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from the handouts-instead-of-gov't-jobs-or-worker-owned-cooperatives dept.
Common Dreams reports
As a way to improve living standards and boosts its economy, the nation of Finland is moving closer towards offering[1] all of its adult citizens a basic permanent income of approximately 800 euros per month.
[...] The monthly allotment would replace other existing social benefits, but is an idea long advocated for by progressive-minded social scientists and economists as a solution--counter-intuitive as it may first appear at first--that actually decreases government expenditures while boosting both productivity, quality of life, and unemployment.
[...] The basic income proposal, put forth by the Finnish Social Insurance Institution, known as KELA, would see every adult citizen "receive 800 euros ($876) a month, tax free, that would replace existing benefits. Full implementation would be preceded by a pilot stage, during which the basic income payout would be 550 euros and some benefits would remain."
[...] Under the current welfare system, a person gets less in benefits if they take up temporary, low-paying or part-time work--which can result in an overall loss of income.
[...] As Quartz reports, previous experiments with a basic income have shown promising results:
Everyone in the Canadian town of Dauphin was given a stipend from 1974 to 1979, and though there was a drop in working hours,[PDF] this was mainly because men spent more time in school and women took longer maternity leaves. Meanwhile, when thousands of unemployed people in Uganda were given unsupervised grants of twice their monthly income, working hours increased by 17% and earnings increased by 38%.
[1] Link to The Independent in TFA was redundant IMO.
...and, before anyone shouts SOCIALISM!, this is actually Liberal Democracy (of the Bernie Sanders type).
An actual move toward Socialism would subsidize the formation of worker-owned cooperatives. An initiative to do that was floated in 1980. 5 percent of taxes would have gone into a pool (kinda like USA's Social Security fund). The Finns rejected it. Source: Prof. Richard Wolff
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Wednesday December 09 2015, @05:18AM
Defective premise warning. They accept as given that the government must meddle and then circle around and argue a free market does not currently exist (which is true) and cannot ever exist (which is not).
Point #2 does have virtue though. The current practice of publicly traded corporations is defective in that it allows shareholders to freely reap profits while avoiding all responsibility for wrongdoing. This problem isn't unknown in serious economic thought.
#3 though is a horrible muddled mess. Misses himself discusses the difference in wage rates between unlimited trade and unlimited trade AND unlimited mobility of labor. Yea, unlimited immigration is going to suck hard. Of course the other important difference between wages in different countries is accumulated capital and the effect that has on the productivity of labor.
#6 argues the virtues of inflation. No. Here I stop and just skim, the stupid burns. Natural inflation and deflation which can occur even in a real free market with solid metallic monetary units (i.e. PMs) are tolerable. They are by their nature temporary adjustments, a side effect of money itself being just another commodity subject to supply and demand. Intentional inflation via money printing is always an evil.
#9 has some merit but of course as presented is just commie agiprop
#12 says governments can pick winners and losers in the economy better than the invisible hand. What is it with you guys and the fetish of government competence, a claim utterly unsupported by any tangible evidence anywhere, anywhen. Your philosophy actually requires omniscience by the State, but I'll take a good verifiable claim of merely above average competence sustained long enough to rule out blind chance.
#14 is industrial stupid and envy. If you guys really believe that why don't rich lefty types run their own companies this way? Screw middle management! Pay em crap! Spread the wealth around and show everybody how it should be done. I won't wait to see it, because it won't happen.
#15 is ignorant. We capitalists recommend stable rule of law and property rights as the first step to economic development in the third world. We take it as a given that the people there will engage in entrepreneurial activity if that prerequisite is met, they will accumulate capital and begin the march up and carry their countymen with them.
#16 is exactly wrong. We aren't smart enough to understand the market well enough to meddle. No planner CAN be knowledgable enough. Information Theory has now utterly ended this argument.
#17 is almost sefl evidently true. Rule of law and stable money are far more important in getting economic development kick started. Education beyond teaching the ruling class the importance of limiting their activity to those areas and not killing the goose before it can start laying golden eggs is the most important thing.
#19 is true. Since the author realizes and even makes a point of noting we do NOT live in a free economy it is kinda lame to have the rest of the document, which argues against the current order and uses current events to condemn a free economy.... ah well, intellectual consistency has never been the mark of the progressive.
The summary is full of lulz. "My criticism is of free market capitialism, and not all kinds of capitalism." OMG Give me the effing roll of duct tape so my brains will kinda stay in the same spot when my head splodes reading that. Weapons grade stuff you found there.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Wednesday December 09 2015, @06:10AM
See. I told you so.
Your inherent biases limit your ability to process differing viewpoints.
How sad for you.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Wednesday December 09 2015, @06:22AM
And no, I'm not going to respond point by point to your sloppy and selective (and if I do say so myself, ineffective) rebuttal of the source material.
You are a fanatic [reference.com] (although I think this definition [brainyquote.com] applies to you as well), so it's extremely difficult to have reasoned discourse with you, unless I agree with your dotty ideas.
As such, please carry on with your myopic and self-destructive world view.
I won't try to get involved with you and your love affair with the propaganda you've internalized. Toodles!
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr