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ChairMaster posted:Yea, that million dollars isn't going to buy medical equipment for poor Chinese people, it's going to buy another million dollar house in Vancouver for the rich people they work for. The poor people are all still dying of smog cancer and making pennies per day because there's no incentive at all to pay them living wage. The opposite. Unless you think poor people spend their money frivolously the Chinese are going to disproportionately spend money on necessities meanwhile, like other under developed economies is less efficient at making those necessities (or the high tech capital to make them efficiently) which is what makes trade so critical. Everything the US imports from China it could make itself (rare raw materials excluded). The opposite isn't really true.
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Jan 4, 2016 17:56
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Trent posted:You're still giving her a physical/monetary thing she wants in exchange for a behavioral/labor thing you want, so the question of exploitation is where the line is, exactly. There are also some who put sex work on a special pedestal that other potentially demeaning/degrading/dangerous work can't access, for various reasons. For me, though I don't know if this is a widely held position, All Labor is exploitive because your alternative to performing it is starvation and losing your home etc. Some Labor may pay more then others, but you still don't really have a choice. With a GMI that is pegged to regional living costs there is now an actual choice. If you want to stay home and play WoW, you are able to do that. If you want to work as a prostitute you are welcome to it. Basically as soon as Maslow's Hierarchy is decoupled from Labor, economic coercion is gone too. Without that, a laborer can now negotiate with an employer for what he thinks is a "fair" wage for his labor. The employer/employee still aren't on equal footing because of a knowledge gap, but now if an employee wants a raise he can always threaten to quit without worrying about starving. Alternatively the employer is more likely to pay the laborer his value because losing a talented employee is a real possibility.
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Jan 4, 2016 18:01
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Paradoxish posted:Would you mind elaborating on why you feel this is the case, and why you think it makes sense to employ any portion of a population in work that's not socially useful? There's a very real social opportunity cost to the "dig a ditch and then fill it back in" approach to welfare. Those are people who spend their days "working" a job that does nothing for society while still occupying some portion of their time and energy that could be devoted to community work, family care, learning new skills, etc. Make work programs are dangerous because they can very easily turn into poverty traps, when the entire point of a mincome should be to provide a safety net and increase the value of labor. I don't place any special value on work itself. Having had my soul crushed by many low-level jobs I welcome our future robot overlords: mass automation, the 25 hour work bi-week, months of paid vacation etc. But we're not there yet. The only way I see a mincome being politically sustainable long term is through a social contract whereby everyone who can work puts in some time. It could be in the form of job training, public works, whatever. This is also a matter of economic necessity because you want to pay for a mincome with taxes, not borrowing or printing which will cause inflation and reduce the value of the mincome. And to be able to afford new taxes to support mincome you need as many people working as possible. Typical Pubbie fucked around with this message at 18:25 on Jan 4, 2016 |
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Jan 4, 2016 18:21
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I think people ITT are understating cultural attachment to work as a virtue as a barrier to mincome being enacted. At least in America, work is seen as a means of character and it would be incomprehensible for someone to simply not work and thus be a 'parasite' on society, even if the abstract economic resources are there to support a portion of the population who choose not to (or are unable to) work in the short or long-term. To this view, even a bullshit, meaningless, redundant job like refilling holes you've just dug is infinitely better than being a layabout lazing around. To me, however, mincome would be perfect for creatives who have irregular work and even need leisure to stimulate creativity. When faced with "don't quit your day job!" when considering pursuits, why not have a world where you could cut out the middleman and have the freedom to pursue your passions irrespective of financial necessities? As it stands, college graduates are making entire future career decisions based on whether or not they can pay back overburdening student loan debts, the latter of which I find immoral and reprehensible. Considering the long term view, being able to look back on a meaningful, well-spent life before you die with few regrets is sort of something that transcends economic and financial issues. Being able to liberate society from the constraints of capitalism is far superior than putting the screws to the poor and/or lazy out of spite.
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Jan 4, 2016 19:14
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The average American is stupid as hell and can't even process the fact that Sikhs and Muslims are two different things, why would anyone expect a Mincome to come before our inevitable nuclear/climate change-caused hyperholocaust? You're going to be able to ban guns far, far before you're able to deprogram Americans of "working hard is inherently moral". We're so far away from universal healthcare, which is bog standard in nearly every other first world country, and yet somehow we're going to transform shithole America into the Star Trek universe before Miami floods. Right.
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Jan 4, 2016 20:05
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The problem is that people view mincome as a means to reduce the number of hours worked while convincing themselves that such a system would be viable both politically and economically. The people who are working will grow sick of their money going to those who aren't. They will demand certain requirements be met to receive work-free income and then we'll be right back to square one with means tested welfare. I don't see why mincome is preferable to socialized medicine + free education + means tested welfare. Expecting to get money from the working class for literally nothing is exploitative. It's telling how many avowed socialists seem to think economic equality means never having to work a lovely job you hate.
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Jan 4, 2016 20:45
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Well, what makes a job lovely? Most people wouldn't consider an I-banker position on Wall Street as a lovely job, even though the hours are insane and the people horrible. Most people would consider a part time janitation specialist at a bus terminal a horrible job, even though you probably deal with less people and have better hours. Hmm, what could be separating them? What makes a lovely job lovely? Could it be the pay? Could that be why socialists are against "lovely jobs"? Regardless, it doesn't matter because Americans are greedy and short-sighted and the world's most gleaming example of the crab bucket in action. Radbot fucked around with this message at 20:57 on Jan 4, 2016 |
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Jan 4, 2016 20:54
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Typical Pubbie posted:The problem is that people view mincome as a means to reduce the number of hours worked while convincing themselves that such a system would be viable both politically and economically. The people who are working will grow sick of their money going to those who aren't. They will demand certain requirements be met to receive work-free income and then we'll be right back to square one with means tested welfare. I believe that the argument against that is that if they vote away mincome they will risk voting away their own income, keeps everyone on side, you see? Of course you could propose "gently caress them scroungers stop giving them money but keep giving me money" but we already have that problem, it'd be nicer to have a mincome to lose rather than none at all. Also you don't get the money from the working class you get the money from the rich with progressive taxation, and if you do take it from the working class the majority of it goes back to them. Also you can do mincome as well as all of those other things, free education, socialized medicine, basic income and extra help for people who have higher costs of living.
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Jan 4, 2016 20:56
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OwlFancier posted:I believe that the argument against that is that if they vote away mincome they will risk voting away their own income, keeps everyone on side, you see? It'd be pretty easy to have money-for-me-and-not-for-thee, "tax cuts for the working, reform (cut) our mincome system" is all you'd need to message. Whether the tax cut ends up happening doesn't matter.
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Jan 4, 2016 20:58
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Radbot posted:It'd be pretty easy to have money-for-me-and-not-for-thee, "tax cuts for the working, reform (cut) our mincome system" is all you'd need to message. Whether the tax cut ends up happening doesn't matter. Yes you can do that, just as you can vote away socialised medicine and all the other good things about society, but the idea is to make it a little harder by getting people to rely on those institutions and to make them the same ones that everyone else gets, for the most part. If mincome isn't something that just other people get, it becomes harder to vote away flippantly than a form of welfare you consider yourself above and don't receive.
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Jan 4, 2016 21:01
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Typical Pubbie posted:The problem is that people view mincome as a means to reduce the number of hours worked while convincing themselves that such a system would be viable both politically and economically. The people who are working will grow sick of their money going to those who aren't. They will demand certain requirements be met to receive work-free income and then we'll be right back to square one with means tested welfare. Well, for one thing, "means tested welfare" creates an entire army of people who have an existence revolving around making other people feel bad, inevitably making them shittier people. So, basically, if you support means tested welfare, you support domestic violence.
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Jan 4, 2016 21:05
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Radbot posted:You're going to be able to ban guns far, far before you're able to deprogram Americans of "working hard is inherently moral". We're so far away from universal healthcare, which is bog standard in nearly every other first world country, and yet somehow we're going to transform shithole America into the Star Trek universe before Miami floods. Right. Yeah, you're not wrong. The work ethic is like, our core myth. Arbeit macht frei! I've had okay luck chipping away at it at work though. Some lines of discussion: - talking about what we'd do if we could retire at 40. People usually at first imagine it as an extended work decompression of Netflix and sleep, but then they start getting creative and talk about hobbies and family and time with friends. - talking about our families, and segueing into how much we'd rather be with them right now - buying extended time off instead of new cars or other bullshit, talking about financial independence - related, talking about how at least we're not turning valves in a refinery or coal mining, and how those workers deserve breaks most of all, if only for their safety - talking about how our boss can fire us for any reason, whatsoever, and how much loyalty our company has to us, and if it cares about us working hard, why did x hard worker who's been here 20 years just get fired? - young people especially hate waking up at 6am, talk about the end of alarm clocks - how the freedom to quit is the freedom to starve (was just joking with a guy about how we had different amounts of freedom, based on body fat %) - talking about the fact we starve when we quit is bullshit, because it's not like we're eating performance evaluations, that there is plenty of food and housing for everyone thanks to technological improvements - offering to cover for coworkers when they peace out early. We've got a secret system after an on-call rotation where we take a day off without telling the boss, which is kind of cool. I think that establishing a secret like that helps with other work shirking. I'm pretty anti-work, and I'm continuously shocked how many republican colleagues agree with me. If you can steer the conversation away from talking points and into personal experience, the work ethic loses a lot of its power. Mofabio fucked around with this message at 21:46 on Jan 4, 2016 |
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Jan 4, 2016 21:27
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The Gini coefficient has decreased over the last 3 decades but your source shows that 44% of the world's income growth was concentrated in the hands of the top 5%. Earlier you were making an argument that it's important to look not just at the dollar figures when it comes to trade, but at the marginal utility produced. That seems to me like an argument for income redistribution, since very rich people gain very little marginal utility from income. An anticipated counterargument is that the rich invest their excess incomes, which strengthens the economy. This is true in the sense that more stuff will be produced, potentially driving greater economies of scale. But the proceeds from equity investments go directly into the hands of the rich. When the economy is financialized and ROE is good, wealth inequality increases (Credit Suisse). "Free trade increases utility" is true in a vacuum but doesn't answer the problem of wealth concentration. If we're talking in terms of utility and not dollars, focusing on decreasing inequality may produce better outcomes than increasing net wealth.
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Jan 4, 2016 21:57
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OwlFancier posted:Yes you can do that, just as you can vote away socialised medicine and all the other good things about society, but the idea is to make it a little harder by getting people to rely on those institutions and to make them the same ones that everyone else gets, for the most part. First, the rich will have massive incentive to eliminate mincome since they will clearly not benefit from it at all. FICA caps deal with this issue for them on the SS side - mincome would require MASSIVE new, uncapped taxes. SS is not necessarily redistributive, mincome is inherently redistributive. Second, the working class will have some incentive to eliminate mincome since they are likely only breaking even from it in the first place. Plus that whole crab bucket/American mentality. Lastly? That's it. That's all the matters, since the poor don't vote and are politically irrelevant. Mofabio posted:I'm pretty anti-work, and I'm continuously shocked how many republican colleagues agree with me. If you can steer the conversation away from talking points and into personal experience, the work ethic loses a lot of its power. There's a big, big difference between "you don't have to work your lovely job anymore" and "the people you consider below you, who make your whole existence possible, don't have to work their lovely jobs anymore". If you need to remind yourself of this, ask how much your Republican coworkers would be willing to pay to eliminate black poverty, for example. Everyone is OK with a mincome/better working conditions for them, sacrificing on behalf of others is a complete 180 from that. How many of us cryptosocialists are wearing sweatshop-made clothing right now? Radbot fucked around with this message at 22:05 on Jan 4, 2016 |
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Jan 4, 2016 22:01
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Radbot posted:There's a big, big difference between "you don't have to work your lovely job anymore" and "the people you consider below you, who make your whole existence possible, don't have to work their lovely jobs anymore". If you need to remind yourself of this, ask how much your Republican coworkers would be willing to pay to eliminate black poverty, for example. Yeah, that's another step. Attacking the work ethic has to start somewhere, though. Maybe the middle class will be taught to resent the harmless people on mincome. But if so, it'll be in spite of conversations like mine. Don't be too hard on yourself if you're wearing sweatshop clothes. Individually choosing to buy non-sweatshop clothes has about as much influence on the existence of sweatshops as voting does on picking the next president. It's basically harmless to the system. You have to take more direct action if you want to influence things.
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Jan 4, 2016 23:09
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Radbot posted:Everyone is OK with a mincome/better working conditions for them, sacrificing on behalf of others is a complete 180 from that. How many of us cryptosocialists are wearing sweatshop-made clothing right now? This is effectively the equivalent of saying that you shouldn't support social programs unless you're giving away all of your money to charities. Yes, if everyone stopped supporting blatantly exploitative companies it would make a difference, but that's never going to happen and your individual choice to do so is less than meaningless. The fact that people who support improving conditions for the poor also don't remove themselves entirely from all sources of exploitation doesn't mean those people are hypocrites, it just means they're being practical about the value of individual contributions to a cause. Removing yourself from modern society accomplishes nothing.
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Jan 4, 2016 23:16
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Mofabio posted:Yeah, that's another step. Attacking the work ethic has to start somewhere, though. Maybe the middle class will be taught to resent the harmless people on mincome. But if so, it'll be in spite of conversations like mine. I think your conversation technique is great and it's a useful template for subtly advocating for any kind of social change. I have my own rule of thumb for dialogue-based activism which is "don't let a bad idea run unopposed." Whenever people are sitting around agreeing with each other about something antisocial, it's something just to voice an opposing opinion. Even if you have no hope of convincing them, at least they can't say they've never heard another perspective before. So many harmful and ignorant ideas are hothouse flowers that can't survive outside the bubble of homogeneity.
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Jan 4, 2016 23:24
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Trent posted:This argument is nowhere near as clear cut as you are making it out to be. Let me make it clearer: them: "Paying for (exploited labour goods) is fine; I mean, if you didn't pay for (exploited labour goods), then the person you paid would not have any money. Their consenting, and the act of paying for (exploited labour goods) has gotten them paid, bettering their life. The transaction is mutually beneficial! Do you -want- them to be fired?" me: "That's not the only option though. A first world country could directly give that money to the (exploited labor force), without requiring them to (work in sweatshop dangerous conditions) to get it. Coercing a person into (sweatshop work) isn't a necessary prerequisite for giving them aid." Also: I would make the same argument. Prostitution is its exploitative; if you somehow had a society that still had money, but no exploitation, then no, it wouldn't be exploitation. Good luck finding a society like that that ever has or will existed, though, or a society where it claimed that was the case but exploitation wasn't going on still under the surface. Trent posted:You're still giving her a physical/monetary thing she wants in exchange for a behavioral/labor thing you want, so the question of exploitation is where the line is, exactly. There are also some who put sex work on a special pedestal that other potentially demeaning/degrading/dangerous work can't access, for various reasons. Exploitation isn't a thin line, but a shade of degree's; you can have more and less exploitative practices that are still exploitative. Both computer scientists at google and clothing manufacturers at sweatshops are being exploited, but one is being exploited more. e: Edited out stupidity. Rob Filter fucked around with this message at 06:45 on Jan 5, 2016 |
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Jan 5, 2016 05:33
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Mofabio posted:Don't be too hard on yourself if you're wearing sweatshop clothes. Individually choosing to buy non-sweatshop clothes has about as much influence on the existence of sweatshops as voting does on picking the next president. It's basically harmless to the system. You have to take more direct action if you want to influence things. While I agree, it's important to note this isn't true for all goods and services. Not paying for prostituted women, not eating meat and animal products, not purchasing a Nintendo or a Xbox; basically anything where its not a condition of existence your consuming (like clothing) but a luxury can impact the system, especially if that luxury is environmentally destructive (like meat), or involves massively exploitative labor (like video game consoles). It won't change the system by itself, but as far as actions go its a good small first step, and its ridiculously easy; you just have to -not- do something.
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Jan 5, 2016 05:46
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This is just a call for a boycott on a personal basis. I'm not sure how effective that will be.
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Jan 5, 2016 05:52
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Nevvy Z posted:This is just a call for a boycott on a personal basis. I'm not sure how effective that will be. Not very, but a personal boycott is a good start for having a general boycott. Individuals add up to real numbers, especially if they advocate for others to do it too. Rob Filter fucked around with this message at 06:06 on Jan 5, 2016 |
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Jan 5, 2016 06:03
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Rob Filter posted:Being prostituted in a first world country as a citizen of that country is probably better than being worked in an asbestos filled factory 18 hours a day. Quick tip for all you male internet progressives out there: Any time you find yourself constructing an argument where you're comparing rape favorably to something else, just don't. Don't get mad. Don't sputter about how sound your logic is. Just find a different thing to talk about and avoid the road you're heading down. "Exploitation is a matter of degrees" was a perfectly worthwhile thing to say before you decided to paddle out of your depth.
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Jan 5, 2016 06:08
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We could imagine a situation in which prostitution wasn't exploitative, and we can also imagine Big Rock Candy Mountain, and frankly, I know which I'd rather do.
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Jan 5, 2016 06:17
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Tiny Brontosaurus posted:Quick tip for all you male internet progressives out there: Any time you find yourself constructing an argument where you're comparing rape favorably to something else, just don't. Don't get mad. Don't sputter about how sound your logic is. Just find a different thing to talk about and avoid the road you're heading down. "Exploitation is a matter of degrees" was a perfectly worthwhile thing to say before you decided to paddle out of your depth. You know what... good point. That was a pretty stupid thing to say. poo poo. My loving bad, sorry. e: I'll edit it out because it was a stupid as hell position, and my stupidity is still immortalized in your quote. Rob Filter fucked around with this message at 06:38 on Jan 5, 2016 |
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Jan 5, 2016 06:25
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Rob Filter posted:You know what... good point. That was a pretty stupid thing to say. poo poo. My loving bad, sorry. It's easy to do. Especially tricky to avoid when the good idea of looking at exploitation as a spectrum when deciding how best to personally reduce harm in the world lives so perilously close to the very bad idea of trying to rank oppressions. I am not sure if that sentence parses. I have a fever. Anyway, you're a good dude, thanks for being chill.
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Jan 5, 2016 06:36
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Tiny Brontosaurus posted:It's easy to do. Especially tricky to avoid when the good idea of looking at exploitation as a spectrum when deciding how best to personally reduce harm in the world lives so perilously close to the very bad idea of trying to rank oppressions. I am not sure if that sentence parses. I have a fever. Anyway, you're a good dude, thanks for being chill. Yeah, it parses. The bolded text is not something I'd considered before, but yeah, something I'm definitely going to avoid doing in the future. Thanks for being chill as well.
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Jan 5, 2016 06:45
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Give it only to people who live in actual verifiable poverty and who are forced into dangerous jobs. I think the right way to spend such welfare would be in anything except on creatives who don't want to work. Should be on people building their life from the lowest of the low.
wiregrind fucked around with this message at 12:34 on Jan 5, 2016 |
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Jan 5, 2016 12:20
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wiregrind posted:Give it only to people who live in actual verifiable poverty and who are forced into dangerous jobs. I think the right way to spend such welfare would be in anything except on creatives who don't want to work. Should be on people building their life from the lowest of the low. A bad idea, because then you immediately run the risk of artificially applying tiers to jobs with regards to how dangerous they are or aren't. And then some lobby group decides to get CEO positioned labelled as incredibly stressful and suddenly doing gently caress all is considered more dangerous than being a nurse on an alcoholic ward.
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Jan 5, 2016 13:21
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Tying it to "actual verifiable poverty" is a misguided way of thinking about these kinds of policies in general: they are not charities, they're forms of security that liberate (by degrees) ordinary working people from the power of employers to determine their lives through their inherently unfair edge at the bargaining table. This is not something that only "verifiably poor" workers need and attempting to limit it in that way introduces needless bureaucratic inefficiency and political football over what exactly qualifies as "poverty," opening the door to all sorts of ugly condescending poor-shaming lifestyle policing about what poor folks are and are not allowed to own or purchase as well as making it harder for those who need it to get it. It's junk. The whole point of basic income is subverted by that qualification. eta: What the hell does "creatives who don't want to work" even mean? If they don't want to create, in what sense are they "creatives?" This sounds like echoes of the OP's weird spiteful fixation on paper-pushing bureaucrats. A minimum income would be good for the advancement of the arts and entertainment by allowing creative people more time to work on their creations and giving them more freedom from the whims of publishers (i.e., the analogue to employers). GunnerJ fucked around with this message at 14:59 on Jan 5, 2016 |
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Jan 5, 2016 14:56
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GunnerJ posted:eta: What the hell does "creatives who don't want to work" even mean? edit: this all within the context of acceptable usage in certain circles etc etc Lyapunov Unstable fucked around with this message at 15:07 on Jan 5, 2016 |
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Jan 5, 2016 15:05
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I feel like we would have to have a general shift in what constitutes meaningful work. All the old opinions would still be in place, but modified for large scale unemployment. The guy who lives off his mincome and just plays games all day will still be looked down on. But someone who still gets out and helps in the community garden and restores motorcycles would accrue a certain amount of social respect even if they don't make any more money. it might lead to some weird effects like 50% of the country being "in a band" but it seems like the only feasaible way forward.
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Jan 5, 2016 15:49
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7c Nickel posted:I feel like we would have to have a general shift in what constitutes meaningful work. All the old opinions would still be in place, but modified for large scale unemployment. The guy who lives off his mincome and just plays games all day will still be looked down on. But someone who still gets out and helps in the community garden and restores motorcycles would accrue a certain amount of social respect even if they don't make any more money. it might lead to some weird effects like 50% of the country being "in a band" but it seems like the only feasaible way forward. This is how the Hipster Revolution begins; not with a bang, but a whimper.
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Jan 5, 2016 15:57
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Radbot posted:There's a big, big difference between "you don't have to work your lovely job anymore" and "the people you consider below you, who make your whole existence possible, don't have to work their lovely jobs anymore". If you need to remind yourself of this, ask how much your Republican coworkers would be willing to pay to eliminate black poverty, for example. Why not have mincome be paid out to everyone regardless of income? Make it so the system benefits you while benefiting everyone else as well so there is no distinction or income caps to segregate recipients from non-recipients. This also would eliminate the need for means-testing or verification which serve to shame the poor who have to continuously prove that they are, in fact, poor and hurts those who would otherwise make just above the income limit that, in practice, keeps people stuck in a poverty trap as happens with SSDI.
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Jan 5, 2016 16:05
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Lyapunov Unstable posted:Unemployed trust-fund babies (Bohemian also works). "Starving artist" or "looking for work" is the code for unemployed poor whites, and welfare queen/moocher for unemployed poor blacks. I figured it was code, sure. I can also see how someone might not like this kind of thing going to people who are already living on "free income" from private sources but I don't know how many such people there really are that this would be an actual systemic/fiscal problem. In those cases, I think it would be better to apply the minimum income as a tax break; this could (and maybe should) also be applied to working peoples' taxes.
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Jan 5, 2016 16:05
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7c Nickel posted:it might lead to some weird effects like 50% of the country being "in a band" but it seems like the only feasaible way forward. This is getting really absurd. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that you, like most people who are probably posting in and reading this thread, make at least a comfortable middle class income. Are you ready to give up your house, your car, and basically all amenities so that you can live the high life off of a minimum wage-equivalent government check? If yes, why? If not, explain how you're doing anything other than making a thinly veiled "those awful poors are so lazy!" argument. It's great that arguments against minimum income range from work being such an important part of life that existence would be meaningless without it to work being so terrible that people would rather live one step above poverty than get a job. Yes, people who currently make very little at their jobs would likely quit if they were given enough to live on. That's not a bad thing. Those people are being paid so little because they have no bargaining power in the labor market and they're essentially being exploited by employers who know this.
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Jan 5, 2016 16:34
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Paradoxish posted:This is getting really absurd. Actually that doesn't really describe me and I'm not disagreeing with you. I was just making a joke about how if we can successfully raise the social capital of non job related stuff, everyone will be "in a band" because it's a zero commitment way of raising their standing.
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Jan 5, 2016 16:53
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7c Nickel posted:I was just making a joke about how if we can successfully raise the social capital of non job related stuff, everyone will be "in a band" because it's a zero commitment way of raising their standing. I think your instincts are spot-on. Many 60s British bands actually lived on the generous post-war dole, and learned to play in free public art school because of the 1944 Education Act. Nobody really talks about it, but welfare fed the British Invasion before they could feed themselves selling records. edit: removed specificity, 'beatles' -> british invasion, because sources are aspecific Mofabio fucked around with this message at 19:13 on Jan 5, 2016 |
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Jan 5, 2016 18:52
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It is possible for globalisation to improve conditions while also being fundamentally immoral*. Here's a simple and extreme, but accurate, analogy: There are ten people; one with $100,000,000 and others who are close to starving. The person with $100,000,000 then gives $1,000 to each of the other nine people. In this situation, the other nine people are undoubtedly better off due to the actions of the rich person. But the situation is still a grossly immoral one. And it's even worse if you make the analogy more accurate by adding a condition where the rich person benefits from (and is dependent upon) the work of the others. *I actually don't have any problem specifically with globalisation; I don't think it has any problems that aren't inherent to capitalism in general
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Jan 5, 2016 19:54
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People need money and status. They will work for either as well as any combination of those.
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Jan 6, 2016 00:34
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Your Dunkle Sans posted:I think people ITT are understating cultural attachment to work as a virtue as a barrier to mincome being enacted. The point about work being a key part of Americanism is good but I think the bigger hurdle is that a minimum income would be be instantly characterized as welfare unless careful steps were taken to prevent such a characterization. It is a subtle distinction, but an important one. When Nixon proposed a version of the minimum income in 1969, the main obstacle to its passage was when conservatives started framing it as welfare. Once a program is viewed as welfare, the politics change drastically. The closest thing the US has to a minimum income now, the Earned Income Tax Credit, has pretty deep bipartisan support but after President Clinton's 1993 made big increases to the credit as part of his welfare reform agenda, conservatives started going after it with the same strategies they used to blackify cash assistance and degrade public support for that. So ultimately, while dealing with the work issue you mention is important, I think the bigger issue is protecting any minimum income proposal from being framed as welfare.
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Jan 6, 2016 03:39
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