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Not mention self-limiting in the humanity on both ends of
the scale.
REH
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Monday, December 08, 2003 4:25
PM
Subject: Re: Slightly extended (was Re:
[Futurework] David Ricardo, Cavema n Trade vs. Modern Trade
Thomas:
I see a Basic Income as a method of creating a
floor to poverty and a ceiling on wealth. It is obscene to let
individuals claim a billion dollars of wealth while millions cannot meet basic
neccisities. Why does no one challenge the concept of unlimited wealth
as a right. After all, after 10 million or so for personal and family
use, the rest is scores among the big boys/
Respectfully,
Thomas
Lunde
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From: Keith Hudson
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: RE:
Slightly extended (was Re: [Futurework] David Ricardo, Cavema n Trade
vs. Modern Trade
Date: Fri, Dec 5, 2003, 1:35 AM
Arthur,
At 16:16 04/12/2003 -0500, you wrote:
As my
colleague who was born in India says, the first picture of a Canadian
child dying with a distended belly will be the spark that ignites
governments to end this current (farcical) set of
activities.
There will be no starvation in Canada. There
will be panhandlers on street corners and panhandlers using the food
banks. Dignity is lost all around: Those who receive and those who
give (although they feel mighty righteous at the
moment.)
We can end poverty. There can be a basic
income. Somehow there is little incentive to
change.
Unfortunately (or not), a
Basic Income would be impossible. All over the western world, taking all the
developed countries into account (that is, they are all welfare states now
to a greater or lesser degree), we have already reached the limits of
taxation. No government could ever be elected on this basis. And no
government could stand for a single day if it proceeded to bring it about.
Not only is there "little incentive", there would be the most almighty
outburst of anger -- not from the rich only, but the midcdle-class (who do
most of the sophisticated work that keeps the flimsy thing we call
civilisation together) and the de-skilled, badly-educated working class who,
in the last few decades, have only just started to receive an income that
satisfies them (while they're in work). (Even so, this has declined in real
terms in the last 20 years in the most developed country --
America.)
Indeed, with the declining birth rate in developed
countries, and the ageing population, we are already proceeding towards a
sort of BI and, as my piece + articles of yesterday ("The poverty of
nation-states") clearly shows, nation-states cannot afford it -- not for
more than a decade or so longer, anyway, before total collapse ensues
(unless the most amazing reforms are made very soon).
A BI sounds
wonderful but it is a theoretical solution that runs absolutely counter to
human nature. Human society is about relative status. Not only human
society, but primate society. And not only primate society but any social
mammalian society. We really need to understand this first before we can
suggest quite new social structures that will satisfy our basic instincts --
and, if possible, basic incomes also. But not before then. Extending
welfarism beyond what we have now in most developed countries, desirable
though it might sound (and I don't object to it on moral grounds), is
already running itself into the ground.
Keith
We live
in a democracy. As Amartya Sen said, there is no history of
starvation in democracies.
As I said in my earlier
posting, the current system may be remarkably
stable.
arthur
-----Original Message-----
From: Ed Weick [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Thursday,
December 04, 2003 1:12 PM
To: Cordell, Arthur: ECOM; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re:
Slightly extended (was Re: [Futurework] David Ricardo, Caveman Trade vs.
Modern Trade
So
what if all the righteous middle class people stopped sending their unused
canned goods to the food banks? Well the hungry people might just vote
in a government that promises radical change. Right now everyone
wins: political parties promise change and don't; middle class feels good
about sending food to the food bank; working poor can supplement their
foodstock by heading to the food bank. The system may be quite stable.
Maybe there really is no wish to change.
arthur
I'm on the Board of a
downtown foodbank and have spent a little time there. The people who
came to pick up food fell into several groups. There were older men,
fifty plus, who had migrated to Ottawa because there was nothing for them in
the valley communities. Their education and skills were limited, so
there was nothing in Ottawa either. There were young mothers, some
with children, who gave you every impression that they didn't want to be
there; they hurried in and they hurried out. There were a number of
cocky young people, some perhaps students, some living at the "Y", who acted
as though they were indulging the foodbank with their presence. None
of these people acted as though they wanted to change the system. All
they wanted was the food - except for the older guys who also seemed to want
to hang around and talk a little.
There's an aura of
powerlessness about it. The churches that operate the foodbank know
that if they didn't do it, nobody would. So they keep doing it and
their members keep bringing the cans of tuna and the packages of pasta.
The churches might want to take an advocacy position, but that might
infringe on their charitable status. The politicians get themselves
elected and their promises become mere promises, not commitments. Most
of the people who use the foodbank hate doing it, but they need to eat.
Watching it without having to depend on it, I wish it would all go
away. But it won't. It's what the world is like and how it will
stay. Perhaps Canadians, as people who live in the developed world, should
feel fortunate that they can afford foodbanks. Ever so many parts of
the world can't, and people starve.
Ed
-----Original Message-----
From: Ed Weick [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Thursday,
December 4, 2003 9:08 AM
To: Thomas Lunde; [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re:
Slightly extended (was Re: [Futurework] David Ricardo, Caveman Trade vs.
Modern Trade
Thomas, very good posting.
Ontario has just raised the minimum wage from peanuts to peanuts.
Many of the poor are working full time and even double time, but are
still unable to meet the rent or buy enough food, let alone get their kids
the kinds of in toys ("status goods") that are going around. They can
try eating freedom and justice, but they don't taste very good when you
can't make ends meet.
Ed
----- Original Message -----
From: Thomas
Lunde <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Thursday, December 04, 2003 3:36 AM
Subject: Re: Slightly
extended (was Re: [Futurework] David Ricardo, Caveman Trade vs. Modern
Trade
They don't need money, Thomas. They
need justice and the freedom to enjoy it.
Harry
Thomas:
In a way, you
are right. Being poor and working with the poor as customers and
neighbours let's me see the many ways the poor are lacking justice. A
recent article in the paper made the outstanding statement that 37% of
workers in Canada are not covered by the Labour Code and laws. When
wages for the poor are kept artificially low, then the only way to
compensate to maintain a survival standard is to work more. Of course,
there are about 4 to 5% who are mentally incapable, or physically disabled
or in the case of single mothers, family challenged. However, the work
more solution has only produced the working poor, who still have to use food
banks and subsidized housing, if thet can get it. Not only that, as
you suggest, they do not even have the freedom to enjoy what little they
have. I would agree, that justice and freedom would go a long way to
compensating for money - or as you might suggest, make the earning and
spending of money a by product of an effective system of justice and the
freedom and thereby create a surplus to
enjoy.
Respectfully,
Thomas Lunde
Keith Hudson,
Bath, England, <www.evolutionary-economics.org <http://www.evolutionary-economics.org/> >
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