally, as rich Canadians, Americans, Swiss or Japanese, we
> can well afford to consider the possibility of a basic income for our own
> citizens.  What is true for each of our rich countries is not likely to be
> to be true for the world as a whole, or indeed for poorer countries.  I've
> done some comparisons of Canada, a rich country and Nigeria, a poor country.
> Not surprisingly, the distribution of income in Nigeria is far less equal
> than distribution in Canada.  This suggests a redistribution for Nigeria.
> But one is then led to the question of what there is to redistribute.  The
> average income of the richest 20% of the Nigerian population is minuscule in
> comparison with the richest 20% of the Canadian population.  This is not to
> deny that there are some very rich Nigerians, but if all of their income
> were carved away and distributed among their poor compatriots, would it
> really make that much difference?
> 
> What the foregoing suggests is that what poor countries need if per capita
> income is to rise is an increase in investment - and in ever so many
> countries like Nigeria, a very large increase.  But, the question of where
> this investment might come from aside, this puts us on the horns of another
> dilemma.  With investment would come growth, with growth population, with
> population pollution and the unsustainable drawing down of non-renewable
> resources, all of which is already unsustainable.  Let's face it, it really
> is a bitch of a world!
> 

... especially if you find it impossible to think outside the 
capitalist framework.

Eva




> Ed Weick
> 
> 
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: Basic Income

[Durant]

> According to scientists,
> the pie is shrinking as the number seeking slices is increasing.
>

Could you clarify on what basis such assumption is made?


Eva

> Steve
> 
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: Basic Income

[Steve Kurtz]

> 
> Thomas:   It is not that the
> metaphoric pie has to grow, which usually means a small group controls more
> and more,

That is not the meaning I understand. "the pie" is the usable resources
both renewable and non-, and the products which *depend* upon resources and
energy. My point is that the pie *cannot* expand except on a temporary
basis. 

> rather I think assets have to circulate more freely.

What assets? Tokens, or the goods & services which are consumed? You seem
to believe that there is a cornucopia of hoarded or undiscovered resources.
Scientists say untrue. 

> The demand
> is there but cannot be fulfilled because the poor do not have cash.  Give
> the poor cash and there will be a demand for what they need.

Demand (cash or otherwise) doesn't magically create non-existent resources. 

>  The market
> then is responding to demand.  The idea of limiting wealth is to create a
> circularity rather than two positions, one very rich and one very poor. I 
> have no real problem with wealth.  I have a problem with excessive wealth
> that curtails the circular flow of money.  In this sense, I think
> circularity fulfils your criteria of "perpetually available" by putting a
> floor on poverty and a ceiling on wealth.

Nature limits *real* wealth. People divide it. People can & do add value
and efficiency.
I'm not suggesting we are not part of nature; quite the contrary. But we
are necessarily limited by finite physical systems. Increased flow of
tokens speeds the depletion of natural wealth. 

SK:
> >I agree that the extent of concentration of monetary and natural wealth is
> >a negative for a sustainable future. However, a redistribution is not
> >likely to rectify matters by itself. Some *responsibilities* to the "whole
> >of society and the global Commons" seem to me to be a form of individual
> >"work" which might be sought by society.
 
> Thomas:  What responsibilities are being shown by the current market
> economies towards society and the Global Commons?  Damn little, I would say.

Agree!

> Again, I would ask you to ask yourself, "Why this preoccupation with "work"?

 I used "responsibility" as a substitute for "work" in my example.

> What is wrong with a society that enjoys leisure or creativity or learning
> or companionship as worthwhile ways to spend time. 

Nothing, once basic necessities have been procured on a sustainable basis!

> It seems to me that you
> might be in the Church of the "work ethic".

Atheist!
> 
> Steve said:
> 
> This could include reproductive
> >dis-incentives *for all members of society*, as well as policies to
> >minimize negative impacts of human activities on others and on the Commons.
> 
> Thomas:  If you are concerned about the "negative impacts of human
> activities on others and the Commons", then I would suggest by any objective
> criteria that our society with it's arms races, wars, stock markets,
> unemployed, and on and on should be your primary concern.

You use the word "unemployed". Why are you preoccupied with work? :-)
Every negative you mention is human behavior. You fail to understand how
natural scarcities contribute to war, violence, insecurity, suffering. See:
http://library.utoronto.ca/www/pcs/eps.htm#Project

>  The elite of this
> world are having no qualms about creating negative impacts on everyone they
> can as long as they profit.

Nearly everyone ignores the externalities resulting from their behavior;
not just the elite (really only 400-500 superrich owning 40+% of ALL assets
who play monopoly with the planet, Toronto Globe & Mail, 1997)

Steve

FW: Re: Basic income

[pete]

 "Thomas Lunde" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:


>Thomas:  Population is a problem, but I believe that when people are able to
>fulfill some of their goals and needs is will become less of a problem.  In
>those western countries that experience affluence, the tendency is for the
>birth rate to drop.  I think a Basic Income, over time will act as a form of
>birth control.


Perhaps, but this is a different situation than that which drives low
birth rates in affluent countries. I wonder what the birth rate is
among the moderately independently wealthy, that is, those whose
fortunes allow them to live just comfortably without ever having to
work. That is a more relevant comparison for people who will have
a modest but secure income and freedom from financial worries.

It is possible that such security will lead to increased birth rate.

  -Pete Vincent

Re: Basic Income

[Eva Durant]

I support the idea as a "transitional demand"
as it cannot be realised in the
capitalist framework.

Eva


> 
> "Basic Income" is an idea whose time has come.  It's one of the keys to
> solving our environmental crisis.  I support "basic Income"  100%.
> 
> Jay
> 
> 

Re: Basic Income

[Ed Weick]

Thomas:
>
>As I said in my intro, this is only half the posting.  And it was basically
>to answer the middle class knee jerk reactions to the concept of a Basic
>Income.  My plan was only done for Canada, so I can't respond to your
>information.  I think when you see the actual concepts of redistribution I
>developed, it may not sound as far fetched as your figures indicate.

Sorry, Thomas, but as I read your piece, I was under the impression that you
were concerned with global income security.  Perhaps it was the following
passage that led me to believe that:

"The world has 6 billion people, I’m told and .05% of 6 billion is a very
small figure and yet even that small percentage amounts to 30 million
people. (This is equal to the population of Canada.)  I am optimist enough
to believe that everyone except 30 million would answer "yes" to the above
question, for who could want for more than they can possible have and still
deny another a pittance.  This leads to a following question, "What system
could we devise that reduced no one, encouraged everyone (less 30 million)
and provided a Basic Income sufficient for food, shelter, cleanliness and
the possible opportunity of exploring some of their desires to every person
within a nation.  (or on the whole planet)"

>Thomas:  The last thing poor countries need is more investment.  What they
>need is more money in the hands of those who have crushing demands for
>food, shelter and other goods that will move them away from starvation and
misery.
>The way to do that is to get some money in their hands to spend.  This will
>create a demand for investment.

This is an idea that goes way back to Major Douglas and the original social
credit.  I don't think it can happen that way.  The reason that the poor
have no money is that they are not on anyone's payroll.  To get on a payroll
people have to produce something of marketable value.  To enable them to do
that, you need investment.  Once you have investment and payrolls, savings
are possible and so is additional investment.  Simply giving people money to
chase nonexistent goods in the hope that those goods will become existent is
extremely risky and potentially highly inflationary.

It is really very difficult to say how the world can get out of the bind
that it's in.  There is a huge misalignment between production and need.  As
you say, there are crushing needs for the basics in much of the world, but
the global economy is not designed to fill those needs.  It is designed to
cater to those who already have pretty well everything they need but who can
pay for more.  In a more rational, moral and humane world, this would not
happen.  But can the world ever be rational, moral and humane?  As I have
argued, and as Keith Hudson argues, we are essentially tribal.  We look
after ourselves and the devil take the hindmost (and even a lot of the
midmost).   It was all spelled out on a T-shirt I saw on the West Coast -
"The guy who comes second is the first loser".  And yes, someone was
actually wearing it.  A rather clean cut young guy.  College boy.

Don't give up Thomas.  I rather like the idea of a basic income.  I'm not
sure that I agree with Keith Hudson that it should be done on a local or
regional basis, but he may be right.  But here is a thought: In Canada and
in other liberal-democratic countries many services that people require are
paid for via the tax system - health, welfare and education being among the
foremost.  What about a system that puts the money people now pay in taxes
back into their pockets as part of their basic income.   This could be done
on a "flat" basis, where everybody gets (or gets to keep) the same amount,
or on a progressive basis where the poorer you are the more you get - that
would have to be worked out.  But the point is that an approach something
like this would provide basic income; would downsize government; and would
largely get government out of the education, welfare and health fields, all
fields in which it is criticized for not doing a good job.

Ed Weick

Re: Basic Income

[Eva Durant]

> 
> Thomas:  Again I would point out that for many of the statements you make to
> be true, you have to believe in the self interest view of humans.  I choose
> to believe that underneath that view exists a human who is compassionate,
> inclined to sharing and supportive of others.  However when you devise
> economic and governmental systems totally out of alignment with a million
> years of growth in tribal and family sharing, you end up with the ethics of
> the Gulag as individuals follow their prime directive which is to survive.
> 


The city state developed all over the globe and seems to be
a part of the "natural" human historical progress - 
there is not
yet a definition that is made about what is and what is not
a "natural" human characteristic.  Exactly because social
behavioural characteristics changed far more rapidly
than any other "evolutionary" lines.

I still to see an argument why a society couldn't work
based on a democratically shared system, once the economic,
technical and ideological conditions are ready.
(In my estimation any time now)  Besides, we cannot
integrate the resourses of the earth in a sustainable
fashion for 6+ billion people based on 
segregated tiny communities. For this you'd need more 
land than there is available.
We will have to live in fairly high density cities
in the future, if it is planned and built with
the needs of the people in mind, it can be a very
nice living.  
I've just seen a docu about some early 50s housing
projects in the UK, when in a few rare cases, money-
saving for the local authority and moneymaking
by the builders wasn't the objective.  Lo and behold,
these estates are still popular with the people.
The one in somewhere in London uses biogas for heating -
built in the 50s remeber! Has swimming pool, lots
of green bits, parks, playgrounds - it is wonderful. 
The one in Sheffield accomodates 3000 people!
and there is a waiting list.  
A community can work well, whatever the size,
if everyone has a chance to broadcast an opinion,
everyone has a chance to listen and interact
with the decision. What is your problem with democracy,
I thought it was so obvious now, that nothing else work.
The problem with the present systems exactly that they
are not allowed to be democratic.
and I don't think the tribal societies were so
paradise-like as you make out; the strong or clever
or whatever was the most successful food-provider
surely took more and there was a constant fight of
packing order as it is a nearer stage to animaldom
to be similar.  Not so long ago tribal people (in Japan?)
and some other place still let their elder to go away
and starve to death etc.  anyway, we havent got hundreds of
acres of forestry and land for each tribe to roam about.
We have to live in the present and prefebly, in the future,
not in the past.

Eva

Re: Basic Income

[Thomas Lunde]

Steve wrote:


>Just a reminder that the "income" vehicle is tokens or credits which are
>utilized to purchase goods and services. The metaphoric "pie" must be
>perpetually available - indeed expanding while population grows -

Thomas:  Wrong thinking from my point of view.  It is not that the
metaphoric pie has to grow, which usually means a small group controls more
and more, rather I think assets have to circulate more freely.  The demand
is there but cannot be fulfilled because the poor do not have cash.  Give
the poor cash and there will be a demand for what they need.  The market
then is responding to demand.  The idea of limiting wealth is to create a
circularity rather than two positions, one very rich and one very poor.  I
have no real problem with wealth.  I have a problem with excessive wealth
that curtails the circular flow of money.  In this sense, I think
circularity fulfils your criteria of "perpetually available" by putting a
floor on poverty and a ceiling on wealth.

Steve said:

if the>"income" is to sustain those dependant upon it. According to
scientists,
>the pie is shrinking as the number seeking slices is increasing.

Thomas:  Population is a problem, but I believe that when people are able to
fulfill some of their goals and needs is will become less of a problem.  In
those western countries that experience affluence, the tendency is for the
birth rate to drop.  I think a Basic Income, over time will act as a form of
birth control.
>
Steve said:

>I agree that the extent of concentration of monetary and natural wealth is
>a negative for a sustainable future. However, a redistribution is not
>likely to rectify matters by itself. Some *responsibilities* to the "whole
>of society and the global Commons" seem to me to be a form of individual
>"work" which might be sought by society.

Thomas:  What responsibilities are being shown by the current market
economies towards society and the Global Commons?  Damn little, I would say.
Again, I would ask you to ask yourself, "Why this preoccupation with "work"?
What is wrong with a society that enjoys leisure or creativity or learning
or companionship as worthwhile ways to spend time.  It seems to me that you
might be in the Church of the "work ethic".

Steve said:

This could include reproductive
>dis-incentives *for all members of society*, as well as policies to
>minimize negative impacts of human activities on others and on the Commons.

Thomas:  If you are concerned about the "negative impacts of human
activities on others and the Commons", then I would suggest by any objective
criteria that our society with it's arms races, wars, stock markets,
unemployed, and on and on should be your primary concern.  The elite of this
world are having no qualms about creating negative impacts on everyone they
can as long as they profit.  Thanks for your comments Steve.

Respectfully,

Thomas Lunde
>
>Steve

Re: Basic Income

[Thomas Lunde]

Ed Said:


>Very interesting, Thomas.  But who would actually bell the cat?  Despite
the
>many efforts of high idealists like the World Federalists, we don't have a
>global super government, and given the increasing divisions between the
>various parts of the world, it is most unlikely that we will within our
>lifetimes, or even our great grandchildren's.

Thomas:  Good question - the answer has to be government.  Of course if only
Canada implemented a Basic Income scheme would all the rich leave - perhaps
we might look at it as a good things such as putting all the lepers on an
isolated island.
>
Ed said:

>In some research I did a few months ago, I found that the now rapidly dying
>neo-liberal dream of free markets and democracy for all may not have been
so
>far off base.  Generally, what that research revealed is not really
>surprising: that the world's richest and most democratic countries have the
>most equitable distribution of income while the poorest countries have the
>least equitable.  What this suggests is that economic development and
rising
>national prosperity may indeed be the key to greater distributional
>equality.

Thomas:  Well, tell that to the 10% unemployed or those living below the
poverty level.
>
Ed said:

>Your essay raises the question how much income would have to be distributed
>from the rich to the poor to ensure that the latter had a livable income.
>UN data indicate that in 1995 the 4.8 billion people living in "Low and
>Middle Income Countries" had an average per capita GNP of $1,090, whereas
>for the 0.9 billion people living in "High Income Economies" GNP per capita
>averaged $24,930.  What would the rich have to give up to make a noticeable
>difference to the poor.  A bit of arithmetic shows that a doubling of the
>per capita GNP of the poor world, to an average of $2,000, would require an
>approximate 20% drop in the per capita GNP of the rich.  A tripling of the
>income of the poor would require a 40% drop.  You can imagine the turmoil
>that would cause.  And there is always the question of whether a doubling
or
>tripling of the income of the poor be enough to really make a difference.

Thomas:

As I said in my intro, this is only half the posting.  And it was basically
to answer the middle class knee jerk reactions to the concept of a Basic
Income.  My plan was only done for Canada, so I can't respond to your
information.  I think when you see the actual concepts of redistribution I
developed, it may not sound as far fetched as your figures indicate.
>

Ed said:

>What I would suggest is that providing a more equitable distribution of
>income is not something that can proceed in the same way nationally and
>globally.  Nationally, as rich Canadians, Americans, Swiss or Japanese, we
>can well afford to consider the possibility of a basic income for our own
>citizens.  What is true for each of our rich countries is not likely to be
>to be true for the world as a whole, or indeed for poorer countries.  I've
>done some comparisons of Canada, a rich country and Nigeria, a poor
country.
>Not surprisingly, the distribution of income in Nigeria is far less equal
>than distribution in Canada.  This suggests a redistribution for Nigeria.
>But one is then led to the question of what there is to redistribute.  The
>average income of the richest 20% of the Nigerian population is minuscule
in
>comparison with the richest 20% of the Canadian population.  This is not to
>deny that there are some very rich Nigerians, but if all of their income
>were carved away and distributed among their poor compatriots, would it
>really make that much difference?

Thomas:  In the spirit of the paragraph, I would only state that the idea is
not to bring everyone up to Canadian standards, at least not initially -
maybe in 50 years.  The idea is to try and develop some structure that could
be used by any country to more effectively redistribute what they have.
>
Ed said:

>What the foregoing suggests is that what poor countries need if per capita
>income is to rise is an increase in investment - and in ever so many
>countries like Nigeria, a very large increase.  But, the question of where
>this investment might come from aside, this puts us on the horns of another
>dilemma.  With investment would come growth, with growth population, with
>population pollution and the unsustainable drawing down of non-renewable
>resources, all of which is already unsustainable.  Let's face it, it really
>is a bitch of a world!

Thomas:  The last thing poor countries need is more investment.  What they
need is more money in the hands of those who have crushing demands for food,
shelter and other goods that will move them away from starvation and misery.
The way to do that is to get some money in their hands to spend.  This will
create a demand for investment.  So, I see it as demand first and investment
follows.  The current model sees investment to build something using raw
materials and a payroll to a few employees 

Re: Basic Income

[Tom Walker]

Ed Weick wrote,

>Generally, what that research revealed is not really
>surprising: that the world's richest and most democratic countries have the
>most equitable distribution of income while the poorest countries have the
>least equitable.  What this suggests is that economic development and rising
>national prosperity may indeed be the key to greater distributional
>equality.

Actually it's a bit of a chicken and egg situation. Lars Osberg, from
Dalhousie University, argues persuasively that the causal link runs the
other way, from equality to prosperity. There was an article by Osberg on
this in Canadian Business Economics sometime around 1995. I could look up
the exact reference if anyone wants it (or maybe someone else has it on hand).

Not quite on the other hand, James Galbraith has recently wrote of an
"ethical rate of unemployment", the idea that unemployment above a certain
level leads to an increase in inequality.

The neo-liberal fix runs counter to both of these observations. It maintains
that high unemployment is the unfortunate but sometimes necessary price to
pay for price stability and the inequality is the unfortunate but sometimes
necessary price to pay for economic efficiency. Both assertions are
theoretically weak and empirically unsubstantiated. They do however suit the
fancy of the coupon clipping classes who would like to believe that
maximizing their privilege serves a worthwhile social purpose and elevating
their gain is in the best interests of all. 

Thus the two economic dead losses of inequality and unemployment form the
real ideological core of the neo-liberal dream. "Free markets" and
"democracy" are the fine sounding words used to peddle this elitist dreck to
the peasantry, just like Stalin used the word "socialism" to doll up an
earlier regime of bureaucratic totalitarianism.


Regards, 

Tom Walker
^^^
#408 1035 Pacific St.
Vancouver, B.C.
V6E 4G7
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
(604) 669-3286 
^^^
The TimeWork Web: http://www.vcn.bc.ca/timework/

Re: Basic Income

[Ed Weick]

Very interesting, Thomas.  But who would actually bell the cat?  Despite the
many efforts of high idealists like the World Federalists, we don't have a
global super government, and given the increasing divisions between the
various parts of the world, it is most unlikely that we will within our
lifetimes, or even our great grandchildren's.

In some research I did a few months ago, I found that the now rapidly dying
neo-liberal dream of free markets and democracy for all may not have been so
far off base.  Generally, what that research revealed is not really
surprising: that the world's richest and most democratic countries have the
most equitable distribution of income while the poorest countries have the
least equitable.  What this suggests is that economic development and rising
national prosperity may indeed be the key to greater distributional
equality.

Your essay raises the question how much income would have to be distributed
from the rich to the poor to ensure that the latter had a livable income.
UN data indicate that in 1995 the 4.8 billion people living in "Low and
Middle Income Countries" had an average per capita GNP of $1,090, whereas
for the 0.9 billion people living in "High Income Economies" GNP per capita
averaged $24,930.  What would the rich have to give up to make a noticeable
difference to the poor.  A bit of arithmetic shows that a doubling of the
per capita GNP of the poor world, to an average of $2,000, would require an
approximate 20% drop in the per capita GNP of the rich.  A tripling of the
income of the poor would require a 40% drop.  You can imagine the turmoil
that would cause.  And there is always the question of whether a doubling or
tripling of the income of the poor be enough to really make a difference.

What I would suggest is that providing a more equitable distribution of
income is not something that can proceed in the same way nationally and
globally.  Nationally, as rich Canadians, Americans, Swiss or Japanese, we
can well afford to consider the possibility of a basic income for our own
citizens.  What is true for each of our rich countries is not likely to be
to be true for the world as a whole, or indeed for poorer countries.  I've
done some comparisons of Canada, a rich country and Nigeria, a poor country.
Not surprisingly, the distribution of income in Nigeria is far less equal
than distribution in Canada.  This suggests a redistribution for Nigeria.
But one is then led to the question of what there is to redistribute.  The
average income of the richest 20% of the Nigerian population is minuscule in
comparison with the richest 20% of the Canadian population.  This is not to
deny that there are some very rich Nigerians, but if all of their income
were carved away and distributed among their poor compatriots, would it
really make that much difference?

What the foregoing suggests is that what poor countries need if per capita
income is to rise is an increase in investment - and in ever so many
countries like Nigeria, a very large increase.  But, the question of where
this investment might come from aside, this puts us on the horns of another
dilemma.  With investment would come growth, with growth population, with
population pollution and the unsustainable drawing down of non-renewable
resources, all of which is already unsustainable.  Let's face it, it really
is a bitch of a world!

Ed Weick

Re: Basic Income

[Steve Kurtz]

Just a reminder that the "income" vehicle is tokens or credits which are
utilized to purchase goods and services. The metaphoric "pie" must be
perpetually available - indeed expanding while population grows - if the
"income" is to sustain those dependant upon it. According to scientists,
the pie is shrinking as the number seeking slices is increasing.

I agree that the extent of concentration of monetary and natural wealth is
a negative for a sustainable future. However, a redistribution is not
likely to rectify matters by itself. Some *responsibilities* to the "whole
of society and the global Commons" seem to me to be a form of individual
"work" which might be sought by society. This could include reproductive
dis-incentives *for all members of society*, as well as policies to
minimize negative impacts of human activities on others and on the Commons.

Steve

Re: Basic Income

[Keith Hudson]

I refer to Thomas Lunde's proposals for a Basic Income.

The idea of a basic income is appealing.  Indeed, I have no objections to
it in principle.

But it won't work because it ignores one basic fact of human nature: we are
essentially a tribal species, the product of millions of years of evolution. 

A basic income would work in a society of small governments because
fairness and equality of transactions would operate visibly. Recipients
would be seen to pay back their monetary incomes -- as much as they are
able to do so -- by other forms of non-monetary help and service to the
population paying the taxes. Malingerers could be readily identified and
told to pull their weight or lose their basic income.

We cannot institute a basic income when taxes disappear into a distant
central government maw and are then redistributed (after huge
administrative expenses have been paid) to people we do not know and cannot
observe -- and which, besides malingerers, also contain substantial numbers
of confidence tricksters in their midst. (The situation is bad enough
already and the welfare state cannot be sustained for a great deal longer.
In the UK there are twice as many national insurance numbers as the total
population -- and I cannot imagine that we are unusual in this respect.)

  

___

Keith Hudson,6 Upper Camden Place, Bath BA1 5HX, England
Tel:01225 312622/444881; Fax:01225 447727; E-mail:[EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: Basic Income

[Thomas Lunde]

-Original Message-
From: Keith Hudson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: Future Work <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Cc: Thomas.Lunde <" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>"@dijkstra.uwaterloo.ca>
Date: September 2, 1998 4:05 AM
Subject: Re: Basic Income


>I refer to Thomas Lunde's proposals for a Basic Income.
>
>The idea of a basic income is appealing.  Indeed, I have no objections to
>it in principle.
>
>But it won't work because it ignores one basic fact of human nature: we are
>essentially a tribal species, the product of millions of years of
evolution.

Thomas:  I would argue that it is because we are essentially a family and
tribal species that it will work.  When your total support for life is the
other 60 to 80 people in your tribe, you don't set up two or three as the
rich guys and make the rest exist at a poverty level.  Tribes work because
of the Basic Income of sharing food, skills and supporting each other.
Capitalism and to a degree, the concept of democracy shift our tribal
instincts of cooperation into predatory instincts of "I'll take care of me
and screw the rest of the tribe."
>
>A basic income would work in a society of small governments because
>fairness and equality of transactions would operate visibly. Recipients
>would be seen to pay back their monetary incomes -- as much as they are
>able to do so -- by other forms of non-monetary help and service to the
>population paying the taxes. Malingerers could be readily identified and
>told to pull their weight or lose their basic income.

Thomas:  The concepts of large governments grew out of the development of
nation states which, I believe could be argued developed out of the use of
energy.  As Jay points out so continuously, our concepts of energy may be
going through a graphic re-evaluation as they collide with the reality that
we are soon at the bottom half of the Earth's fuel tank.  (Combine this with
the results of energy use, global warming, soil depletion through industrial
age agri practices and a profit and loss model which disregards long term
thinking, the overuse of water polluted with chemicals and fertilizers and
you get the whole nasty paradigm.)  The very concept of paying taxes, do not
exist in a tribal - familial society.  This is an invention of larger forms
of government.  As long as we wallow in these paradigms, then we will only
see certain kinds of solutions.

As far as your concepts that Malingerers should be told to pull their
weight, I would argue that many of them should be held up as saints for
refusing to participate in the madness around them.  Read my article and you
will see that your basic assumptions are those of the "middle class" who
have accepted the "work ethic" as your religion.  It's a shocking discovery
to consider that perhaps doing less is actually doing more.
>
>We cannot institute a basic income when taxes disappear into a distant
>central government maw and are then redistributed (after huge
>administrative expenses have been paid) to people we do not know and cannot
>observe -- and which, besides malingerers, also contain substantial numbers
>of confidence tricksters in their midst. (The situation is bad enough
>already and the welfare state cannot be sustained for a great deal longer.
>In the UK there are twice as many national insurance numbers as the total
>population -- and I cannot imagine that we are unusual in this respect.)

Thomas:  Again I would point out that for many of the statements you make to
be true, you have to believe in the self interest view of humans.  I choose
to believe that underneath that view exists a human who is compassionate,
inclined to sharing and supportive of others.  However when you devise
economic and governmental systems totally out of alignment with a million
years of growth in tribal and family sharing, you end up with the ethics of
the Gulag as individuals follow their prime directive which is to survive.

Respectfully,

Thomas Lunde
>
>
>
>___
>
>Keith Hudson,6 Upper Camden Place, Bath BA1 5HX, England
>Tel:01225 312622/444881; Fax:01225 447727; E-mail:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>

Re: Basic Income

[Jay Hanson]

From: Thomas Lunde <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

>This summer, I had the opportunity to travel across Canada for 6 weeks and
>visit friends and family.  In each instance I tried to open conversations
on
>the concept of a Basic Income.  In each and every conversation, the idea
was
>ridiculed and conversely I had trouble explaining the whole concept because
>in conversation, it is difficult to fully develop a complex idea.  Out of

"Basic Income" is an idea whose time has come.  It's one of the keys to
solving our environmental crisis.  I support "basic Income"  100%.

Jay