Guaranteed Income in the news...

[Revoltingest]

It wouldn't surprise me if they called him a socialist.
And his right-winged libertarian stance is why he is an economic conservative to distinguish him from a social conservative. But he is still a conservative.

I'm going by how he described himself, & how he's commonly described (eg, in Wikipedia) by N Americastanian English speakers.
The term, "right wing" libertarian has 2 problems....
- It's often treated as synonymous with "conservative", but it isn't, eg, Friedman was an anti-draft activist.
- Libertarians (like Friedman) don't use the prefix "right" or "left". What's called a "left libertarian" is really just a liberal who isn't illiberal.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

- Libertarians (like Friedman) don't use the prefix "right" or "left". What's called a "left libertarian" is really just a liberal who isn't illiberal.

They aren't Liberals. Liberals are generally far more pro-free market than left-winged Libertarians. They actually share much more in common with Marxists and Neo-Marxists than Liberals.

 

[Revoltingest]

They aren't Liberals. Liberals are generally far more pro-free market than left-winged Libertarians. They actually share much more in common with Marxists and Neo-Marxists than Liberals.

A libertarian who opposed economic freedom simply wouldn't be a libertarian.
A "left libertarian" is like a "democratic dictator", "short giant", or a "Xian atheist", ie, a contradiction in terms.
A pro-free market liberal is really a "classical liberal" or a libertarian.

 

[Walter Russell]

They aren't Liberals. Liberals are generally far more pro-free market than left-winged Libertarians. They actually share much more in common with Marxists and Neo-Marxists than Liberals.

Libertarianism has nothing in common with Marxism. Where do you get an idea like that from?

 

[metis]

They aren't Liberals. Liberals are generally far more pro-free market than left-winged Libertarians. They actually share much more in common with Marxists and Neo-Marxists than Liberals.

I never met a person that is entirely "pro-free market". Many say they are, but they tend to like their perks if they can get them, which is not "free-market". But they convince themselves that they are anyway.

A classic example of this are so many farmers and right-wing politicians who want smaller government-- but they'll accept their subsidy check anyway or legislate "right-to-work" laws to undercut unions or collect their Social Security checks or...

Or, like Exxon-Mobile, which heavily contributes to right-wing causes, they don't pay a dime in federal taxes.

Or like the Pubs who mouth that they believe in more state's rights, smaller federal government, and more individual choice, and yet they intervened in the Terri Sciavo case against the wishes of the family that wanted to discontinue her life support because the doctors concluded that she was basically brain-dead. Remember when they returned to Washington to take a vote to try and stop the family's and doctor's wishes? And then these same characters declared that the ACA would "get between the patient and their doctor", apparently forgetting that this is one of the roles of the private insurance companies.

So many on the right "talk the talk" but never quite make it around to "walk the walk", and I do believe there's a name for that.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

A libertarian who opposed economic freedom simply wouldn't be a libertarian.
A "left libertarian" is like a "democratic dictator", "short giant", or a "Xian atheist", ie, a contradiction in terms.
A pro-free market liberal is really a "classical liberal" or a libertarian.

A left-winged Libertarian is a "democratic dictator" or even a contradiction of terms. Rather, it is their position that well regulated markets and corporate power being heavily reigned in will maximize liberty and freedoms for all. They'd rather see the people holding the reigns rather than corporate elites.

Libertarianism has nothing in common with Marxism. Where do you get an idea like that from?

From reading, from studying from talking, and from realizing that socio-political-economic terms usually come in a variety of colors. As I stated, it is specifically left-winged Libertarians that share more in common with Marxists than they share in common with Liberals.

 

[Revoltingest]

I never met a person that is entirely "pro-free market". Many say they are, but they tend to like their perks if they can get them, which is not "free-market". But they convince themselves that they are anyway.

This seems a wrong headed view.
It's like being tall vs short.
How tall is tall...& how short is short?
Must one be some arbitrary height to qualify as either?
No, that's silly.
So I can be "free market" relative to most people, even though I favor some regulation.
And you can be "anti-free market", even though you'd allow some economic freedom.

It doesnt' serve the language to dwell on arbitrary absolutism.

 

[Revoltingest]

A left-winged Libertarian is a "democratic dictator" or even a contradiction of terms. Rather, it is their position that well regulated markets and corporate power being heavily reigned in will maximize liberty and freedoms for all. They'd rather see the people holding the reigns rather than corporate elites.

From reading, from studying from talking, and from realizing that socio-political-economic terms usually come in a variety of colors. As I stated, it is specifically left-winged Libertarians that share more in common with Marxists than they share in common with Liberals.

"Left" v "right" libertarianism is a minority construct which doesn't reflect the libertarian community.
We don't call ourselves anything other than "libertarian".

 

[Nous]

http://www.wsj.com/articles/a-guaranteed-income-for-every-american-1464969586

I cannot support Murray’s UBI plan at least until I see some numbers showing that it (1) will not leave even more people impoverished, and (2) will generate adequate tax revenues to provide for the ever-growing and aging population and otherwise fund the government. To the best of my reckoning, Murray's plan will fail dramatically on both counts.

Murray proposes giving $13,000 to everyone over age 21 (apparently ~243 million people: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_the_United_States ), but reduced amounts to those making $30,000 or more, and taking $3,000 from everyone for health insurance. If, say, 163 million people were to get $13,000 each, and 80 million get on average $8,500 each, that’s an outlay of $2.8 trillion--exactly the amount of total revenues the government collected in 2013 (https://www.cbo.gov/budget-options/2014/revenue-options ). But evidently just the expenditure on the guaranteed income will not cover the cost of Murray’s plan. Moreover, revenue--the vast majority of which now comes from individual income taxes (47%) and payroll taxes for Social Security and Medicare (34%)--would obviously drop precipitously under Murray’s plan.

How does a person with a monthly income of $833 pay rent, utilities, phone, cable and internet, buy food, toiletries, gas and upkeep for a car and car insurance (such persons will generally not be able to afford to live in urban areas where there is public transportation), and other such basics? Apparently many millions of retired people will have their Social Security and Medicare taken way and will be relegated to trying to live on $833 per month; many of these will be people who own homes (therefore with insurance premiums and property taxes to pay, and sometimes suddenly needing to replace the HVAC or roof). What is that but enforced poverty?

Does the proposed health insurance make all drugs, doctor visits, and surgeries absolutely free? $3,000 per year will hardly cover office visits and medical expenses for the average pill-popping American, much less the increased medical expenses of the elderly. Health insurance under the ACA costs much more than $3,000 per year, including sometimes huge deductibles and significant co-pays. Murray’s plan would provide for a total of only $80 billion for health care; Medicare alone costs many times more than that today even for the limited number of people covered (the federal outlay for Medicare to cover 55 million people was ~$600 billion: http://kff.org/medicare/fact-sheet/medicare-spending-and-financing-fact-sheet/ ). How many trillions will this new health care scheme cost--that is, how many trillions will it add to the current annual deficit? Undoubtedly greater numbers of idle people will decide they are depressed or anxious and will want to consume increasing amounts of the ineffective and debilitating drugs that are claimed to cure these problems.

I’m certain $833 per month plus a part-time minimum wage will be insufficient to pay for living expenses and college tuition. So, either the system of student loans will have to continue, or free college tuition will add large deficits to the budget and national debt. Of course, people would be reluctant to take out a loan for any reason in a dead economy.

It is true that such a UBI plan might encourage people to couple-up or find a roommate--but forced relationships often don’t work well, and several liability on the remainder of an apartment lease is hell for the person who gets left holding the bag.

Is $20,000 per year adequate to provide for a family of two unemployed adults and their 7 children? Hardly. What happens to those children?

Is there any nursing home you can get into for $833 per month? I doubt it. At least I doubt you would want to sleep in that infestation of bed bugs.

I take it the writer of the WSJ article is the Charles Murray who wrote The Bell Curve. I am not favorably impressed by his use of logic or facts by which he formulated his thesis in that book. I am not alone in this.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Or like the Pubs who mouth that they believe in more state's rights, smaller federal government, and more individual choice, and yet they intervened in the Terri Sciavo case against the wishes of the family that wanted to discontinue her life support because the doctors concluded that she was basically brain-dead. Remember when they returned to Washington to take a vote to try and stop the family's and doctor's wishes? And then these same characters declared that the ACA would "get between the patient and their doctor", apparently forgetting that this is one of the roles of the private insurance companies.

I very much so remember that. Another example of when the Pubs contradict themselves is when this "limited government" party gets to get involved with labor unions and tell them what they can and can't do, and call it "right to work."

 

[Nous]

The irony is that it was a conservative economist, Milton Friedman, who came up with such a minimum income plan, and he referred to it as the "negative income tax".

Back in the 1950s? We weren't running trillion-dollar deficits back then. I assume Friedman's plan was not like Murray's. What was Friedman's plan?

 

[Revoltingest]

I very much so remember that. Another example of when the Pubs contradict themselves is when this "limited government" party gets to get involved with labor unions and tell them what they can and can't do, and call it "right to work."

Actually, the "right to work" laws are about allowing workers the option to choose not joining a union.
This defeats laws requiring workers to be under then union's thumb, thereby limiting government's
taking too much power, & putting it in the hands of union bosses.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

A libertarian who opposed economic freedom simply wouldn't be a libertarian.
A "left libertarian" is like a "democratic dictator", "short giant", or a "Xian atheist", ie, a contradiction in terms.
A pro-free market liberal is really a "classical liberal" or a libertarian.

Please stop trying to speak for us. I'm an anarcho-communist and an individualist anarchist, which are libertarian. I'm not a Marxist, either. I think Marxism is awful and a failure. I'm not a liberal, such as a classical liberal or neoliberal, either.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left-libertarianism

We also don't view capitalism as "economic freedom", so stop trying to use your movement's propaganda to hoard the label to yourself. Oh, and right-wing libertarians are technically economically/fiscally conservative.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiscal_conservatism

 

[Walter Russell]

A left-winged Libertarian is a "democratic dictator" or even a contradiction of terms. Rather, it is their position that well regulated markets and corporate power being heavily reigned in will maximize liberty and freedoms for all. They'd rather see the people holding the reigns rather than corporate elites.

From reading, from studying from talking, and from realizing that socio-political-economic terms usually come in a variety of colors. As I stated, it is specifically left-winged Libertarians that share more in common with Marxists than they share in common with Liberals.

Tks for explaining but my understanding of Libertarianism would have me conclude that those ppl snuck onto the Libertarian bus so to speak.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

"Left" v "right" libertarianism is a minority construct which doesn't reflect the libertarian community.
We don't call ourselves anything other than "libertarian".

You can keep trying to pretend they don't exist, or that it somehow isn't proper, but the reality is they do exist, and they do call themselves Libertarians.
And, let's be realistic, there is no Libertarian community as a whole that share equal values. Such as, of the two common names invoked by social and economic conservatives of the right, Ayn Rand and Milton Friedman, they had very different ideas. Friedman was more generous than Rand (and basing his ideas more on the Constitution and welfare spending based on GPD), and very different from other Libertarian invokees such as Robert Nozick. And then we have the Koch Brothers who support their own ideals of what Libertarianism should be.
And then, on the left, where "Markets not Capitalism" is promoted, a group sometimes known as Libertarian Socialists, we find people who are way out in the left field and keeping company with groups such as Anarcho-Communists.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Tks for explaining but my understanding of Libertarianism would have me conclude that those ppl snuck onto the Libertarian bus so to speak.

That just is not the case. Rather, they are still Libertarian as their goals are maximizing and preserving individual liberty, and even replacing Capitalism as it is very repressive system that requires a class of poor people to sustain itself and maximize profits for a few wealthy elites.

 

[Walter Russell]

That just is not the case. Rather, they are still Libertarian as their goals are maximizing and preserving individual liberty, and even replacing Capitalism as it is very repressive system that requires a class of poor people to sustain itself and maximize profits for a few wealthy elites.

But theres no such thing as individual freedom in the Communist Manifesto written by Marx.
Theres the rights prescribed by the dictatorship. Those aren't the individual rights Libertarianism represents

 

[Shadow Wolf]

But theres no such thing as individual freedom in the Communist Manifesto written by Marx.

The Communist Manifesto is a manifesto about economic Communism (other texts wrote by Marx and Engels do address social freedoms), and it's entire premise is freedom through unshackling the chains that keep the proletariat chained to and repressed by the bourgeois. And when you combine the entirety of the works of Marx and Engels, you find balanced powers between the sexes, freedom to own your own labor and the fruits of your labor (a major tenet of left libertarians), freedom to be educated in your areas, and the freedom to work with your skills and abilities rather than working at whatever jobs are available. And, according to Marx and Engels, society should be stateless, classless, and moneyless. From the Communist Mannifesto:
free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.
Engels from Socialism: Utopian and Scientific:
As soon as there is no longer any social class to be held in subjection; as soon as class rule, and the individual struggle for existence based upon our present anarchy in production, with the collisions and excesses arising from these, are removed, nothing more remains to be repressed, and a special repressive force, a State, is no longer necessary.
Again from Engels, this time from the Principles of Communism:
Finally, when all capital, all production, all exchange have been brought together in the hands of the nation, private property will disappear of its own accord, money will become superfluous, and production will so expand and man so change that society will be able to slough off whatever of its old economic habits may remain.
Under Marxism, there are no owners, no wage-earners, and economic means of production and distribution are owned by society. The Communist Manifesto is exactly just that (Marx and Engels were commissioned to write this manifesto for the Communist Party), and it can only give a very limited and narrow view of the principles of Marx and Engels.

 

[Walter Russell]

The Communist Manifesto is a manifesto about economic Communism (other texts wrote by Marx and Engels do address social freedoms), and it's entire premise is freedom through unshackling the chains that keep the proletariat chained to and repressed by the bourgeois. And when you combine the entirety of the works of Marx and Engels, you find balanced powers between the sexes, freedom to own your own labor and the fruits of your labor (a major tenet of left libertarians), freedom to be educated in your areas, and the freedom to work with your skills and abilities rather than working at whatever jobs are available. And, according to Marx and Engels, society should be stateless, classless, and moneyless. From the Communist Mannifesto:
free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.
Engels from Socialism: Utopian and Scientific:
As soon as there is no longer any social class to be held in subjection; as soon as class rule, and the individual struggle for existence based upon our present anarchy in production, with the collisions and excesses arising from these, are removed, nothing more remains to be repressed, and a special repressive force, a State, is no longer necessary.
Again from Engels, this time from the Principles of Communism:
Finally, when all capital, all production, all exchange have been brought together in the hands of the nation, private property will disappear of its own accord, money will become superfluous, and production will so expand and man so change that society will be able to slough off whatever of its old economic habits may remain.
Under Marxism, there are no owners, no wage-earners, and economic means of production and distribution are owned by society. The Communist Manifesto is exactly just that (Marx and Engels were commissioned to write this manifesto for the Communist Party), and it can only give a very limited and narrow view of the principles of Marx and Engels.

Everything youv'e stated concerning the Marxist system is contradiction to personal freedom.
It takes a government entity to own everything in order for everyone else to own nothing.

Theres yours classes right there. The government and the subjects it dictates to.

Your doing some pretty hard twisting in order to show similarities where none exist.

A True Libertarian does not accept personal freedom as its decreed by a governing body.
It is personal freedom not regulated or interfered with by a governing body as long as a persons actions doesn't damage another person or their property.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Everything youv'e stated concerning the Marxist system is contradiction to personal freedom.
It takes a government entity to own everything in order for everyone else to own nothing.

Except that isn't Socialism or Communism.

Your doing some pretty hard twisting in order to show similarities where none exist.

I'm not doing any twisting. As I indicated already, things like owning your own labor and the fruits of your own labor are core principles of both Marxism (though the terms "alienation of labor" were used) and left-Libertarians. They both seek to end corporate control of markets and socialize the economic means of production and distribution, and they both promote communal ownership of resources over allowing a few to own and control them.

A True Libertarian does not accept personal freedom as its decreed by a governing body.

No true Scotsman is an informal fallacy, an ad hoc attempt to retain an unreasoned assertion.[1] When faced with a counterexample to a universal claim ("no Scotsman would do such a thing"), rather than denying the counterexample or rejecting the original claim, this fallacy modifies the subject of the assertion to exclude the specific case or others like it by rhetoric, without reference to any specific objective rule ("no true Scotsman would do such a thing"; i.e., those who perform that action are not part of our group and thus criticism of that action is not criticism of the group).[2]