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Basic Income Experiment Runs Into Skepticism From Potential Participants

posted by janrinok on Monday September 12 2016, @03:31AM   
from the here,-take-my-money dept.

Phoenix666 writes:

The idea of giving people free money is so radical, even some recipients think it's too good to be true.

Later this year, roughly 6,000 people in Kenya will receive regular monthly payments of about a dollar a day, no strings attached, as part of a policy experiment commonly known as basic income.

People will get to use the money for whatever they want: food, clothing, shelter, gambling, alcohol — anything — all in an effort to reduce poverty.
...
But instead of accepting the cash transfers with open arms, many Kenyans have recently been saying "No, thank you." It's a legitimate concern: As GiveDirectly moves into its larger basic income experiment, the last thing it wants is for people to turn down the money.

Basic Income is a concept often mentioned on SN, and this is an experiment to do exactly that. Many potential recipients of the basic income are skeptical about the goals of the experiment, though, and rumors have arisen that it's tied to a cult or devil worship.

Opponents of such wealth transfers argue they lead to indolence, while another school of thought believes they would reduce poverty and directly produce economic stimulus because the poor would immediately spend the money.

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Original Submission

• Re:Has Communism worked anywhere? Re:Has Communism worked anywhere? (Score: 2, Interesting) by tftp on Monday September 12 2016, @05:33AM

  by tftp (806) on Monday September 12 2016, @05:33AM (#400532) Homepage

  Communism requires totalitarianism. How else are you going to get people to give away the fruits of their labor?

  Don't know how many of the methods below *require* totalitarianism, but...

  1. Don't tell the people how much they produce vs how much they are paid [USSR]
     • Construct a pricing model that conceals the facts above [USSR]
     • Use propaganda to tell the people what you want them to think [widespread]
  2. Convince the people that large taxes are good for them
     • Brainwash them outright, starting at school [widespread]
     • Come up with a good reason (a crisis, an enemy at the gates, etc.) [too many examples]
     • Bribe them with a small part of the collected taxes [Social security]
     • Tell them that someone else will be taxed, not them. They will only receive. [Obamacare]
     • Conceal the exact amount of taxes through complex tax laws [the USA]
  3. Force the people to pay as much tax as you want [everywhere]
     • By the power of the law
     • By the power of the gun
     • By complex political games
     • By creating "temporary" taxes
     • By combining different taxes [Sweden with their 105% taxes]

  In some cases the situation becomes so bad that people refuse to participate. For example, in the last couple decades of USSR's existence having a job at a factory was considered stupid. You either worked where you can steal (stores, distribution centers,) or you did semi-criminal "small commerce" - which, despite being declared "small", could net you in one day a monthly salary of an accountant.

  In many of these cases you do not need to rule the country with iron fist (to be declared a true totalitarian.) You only need to have a few lawyers, and a few prisons for those who haven't gotten the message.

  Parent

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• missing the point, eh? (Score: 1) by zugedneb on Monday September 12 2016, @07:27AM

  by zugedneb (4556) on Monday September 12 2016, @07:27AM (#400555)

  Role of the communist totalitarian regime was 2 things:
  1. prevent the people form revolting in an area of generations old ethnic conflict

  2. get seriously frightened by USA dropping 2 atomic bombs on japan, and seriously believe that hell is coming.

  A point I could raise is that these heroic capitalistic countries either had colonies, and/or have a rather recent history of slavery or population that is close to slavery.
  East european countries had mostly none of these for some time now...

  --
  old saying: "a troll is a window into the soul of humanity" + also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ajax

  Parent