QuoteOriginally posted by: exneratunriskQuoteOriginally posted by: Traden4AlphaQuoteOriginally posted by: exneratunriskSo a "real left-wing" wants a market liberation, the orthogonalization of economy and the social system and sharing. Instruments would be unconditioned basic income, changing the reference system for progressive tax from wages to income, cancel all subsidies, ...and ... drumroll ... organize a slim government that concentrates on hard and soft infrastructure.First, let me wholehearted agree with the goal of "a slim government that concentrates on hard and soft infrastructure." And the concept of the orthogonalization of economy and the social system seems attractive on the surface. But is it possible? To the extent that the "social system" involves any transfers of money or money-like instruments, it immediately becomes non-orthogonal to the economy. The redistribution of money among producers and consumers can't help but change economic patterns of production and consumption.∂Standard_of_Living/∂Labour: how do social policies modulate returns on labour?∂Standard_of_Living/∂Savings: how do social policies modulate returns on savings?∂Standard_of_Living/∂Risk_Taking: how do social policies modulate the expected value of risky investments?Or, more generally, what is:Standard_of_Living( Person_i | Decisions_and_Actions(Person_i) )A central challenge to government is to skim enough resources from the economy to provide vital services/infrastructure to that economy without stunting the very economy that the government depends on.Commercial street and working streetIf cs is not greedy it harms itself - if cs is too greedy it harms ws and consequently itselfIf ws does not want more it harms itself - if ws wants too much it harms cs and consequently itselfThis is co-evolution and IMO it doesn't make any sense if the one side claims cs should be more social and the other side ws should be more commercial.Hmmmm... I've always rejected the CS vs. WS dichotomy as a leftist concept that arose from Europe's unfortunate roots in aristocracy. Moreover, the white-collar vs. blue-collar (manager vs. worker) distinction is become increasingly anachronistic in the context of modern organizations. Increasingly, every person in an organization must be a manager of resources (their own, that of their equipment, and indirectly of their coworkers).Instead of a worker-manager dichotomy, I see everyone is part of an economic democracy in which every individual is both a candidate (via the labor, services, products, knowledge that they offer to voters) and a voter (via the labour, money, and other resources that they bid for the candidates). In this context, greed is a double-edged sword. As a candidate, a person must offer more than they cost the voter so that the voter will vote for them. Thus candidates can't be too greedy. As a voter, a person must offer enough (and be discerning enough) to motivate candidates. Thus a voter can't be too greedy (== stingy) with their votes. Finally, both sides must honor their promises.QuoteOriginally posted by: exneratunriskBut the government could make some fundamental decisions, like installing an unconditioned basic income. This would set the co-evolution to another level and and have significant structural consequences (the quality of work and the quality of the economic outputs as well as the will to enter into more risky investments).This is discussed here for decades, but, I guess, the Swiss will be the first to install it.My skepticism of the concept comes from an economic and a mathematical problem with the conceptFirst, let's assume that we have system with unconditioned basic income -- the amount a person receives despite doing no work. 1. How much additional income would a person receive if they work for 1 hour? I would assert that returns on labor must be both strongly positive and differentiated by the value created by the person in order to have a functioning and healthy society/ Someone who produces little output or of low value will be paid much less than someone who produces prodigious output of high value.2. If a non-working person does not spend all of their "unconditioned basic income" so that they accumulate several years of wealth and generate some supplementary income from savings -- should they receive less "unconditioned basic income" in the future? That is, does a person lose their government/social benefits if they are not spendthrift? I don't see how a society that penalizes thrift and delayed gratification can function well.3. If a person saves one year of "basic income" and opens a restaurant or starts a small company, what does the distribution of returns look like (especially after they "share" profits). If the statistics of small business failure (and of venture capital returns) are anything to go by, such a venture might have a 90% chance of losing all their savings and a 10% chance of making 12X their savings (before taxes). But what is the required tax rate on 12X income to ensure that the 10% of "lucky" business starters pay enough taxes to provide "unconditioned basic income" to the 90% of "unlucky" business starters? And at that level of "progressive" taxation, would anyone take any of the risks necessary for progress in an economy?Second, the definition of unconditioned basic income is bound to be subject to upward pressure over time. The "necessities of life" for the next generation inevitably increase in direct proportion to the luxuries that the previous generation of wealthiest could afford. No one wants to be below average. But how can government (or anyone) create an economy in which no one has less than the average level of income without killing the golden goose of motivation (i.e., making all incomes identical so that no one can improve their standard of living or the standard of living of their family through education, harder work, great service, clever ideas, etc.)?

QuoteOriginally posted by: MarsdenWouldn't it be nice if you could just mind your own business, and not have to worry so much about what other people -- people you don't even know -- are thinking?You bet! But they are thinking about putting me in prison and levying my bank accounts and so on and so on. They are obsessed with me, and now I will go to prison if I don't report my "life changes" to them on a website!

T4A, 1. the co-evoltion and the modern management theories. To me it is preaching the dignity of slavery work thinking this creates incentive. But that will not work as long as employees do not get full autonomy to organize their optimal risk.But some will never beable to do that, consequently:2. UBI. It is a net and trampolino in one and it does not discriminate. Even a billionaire shall get it. But to make it better understood, maybe I explain how I would finance it here.To be paid to over 16 y old... and taxed (additive in the progressive tax system). EUR 10.000 per year. This would cost about EUR 40 Billion.Financing: stop 12 B counterproductive subsidies (from 18), pay 16 B less individual social aid, 4 B less pension aid, 3 B less cost of social burocracy, ... for the remaining 5 there are a lot of small positions.Some would stop working, some start their own small business, IMO, balanced. UBI only does not allow for wealth growth ...But, I don't know. It needs a real live lab test. I guess, CH will give us the show window ....

QuoteOriginally posted by: farmerQuoteOriginally posted by: MarsdenWouldn't it be nice if you could just mind your own business, and not have to worry so much about what other people -- people you don't even know -- are thinking?You bet! But they are thinking about putting me in prison and levying my bank accounts and so on and so on. They are obsessed with me, and now I will go to prison if I don't report my "life changes" to them on a website!So ... a bit like dealing with a private health insurance company in America?Maybe if you thought about it a little bit, "guys who are left-wing" aren't all that different from you.

QuoteOriginally posted by: MarsdenSo ... a bit like dealing with a private health insurance company in America?I wouldn't know, I don't have health insurance. Because I can't buy the policy I want, or any policy at a fair price, or get a doctor who does anything sensible, because it is all regulated crazy.The other month a deer died behind my house. There was a hatch of about 1,000 tiny nymph ticks all over my dogs. So I covered the dogs in tick poison, and the ticks went crazy and jumped onto me for like a week before I figured out what was happening, and what ticks are all about. I had lumps all over me for a few months. I thought this is either cancer, or some deep bacteria from the ticks. So I took three weeks of doxycycline - which had been prescribed for my dog at a cost of about $25 - and the lumps slowly went away.The last time I went to a doctor, he misdiagnosed me and scheduled me for surgery. I took some ibuprofen when I got home, at a few cents a pill from Walmart. I was cured 100% in 30 minutes.I also may have, or have had, cancer on my nose from surfing and skiing so much with no protection. Based on all my research, and how fast it grew after I first cut it off, it sure seemed like cancer. But I burned it off with a soldering iron, making sure to get any vessels supplying blood to the general area (stick a pen light up your nose). Amazingly, what was left seems to have gone away almost completely on its own. Cost at a doctor? Probably $1200 minimum. Probably $6000 just to get inside the same building as a doctor over 50 who has a chance of being right about anything.

exneratunrisk,1. Workers already have a great deal of autonomy to look for different jobs. But here's the nasty side effect: if you give the average person EUR 10.000 on top of their existing income (the median of EUR 18.529 in Austria), they are just going to spend it on a bigger flat, a new car, more electronics, bigger vacations, better wines, more dinners out, etc. They are going to adopt a EUR 28.529/year lifestyle and be just as trapped at work as before because the EUR 10.000 UBI is 1/3 the amount they need to be able to quit.2. I agree and do like that part of your plan! UBI does create less disincentives for work than the usual unlimited-term, no-strings-attached welfare or means-tested social benefits.Financing: The cost figure seems reasonable and I can see how it would subsume other social programs. I don't know about the economic impacts of the eliminated subsidies or "small positions". I'm a bit skeptical about eliminating social bureaucracy both because now you need a system that dispenses money to even more people than the old system and from the standpoint that governments have a hard time firing anyone. Unless you propose total elimination of the other social programs (aid to the unemployed, government pensions beyond 10.000/year, special benefits for starving families, etc.) those programs will still cover large populations and need bureaucracy to manage applications, eligibility, reviews, disbursements, etc.The bigger issue is that 10.000/year is below Austria's current poverty line and well below the post-UBI poverty line. Having made all of Austria's citizens 10.000/year wealthier, those with only 10.000/year will actually be relatively poorer.

QuoteOriginally posted by: Traden4Alphaexneratunrisk,1. Workers already have a great deal of autonomy to look for different jobs. But here's the nasty side effect: if you give the average person ?10.000 on top of their existing income (the median of ?18.529 in Austria), they are just going to spend it on a bigger flat, a new car, more electronics, bigger vacations, better wines, more dinners out, etc. They are going to adopt a ?28.529/year lifestyle and be just as trapped at work as before because the ?10.000 UBI is 1/3 the amount they need to be able to quit.2. I agree and do like that part of your plan! UBI does create less disincentives for work than the usual unlimited-term, no-strings-attached welfare or means-tested social benefits.Financing: The cost figure seems reasonable and I can see how it would subsume other social programs. I don't know about the economic impacts of the eliminated subsidies or "small positions". I'm a bit skeptical about eliminating social bureaucracy both because now you need a system that dispenses money to even more people than the old system and from the standpoint that governments have a hard time firing anyone. Unless you propose total elimination of the other social programs (aid to the unemployed, government pensions beyond 10.000/year, special benefits for starving families, etc.) those programs will still cover large populations and need bureaucracy to manage applications, eligibility, reviews, disbursements, etc.The bigger issue is that 10.000/year is below Austria's current poverty line and well below the post-UBI poverty line. Having made all of Austria's citizens 10.000/year wealthier, those with only 10.000/year will actually be relatively poorer.I agree, some of the effects are unclear.Just a few clarifications: Counterproductive subsidies: burning food for energy, large (food-)industry to outperform small innovative producers, ... (you might not have such stupid upending subsidies in the USA?).UB taxed - means here: on top of 10000 it will result in 8000, on top of 50000 in 5000 (roughly).And yes, there is admin involved, but much less - we have a complicated system between country-states-districts related to subsidies and social aids (stupid for such a small country, part of the EU). Managing an additional income was much easier.

From theblaze.comQuoteIt began in the early 1970s, Horowitz explained, when he was introduced to the leader of the Black Panther Party by "a Hollywood producer." In short order, he helped raise the money to buy a white Baptist church that had been "overtaken by the inner city" in Oakland, and gave it to the Panthers for a school."I was editing the largest magazine of the left, and I recruited my bookkeeper to do the books of the school," he said slowly. "In December, 1974, Betty Van Patter disappeared, and by the time police fished her body out of San Francisco Bay five weeks later, I knew the Panthers had killed her."Horowitz has written at length about the topic, explaining how "the press made nothing of it" and how "the existence of a Murder Incorporated in the heart of the American Left is something the Left really doesn't want to know or think about. Such knowledge would refute its most cherished self-understandings and beliefs. It would undermine the sense of righteous indignation that is the crucial starting point of a progressive attitude. It would explode the myths on which the attitude depends."Horowitz proceeded to explain on the Glenn Beck Program how, in the wake of Van Patter's murder, he realized that "all my friends were a menace to me and my family, because I knew if I said I thought they killed her they would've called me a racist and a CIA agent, and the Panthers were capable of killing me."Horowitz warned that while there are horrifically violent elements to the left, like the Black Panther Party, "you should not think that the bad forces are going to appear with black hats and it'll be obvious who they are."Many, like his parents, he said, are "well-meaninged people" who will "speak with humanitarian tones," but just believe "the ends justify the means.""When Lenin set out to transform, fundamentally transform Russia, he didn?t say he was going to kill 40 million people, create famines and concentration camps called gulags," Horowitz remarked. "He said he was going to give them bread, land, and peace."Horowitz also warned that "you can?t understand what's going on" in American politics today without realizing the history behind it ? the world he was raised in."It's the same people and the same vision. Barack Obama, Valerie Jarret, who's his key advisor, and David Axelrod, who's his political strategist - all of them were born into the same communist left that I was. They grew up in it; they were trained in it; they were trained to what I call the neo-communist new left, and they've never left it."

This is a great quote showing how left-wing people view people who don't share their vain vision of themselves:Quote"The worst of beasts in the sight of Allah are those who disbelieve. They are the ones with whom you made a covenant, but they break their covenant every time," he said.From there, he said that the Koran "provides us with the answer" which is to "massacre them.""We must restore them to the state of humiliation imposed upon them. They should be dhimmi [second class] citizens," Al-Astal said. "This status must be imposed upon them by war. They must pay the jizya security tax while they live in our midst."