mandatory earning a living is outdated and barbaric

[Londo_Jowo]

There's more than enough wealth at the top to sustain the transition from a capitalist society to a natural law resource based economy given the willingness of volunteers and everyone getting paid the same until the necessity of money becomes obsolete all together. It's about updating production in a decentralized way on the most technically efficient means of production using the most up to date methods that calculate resources and use the most advanced techniques

Can you provide the math to back up your claims?

BTW Your utopia will never come to being as many people being paid for nothing will become too lazy to be productive.

 

[Naer]

Can you provide the math to back up your claims?

BTW Your utopia will never come to being as many people being paid for nothing will become too lazy to be productive.

Don't mean to beat this horse but equality breeds stability and balance. Inequality breeds imbalance and destabilization. Monetary economics it's in it's dying phase due the adaptation from human labor to automation and the process of ephemerilization. We are rapidly doing more with less. And when we do that employment goes down. I think we need to adhere to sustainability values if we are to make a NLRBE a reality. It's a value shift and an educational feat. capitalism was ok at one point in time but due to market economics in it's dying phase a real value shift must take place and an appeal to the scientific method while updating everything to most technically efficient means for the lowest cost until the monetary system is obsolete. Again we are getting there, but still a little far and a good step within the right direction within the system is guaranteed universal basic income

 

[norseamd]

So how does Keynesian economics fit into all of this and what are the alternatives?

 

[Naer]

So how does Keynesian economics fit into all of this and what are the alternatives?

We transcend the monetary system all together eventually. There just needs to be equality to some extent

 

[realibrad]

We transcend the monetary system all together eventually. There just needs to be equality to some extent

This just seems short sighted. Paper money might be new, but money has been around almost as long as trade. Money is simply a way to exchange goods/services for something that is more dynamic than other goods/services. So long as some people are better at doing things than others, you will have money as a form of exchange. I dont see a time where we dont have money, because I dont see a time when people are not different.

 

[Londo_Jowo]

Don't mean to beat this horse but equality breeds stability and balance. Inequality breeds imbalance and destabilization. Monetary economics it's in it's dying phase due the adaptation from human labor to automation and the process of ephemerilization. We are rapidly doing more with less. And when we do that employment goes down. I think we need to adhere to sustainability values if we are to make a NLRBE a reality. It's a value shift and an educational feat. capitalism was ok at one point in time but due to market economics in it's dying phase a real value shift must take place and an appeal to the scientific method while updating everything to most technically efficient means for the lowest cost until the monetary system is obsolete. Again we are getting there, but still a little far and a good step within the right direction within the system is guaranteed universal basic income

Aerosmith said it quite well.

Dream on
Dream on
Dream on
Dream until your dreams come true
Dream on
Dream on
Dream on
Dream until your dreams come true
Dream on
Dream on
Dream on
Dream on
Dream on
Dream on
Dream on

Only problem is you will never see this utopia you dream of come to fruition so get used to working until you're old.

 

[SMOGZINN]

I don't see it and I don't see any need for any qualifiers like "it hasn't been tried".

There's no "social recognition and respect" for pumping septic tanks or any number of other necessary jobs.

Any visions of some post-scarcity society better include a whole lot of useful robots to perform most tasks.

Fern

Post-scarcity might be the wrong word for this, but post-labor is most definitely what we are talking about. The day will come when we will no longer need humans to do just about any job. What motivated a person to work when a machine can do his job better, faster, and cheaper than him? What motivates a company to hire him?

Lets face it, we are getting to this point alarmingly fast. We are going to have serious problems long before we hit a post-labor economy. What do we do when there are 350 million Americans and only 20 million jobs? We need to be thinking about the solution to the problem of large scale unavoidable unemployment.

 

[norseamd]

Lets face it, we are getting to this point alarmingly fast. We are going to have serious problems long before we hit a post-labor economy. What do we do when there are 350 million Americans and only 20 million jobs? We need to be thinking about the solution to the problem of large scale unavoidable unemployment.

This. Do you think 5 billion starving souls are going to live in peace and quiet now?

 

[boomerang]

Post-scarcity might be the wrong word for this, but post-labor is most definitely what we are talking about. The day will come when we will no longer need humans to do just about any job. What motivated a person to work when a machine can do his job better, faster, and cheaper than him? What motivates a company to hire him?

Lets face it, we are getting to this point alarmingly fast. We are going to have serious problems long before we hit a post-labor economy. What do we do when there are 350 million Americans and only 20 million jobs? We need to be thinking about the solution to the problem of large scale unavoidable unemployment.

I'll freely admit I don't know what the answer is but I do know that purposefully importing people across our borders without observing immigration laws is the wrong thing to do.

Fewer jobs and more people makes sense only to a certain faction of people. Eventually those people are going to have to be dealt with. I see no other recourse.

 

[SMOGZINN]

I'll freely admit I don't know what the answer is but I do know that purposefully importing people across our borders without observing immigration laws is the wrong thing to do.

Fewer jobs and more people makes sense only to a certain faction of people. Eventually those people are going to have to be dealt with. I see no other recourse.

You are trying to shoehorn your special issue into a problem much bigger than immigration. The fact is if we don't find a solution that can work for everyone, no matter how many we have, we are all going down in flames. Capitalism can not fix this problem.

 

[boomerang]

You are trying to shoehorn your special issue into a problem much bigger than immigration. The fact is if we don't find a solution that can work for everyone, no matter how many we have, we are all going down in flames. Capitalism can not fix this problem.

It's not a "special issue" for me, it's one facet of the problem. It's little more than common sense.

A solution for "everyone" does not in any way shape or form need to include citizens of other nations. Too many would like a simple all-encompassing solution to problems like these. Do X and the problem is fixed. It's going to take a whole lot of X's combined. I spoke of one that is fairly simple to implement.

It's all pie in the sky anyway. There will be no changes. Look at California. Decades of water mismanagement and political chest thumping have left them unable to cope with something that is a regular and normal occurrence. That being drought. There is always a "good" reason to put off to tomorrow what can be done today.

If it's any consolation, this will be a worldwide problem. The only people not affected will be the handful of tribes that have not in any way adopted any modern trappings. They won't much give a shit one way or the other.

Are you insinuating that Socialism/Communism can fix this problem?

 

[norseamd]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JSBhI_0at0

 

[SMOGZINN]

It's not a "special issue" for me, it's one facet of the problem. It's little more than common sense.

Your common sense does not work here. Worrying about immigration when talking about a post-labour economy is like worrying if you left the coffeepot on when the house is already burning down.

If it's any consolation, this will be a worldwide problem. The only people not affected will be the handful of tribes that have not in any way adopted any modern trappings. They won't much give a shit one way or the other.

Right, so who lives on what side of which imaginary line does not matter.

Are you insinuating that Socialism/Communism can fix this problem?

Nope, if I knew a solution I would be posting it. No current social-economic policy can even come close to handling this problem. We need all new solutions.

 

[Attic]

In a society where there is a huge concentration of wealth at the top and the consideration that rampant growth with no regard for ecology leads me to believe that everyone should be cared for in a guaranteed fashion. 1% of the population owns 60% of the wealth and there is enough to go around in the monetary sense. Wealth redistribution is essential to the integrity of the society. Switzerland Norway and Denmark all have high taxes. Its time be move pass this illusion of freedom

The 1%, it's really the 0.1%, own the rights to the production of the rest of us. They own more wealth than is currently redeemable, all their wealth is tied up in their vampiric kiss on our future work and well being.

It's easier to say they own most of the wealth, but this hides the solution somewhat.

Simply give production rewards back to the people instead of skimming production rewards from the many to the few.

Problem is we have elections and nothing really changes, what is in the peoples best interest is not being expressed by our government. Whether you believe this "problem" (unrepresentative republic) is by chance or by decree is critical to determining possible sources of changing things.

 

[werepossum]

Think about how much money Putin has in his bank accounts. Now realize that he has many fold over that that are not directly owned by him but that flow through the Russian government or companies he basically owns which more or less means he can not actually own that money or spend it and anything he wants but he can basically use it for his desires or benefits in only somewhat limited fashion.

All this resource inequality and even macroeconomics overall is very complex and confusing especially when you start to take into account stuff like inflation and monetary policies.

Honestly changing the medical care industry and the huge expenses would probably be one of the most beneficial possibilities for American citizens out of any one basic idea.

I'm not sure that has much effect on anything. Rich people don't bury their money; they make it work for them, by capitalizing private sector projects and by interest. That money is available to us all in the form of loans and jobs. Obviously, we'd be better off if it was our money since we wouldn't have to pay to use it, but having it available to borrow is certainly better than not having it available at all.

Can you provide the math to back up your claims?

BTW Your utopia will never come to being as many people being paid for nothing will become too lazy to be productive.

If he could do the math he wouldn't need to abolish competition and capitalism to live an acceptably satisfactory life. 😀

 

[BoberFett]

Are you insinuating that Socialism/Communism can fix this problem?

Of course socialism can. It can fix everything that capitalism ruins. Just look at CA. They wouldn't have the water problems right now if government was managing their water instead of those greedy, evil private corporations.

Wait a sec...

 

[norseamd]

Wait a sec...

Who do you think actually owns all that water in California?

 

[BoberFett]

Who do you think actually owns all that water in California?

Ummm...

http://www.swrcb.ca.gov/waterrights/

 

[brianmanahan]

all the water in california

is in a bank in the middle of beverly hills, in somebody else's name

 

[norseamd]

All those giant underground reservoirs are owned by private companies. And that a Republican governor actually was vehemently against and was in full support of getting rid of them by law.

 

[Belegost]

If he could do the math he wouldn't need to abolish competition and capitalism to live an acceptably satisfactory life. 😀

I can and have done the math previously in this forum. A basic income to provide poverty line level support to every adult citizen is feasible, and without a large change in tax burdens. I also don't see that this abolishes capitalism or competition, if you want more than mere subsistence level living you'll still need to find something productive to do that earns it.

So I'm going to start by talking about the numbers of a guaranteed basic income (GBI), mostly because they work out to appeal to self-interest.

First, my estimate of the cost of the GBI is around $3T/year, and I get there by taking 240M adults and multiplying by the individual $12k/year amount needing to exceed the poverty line. Other estimates I have seen are in the 2 ~ 2.5T range, based on estimating at a household level, but I'll use mine because it's more pessimistic.

Next is how to pay for 3T/year in expenditures. First, some sacred cows need to burn:

Social Security - the idea was to give a safety net for the old and disabled, GBI is THE safety net, this money goes to that entirely. 1T/year [1]
Welfare/Housing/Food Stamps - Like above, the GBI is the safety net, these are unneeded, estimated federal, state, local .5T/year [1]
Unemployment benefits - I haven't found good data on this except a quick note from the CBO giving an estimate of around 100B in fed spending. States bear a lot of this cost, so I'm going to estimate this at .25T/year
Medicare - the ACA requires everyone to get private health insurance, and the government should get out. This should be replaced by a program to subsidize premiums for those with demonstrable need. Currently this is at 1T/year[1], I think the replacement would save .75T/year

So from spending cuts alone we get 2/3 of the funding (and if we go with more optimistic estimates, we've paid for it). Leaving only 1T/year to come up with. So far we haven't touched taxes, so everyone is still earning the same income they already have plus receiving their GBI check for an extra 12000/year. If we raise taxes to put some of that back in, say such that the top 60% of earners put back an average of 8000/year, we get .96T/year in increased taxes. The rest I suggest come from a serious overhaul of capital gains taxes and especially inheritance taxes to close loopholes and reduce the level of trust-fund legacy at the top, and it's a small enough amount to not require particularly large changes.

So as it stands, every adult in the US would get $12k/year, even with an increase in taxes those currently earning good incomes would receive an average of $4K/year extra.

[1] usgovernmentspending.com

 

[werepossum]

all the water in california

is in a bank in the middle of beverly hills, in somebody else's name

lol +1

I can and have done the math previously in this forum. A basic income to provide poverty line level support to every adult citizen is feasible, and without a large change in tax burdens. I also don't see that this abolishes capitalism or competition, if you want more than mere subsistence level living you'll still need to find something productive to do that earns it.

No, you FEEL that you've done the math. That's quite a different thing.

How are you going to collect the same taxes, much less higher taxes, from, say, McDonald's when you've just hired away their work force with free loot?

Where is that Social Security money coming from when you've just convinced the entire lower economic strata that work is neither necessary nor a sensible bargain?

 

[Naer]

Aerosmith said it quite well.



Only problem is you will never see this utopia you dream of come to fruition so get used to working until you're old.

Martin Luther king once said he had a dream

 

[Belegost]

No, you FEEL that you've done the math. That's quite a different thing.

How are you going to collect the same taxes, much less higher taxes, from, say, McDonald's when you've just hired away their work force with free loot?

Where is that Social Security money coming from when you've just convinced the entire lower economic strata that work is neither necessary nor a sensible bargain?

Let's recall that this is poverty line support, around part-time minimum wage level, I doubt that's going to cause a mass exodus of workers already needing government support to survive, merely improve their living conditions. 12K/year is less than the 20%ile income of ~20k/year. As I see it McDonald's would suddenly have a lot of people with more available income at the low end of the economy to sell cheap food to, similarly for WalMart and others.

I would further suggest that minimum wage should be eliminated as there is no need to ensure a "living wage", the GBI would put labor on more even footing with employers in terms of negotiating wages by removing the fundamental need to earn to survive. I would not at all be surprised if companies ended up paying many low end employees less than current minimum wage since the added money at the low end would still be worth the effort. But the advantage is that the local labor markets will be able to work that out naturally.

Second, even if the bottom 20% all quit together, they only put in about 2% of SS taxes (admittedly that was in 95, but I highly doubt the number has grown since then as income in the bottom 20% has not grown). They would put in a similar amount of medicare and unemployment taxes, and even less of the general income tax as most receive EIC, or at least pay nothing in. So I'm not seeing where there would be a notable loss of taxes generated. And I would think revitalized economic activity would generally raise tax receipts.

My point is not to suggest that every possibility is accounted for in a basic model, but that acting as if it were completely unreasonable is not the case; it's certainly been proposed in greater detail by a few people with far more economic acumen than myself.

 

[Matt1970]

^^^ You just cut everyone's social security benefits by $2000