Topic: Basic income guarantee - opinions&criticism welcome - page 2. (Read 14403 times)

Do you really think that the State prevents monopolies?

Also, if the only purpose of taxation is to prevent monopolies, why do I have to pay taxes??  I do not have any monopole on anything whatsoever.

Besides, there is nothing wrong in having power, per se.   If people are free, that means that they can have power.  If a company is large enough and offers such a good service that people goes only to this company, a "monopole" appears, but it was deserved.  It was honnestly gained.   Think Google or Apple as examples.

Of course, this comes with some power in negotiations.  This power is just an acknowledgment of the weight of the actor in the market.  No big deal, really.

A guy who sells 10000 a day is more respected in the market than a guy who sells 10.  Is that really so unfair??

So you are in favor of labour unions?

With justice I mean the agreed price for cooperation.
In a libertarian environment the price for cooperation is determined similar to the free market, supply and demand. However there is no limit on what two parties can agree upon. And if one party achieves monopoly on a certain cooperation item it can exploit its bargaining position (and usually does). This is a self-enforcing loop: a powerful entity becomes more powerful with time.
In socialists environments the price of cooperation is usually determined or enforced through different means, or at least capped. But the problem is that there is no better tool than the free market for price discovery, even for the price of cooperation. That's why any price determined by socialists usually leads to inefficiency.

I find the tax system we have represents a compromise: You need free market mechanisms to implement price discovery for cooperation (products, jobs, etc...) but at the same time you want to prevent the formation of monopolies and extreme bargaining powers.

Hmm. No. Read The Production of Security, by Gustave de Molinari. The reason socialist societies exist is because monopoly leads to unjust societies, with powerful individuals and a lot of exploitation.

The answer, of course, is free markets. Yes, some businessmen are going to have more individual power than their workers. That's what collective bargaining is for.

In any case, there is no such thing as a social convention on this topic.  Social conventions, as mentioned on the article on agumentum ad populum are about rather trivial things such as etiquette and polite manners.  Taxation has nothing to do with polite manners.  That was my point.


Because socialist societies are a model of justice, maybe?  You're either naïve or oversimplifying.

In the end, all discussion about social standards and policies is a discuss about rights and justice. There are philosophical tools for that: veil of ignorance and the original position.

Usually socialists favor a high degree of collective cooperation, while libertarians favor mutual beneficial cooperation. The problem with the former is to establish consensus about what is acceptable and what not, while the later opens up the door for exploitation, since two partner never have the same bargaining position.

With respect to tax this means that libertarians perceive the state as a third party which doesn't contribute to any two-party agreement. Thus the state is not entitled to benefits.

The reason why socialist societies exists, is that pure libertarianism usually leads to very unjust societies, with powerful individuals and a lot of exploitation.

I hope you realize this is a very subjective interpretation.  You could make the same reasoning with abortion, death penalty or anything.  I'll get a godwin point if I say it, but German people at some point in history considered it was "proper" and "safe" to ostracize jews.

To you it's "proper" and "safe" to redistribute income.  To me it is just theft.  And theft has nothing to do with hygiene (or whatever you mean by "proper") or safety.


A social convention is NOT what the majority thinks.  The "Argumentum ad populum" article does not define it this way.  You need much more than the majority.  Otherwise polemic topics such as abortion could be considered as social conventions, which they are obviously not.

If you say that an idea is true because a majority of people think it is true, you do not say it is true because it is a social convention, you just say it is true because a majority of people think it is true.  That's all.  And this is precisely a Argumentum ad populum.

But you've still not answered the question. If the majority decided that it was OK again, would that make it OK to enslave the minority they picked? What if that minority includes you?

Yeah, I also think he meant me =D . Slavery was made illegal with the 13th amendment, I believe. So the constitution was modified after the majority of people decided to oppose slavery. Well, there was also this civil war, but it might have been pure coincidence.

You sure that was me? It looks more like miln40 failed to address the point. Slavery was not only not abolished by the constitution, it was written into it. So much for "basic rights." Check the other names for the fallacy. "Democracy" is included in the list.

Ever wonder why fire departments exist and their equipment is so new and well kept? Yea, you pay for it in federal, state, and local taxes, plus their fees for fire fighting and rescue get to be paid by insurance companies whose premiums you have been paying all your life. Most are called volunteer fire companies, but never free fire companies. Some are indeed paid wages by cities and have unions, but they are all corporations and they all charge for their services.

Sewage and water are pretty important infrastructure-wise. I bet you think thats from taxes too, right? Try this. Take how much the average residential resident pays for water and sewer, then multiply that by the number of payments it would take for a years worth, then multiply that by the number of residential properties in your political subdivision. Repeat those steps for commercial, and then again for industrial, then agricultural properties as well. Add them all up. Thats only part how much per year your political subdivision makes off water and sewer, and if they are enterprising like my political subdivision, they would have all sorts of other services to make profits from, one being a commercial spring water supply and distribution network. Still think your taxes pay for your water and sewer?

The next would probably be electric. Taxes again? Hardly. Again, go add up the average electric bill, multiply by 12 months, multiply by the number of properties, then you have your answer.

Roads you say? Gas taxes I say. You get to choose when to improve roads and bridges by your consumption, becasue road funding coems from gas taxes. Go look it up in your state website.

And the same goes for absolutely every one of modern civilizations conveniences. You buy them.

We can certainly get into a semantic debate and split hairs on exceptions the the rules of reality, but I'd really rather not.

The government needs to start backing off and giving The People a whole lot of "leave-alone" or they may find themselves looking for work pretty soon.

Income distribution can be seen as a discussion on what is "proper" or "safe" in a society. You are absolutely right about it not being consensual, and I actually have no hope in seeing the system implemented in the near future. This forum topic is more of an intellectual debate rather than a call to arms. But people's ideas change over time. If and when a majority thinks that it would be right thing to do, then it becomes a social convention by definition and the Argumentum ad populum logical fallacy would not apply to it.

The constitution was in effect when slavery was happening.  Myrkul you have failed to address the point that was made.

The section on social convention is about what is polite or proper.  The given example is about russian people kissing each other.  I read nothing about income redistribution.

You say it's a social convention.  It is obviously not as consensual as you suggest.  This very debate proves it.

You have constitution, safeguarding basic rights. You could possibly try and change the constitution, but for that you need an overwhelming majority, which just doesn't happen in a democracy. Even landslide victories are like 60%.

Check the exceptions on the wikipedia page you linked to. Income redistribution falls withing the lines of social convention and safety, therefore the fallacy does not apply here.

A VAT is the least economically disruptive tax scheme I know of. But it's still pretty awful as a sole means of financing a welfare state. One of the biggest problems is that it dumps the entire compliance cost of the tax system on a fairly narrow subset of people. This is truly hellish on small business owners and makes it very hard for them to compete with larger businesses that have lower tax compliance costs.

I used to own a small retail business and I can tell you sales tax collection horror stories. For example, one month our payment to the State of California just didn't go through. The State said they just didn't get the payment and we must have entered something wrong. Our bank said the State rejected the payment though they processed it correctly. The upshot was that the State charged us various fines, penalties, and interest for not making the sales tax payment on time. It effectively wiped out the profits for that month. Now imagine instead of one of the two taxes that fund State and local government, it was the *only* tax that funded Federal and State governments. Ouchies.

If the majority of people decided that slavery was OK again, would that make it OK to enslave the minority they picked?

Why does a government founded on a logical fallacy seem like a good idea to you?

Your metaphor is not complete. In fact, you would be a part-owner of a piece of real estate, along with some other people (the population of a country). Then if the majority of the owners decide to pay for some other tenants (social security approved through national elections), then you have to go with the majority. You are free of course, to try and convince people that all the rent should be kept for yourself. Maybe you will be successful. Until then, you have abide by the wish of the majority and help share the burden through taxation.

I don't think "libertarian" means what you think it means.

Which is what I replied to. It's the country that *really* owns the land, and if you think the rules it has are absurd your only real alternative is to try to find a country that gives you a better deal. I'm not even going to bother with the "but I should to be allowed to take parts of other peoples land if they are not currently using it for something I think is useful enough"-argument internet libertarians always comes up with at this point. That's no better than the hippies.