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.
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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.
(Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Monday September 12 2016, @09:06PM
Communists call such top-down state-directed economies "State capitalism."
They are considering the whole economy to be like a business. In more capitalist countries, businesses rarely take direction from the workers.
(Score: 2) by Zinho on Monday September 12 2016, @09:56PM
To be clear, are you asserting that the USSR, Communist China, and the DPRK were all models of "State capitalism" immediately post-revolution?
My understanding was that each of those countries was, in their own way, attempting to implement the uprising of the proletariat and establishment of a Communist system as recommended by Marx.
"Space Exploration is not endless circles in low earth orbit." -Buzz Aldrin
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 12 2016, @10:53PM
There are still a few remaining pockets of collectivized farmers in "Red" China, so, yeah, there was some lip service paid to The Proletariat.
The thing is that the central gov't can overrule any decisions made at the local level.
This is the TOP-DOWN thing again.
...and to get a "voice"[1] in nation decisions, you had to swear fealty to the "communist" party.
[1] A voice which, again, could be ignored.
.
If you were to investigate what happened in Ukraine in the 1930s, you'd discover forced collectivization.
After the State Capitalist gov't did that at gunpoint, they came back at harvest time and stole ALL of the harvest--not even leaving them seed grain.
Tens of millions of collectivized farm workers starved.
Clearly, The Workers had no power.
That's against everything that Marx wrote.
Hint: Propaganda is meant to convince you of things that aren't true and propaganda always puts the most positive spin on everything.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]