The problem is that most Basic Income ideas want to take from the rich and give to the poor. As I said, if the rich earned it, we have no right to their earnings. If they are rich because the government gave them a lucrative privilege, the privilege should be removed.
It shouldn't be supported and then taxed. That's ridiculous.
As you know, Rent (in the Classical sense) is a creation of the community that finds its way into private hands. If it were to be collected and given back to the community that created it, not only would it make sense, it would be the moral thing to do.
Some Georgists place this "Citizen's Dividend" high on their agenda.
All figures are highly suspect and my arithmetic is more so. There is a total land value in the US of about $30 trillion. At 5% we can capitalize down to an annual income of $1.5 trillion - to be divided among (say) 300 million Americans.
That would seem to work out at about $5,000 for every man, woman, and child. Let's halve it for much of it is land speculation. So, a nuclear family of four would get $10,000 Citizen's Dividend - without taking a penny from the people who earned their wealth.
Yet, this isn't so important. What is important is to stop the hemorrhaging from the economy caused by heavy speculation in the basic source of all our production.
Harry
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Ed wrote:
Ray, surely the idea is not to redistribute everything. Surely all that is needed is some form of redistribution that ensures that everyone in a society has enough to live on if they happen to lose their jobs or are unable to work for some other reason. Unlike welfare, it should be something that is so integral to society that no one could be labeled or stigmatized because they make use of it. If it existed, we wouldn't need things like welfare, disability payments, or employment insurance. On the part of society, the operating moral principle would be that every citizen is entitled to it. On the part of the citizen, the operating moral principle would be to use it only when one had to. Some people would have to use it permanently, but hopefully most only temporarily. It's like the basic income proposals Sally Lerner used to promote on this list.
Ed Weick
**************************************************** Harry Pollard Henry George School of Social Science of Los Angeles Box 655 Tujunga CA 91042 Tel: (818) 352-4141 -- Fax: (818) 353-2242 http://home.attbi.com/~haledward ****************************************************
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