chess | "I decree today that life is simply taking and not giving

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...).

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a) I really, really like your system.

b) 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'.

It would be like that initially, but I don't think that it would continue after a few generations of the system, bearing in mind that societies adapt to new circumstances over time.

eTA: (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...).

I believe there was a school of economics that found that, above a certain level, increased monetary incentive actually lowered people's productivity, and that "feeling your work has wider repercussions" and "being allowed to make your own decisions" became more important.

Edited Date: 2011-03-29 01:17 pm (UTC)

I'm afraid I don't like it. My problem is with the basis of the system, you start by taking everyones wage away. Yes your intentions may be good, you intend to give most of them more back. But still this is really bad in that it's taking away people's control. I would hate to be in a position where everything I earned completely bypassed me. People like to be in control of what they do and earn. For some people, the independence of being in control of their own lives is worth more than the increased money they might get out of your system.

I don't see a problem with a flat tax system and a benefits system, if it's executed properly (it usually isn't). why do you think your system would be better than that. It's not the system that needs changing, it's the attitudes of people in power.

Because:

a) A 'flat' tax system isn't - the marginal value of money declines as you get more of it. So if you take 10% away from the poorest people, and take 10% away from the richest people, this disproportionately hurts the poorest people.

b) A 'benefits' system involves some kind of value judgement (and bureaucracy) in determining who 'deserves' to receive benefits and who doesn't. If _everyone_ (even the people who could in fact live off their own earnings) is eligable to receive the same basic 'benefits', then there is:

1) less stigma in claiming them, causing people not to lose self-esteem due to having to claim them (which harms their chances of becoming productive again)

2) less hassle in claiming them, which means people who have very little effort to go around (e.g. they are depressed, they find paperwork very difficult) can still get them

3) less resource wasted in the bureaucracy

c) If everyone is guaranteed a basic standard of living, then freedom and independance go up - people are free to not put up with bad working conditions and not put up with being pidgeonholed in occupations that just happened to be easy to get into, people are free to improve themselves at their own pace and get the experience to do jobs which aren't worth paying them for until they've been practicing full-time for a while already.

Okay perhaps I should not have said 'flat' I was just attempting to distinguish bbetwen your tax of '100%' and a different tax system where only a portion of wages go. Basically if you take everything away from people, it's practically slavery, it doesn't matter what you say you'll do with it afterwards it's just not right, the entire population is then in the control of the government. No control whatsoever over their own lives. And even if someone lovely and generous like you were to be in charge of it (I'm sorry but things don't happen that way, but lets say IF..) it would still be wrong, and people would know this, deep down, they would feel wrong.

In regards to benefits - stigma and hassle in claiming them.. but you already admitted that there would still be stigma in your system upon those who claimed the money but chose not to work. The stigma is just the same, inescapable by economic means, it's people attitudes that change. Hassle is relative, I don't mind a little hassle if it lets me be in control of my own life. I would like things to be a little easier for certain people these days, but then again it all comes back to the people in power, as they don't really want people to claim benefits and take money out of the system, so they don't make it as easy or obvious as it could be. This again is the attitudes of people, and not down to the actual economic system.

Basically your system only even works in an ideal society where everyone is nice, which won't happen, and even then it is just a fundamentally WRONG system, I really can't stress that more.

Ahh, I see the problem here.

'Everything goes in the pot' is more of a theoretical statement than an actual intention - the idea is that the entire size of the economy is taken into account when setting the tax rate, and the tax rate is set depending on what is required to give people a basic standard of living.

When it's bedded in it would be administrated just like standard taxes, but somewhat more variable than we're used to (so you would report all your income just as one does now, and the government would take however much they needed to redistribute, and the surplus wouldn't ever actually leave your control...).

Also, you appear to have more faith in money than me - as far as I'm concerned, the government _already_ owns and controls everything which is denominated in money, because their economic policy can change the value and basis of the currency at any point.

Oh and so your tax is not actually much different to current ideas of tax.. but you do intend to tax everyone instead of these ridiculous current ideas of 'upper tax limit'.? That would be a bit of an improvement. except that you will still have to generate a lot more money if you intend to supply to whole population with benefits, which case you do need to tax a whole lot more. The fact of the matter is the more you tax the more it sucks.

But.. What if you're income is already fairly low but you already have the correct ammount that we decided you require.. why do you need to take that money of them, and then redistribute it back. this is more needless orginisation, and more papework, and less control to the population.

Actually I don't have a whole lot of faith in money, especially since the country is bankrupt and the 'money' is not backed by anything anymore. The entire system is currently built on IOUs. But as long as 'money' is the thing you are talking about then we've got to talk about it and arrange it fairly, as if it were worth something, otherwise the debate is meaningless :)

Here is an example question for you.. what if there is a job that no one wants to do then, since they're all getting money anyway. And say no one wants to be a janitor, but janitor jobs are still needed. Does your theoretical government just sit back and say 'let them do what they like' or does it then assign certain people to be janitor whether they like it or not. And if it does the latter, where would that stop, might aswell just assign everyone to their jobs just to make it simpler?

This is a lot like Green Party policy, specifically our Citizen's Income stuff. It effectively does away with the tax-free allowance part of your payslip (which is counteracted by the paid-by-taxes Citizen's Income you receive for being, erm, a citizen) so that the additional work that people do does benefit them, but also benefits everyone else.

That "needless organisation" also creates meaningful jobs for those as want them.

Unpopular jobs that are important can be incentivised with higher rates of pay. Kinda like how capitalism is supposed to work.

No offense but since it's Michelle's idea I'm going to wait for her to answer, since you might not actually agree with your reply..

Mind you I can't help but say, I'm not sure a 'meaningful job' is being a penpusher for an ever-increasing system of beurocracy.. 1984 much.. lol..

correction *SHE might not actully agree with your reply.

I might not, likewise she might not agree with mine. But as I say in my comment below, Michelle's not the only person ever to have put thought to this kind of thing, and not offering a potential solution of which I was aware would seem weird, at best.

A meaningful job, so far as I am concerned, is any job which someone doing it values for more than its financial rewards.

Well we'll have to agree to disagree on the 'meaningful job' point, as we clearly have different ideas, too different for a resolution, and I wouldn't be able to keep a straight face while discussing it.

Also I'm just not interested in debating with someone I don't know, as it may only leed to arguments and I hate when arguments get started with people I don't even know. So yeah, I'll just wait for michelle's response :)

Yes - I very much like and agree with Green Party economic policy. I'm just put off the party by a) the fact that the Lib Dems have much more of a chance of actually getting stuff done and b) the focus on environmental issues which I don't know enough about to have a strong opinion on (and find that when I do look into them I get angry with both sides).

You mean this?

I think so, yes.

It's possible that in practice it would turn out that you could implement useful shortcuts (like the 'Personal Allowance' in the current tax system) which would mean that you would just not take the money in the first place in lieu of giving it out, in some cases.

If there is a job no-one wants to do, the question is, who wants it to be done and what value do they put on that?

(If no-one wants the job done, is there any meanignful sense in which the job actually exists?)

Maybe I don't want to be a janitor, but I quite like having clean schools. So I do one of the following:

1) I use some of my basic discretionary allowance, or any money I have made above and beyond that by my productivity, to put towards paying someone enough that they want to do it for the money;

2) I arrange to do janitorial work for, say, one night a week, with a bunch of other people who are also wanting the place to be clean and willing to pitch in for one night a week; then I don't have to do too much of the stuff, but I do get a clean school and I also get the satisfaction of helping out and the reputation of being the kind of person who will help out, which may well outweight my desire not to be a janitor.

The place this falls apart is if there are jobs which:
a) nobody wants to do;
b) require specific skills, which limits the pool of people who can do them;
c) require regular practice, so doing them on a job-share basis to get them done with minimal inconvenience doesn't work because everyone is doing it badly

I think the only solution to this is probably to overpay those jobs, but it can be awkward to arrange that if the people who need those jobs to be done don't have more than their basic allowance to arrange it with. OTOH, even that is better than the current situation where the people who need the job done might not have _any_ money to put towards it...

(Currently the reason this doesn't work for anything is that people have needs which outweigh their means - people who have no money still need stuff to be done, but have no way of indicating that this is a priority for them in a way that will motivate other people to do it.

Giving everyone a basic allowance would empower people to indicate their needs in this way even if there's nothing they can do 'in return' in and of themselves...)

I'm glad you posted this, it was very interesting to read and think about. I like aspects of your system, but I think the potential for reduction in productivity which you mention could undermine the entire thing. I suspect it would work in small communities where it would be much easier to see the relationship between the central pot, community and individual benefits, and the work being done/needing to be done. However I would worry that relationship might become too abstract with large scale government. Even now people find it difficult to connect up the huge amount coming out of their pay packet in tax to the benefits they receive as a result.

There's a name for your a) argument, but I can't remember it for the life of me. I think it's refuted quite strongly by the Orange Book brigade, though.

The focus is less on the environment than you might think (and than many older members might prefer, if I'm honest) - the notion is that you can't have social justice without ecological stability, and vice versa. Comes back to notions of common ownership/stewardship of land (hence Land Value Tax) and so on.

"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."

...and when people see the wealth they worked so hard for get taken away and given to the people on the couch, they wonder for a while why they bothered working quite so hard. Then one of two things happens: they stop working so hard and join the people on the couch, or they work just as hard but outside your economy, where their labour yields results - either by turning towards black markets / the shadow economy / the criminal element, or by leaving the country altogether.

In a generation or two, your country is noticeably backward compared to its neighbours, due to the brain drain and the lack of incentive to innovate and build. Most people's income is not sufficient to buy stuff from abroad, and the stagnant local population of couch-surfers and occasional listless hobbyists can offer nothing as shiny. Production has fallen, shop shelves are empty, long queues form for the basic rations whenever any are in stock, workers steal products directly from their workplace to use for themselves or sell on the black market. In much of the country, the black market is now required just for survival; going through the forms the government demands but using graft and the shadow economy to achieve one's actual aims becomes a way of life.

The vicious circle becomes completely apparent to everyone. People look around and see how the foreigners live. They don't notice the homeless on the streets, or the relation between the average wages and the cost of living. They compare their own lives to those portrayed in foreign media: the foreign middle classes, with their comfortable homes, surrounded by shiny gadgets, able to choose from a wide range of food and amenities. Able to rely on the rule of law. Then they look around themselves. The foreign media, eager to push its own views on economics even without its governments' hints, is only too willing to aid in making the comparison.

Then there is a revolution.

Look to the east; look to the south. It has happened before, over and over, and I am sure will happen again. Extreme redistribution of wealth is doomed in the long term - at least while humans remain humans, and robotics are not advanced enough to completely remove the need for all the menial, boring forms of labour that keep us fed, clothed and entertained.

Cuba is next door ;)

Basically your system is very much a hippy commune, which works on a small scale, depending on people's goodwill, and is fine for people that choose that lifestyle.
But as you've shown, on a large scale, in order to make it work, it either turns more into the current system, creates more and more paperwork and supporting jobs, or both.
It's nice that you have a generous idea, but yeah.
Of course you should definately take this as an argument that I support the current system wholeheartedly, definately not, haha :D

If no-one will janitor for you for 10pounds/hour well, you'll just have to offer 15pounds/hour then. Or perhaps if your un-janitor'd office gets unbearable you'll have to split the janitorial tasks among the people using the office.

I believe the system Chess is describing is normally described as a "citizen's income" (this is a system whereby everyone is guaranteed at least however-much per year, where however-much is determined based on cost-of-living-decently). Implementations of same generally involve 0% taxation on your first X pounds (where X is the number determined to be how much people live on; what X should be is a matter of obvious contention) and a high tax rate on income over that with people earning less that X given money-up-to-X through the tax system (much as tax-credits or rebates) are handled - it doesn't require taking away everyone's X pounds and giving it back (which would indeed be needless bureaucracy). It might (people obv. argue about such things) cost less to implement than our current system (in terms of people needed to administer it) because of the high cost of administering the system that decides whether people "deserve" benefits or not.

a) is why we want AV (yes to AV!)
b) the Green's science policy is getting more sane...

I also suspect you _still_ need a 'safety net' food and shelter and medical attention system because people are not in fact perfectly responsible with their money and so even if you give them enough to 'live on' some of them will use it on other things and then still require food, shelter and medical attention (which it's a bad idea to deny them because then they steal food, or live unaesthetically on your streets, or spread diseases).

I think it's worth centrally funding things like the medical system (partly because the cost is so horribly lumpy, so I might never spend a penny on doctors and you might spend millions; partly because of economies of scale).

I'm not so sure about centrally providing food and shelter as a general thing, although providing back-up sources of food and shelter is clearly a Good Thing (and we should do more of it).

I think that the relationship between wealth and hard work is like that between odd numbers and prime numbers. It is neither necessary nor sufficient to work hard in order to be rich, it is mostly necessary (2 is prime, a few people get rich through doing no work at all) but it is not even close to sufficient (many non-prime odd numbers, lots and lots of people working very very hard for little reward).

When rich bankers complain that they work hard for their money I wonder what they think janitors are doing all day that isn't "hard work"...

This is a thoughtful and excelletn piece, Michelle, and thanks for writing it. With my (limited) grasp of political theory, it does ring true to what I call "my socialism" - I'm not great at researching things, and am therefore not clear on how my version of socialism links to Socialism (proper). But one thing we do seem to differ in is the idea of making people do necessary work.

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.

When I was younger, my original system definitely had the Job Computer which gave you your surplus-allowance based on the demand for your services and your social value.

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.

And, I should probably add, the more explicit control that the state has over people - rather than just trying to provide a 'safety net' - the more value someone can get out of hijacking the apparatus of the state to their own ends, and hence the more likely corruption is to set in.

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.

But G-d gave us freewill, we're entitled to make mistakes, you can't take over their own decision to spend their money unwisely, it's their choice to make. There is a certain point where this is just over interfering.

This system is getting so different from Michelle's original idea that I basically give up arguing my point, because it's not there anymore, what a laugh, haha.

I don't know, I generally feel entitled to take over people's decisions to do unwise things when it is e.g.

a) going to have a seriously detrimental effect on their life, especially if I'm going to have to pay for the cleanup (whether literally or in time / energy)

b) going to have a seriously detrimental effect on _my_ life (although that has to be pretty serious, like they are actually going to (physically or psychologically) injure me in some way that might never heal, or nick all my stuff)

c) going to have a seriously detrimental effect on someone else's life who hasn't consented...

I'm fairly sure we had this huge debate on this topic a while back, probably on Naath's journal if I remember rightly. You're entitled to feel that way about a b and c, but don't forget option d - it affects no one else directly, and they did it themselves on purpose. Thus giving you no right to interfere.

Yup - this is another reason I'm somewhat suspicious of state-socialism (it seems to involve interfering in a lot of things which you don't actually _have_ to interfere in, in order to reduce inequality / risk of unfairness / risk of having to pay more healthcare / enforcement / cleanup costs later) as opposed to 'capitalism and a really big safety net'.

This articulates very well what I was going to say.

The fundamental problem is that completely redistributive programs are only possible if resources are so abundant that the marginal value of acquiring any possible good for every person in the economy is zero or negative. This is not the case and the only possible future I see where this could have even the minutest possibility is a singularity event.

A mixed economy with a social planner whose mandate is to create second-best corrections in cases of market failure where this increases aggregate social welfare is far more efficient than either the free market or a command economy. A neglect of market failures leads to wider inefficiencies and a tragedy of the commons-situation. A neglect of growth leads to lower overall welfare in the future (even if discounted).

"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."

As I understand it this situation occurs because the 'scroungers' are not actually modelled as less fortunate.

Most people are quite pro (at least in the abstract) the idea of redistributing wealth to charities, or providing a welfare net so that eg: someone very disabled won't starve to death just because they do not have the capacity to work and earn a wage. The idea here is that these people do not have any way of supporting themselves, or are at a disadvantage in doing so in some way, and so they could do with a hand to level the playing field a bit.

The thing which rankles about the 'scrounger' or 'lazy' group is the idea that they start from the same position as the worker, but simply opt not to bother working. The unfairness is then 'why should I have to jump through a hoop for x when you dont and still get it'. 'Not feeling like it' is not seen as a disability or misfortunate on the same scale as the ones in the above category. This is polarised especially strongly in the area of reproduction, and the question 'why should I only get to have 2 children because I have a job, when if I didnt bother having a job (and thus helping the faceless Actual Poor with my taxes too) I could personally have 8 children and still not starve to death because a stranger would pay to feed them'.

Yes, this.

*shrug* it still makes perfect sense to me. The only major issue that I can see with it is that while the UK might have / be able to create enough wealth to implement it, I suspect the globe could not, and that the UK (and other Western countries) only can because they've pillaged their way across half the globe... and I think that some redistribution of wealth should be international.

How about a system whereby a common minimum standard of living is set and provided for and it is then up to the individual to make money beyond this. To ensure some degree of equality and fairness in the burden imposed by providing the bare minimum it is made increasingly more difficult to earn money above certain percentiles of success. Thus success is rewarded with money but nobody starves to death and the burden is shared equally.

No, wait...

The thing with the stem cells was never actually our policy, it was a media officer in HQ extrapolating (wrongly and unpopularly) from other stuff like the precautionary principle. But yeah, we've had debates and votes and stuff now.

A version of this is actually being implemented with Universal Credit (should be open for new claims around september 2013)

Everyone who claims it gets a basic amount of money to live. They can do any amount of work to earn more if they want to, with every £1 they earn reducing the benefit by 65p. Replaces jobseeker's allowance, working tax credits and housing benefits. (I think there will still be a seperate sickness benefit)

Do they still have to attend vaguely threatening interviews and get their benefits cut if they aren't presenting evidence of looking for work, though?

And is it at a high enough level that prioritsing 'live within walking distance of the city centre of Cambridge' (obv. in a shared-house room or similar) isn't incompatible with 'able to eat' (I can understand it being incompatible with 'own a car' and/or 'own a widescreen TV')?

There's a load of psychological research (very good psychological research, carried out with scientific rigour -- and I mean a *load* of it) that indicates that the majority of people agree with you about "meaningful job". Kohn's _Punished by Rewards_ makes for a superb overview of the field.

Agreed. In fact, I think this kind of setup can only really work as part of the process of abolishing nation-states anyway. The pot pretty much has to be international in scope, but local in distribution.

It's nice to be right ;-)

Pretty sure universal credit also covers some of the old disability benefits, plus some of the carers and childcare stuff too.

My impression is that a majority of people, if they don't have to work outside the home (say, for instance, if they have a husband who provides entirely enough to support them and their children) will work a day or half day per week on voluntary work, but certainly won't work 40 hours a week at the sort of jobs (shop keeper, delivery person, farmer, office worker, etc) that a majority of the working population currently works at.

If people working 4 hours a week can produce enough that, when sold on the international market, provides sufficient to pay everyone their basic living wage then your system will work fine.

I don't think this is currently the case, though I don't negate the possibility that robots and computer automation may bring us to that point eventually.

But, like I say, I think currently too many would spend their time looking after children or playing World of Warcraft or watching TV.

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Michelle Taylor

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"I decree today that life is simply taking and not giving - England is mine, it owes me a living"

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