Thomas Lunde wrote:
>
> Brad McCormick wrote:
>
> where as Marx wrote -- albeit about the
> future instead of the past -- there is no longer the
> government of men but only the administration of things...),
> whereas we have devolved into aspiring
> to freedom *of* enterprise, i.e., to make more money as
> the summum bonum.
Let me straighten out the bibliographical "gold" behind the
"scrip[t]". Marx wrote about a future (what he called communism),
in which the government of men would be replaced by the
administration of things. Hannah Arendt, in _The Human Condition_
wrote that, in the clasical Greek polis, there was no
government in our sense, because the
polis was a society of peers who
jointly shaped their social world as a space of peer "speech
and action" (my words: no leaders and no followers).
For the ancient Greeks, "representative democracy" would
have amounted to *an imitation of life*, in which the
most persons were deprived of the most important thing
in life: being a peer political actor.
Arendt also pointed out the difference between the
classical Greeks' valuing freedom *from* enterprise as the
condition appropriate to man (oops!), in contrast to "our"
idealization of the "animal laborans" and his (or her)
drive to maximize their freedom *of* enterprise.
>
> Thomas
>
> What a lovely quote - thanks. One of the arguments to favour a Basic
> Income would be that it would not be political. It would be an
> administrative thing in which every citizen received a payment. You
> would not have to be poor to qualify. You would not have to be
> disabled. You would not have to be old. You would not have to have
> only one parent. It would just be a transfer of wealth - in some way
> - and it would be done without any criteria except citizenship and as
> everyone is a citizen of someplace, everyone would be guaranteed the
> funds for living their life.
>
> Marx is also prescient in noting that we have "devolved" into aspiring
> to a "freedom of enterprise" as the major rationale for living. I am
> searching for another rationale as compelling for providing a Basic
> Income for everyone while still allowing those of enterprise to
> achieve more. Can you tell me what that rationale is?
The more I think about it, the more it seems to me that
a kind of "bounded" marketplace might be worth a try.
First, prohibit the renting of persons (no wage labor):
if anybody works on your project, they work with you
instead of "for" you (the "for" is telling there, in
connection with the Kantian notion of every person as an
end-in-themselves, rather than merely being-for-another's
benefit).
Second, remove all the important business of life from the
vicissitudes of the market (your "Basic Income" would largely
accomplish that. *Then* let those persons who wish to
use their leisure to "make money" do so, under the watchful
eye of the society of citizens, who would have the
right at any time to intervene if this intrinsically
irrational behavior got out of hand and ceased to be
beneficial or at least innocuous to society.
And, while we're at it, I would also outlaw "trade
secrets". No use of *withholding knowledge* from others
as a way to get one up on them.
Some persons like to "go sailing" in their free time.
Some like to study [I've just bought a wonderful looking
book by Cornelius Castoriadis: _World in Fragments_!!!].
Some may wish to be couch potatoes. OK. Let them all
"be", and let the person with a passion for "enterprise"
pusue his or her dream too, *so long as they don't hurt
the others*!
What is a good rationale for providing a basic
income to all? So that we can approach closer to
material instead of merely "formal" democracy, i.e./e.g.,
to a condition in which, if persons go to a workplace,
they do it because they want to rather than
because they are intimidated with an "or else"
(The "invisible hand" isn't really all that
different, IMO, except in terms of difficulty
in assigning responsibility...,
from the more visible strong arm of
personalized dictatorships...)....
\brad mccormick
--
Mankind is not the master of all the stuff that exists, but
Everyman (woman, child) is a judge of the world.
Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED]
(914)238-0788 / 27 Poillon Rd, Chappaqua, NY 10514-3403 USA
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