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Today I have been ranting a lot about economics, unfortunately in a kind of disconnected way responding to individual points.
Basically, I believe that the best economic system goes as follows:
1) Everything, at least theoretically, goes into a big pot.
2) The first thing that comes out of this big pot is a very basic standard of living for everyone. This is a big area of debate in itself - what constitutes a 'basic standard of living', is it 'a hut and some corn' or 'a house of your own, a private hospital room when required, and a car'? But this should be basically 'the things which people need to have which they can't be trusted to buy for themselves' - food, medical care, shelter.
3) The second thing that comes out of the pot is a 'general allowance' which should be enough to give everyone a 'reasonable' standard of living. This is the bit where one person might spend on a widescreen TV and another might spend on Photoshop and another might spend on running a car - different people have very different priorities for 'basic standard of living' so you can't just impose one standard set of services on everyone.
4) After that, surplus resources get apportioned via some system which is very much like today's capitalist system, although possibly with some special bonuses for providing socially useful things that people don't generally see fit to directly demand (especially things which ensure everyone can recieve their Very Basic Standard Of Living), which would be the equivalent of today's public sector jobs.
The consequences of this is that nobody _has_ to work to live, which probably reduces overall productivity.
But additionally nobody has to do a job they don't like or aren't suited to in order to live, preventing them from being productive in their 'hobby' field which might actually turn out to be very useful and productive and end up being paid for by other people eventually, but they would never have been able to get the practice in to be good enough to get paid for it if they had been forced to mop floors at the local store in order to eat.
Some people just like to be useful; some people like to clean things. We would probably have to do without so many shop assistants, but that's okay because we know how to do automated checkouts now. We would probably have to community-organise or have larger incentives for some public services, like collecting the bins. Surely that is okay too - we should incentivise people who are doing low-status jobs by 'you want to have nice things' rather than 'you want to eat tomorrow'.
Obviously this is all hopelessly naive and not thought through, but I hope you get the jist.
The main objections / obstacles to this system appear to be:
1) Dislike of freeloaders. 'Why should I pay for lazy people', anger about 'benefit scroungers' etc. People don't like to work for people who are 'being lazy' and not 'pulling their weight' to take some of it even if they're only taking away just enough for them to live on. I'm not sure how to fix this - it seems like a moral failing to me (my slightly confused moral system tells me that one should be happy to give stuff away to those less fortunate, regardless of whether they 'deserve' it or not), and also it doesn't make sense from a practical perspective (practically, society is better off with the freeloaders kept happy and well-fed than having them be resentful), but it appears to be a deep instinctive / emotional response (and probably has good reasons that I'm not seeing because I don't share it) and hence I can't see how to cope with it.
2) Ability to use infinite upsides / desire to provide for one's children. Linked to the above is the problem that taking away 'surplus' from people who have 'earned' it has actual tangible effects on their life expectancy and the projected success of their children, and so is 'unfair'. Unfortunately, whilst it is true that some people gain wealth due to being hard-working or virtuous in some similar respect, most people gain wealth because of circumstances, upbringing, and general 'luck' factors - but disproportionate quantities of people view their wealth as 'earned' entirely by themselves in any case, because that is a beneficial rationalisation to an individual making it. It being therefore impossible to determine who has 'earned' their wealth and who hasn't, it is only fair to redistribute fairly evenly (based on marginal value) from everyone, even if this does cause injustice to those who really did work very hard for their wealth.
3) Removal of incentives. The more you tax people, and the less 'deserving' the recipients of the tax money, the more likely people are to go 'well, I won't bother working then'. I acknoweldge that this would be a problem in some cases, but think it is a worthwhile tradeoff for avoiding the suffering of those who can't find employment even with their best efforts, or who get stuck in unpleasant employment but can't leave for fear of losing basic necessities. On the other end of the scale, giving people a reasonable standard of living for free will cause some of them not to work at all - but mostly I contend that this probably means the job wasn't worth doing in the first place, and I'm not sure that many people would rever to a life of complete unproductivity, instead they would get bored and express productivity in new and unexpected ways.
I'm sure there are a lot more but this is probably the extent of the rambling I should do whilst I should be finishing lunch and getting back to working at my own money-earning job (my enthusiasm for working on other projects neatly demonstrating that actually some people work _more_ and _better_ when monetary incentive isn't the incentive on offer...).
Basically, I believe that the best economic system goes as follows:
1) Everything, at least theoretically, goes into a big pot.
2) The first thing that comes out of this big pot is a very basic standard of living for everyone. This is a big area of debate in itself - what constitutes a 'basic standard of living', is it 'a hut and some corn' or 'a house of your own, a private hospital room when required, and a car'? But this should be basically 'the things which people need to have which they can't be trusted to buy for themselves' - food, medical care, shelter.
3) The second thing that comes out of the pot is a 'general allowance' which should be enough to give everyone a 'reasonable' standard of living. This is the bit where one person might spend on a widescreen TV and another might spend on Photoshop and another might spend on running a car - different people have very different priorities for 'basic standard of living' so you can't just impose one standard set of services on everyone.
4) After that, surplus resources get apportioned via some system which is very much like today's capitalist system, although possibly with some special bonuses for providing socially useful things that people don't generally see fit to directly demand (especially things which ensure everyone can recieve their Very Basic Standard Of Living), which would be the equivalent of today's public sector jobs.
The consequences of this is that nobody _has_ to work to live, which probably reduces overall productivity.
But additionally nobody has to do a job they don't like or aren't suited to in order to live, preventing them from being productive in their 'hobby' field which might actually turn out to be very useful and productive and end up being paid for by other people eventually, but they would never have been able to get the practice in to be good enough to get paid for it if they had been forced to mop floors at the local store in order to eat.
Some people just like to be useful; some people like to clean things. We would probably have to do without so many shop assistants, but that's okay because we know how to do automated checkouts now. We would probably have to community-organise or have larger incentives for some public services, like collecting the bins. Surely that is okay too - we should incentivise people who are doing low-status jobs by 'you want to have nice things' rather than 'you want to eat tomorrow'.
Obviously this is all hopelessly naive and not thought through, but I hope you get the jist.
The main objections / obstacles to this system appear to be:
1) Dislike of freeloaders. 'Why should I pay for lazy people', anger about 'benefit scroungers' etc. People don't like to work for people who are 'being lazy' and not 'pulling their weight' to take some of it even if they're only taking away just enough for them to live on. I'm not sure how to fix this - it seems like a moral failing to me (my slightly confused moral system tells me that one should be happy to give stuff away to those less fortunate, regardless of whether they 'deserve' it or not), and also it doesn't make sense from a practical perspective (practically, society is better off with the freeloaders kept happy and well-fed than having them be resentful), but it appears to be a deep instinctive / emotional response (and probably has good reasons that I'm not seeing because I don't share it) and hence I can't see how to cope with it.
2) Ability to use infinite upsides / desire to provide for one's children. Linked to the above is the problem that taking away 'surplus' from people who have 'earned' it has actual tangible effects on their life expectancy and the projected success of their children, and so is 'unfair'. Unfortunately, whilst it is true that some people gain wealth due to being hard-working or virtuous in some similar respect, most people gain wealth because of circumstances, upbringing, and general 'luck' factors - but disproportionate quantities of people view their wealth as 'earned' entirely by themselves in any case, because that is a beneficial rationalisation to an individual making it. It being therefore impossible to determine who has 'earned' their wealth and who hasn't, it is only fair to redistribute fairly evenly (based on marginal value) from everyone, even if this does cause injustice to those who really did work very hard for their wealth.
3) Removal of incentives. The more you tax people, and the less 'deserving' the recipients of the tax money, the more likely people are to go 'well, I won't bother working then'. I acknoweldge that this would be a problem in some cases, but think it is a worthwhile tradeoff for avoiding the suffering of those who can't find employment even with their best efforts, or who get stuck in unpleasant employment but can't leave for fear of losing basic necessities. On the other end of the scale, giving people a reasonable standard of living for free will cause some of them not to work at all - but mostly I contend that this probably means the job wasn't worth doing in the first place, and I'm not sure that many people would rever to a life of complete unproductivity, instead they would get bored and express productivity in new and unexpected ways.
I'm sure there are a lot more but this is probably the extent of the rambling I should do whilst I should be finishing lunch and getting back to working at my own money-earning job (my enthusiasm for working on other projects neatly demonstrating that actually some people work _more_ and _better_ when monetary incentive isn't the incentive on offer...).
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no subject
Date: 2011-03-29 04:23 pm (UTC)From:I can't help but think that if everyone was free to choose their job, secure in the knowledge that even if they earned nothing they would still have food, clothing, shelter, medical care, education and so on, we would have hell of a lot of people wanting to work in film, or music, or drama, or art, and nowhere near enough people wanting to clean buildings, or make food, or make anything for that matter. Hell, I would love to be able to stay home and write all day, and if I didn't need to earn money to live on I would do just that. It wouldn't really matter to me that I could earn "incentives" by doing something else - I don't really value money (or the things it buys) enough to crave more than I need. I want food, a warm home, clothing.
Even if the system meant I had to work at something to earn, say, a computer, or money for LRP/ travel, I would still do the bare minimum to earn what I needed. I doubt I'd be the only one, and so we'd end up in a country of people doing the least they could - and that's not enough to keep a country running.
For me, however, the answer would be different to yours. I believe the State has a role in making sure people earn what they get. Yes, everyone should have a basic standard of living regardless of what they do - food, shelter, medical aid, education. But they should also understand that they receive this in return for effort. Work hard = get more. Don't work = get less.
So - take a doctor, who works seventy hours a week treating and caring for those in his/her care. This doctor gets the basics supplied automatically, but also has transport, holidays, disposable income.
Take an office cleaner who works sixteen hours a week, around caring for his/ her children. This cleaner gets the basics, but also has transport, holidays, disposable income.
Take a person who voluntarily dropped out of school at a young age and has been fired from jobs for laziness, rudeness and absenteeism. This person has the basics supplied, and nothing more, but has the option to work in community projects to earn a few luxuries.
Take a young artist who has been unable to sell any of his/ her work. This artist has the basics supplied, but also has the option to work to earn more.
Take a criminal convicted of violent assault. This criminal has the basics provided in a secure facility, and is expected to work at given tasks without earning any luxuries until the end of their sentence.
I would be a harsh ruler. But I would not allow anyone to live on the streets, starve to death or die or easily curable diseases. On the other hand, I would not allow anyone to earn a ridiculously large amount of money, or to live solely on inherited priveleges, or commit a crime against society without making clear that they have therefore removed themselves from the protection and benefits of society.
no subject
Date: 2011-03-29 04:32 pm (UTC)From:But since then I've become more cynical about the idea of state-socialism, because:
1) People are clever. If one person can come up with a system, another person can come up with a way of subverting it. The only way to stop (or at least curb) this seems to be to essentially have everyone competing against each other as hard as they can, so they don't have _space_ to think up complicated ways around the system because the path of least resistance to dispropritionate success really is _through_ the system. If your doctor can't earn potentially infinite money (e.g. by creating a new treatement for something) within the staate then they won't work to their full capacity for the state - they will hide the best parts of their work to sell on the black market.
2) People have strong drives to provide for their family and to avoid dying. Unfortunately healthcare and provision for children are the two remaining things even in the societies nearest to post-scarcity which are basically infinite money sinks. So there is no ceiling to the amount that someone might reasonably and strongly want to have, and this limits the amount that people will tolerate having taken away from them to pay for other people. If you provide a hard limit to upsides within the state, then people will work outside the state.
no subject
Date: 2011-03-29 04:35 pm (UTC)From:This is why nowadays I basically just argue for a bigger 'safety net', rather than a full-on control economy with strong upper limits on personal wealth and inheritance.