Rather than discuss whether or not to bring one in, let's assume for the moment that we want one.

Now, the next question is, how much should it be set at.

Forget about the other payments that people receive, for the moment, and just figure out how much a person should receive.

But, how much should the following receive:

A 25 year old single person with no dependents?
A 70 year old single person with no dependents?
A single parent with one child?
A two parent family with two children?

Furthermore, what sort of items do you feel should be included to come up with this figure:

- Groceries
- Rent
- Utilities (which ones)
- Car
- Gas
- Insurance
- Clothing Allowance
- Miscellaneious
- Entertainment
- Travel
- etc.

1. Adequate healthy groceries.
2. Transportation
3. housing - say the 25th percentile of housing costs.
4. Utilities - basic phone, gas, electricity, water.
5. Clothing
6. Social participation - some recreation, exercise etc.
7. Health costs - non-prescription drugs etc.
8. personal care - cleaning products etc.
9. Household products - soaps, brooms etc.
10. Some cushion to meet unplanned expenses - i.e. vehicle breakdowns, clothing failures etc.

So figure out what an adequate basket would be that met all of those needs. Not the high end, but it would need to be enough for a decent standard of living.

Then apply it to every adult in the country, bar none.

If people choose not to have a car, and spend that money on something else, that's their choice. Ditto a phone, or renting/owning a larger or smaller home.

Getting into complex relative expense analyses would be unecessarily administrative and a waste of energy. Give everyone the basic minimum without question, then focus on making it possible for them to earn a lot more in other ways.

That applies to locational adjustments as well. Provide everyone with the same basic income, let them decide where to spend it. Any other approach would be overly complex and likely to distort outcomes anyways.

However, any GLI would also have to have a COLA clause attached to it to ensure that 'cost of living' increases due to inflation are maintained. Afterall, every politician and bureaucrat in the country has a COLA clause attached to both their generous paychecks and their obscene pensions. Those living below or anywhere near the poverty level deserve the same protection.

[ 01 September 2006: Message edited by: otter ]

(1) Give everyone, no matter what they earn, a grant of $10K. Thus, if you have no salary, then your yearly income is $10K. If your salary is $200K per year, then your yearly income is $210K. (I'm simplifying, leaving out other sources or income.)

(2) Institute a progressive tax system on the total amount. No taxes for total earnings of $10K or less, i.e. for people relying entirely on the GLI. Light taxes up to $20K. And so on. Institute very high marginal tax rates for high earners: you can make sure that high earners end up no richer, or even less rich if you set the rates right, than on the current system.

This is not quite the same as anegative income tax, since part (2) of my proposal maintains a progressive, rather than a flat, tax system.

quote:

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Originally posted by Stephen Gordon:

I'd be very reluctant to set a number in stone at this point. I'd prefer starting with setting the BI at current welfare rates (plus, say 10%) and then see how things go. Much better to overestimate the costs of a BI and then gradually raise them than to risk disaster by making them too high.

---

Current welfare rates are appallingly low. $510/month in BC, for example.

If it's going to be a guaranteed livable income, it should be livable.

Any rate should be set based on a fixed basket of goods - meaning actually connected to the cost of living. If the COL goes up, so too should the rates.

It is based on the notion that the only problem in our society is that some people earn too much, while some others are extremely poor.

If we can only eliminate the "eyesore" of the extremely poor, then problem solved.

Now we have posters discussing what the lowest level of income can be so that we can feel good about ourselves. This is not only Utopian, it runs counter to any movement for fundamental social and economic justice.

Here's an analogy which some of you may appreciate:

Objective: Child Care.

Option 1: Build a national publicly-owned publicly-delivered universally accessible and affordable (or free) early childhood care and education system.

Option 2: Give people $100 per month. This replaces the need for any other state program. Never mind that it will be free money for some and grossly inadequate to meet the needs of others. It's "fair" for all and respects individual freedom. People can do whatever they like with their kids.

Now try that again.

Objective: Social and economic justice.

Option 1: Painstakingly develop a complex system of social programs (building upon the many that have been created over the decades) to fulfill identified needs of the whole population. Establish legal standards to guide and regulate service and delivery in all spheres. Nationalize the major means of production so that they can be the subject of social policy and serve the needs of the population rather than the hunger of a few individuals.

Option 2: Give people $1000 per month. This replaces the need for any other state program. Never mind that it will be free money for some and grossly inadequate to meet the needs of others. It's "fair" for all and respects individual freedom. People can do whatever they like with their lives.

No, thank you, Mr. Harper.

quote:

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Originally posted by arborman:
Current welfare rates are appallingly low. $510/month in BC, for example.

If it's going to be a guaranteed livable income, it should be livable.

---

Okay. But the real risk is that 'too many' people would be seen quitting their jobs in order to take advantage of the BI. There are limits to how high a sustainable BI can be, and it wouldn't be a good idea to start testing those limits right away.

eta: In any case, the BI would be continually revised upwards with inflation and with the growth of the real economy (a proxy for the ability to pay). If it turns out that we set it too low to start with, that mistake can be corrected as part of the normal upward revision to the BI.

[ 01 September 2006: Message edited by: Stephen Gordon ]

quote:

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Originally posted by Stephen Gordon:

There are limits to how high a sustainable BI can be, and it wouldn't be a good idea to start testing those limits right away.

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Sure, set it too high and it might actually start hurting the mega-wealthy. Can't have that. If there's no danger of people going hungry, why would they work?

option 1: Clean the two old line autocratic bastards out of Ottawa and Queen's Parks

option 2: ?

quote:

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Originally posted by Fidel:
Well I'm for anything in the here and now.

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quote:

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Originally posted by unionist:

I haven't heard that since the Sixties. Memories!

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quote:

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Okay. But the real risk is that 'too many' people would be seen quitting their jobs in order to take advantage of the BI. There are limits to how high a sustainable BI can be, and it wouldn't be a good idea to start testing those limits right away.

---

This is the most common complaints made whenever a GLI comes up. As if a "job" should be the only way in which a person can find value for themselves.

And it invariably ignores and even dismisses the incrdible wealth of social capital that would be created with all those that would be free to then be full time parents, community volunteers, mentors, practicioners of the arts and amateur sports and a host of other "non-job" related activities that are the glue which holds communities together.

The only ones that will quit their jobs are the ones that dislike the tasks they are forced to perform in the first place. But it is far more likely that most folks would still aspire to a more affuluent lifestyle than provided by a GLI and simply seek out jobs that they actually liked performing.

quote:

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Originally posted by unionist:

What board are we on?

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The first post in the thread set the parameters of the discussion as 'assuming we want one'. You made your position abundantly clear on the last thread.

A GAI would not supplant the many important public services (like child care). It would complement it. Nobody in here, or anywhere promoting a GAI, has said that. It would, however, supplant the abusive, degrading and monstrous system we call 'welfare.'

But you have grown attached to the 'poor as supplicants' model, apparently, and so feel the need to attack other propositions.

[ 01 September 2006: Message edited by: arborman ]

It is very important to realize that there are a host of Guaranteed Incomes ALREADY in place. Old age pensions, CPP, military pensions, student loans, handicapped pensions, farm subsidies, make work project, a welfare bureaucracy in every province and territory and probably some others i have overlooked.

This means we already have tens of billions if not hundreds of billions of dollars already earmarked for GI supports. But the problem is that at least half the budgets earmarked for these various groups are gobbled up by the bureaucrats themselves and never ever reaches the intended recipients.

Therefore, a GLI would effectively eliminate the need for all those bureaucracies [especially the duplicating multiitude of welfare systems nationwide] as well as getting rid of all those bean counting, paper pushing bureaucrats whose sole function is to police the monies.

quote:

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Originally posted by otter:

And what Canadian would not enjoy seeing a huge downsizing of its government bureaucracies?

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Their families and friends and neighbours and communities. The economy. Progressive people. People who believe that down-sizing government is not a noble goal. Socialists. Democrats.

quote:

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Their families and friends and neighbours and communities. The economy..... Of course, this would be counter-balanced by all those Canadians who would love to see federal public sector workers unemployed

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Ahhhh, ggotcha . Your forgetting that all those deposed civil servants would also be getting the GLI. And they would still be free to get a real job, maybe in the oil fields

I have actually held a couple of civil service jobs in my lifetime and the thing i remember most was how many civil servants i met that where actually quite un-civil towards the citizens they were supposed to be serving as well as all those who were there for no other reason than the very good wages and spectacular benefit packages they received compared to the private sector.

But in this case, wouldn't some of the social service jobs affected simply be shifted to one central bureaucracy. Like public auto insurance makes sense, GLI managed centrally should be an improvement over hundreds of inefficient mini-bureaucracies duplicated over and over.

Again, I believe this whole issue of merit and need dates back to Irish famine times when relief was tied to religious affiliations, dated Puritanism and Protestant values taking precedence over common sense. If there are jobs available to improve one's economic situation significantly over and above GLI, then people will take those jobs - any jobs. As Nobel laureates in economics have pointed out, workfare schemes are too expensive to administer, and there are either enough jobs to go around or there aren't.

So, in this case, I am for a version of GLI that does not tie employment to GLI. Without going in to details, it makes no difference to the economy whether a livable income is earned with wages or not. Let's drop the dated ideology about work, and get on with poverty reduction in Canada, because we are way down the list wrt first world reduction of child poverty in this frozen Puerto Rico with Polar bears.

[ 02 September 2006: Message edited by: Fidel ]

quote:

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Originally posted by otter:

Especially in the welfare system, it just looks too much like pimps living off the avails of their most vulnerable citizens to me.

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How about the work you do now, otter? Are you an overpaid slacker, or an undervalued hardworking star?

Anyway, the GLI is a great idea. The Social Credit in the 1930s advocated printing money. Here are two very simple ideas, it's amazing they have never caught on.

Also, to your point, we wouldn't have to worry about factory closures, mass unemployment, economic recession, drought or famine, sweatshops, exploitation, the wage gap between men and women, nothing - everyone would just get that direct-deposit GLI in their bank account every Wednesday at noon.

quote:

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But in this case, wouldn't some of the social service jobs affected simply be shifted to one central bureaucracy instead of hundreds of inefficient mini-bureacracies ?.

---

Of course there will always be some bureaucracy required if only to issue the payments and monitor the beans coming in and going out. But nowhere near the huge numbers we see today simply because one office will be doing the job of dozens. That alone frees up an ton of cash that would flow into the hands of ordinary Canadians.

On the one hand, since the bureaucrats who are no longer needed will be on the GLI anyways, no one suffers unduly while, on the other hand, legions of Canadians are getting a much needed ecnomic boost in life.

quote:

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Originally posted by otter:

In this way, there is a trememdous infusion of monies into the GLI fund without any signficant change in government expenditures as well. All that really changes is the number of marginalized, poverty ridden and disadvantged citizens that will benefit from that cash infusion.

---

quote:

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How about the work you do now, otter? Are you an overpaid slacker, or an undervalued hardworking star?

---

While i confess, i was one of those overpaid slackers during most of my employment years both in the public and the private sector since my skills were so highly marketable in those halcyon days.

quote:

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Originally posted by unionist:

How about the work you do now, otter? Are you an overpaid slacker, or an undervalued hardworking star?

---

Unionist, I don't believe there are enough living wage jobs to go around. And that's the problem.

If we all had decent jobs at GM, GE and in civil service and buying widgets to throw on the capitalist scrap heaps after wearing out from built-in obsolescence, we'd kill the planet to death. Perhaps with reduced work weeks and job sharing in the most productive wealth creating sectors of the economy would it be possible for everyone to earn the right to exist above levels of subsistence and still abide by Protestant values and Puritanical ideology.

So if people must earn their keep and work within the confines of a global economy that is failing to bring so many billions of idle hands to work that needs doing, then point us to those unfilled job vacancies now, please. You will earn a Nobel prize for it, I guarantee you.

How would union workers feel about a reduced work week in sharing the wealth in the most productive parts of the economy producing real capitalist wealth ?.

In the mean time, the third world capitalist democracies are demonstrating that they need socialism in order to advance beyond their current states of capitalist-induced despair and poverty, and so do Canadian children need for us to realize that poverty reduction is as possible here as it was for the social democracies to catapult ahead of us on this very same issue of a UN paper defining basic rights of a child.

I agree with you that what's needed is worker wonership and control of the means of production, but we can't achieve that from where we stand now. In the meantime, poverty-reduction is really as simple as the stroke of a pen in Ottawa and provinces.

These are the children of man, Want and Ignorance.

[ 02 September 2006: Message edited by: Fidel ]

quote:

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Originally posted by otter:

Today i am actually a recipient of a GI as a disabled person and will soon be acquiring the senior citizens GI as well. And, I show my appreciation of the GI i obtain by volunteering with a variety of agencies over the years as well as by sharing what i can with panhandlers and buskers.

---

I'm sorry to learn of your disability.

I don't want to intrude on your privacy (unless you don't mind), so I'll make my points this way.

If you were a unionized employee when you became disabled, then in many sectors (definitely not all), you might have benefited from an LTD plan which could pay anywhere from 50 to 70% of your working salary until some negotiated limit (age 65, or eligibility for pension, etc., depends).

If you were not, you might then be eligible only for a CPP/QPP disability pension (not enough to live on) supplementing whatever private insurance or investments you might have.

Either way, I find it hard to understand how a person in your situation (or in any situation) could make a statement like this about public sector workers earning (in many cases) $35,000 per year:

quote:

---

On the one hand, since the bureaucrats who are no longer needed will be on the GLI anyways, no one suffers unduly while, on the other hand, legions of Canadians are getting a much needed ecnomic boost in life.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Fidel:

I agree with you that what's needed is worker wonership and control of the means of production, but we can't achieve that from where we stand now. In the meantime, poverty-reduction is really as simple as the stroke of a pen in Ottawa and provinces.

---

I sympathize with your stand, Fidel, but I don't agree with it.

Poverty reduction is possible, but not through a GLI as described. That's a Conservative trick to strip public programs, just as Harper's baby bonus was (and the NDP, among others, had a hell of a time figuring out the flaw).

quote:

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Originally posted by otter:

Those who have excess MUST surrender some of it so that no one is left destitute as a result of those living in excess. And despite what the not-so civil servant might think, 35k is still a damn fine comfort zone compared to those who who live anywhere near the poverty line.

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I don't agree with a single thing you've said. You're suggesting some people are poor because others earn $35000 or $50000 or $80000 in some unionized workplace? God are you suffering from delusions. 35k is a comfort zone? Where, in Afghanistan?

quote:

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Originally posted by unionist:

Debating unadulterated Utopian crap like GLI while postponing debate on the real need of society for forward motion is betrayal. I mean that with the utmost of respect.

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Attitudes like yours are part of the problem, I hope you realize that. Because I think worker ownership of the means of production is utopian crap unless people are prepared for blood in the streets. And I'm sure Canadians are not up for it. The proof of that is they've allowed our two old line party plutocrats to begin liquidation of Canada's economy and assets to big business since Brian Baloney's destruction of F.I.R.A. [/qb][/quote]

quote:

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Originally posted by unionist:
People are poor because capitalism needs and generates poverty and unemployment. Full stop.

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So what can protecting a few Liberal supporters holding down union jobs do for the 1.4 million kids in Canada living from hand to mouth ?. Yes, capitalism not only needs an army of unemployed, now they're admitting that there aren't enough old economy, wealth-generating jobs to go around. And even if there were, the environment would not sustain full employment in order for everyone TO belong to a union. Unless your CUPE and CAW workers want to do two day work weeks and accept smaller paycheques, your narrow outlook is shinola utopianism itself, unionist. It's about the 1.4 million kids living in poverty in this stinking colony not your Liberal union members getting a decent paycheque against the backdrop of appalling rates of child poverty in this icehole of US proxy state.

Stroke of a pen, unionist.

"These are the children of man, Want and Ignorance. But beware this second child."

[ 02 September 2006: Message edited by: Fidel ]

quote:

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Originally posted by Stephen Gordon:
If you're reduced to arguing that a GAI is a bad thing because it may reduce the number of public employees required to administer social programs, then you've taken a giant leap to cloud-cuckoo-land.

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Did you get a PhD in sophistry? What schools still offer those? I never said such a thing.

Otter relished the thought of GAI leading to public service job slashing, and I criticized him for that.

I condemn GAI, especially in the form you defined it ($$$ for all, whether you feel like working or not!) for all the reasons I've given in previous posts - legislating poverty, utopianism, justifying the dismantling of social programs and of legislative regulation and minimum standards, taking from the "rich workers" and giving to the poor without touching the underlying relations of production and leaving the mega-wealthy laughing all the way to the bank, massive fraud on the analogy of Harper's baby bonus in lieu of public child care, etc. etc. etc.

I guess you missed those posts, because you haven't responded to a single one of my arguments.

quote:

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Originally posted by Fidel:

Because I think worker ownership of the means of production is utopian crap unless people are prepared for blood in the streets. And I'm sure Canadians are not up for it.

---

Ok, you're right. Let's be cautious and not talk about nationalization, because lots of people will get killed and we're not up for that. Thanks for your illuminating analysis.

But "in the meantime", don't buy into this Conservative horseshit about GAI, please? Yes, we should give poor people more money, but not taken from the pockets of "rich" workers for God's sake. I can't believe you are not condemning this.

We tried a real-life GAI experiment it in Dauphin, Manitoba when I was young. But it actually made some sense. It was a streamlined and enhanced form of welfare for (read carefully) families that had no other source of income - a far cry from Stephen Gordon and his Belgian friends' proposal. Such experiments are worth attempting and analyzing, to help blunt the harsh edge of poverty. But all it is is a different way of administering welfare. It can never significantly reduce the yawning gulf between mega-rich and working or unemployed poor, until we try adjusting the fundamentals of Canadian society (and quit hollering about blood in the streets, you sound like your enemies when you say that!!).

Here's a small article about the Dauphin experiment, which unfortunately was abandoned because no one cared enough:

quote:

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Originally posted by Pearson:

Do you also feel that people should have the amount adjusted based on where they live? That is, should a person have a right to move to downtown Toronto and expect the GLI to increase to pay for their downtown Toronto apartment?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Cueball:

How about a formula where the gross national product is devided up by the total number of people in the country?

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Good! I like it! Everyone can just make their own country, no more government needed, no more economy left the morning after the big party, life will be great! Cueball, you have outdone yourself.

unionist:

We've been doing redistribution of the national income for a few decades now in the post-laissez faire capitalist world. Remember 1929?. And yes, the rich will pay a little more in taxes with GAI. So you're way off base by assuming that the only hits would be to a few $55 and $60K a year CUPE workers who would be ceding jobs to bureaucratic efficiency.

Pension them off, reintegrate some into a centralized system, re-train them or whatever, but fcs, let's do something about child poverty in this icehole end of North America. Lots of Canadians have had to look for another job at some point in their lives. These aren't steel workers or wrench operators we're talking about. Most will have college and university degrees under their belts. And so many of them will be card carrying Liberals and die-hard conservative party supporters who really should be encouraged to find career success in the free-wheeling private sector which they support by virtue of their political allegiance.

I've glanced at some example income tax structures suggested for various GAI's and mincomes, and most are affordable to very inexpensive. So we pinch the rich a little, but look at corporate profits today, and compare the general wealth gap between rich and poor now with the way it was in 1820.

And Stephen Gordon commented already that driving inflation is not a significant concern with GAI. Canada can afford it.

[ 02 September 2006: Message edited by: Fidel ]

Many people say that people don't deserve to get something for nothing - but the fact of the matter is that while the natural resources of Canada belong to all of us - only a few are benefitting from them.

Where is my share for the oil pulled from the ground, the gold, ore, lumber etc.

quote:

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Originally posted by Pearson:
The topic has obviously gotten away from the amount of the GLI, so I'll add my two cents.

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Therefore, as pointed out above, the easiest way to do so would be to use the existing government statistics to determine just what the level of poverty is and then add another 10-20% to that number.

quote:

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Originally posted by otter:
But any discussion of a GLI, at least one that is expected to protect any segment of the citizenry from slipping back into a substandard existence is to also include a COLA [cost of living allowance] to protect the whole of the citizenry from the vagaries of inflation.

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Would you add a COLA to everyone's income (not just the GLI recipients) and to all goods and services to truly "protect the whole of the citizenry from the vagaries of inflation?"

quote:

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Would you add a COLA to everyone's income (not just the GLI recipients) and to all goods and services to truly "protect the whole of the citizenry from the vagaries of inflation?"

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Cueball:
How about a formula where the gross national product is devided up by the total number of people in the country?

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Let's look at the incentive structure of that setup. Canada's GNP (full marks for making the distinction between GDP and GNP, and for choosing the right one, BTW) is running at 1.4 trillion dollars. Divide that by 33 million people, and you get $42,000 per person (there's some rounding going on here, but so what.)

Let's also suppose that each person contributes the exact same amount to GNP - ignoring children, pensioners and whatever variation there may be in skills and productivity.

Suppose that you're thinking about working 10% harder, so that your contribution to the total will be an extra $4200. Once that's been divided 33 million ways, your share works out to one one-hundreth of a penny. In other words, that 10% extra effort will earn you an increase in your income by something under one-millionth of a percentage point.

Now suppose you're thinking of staying home all day. Total income will fall by the $42,000 you didn't produce. Your share of the reduced total works out to a pay cut of a bit over one millionth of a percentage point.

quote:

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If your income has essentially nothing to do with the level of effort you make, then no-one should be surprised if you manage to find something better to do with your time than to go to work.

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Which is exactly why the concept of social capital MUST be included in the equation as well. The idea of a GLI is not just about monetary incentives or gains. A GLI involves much, much broader thinking that that. Only the bean counters focus wholly on the pennies.

Ask any volunteer monitoring agency and you will find that the person hours they tally up annually equal a staggering wealth of "un-paid" skilled labouring. Then there is the incredible infusion of arts and amateur sports activities that would occur. And there are a multitude of other activities explored in the above links and posts that would occur which bring greater cohesion and value to communities than mere money ever could. This is the heart of social capital and is far more valuable to the communities involved than mere money.

quote:

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Originally posted by Fidel:
So you're way off base by assuming that the only hits would be to a few $55 and $60K a year CUPE workers who would be ceding jobs to bureaucratic efficiency. ]

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For the record, it's doubtful they would be CUPE members. Much more likely they would be PSAC or NUPGE members.

I'm disappointed at the sterotypes some people on this board hold about union members. I was a "civil servant" and I was civil towards the public, much more civil then they where towards me. And I made 18k a year.

So far on this thread people have called or implied that union workers are not civil towards the public, make tons of money (more then the private sector at least. which isn't true), are "pimps" live off the poor, somehow can just go out and find another job and make it sound like they don't need their job and are overpaid slackers. Those are just the ones I got in the posts I did read. But only unionist called them on it. Why? Anywhere else people would be jumping in telling people not to sterotype.

quote:

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So far on this thread people have called or implied that union workers are not civil towards the public, make tons of money (more then the private sector at least. which isn't true), are "pimps" live off the poor, somehow can just go out and find another job

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Well yes, i did say some of those things. Of course, as i pointed out, i was describing my personal experience, in a similar vein as you have done. But no where will you find that i "implied" but, instead, declared outright that i had worked with some rather un-civil servants.

quote:

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Originally posted by Michelle:
I've skimmed through this thread and I haven't seen this, although I might have missed it. Could you be more specific, perhaps with quotes? If that sort of thing is being said, that's not okay and I'll be happy to call people on it.

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"most was how many civil servants i met that where actually quite un-civil towards the citizens ... who were there for no other reason than the very good wages and spectacular benefit packages they received compared to the private sector.

Especially in the welfare system, it just looks too much like pimps living off the avails of their most vulnerable citizens to me."

"I was one of those overpaid slackers during most of my employment years" This was in reply to a post asking if he was one of those overpaid slackers

"that all that a bureaucrat would lose on the GI is a particular comfort zone which they could easily recover by going out and getting another job with their skills."

"And despite what the not-so civil servant might think,"

"So what can protecting a few Liberal supporters holding down union jobs do for the 1.4 million kids in Canada living from hand to mouth ?"

"Unless your CUPE and CAW workers want to do two day work weeks and accept smaller paycheques,"

Can we all please remember that this is the labour and consumption forum? Let's not make generalizations about unionized workers, okay? I think we've all met some "uncivil" servants in our time, but to generalize about them all that way, and to attribute it to their unionization is simply playing up anti-worker stereotypes. Not okay on a left-wing, pro-labour discussion forum.

If the only reason not to support a GAI that ends poverty in Canada is to protect some jobs, then let's find those folks some different jobs and end poverty.

quote:

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Originally posted by arborman:

If the only reason not to support a GAI that ends poverty in Canada is to protect some jobs, then let's find those folks some different jobs and end poverty.

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Gorgeous man - but where did you find all that straw?!

Who said protecting some jobs was the "only reason not to support a GAI"? Besides you and Stephen Gordon?

Is your "scroll up" function broken? I accused Stephen of sophistry for levelling exactly the same baseless charge that you just levelled.

Earlier post in this very same thread:

quote:

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I condemn GAI, especially in the form you defined it ($$$ for all, whether you feel like working or not!) for all the reasons I've given in previous posts - legislating poverty, utopianism, justifying the dismantling of social programs and of legislative regulation and minimum standards, taking from the "rich workers" and giving to the poor without touching the underlying relations of production and leaving the mega-wealthy laughing all the way to the bank, massive fraud on the analogy of Harper's baby bonus in lieu of public child care, etc. etc. etc.

I guess you missed those posts, because you haven't responded to a single one of my arguments.

---

But somewhere up there he then mentions that people should not receive money for doing nothing. That appeals to even my first sensabilities. It just doesn't sound right.

But on the other hand, Canada has a problem with child poverty. Most people agree that poverty is caused by a lack of income, and meanwhile the kids are taking a shit-kicking because people still think we're living in a world where there are enough jobs to go around, and top that off, there are enough living wage jobs to go around. Well that's just not true.

Economies around the world are in some kind of transition phase from old to new, high tech being the end goal. The transition is leaving a lot of people without a living income and unable to participate in society like they should, like is defined already in a legally-binding UN declaration which Canada signed on to many years ago. And we signed a UN declaration guaranteeing certain child rights as well. Canada is not living up to those agreements whereas other social democracies have demonstrated is entirely possible and doable in the here and now!

And I think Stephen Gordon would admit that it makes no real difference to the economy whether people earn all or a portion of their income or have some of it granted them as a dividend for living in a country with unparalleled natural wealth. I mean, my god if they cut off free money handouts to U.S. corporations that amount to hundreds of billions of dollars every year, that economy would probably collapse. Or there would be a few corporations threatening to move offshore permanently, we can be sure.

[ 06 September 2006: Message edited by: Fidel ]

Not when some bureaucrat or politician gets around to doing it.

quote:

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Originally posted by arborman:
As far as I can tell, you've been patiently ignoring answers. Perhaps it's your 'scroll up' function?

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link

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Originally posted by Fidel:

But somewhere up there he then mentions that people should not receive money for doing nothing. That appeals to even my first sensabilities. It just doesn't sound right.

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Fidel, have you heard the expression:

He who does not work, neither shall he eat.

It is the meeting-ground of Christianity and Socialism. It is the rallying cry of the oppressed, of all who toil, against the usurers, the coupon-clippers, the capitalists, all those who live off the toil of others.

It was said by Paul in 2 Thessalonians 3:10.

It was expressed as the "practical commandment of socialism" by both Marx and Lenin, and was a guiding principle of the Soviet economy.

Unless someone is disabled, an adult must do labour which is useful to society - and society must organize itself so that such labour is available to all. Without that, there is no Christian or Socialist free lunch.

[ 06 September 2006: Message edited by: unionist ]

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Originally posted by otter:
well i got 153,000 googles on the term guaranteed livable income.

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unionist originally postedI condemn GAI, especially in the form you defined it ($$$ for all, whether you feel like working or not!) for all the reasons I've given in previous posts - legislating poverty, utopianism, justifying the dismantling of social programs and of legislative regulation and minimum standards, taking from the "rich workers" and giving to the poor without touching the underlying relations of production and leaving the mega-wealthy laughing all the way to the bank, massive fraud on the analogy of Harper's baby bonus in lieu of public child care, etc. etc. etc.

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How does a program specifically designed to relieve poverty end up legislating it ?

Advocates for a GLI in B.C. are saying that implementing it would cost less than allowing people to live in poverty and citing per homeless price tags, an estimated $30-$40 thousand dollars to maintain emergency shelters and $11 400 in legal bills in that province alone.

As for taking from the rich and giving to the poor that you mention - I don't think that's a real concern. The tax system would be progressive, and those wealthy people receiving a GLI would give it back through the same progressive tax system.

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Even those on the opposite side of the political spectrum have espoused the jobs-for-all solution to poverty. Jim Stanford, an economist for the Canadian Auto Workers, argues against a basic income program. He states, "Progressives should be demanding a living wage for everyone." (Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, Monitor, Nov. 2000)

Jean Swanson from End Legislated Poverty in Vancouver has called the idea of a guaranteed income a "guaranteed disaster" on the basis that it would encourage employers to pay inadequate wages.

All these arguments presuppose that the solution to poverty is full employment at living wages. However there is absolutely no evidence to show that this solution is possible or desirable.

The first staggering fact to digest is that almost half the world's population --2.8 billion people-- lives on less than $2 (U.S.) per day and 1.7 billion of those live on less than $1 per day (World Bank statistics). Add to that the increasing numbers of people living in poverty in developed countries and one quickly realizes that the only way to give all those people a living-wage job would be to have a monumental increase in consumption and production.

This would break the bank, so to speak, of the world's natural resources and would put an impossible strain on the environment to absorb ever more industrial waste. William Rees, an urban planner at the University of British Columbia, estimates that it requires four to six hectares of land to maintain the consumption level of the average person from a high-consumption country. However, worldwide (in 1990) there were only 1.7 hectares of ecologically productive land for each person.

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Originally posted by Fidel:
You can keep pointing us to your clever link to a previous post, but we're not sure why you're doing that, unionist. Maybe you can clarify a few of your concerns for us, because I'm still not sure what they are exactly.

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All right, Fidel, I'll take you at your word that you didn't understand my points. Let's start with this one. That's where I suggested that the GLI (as set out by Stephen Gordon) is to our complex of social programs, legislated labour standards, etc. as Harper's baby bonus is to the actual building of a public child care infrastructure. In short, the danger of de-collectivizing or de-socializing the provision of services, jobs, standards, etc. in favour of a cheque to each individual, saying "fend for yourself". Another analogy: Eliminating public education and sending every family a cheque for $5000 per year (or whatever), to be used as people see fit (private school, home school, etc.).

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Originally posted by unionist:

All right, Fidel, I'll take you at your word that you didn't understand my points. Let's start with this one. That's where I suggested that the GLI (as set out by Stephen Gordon) is to our complex of social programs, legislated labour standards, etc. as Harper's baby bonus is to the actual building of a public child care infrastructure. In short, the danger of de-collectivizing or de-socializing the provision of services, jobs, standards, etc. in favour of a cheque to each individual, saying "fend for yourself". Another analogy: Eliminating public education and sending every family a cheque for $5000 per year (or whatever), to be used as people see fit (private school, home school, etc.).

Response?

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I'm still not getting it. Why would a GLI eliminate the need for unions and safe working conditions, especially when workers would have their pick of low wage jobs to choose from, and even more than exist now.

And what happens if say, another country with auto production and high tech implements GLI ?. They don't have to pay their workers benefits or health insurance premiums(like in the U.S. now), or pay into pension funds. Wouldn't car companies want to locate in that country more than here where wage demands are higher, and definitely not the U.S. where group health insurance is a primary corporate objective and making cars is a side business?. Our branch plants can compete with Toyota and Volkswagen, but not with Germany and Japan if they decide to subsidize the cost of living for workers.

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Originally posted by Fidel:

And I think you should read the pacificcoast.net article up above. Read the truth about full employment paying living wages. We just can't afford to ignore this issue and still consider ourselves informed about concerns of the new socialist green movement around the world calling for sustainable economies.

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Fidel, Cindy L'Hirondelle's writing is pretty fringe stuff. She is anti-growth, anti-consumption, believes that our economy is based on "women's slavery", wants wages for housework, opposes full employment opportunities and policies, etc.

Luckily, I managed to find a link to this out-of-print "debate" from 2000. Read what Jim Stanford has to say, as well as his opponents. It's strikingly similar to my argument, except today we have the benefit of seeing Stephen Harper replacing a true social program (child care) by a GCI (Guaranteed Child Income) - to coin a phrase - so we see the dangerous road where this leads.

For obvious selfish reasons, I'll just quote from Stanford, but please read the whole thing.

The Basic Income debate

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In the first place, the level of benefits that would be paid, even under this very expensive version of BI, is minimal. The benefits envisioned in the Lerner-Clark-Needham BI system are below the poverty line for every type of family group.

Moreover, the benefits are often inferior to benefits paid out by existing targeted social programs. For example, a single unemployed worker would receive $10,000 under this proposed BI system, compared to the maximum of $21,500 they can currently receive from UI (assuming, of course, that they qualify for coverage). Similarly, some types of families in some provinces make more from existing welfare plans than they would from this BI package. And poor seniors would typically make more from the maximum OAS-GIS combination.

In practice, of course, a $200 billion BI program has no chance of ever being implemented, and certainly not in the current climate. If a BI ever were to be enacted, its benefits would turn out to be significantly lower than the rates envisioned by these well-meaning advocates. Newfoundland Premier Brian Tobin recently proposed a BI-type federal program that would pay every Newfoundlander just $1,500 a year--and even that was rejected as being too expensive!

Clearly, we can't allow the BI movement's slogans about providing basic coverage to every Canadian to be used to bring about a racheting-down of hard-won and already-threatened social benefits.

There is also a deeper philosophical problem about relying so exclusively on a massive and expensive state program of taxes-and-transfers to address the problems of poverty and unemployment in Canada (including widespread poverty among low-income workers). Progressives should be demanding a living wage for everyone. The BI proponents are right when they say that a country as rich in resources as Canada can well afford to lift every one of its citizens out of poverty. But it's not a foregone conclusion that it should be entirely up to governments to make that happen. We should also be holding private employers accountable for their role in creating poverty and unemployment. Strengthening collective bargaining, raising minimum wages, and improving other forms of labour market regulation can also force the private sector to do its part in raising overall living standards.

Lerner and her colleagues are typical of most BI advocates in approaching the problems of poverty and unemployment from a compassionate and progressive point of view. We can support their efforts to expose the existing gaps in the social welfare system, and join with them in demanding that the system (not just the government) offer every Canadian the opportunity to live a life free from poverty, hunger and deprivation. In that context, the proposal for a "basic income" or a "living wage" holds a lot of potential.

But we should remain highly skeptical of their concrete policy proposal of replacing our existing network of social programs with a universal but below-poverty-level basic income.

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Ask Jim Stanford what the costs of poverty are, of low nutrition and associated learning and mental disorders and for causes of disease, juvenile delinquency, expansion of the legal system, warehousing the poor in superprisons like the country down thataway, the output gap, lost productivity etc etc.

I think Stanford is missing the point that Canada's economy is still old world - that we have to not only help the U.S. consume less of our fossil fuels and non-renewable natural resources, but we need to transform our economy into one that is energy efficient, less reliant on oil ourselves and sustainable for the future. I think we'll have to deal with similar situations that existed during the 300 year transition from an agrarian society to an industrialized one. If we don't, we'll strip our resources bare in nothing flat and choke on the pollution.

Tell Jim Stanford that without the environment, there can be no economy. Tell him we support his efforts to gain living wages for every man woman and child in Canada, and that it's a noble effort. And tell him that 1.4 million Canadian children living in poverty are still waiting for a living wage and to step on it.

Unionist, if social security is the most successful socialist program in U.S. history and keeping millions of retired Americans from abject poverty, then think what a similar program could do for Canadian families and their children, our future.

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I am now convinced that the simplest approach will prove to be the most effective -- the solution to poverty is to abolish it directly by a now widely discussed measure: the guaranteed income. -- Martin Luther King Jr., 1967

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[ 06 September 2006: Message edited by: Fidel ]

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He who does not work, neither shall he eat.
It is the meeting-ground of Christianity and Socialism.

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What a load of narrow-minded, short-sighted crap this is. Having grown up in a Presbyterian home i heard it all my life. Nor, from my experience with that particular church, is there any room in the minds of such so-called christians for socialist sounding ideas either.

What this means is that single parents who do "nothing" more than try to raise responsible children have no value. Nor does the army of volunteers that are the lifeblood of every non-profit community focused agency in the country. Nor are those who choose to further their education, or those who seek to master any of the plethoria of artistic endeavours or those who participate in ameteur sports.

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Originally posted by otter:

What this means is that single parents who do "nothing" more than try to raise responsible children have no value. Nor does the army of volunteers that are the lifeblood of every non-profit community focused agency in the country. Nor are those who choose to further their education, or those who seek to master any of the plethoria of artistic endeavours or those who participate in ameteur sports.

But the greatest shame of such a prejudiced outlook is that those who are retired, or disabled or mentally or emotionally ill simply have no value and, instead, are little more than a burden on the rest of us.

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Single parents stay home because there is no free or affordable public child care and/or no decent jobs paying a living wage. I say, build public child care and fight for decent jobs. You say, give them a GLI and condemn them to slave away at home at a poverty-level existence. Are we speaking the same language here?

You would entrench "volunteerism" (Ronald Reagan's substitute for social programs) - why the hell do we have people providing essential social needs by working for free? and you would solve this dilemma by giving them a bigger welfare cheque called GLI?

And you think I'm calling for the disabled and retired to BE FORCED TO WORK? While you are calling for them to be on Poverty-Plus?

Put simply, toiling for wages is not the only way a human being is able to find value in their endeavours or is able to contribute to the social capital of their community. Volunteerism and responsible parenting are the lifeblood of every community.

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Originally posted by otter:
Put simply, toiling for wages is not the only way a human being is able to find value in their endeavours or is able to contribute to the social capital of their community. Volunteerism and responsible parenting are the lifeblood of every community.

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That's beautiful and poetic - if you lived in a society where parents stayed at home out of choice (well-off ones do).

As for people volunteering to work for free providing necessary social services, while governments cut back and people who want to work can't find decent-paying jobs - that's Reaganism, not progressive thinking. No one should work for free or cheap. Is this an attack against the "lifeblood of every community"?

In earlier more barbaric versions of our capitalist society, non-profit "volunteerism" and "responsible parenting" flourished. The starving poor were kept alive by alms. Women all stayed at home breeding kids, because of their high sense of responsbility (no doubt). The sick were healed, when at all, in hospitals populated by nuns (nurses have until recently been called "sisters"). Kids went to religious schools, because that's all there was, run by "non-profit" organizations and virtual volunteers.

Do you find it very retrograde that society, step by step, has replaced all this volunteerism and responsible parenting by state institutions and paid wage labour?

The proposal for GLI - which explicitly aims to replace a raft of social programs, minimum standards and labour norms, and to subsidize low-wage sweatshop employers - is a proposal for 21st century alms, the same as Harper's baby bonus. Give them enough to survive, let all fend for themselves, praise the volunteers (volunteer home schoolers, volunteer home parenters, etc.), praise the Lord, forget about full employment, forget about fighting for decent wages, individual freedom for all.

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Originally posted by unionist:
He who does not work, neither shall he eat

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Regardless of the kind of society we implement (with/without GLI, with/without communal ownership of the means of production, etc.) we might have to face the prospect of some people who do not work: some, because of a bad back; some, because of chronic fatigue syndrome; some, because of mental illness; and some (hopefully very few) out of sheer laziness.

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Originally posted by Martha (but not Stewart):

Sure, it is kind of irksome to see a lazy person take advantage of those who work hard; but it is far worse to allow anyone to starve if society can afford to feed everyone.

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Martha, the Christians were talking about the usurers. The Socialists were talking about the capitalists - those who owned wealth (usually by theft or inherited theft), didn't perform useful work, and thrived on dividends and capital gains.

This slogan was never aimed at the disabled, or even the "lazy poor" (a category so infinitesimal that it may be left out of consideration without introducing significant error).

Both (ancient) Christianity and Socialism would deprive such social classes of the ability to extract wealth from the labour of others, and require them to work for their own living. Of course, no one would be allowed to starve, not even the lazy, and the disabled must be treated far better than they are now.

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Compassion dictates that, if society can afford it, then society should provide for the basic needs of all those who either cannot or simply will not work. As for those suffering from physical or mental illness, I suspect nobody would begrudge them their basic needs. But I also maintain that society should see to the basic needs even of those whose decision not to work is motivated by laziness. Sure, it is kind of irksome to see a lazy person take advantage of those who work hard; but it is far worse to allow anyone to starve if society can afford to feed everyone.

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Aside from a few people that will probably be banned from babble in the next couple of weeks, I don't think there is anyone here who doesn't think that we shouldn't provide for those who can not find work.

The controversy comes in when we talk about people unwilling to work.

If a person was not going to work - no matter what and would starve if we did not help them - then there is no question that they should be fed. The problem is those people who would work if they wouldn't get a GLI, but decide not to because they don't have to.

Now, I believe that those unwilling to work should get a very meagre standard of living - food shelter, minimum expenses and that's it - not the $1200 being talked about. If a person wants to get by with the bare essentials, I think they have a mental illness of sorts - even if it is not diagnosed, and I don't begrudge them for not working.

Then came the 1980's and the move toward flexible labour markets. Social welfare and UI-EI-O were made harder to qualify for. Unemployment skyrocketed because there weren't as many jobs available during the conservative policy-induced recession. National debt soared.

And the inflation monster fed by social spending was found out to be a lie, too. Economists now admit that inflation in the 70's was due to a world-wide energy crisis, but more importantly, runaway spending on the Vietnam war by conservative Republicans.

And to top it all off, more people chose to work in the 1970's when UI and welfare were easier to come by and more generous than in the 1980's. The politically conservative ideologues' theory about lazy workers kind of just faded away at the same time as memories of Maggie Thatcher and song lyrics about When Irish eyes are smilin.

Mel Hurtig says we've lost total full-time payroll job creation numbers when comparing the fourteen year span before FTA in 1989 with the same period after to 2002. Next to the Yanks, Canada now owns the second largest lowly paid, low skilled and non-unionized workforce among richest nations.

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The problem is those people who would work if they wouldn't get a GLI, but decide not to because they don't have to.

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All this chatter about "those that won't toil" seems to indicate that old, out-dated and irrelevant prejudices are still alive and well in the minds of some. The most common segment of Canadian citzenry that gets branded with this title are the homeless and drug addicts that roam our streets.

By and large, the homeless and street people are probably the most productive human beings on the planet. Every single moment of their lives is one haunted by potential violence, continous uncertainty and neverending want. As a consequence they are constanly engaged in the quest for food, shelter and protection from both the elements and the predators that roam amongst us. Yet we refuse to acknowledge they ability to survive from day to day in conditions that would leave the vast majority of Canadians immobilized with fear and uncertaintly.

Most addicts are consummate entrepeneurs simply because they must feed a very expensive habit that runs into thousands of dollars a week. A habit whose cost could never be met in any traditional form of employment. Sure they do crime, but only because there is so much prejudice towards them that our society will not provide them a cheap and less socially destructive means of obtaining their fix. Yet they are able to do so with nothing more than their wits and the opportunities they constantly scrounge and compete for on a daily basis.

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Individuals who turn to welfare do so as a last recourse. Whether the situation is the result of abuse, job loss, lack of education or training, addiction or single-parent households, our duty as Canadians and human beings is to guarantee an income that allows people to provide for themselves and their families while affording them a level of dignity that boosts confidence and inspires hope.

Detractors of a guaranteed annual income will invariably point to its price tag. However, the municipal, provincial and federal governments are currently footing the rather hefty price tag of poverty as it translates into health-care costs, an overburdened judicial system, a myriad of social services that often duplicate each other and the basic loss of human productivity.

And then there is the prevailing, subjective assessment of the welfare recipient. As the Council on Welfare report points out, the stigma attached to, and the perception of, those on welfare has in some measure inured us to the harsh realities of their plight. From a patronizing perch some have taken permission to ignore the human toll taken by poverty. In our rush to judgment, we paint all welfare recipients with the same brush to smugly justify our inaction.

Surely the time has finally come to seriously consider a guaranteed income, financed by the money now in innumerable other programs. It is time to simply recognize that to be a Canadian should mean to be free of the fear that inadequate food, shelter, clothing, recreation and basic necessities of life cannot but impart.

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Hugh Segal, of all people, makes the case for a guaranteed income.

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Yes, he was one of the pitchmen for the Morboloney government and was probably one of the architects of their attempt to bring a GI to prop up minimum wage earners salaries. Of course, that government was only going to give the GI to low wage earners as a covert means of subsidizing cheap business owners and protecting corporate profits. The poor and the destitute were still left out.

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And I think it's sad that these low opinions of real people still exist.

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Absolutely Fidel and the more i think about the more convinced i am that, if there is any evil in the world, this is where it starts. A person points an accusing finger at another or a group and declares that such people are not as "good" as the rest, or not as "worthy" of the care and protection as the rest, or not as "deserving" of compassion or care as any other human being.

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Originally posted by unionist:
The proposal for GLI - which explicitly aims to replace a raft of social programs, minimum standards and labour norms, and to subsidize low-wage sweatshop employers - is a proposal for 21st century alms, the same as Harper's baby bonus.

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This appears to be the part you aren't understanding. Nobody is proposing elimination of minimum standards, labour norms or social programs. Not explicitly or implicitly, despite your baseless attempts to impute that motive.

What would be eliminated is our dysfunction patchwork of inadequate and degrading welfare programs, in favour of an equal and equitable minimum annual income.

The other programs would remain. The labour norms would remain. Minimum wage would remain, or ideally go up. Child care would be at least at current levels, if not improved.

And I don't see how it would be subsidizing low-wage, sweatshop employers. People work for those employers because they have no other choices. With a guaranteed income, they'd have other choices, including education or simply seeking other work. They wouldn't live in fear of starvation if they left their low-wage sweatshop job, which is what happens currently.

So you have a visceral reaction to the idea of a legislated minimum standard of living for every human in Canada, and decide to impute all manner of evil motives and side effects, when they aren't actually there in any way, or as any part of the proposed GAI.

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You sound like a neocon in progressive clothing.

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Minimum wage would remain, or ideally go up.

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Originally posted by Stephen Gordon:

A BI would remove the raison d'être of the minimum wage.

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Possibly. Let us look at the objectives of the minimum wage and how that interacts with a BI scheme.

I would suggest that there are at least 2 rationales for a minimum wage, one of which is subsumed in the BI and the other is not. The one is, of course, the idea that those who work should not starve to death while doing so. The other is that workers with the least economic power should have their exploitation by employers held to a minimum standard.

A BI is a replacement for means tested social programs, it is not completely clear that the minimum wage falls into that category.

All of this assumes that the BI is high enough to improve the economic life of minimum wage earners, but, then again, these days that's a really low hurdle.

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Originally posted by arborman:

This appears to be the part you aren't understanding. Nobody is proposing elimination of minimum standards, labour norms or social programs. Not explicitly or implicitly, despite your baseless attempts to impute that motive.

[...]

I suggest you calm down, read the actual arguments and suggestions and lighten up a bit. We aren't coming after all those hard-won rights, in fact we're trying to build upon them to something even better. Yeesh. You sound like a neocon in progressive clothing.

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You know arborman, if it wasn't such a serious subject, it would be amusing... Immediately after your condescending post, both Stephen Gordon and otter said that the GLI eliminates the need for minimum wage. It's not as if Stephen Gordon didn't say that from the very start. It's more as if you only read the parts of posts that fit with your preconceived notions.

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Originally posted by jrootham:

I would suggest that there are at least 2 rationales for a minimum wage, one of which is subsumed in the BI and the other is not. The one is, of course, the idea that those who work should not starve to death while doing so. The other is that workers with the least economic power should have their exploitation by employers held to a minimum standard.

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And a third one is to limit competition among workers for available jobs by underbidding each other - what we call in the union movement the "race to the bottom".

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Why we need a Guaranteed Livable Income

Today people use money to meet their needs. Right now people who have money have power over those who do not. People who can live with less money -- the young, the healthy, the childless-- have power over those who cannot. Not having money is poverty and poverty kills without bombs or bullets. The only way to neutralize the exploitive power of money is to give everyone money though a guaranteed livable income.

However, money only has value because you can trade it for something that comes from nature. Even people who provide a service, like teachers, high tech workers and those in "information" industries for example, need to eat real food, need real shelter made out of and heated with real natural resources.

If we destroy the world's natural resources money will mean nothing. And the fastest way to destroy the earth is to demand that everyone must "get a job!" or live and die in poverty.

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The job system is a massive diversion machine - wasting precious resources (natural and human) to create mountains of crap. Just so that people can have jobs.

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with respect to minimum wage laws, there are already millions of working poor in N.America who work but still can't make ends meet. Work has not made them free.

[ 08 September 2006: Message edited by: Fidel ]

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Originally posted by jrootham:

I would suggest that there are at least 2 rationales for a minimum wage, one of which is subsumed in the BI and the other is not. The one is, of course, the idea that those who work should not starve to death while doing so. The other is that workers with the least economic power should have their exploitation by employers held to a minimum standard.

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'Exploitation?'

Labour demand curves slope downward; minumum wage laws systematically exclude the most marginal workers with the fewest skills from the labour market. In the absence of a BI, there's a case for a minimum wage as a sort of crude approximation to a BI. But if you actually have the real thing, there's no defending a minimum wage law.

Right now, the problems with integrating low-skill workers into the workforce are two-fold:

1) Benefit clawbacks mean that many face marginal tax rates in excess of 100%. Poverty is generally correlated with a lack of education, but that doesn't mean that poor people are stupid. If their income actually goes down if they find a job, they'll stay home. A BI solves this: people are always better off if they work. (I think we're all agreed on this point).

2) Minimum wage laws mean that employers can't or won't employ those with few skills, since their productivity wouldn't cover their wages. A BI solves this, too: workers can accept a low-wage job if they want to. Clearly, if it's a brutal, demeaning, dead-end job, then no-one will take it - there's always the BI. But if it's a job doing something they like, and which offers a chance to get some experience that could be used to get something better, then they can take it - even it it pays poorly. A minimum wage law would remove this opportunity.

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Originally posted by Fidel:
Work has not made them free.

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Where is Arborman's response now that GLI supporters one after another are rejecting or scorning the need for minimum wage legislation.

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Originally posted by Stephen Gordon:

But aside from the minimum wage, there aren't any other programs that need be affected.

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Look back to my example of Harper's baby bonus instead of a public child care infrastructure. The GLI, if ever implemented (and I think a Conservative government would be the most likely, for reasons I have elaborated), would provide the perfect pretext to slash any such program, and to avoid creating new ones:

"With GLI, we no longer need to create child care spaces. Parents have choices. Instead of paying for child care and going to low-paying jobs, they can stay home, nurture the kids, and live off their generous GLI. In fact, the baby bonus is no longer needed either - if the GLI proves insufficient, one parent can go out and work!"

The same pressure can and will be applied not only in the case of existing social programs, but more importantly for future ones which Canadians are determined to build.

As for labour legislation, there are many other standards which could fall by the wayside. Besides minimum wage, federal law (for example) limits work to 48 hours per week, and forces payment of time-and-a-half for any work beyond 40 hours in a week or 8 hours in a 24 hour period. These, too, are laws aimed at limiting "exploitation" (a word familiar to socialist economists which you seem not to have understood in jrootham's intervention). With GLI, the lobby to abolish such laws (which was partially successful in Ontario under Harris, when he promulgated the 60 hour "voluntary" maximum) will be all the more difficult to resist.

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Originally posted by Stephen Gordon:

'Exploitation?'

Labour demand curves slope downward;
...
2) Minimum wage laws mean that employers can't or won't employ those with few skills, since their productivity wouldn't cover their wages.

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Well, if people got paid according to their productiveness this would work fine. They don't. They get paid according to how much economic power they have. A BI (or GLI) does increase the economic power at the low end of the totem pole, so minimum wage laws are not as crucial, but I am not willing to abandon them, in a BI world they reduce the state subsidization effect.

I can't think of any commercial enterprise in Canada that would expand as a result of cheaper labour at the low end. The demand for labour is driven by the presence of customers. Toys are the only truly price elastic commodities, everything else is limited by some other factor.

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Originally posted by unionist:

As for you, Fidel, You should be careful about attributing Nazi views to me. Just answer my points without going over to that dirty realm, please. I don't know if you have family members who have died in places that bore that slogan, but I do.

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I was not back-quoting or referring to you in that post whatsoever. You can still be a lefty and believe in jobism as a solution to poverty. I wasn't trying to be a smartass - I was merely pointing out that there has been a proliferation of low-skill, lowly-paid jobs in North America, and that this is the choice for millions of workers who are not nearly lazy and are accepting two and sometimes three of these kinds of jobs as it is now and STILL aren't living very well.

And Liberals like Dalton McGuinty aren't helping matters in Ontario. Bob Rae said that 7 of 10 new jobs in this province will require post-secondary ed at various levels. Meanwhile, high school drop-out rates are skyrocketing with Liberal get-tough-on-attendance rules. Thousands of kids are being ejected from school half-way and two-thirds from the end of the school year. Is this another Liberal plot to provide a permanent underclass of low wage workers for their friends in big business?.

And I think women and children are bearing the brunt of dated attitudes toward paid work. They'll pay some guy to wear is voice out on the phone all day trying to pawn-off their plastic widgets and other crap on people. But stay at home women's work isn't paid anything, or at least not enough to keep the UN off our backs for allowing over a million Canadian children to show up at schoolhouse doors hungry or without socks on and thread-bare running shoes in the middle of winter. I think that tying a minimum wage and an army of well-paid bureaurats to work and means tested susbsistence incomes isn't getting it done in Canada. And adding more layers of buraucracy to the system isn't necessary in propping up big business with low wage workers - our fellow Canadians. No more replastering, the structure is rotten.

[ 09 September 2006: Message edited by: Fidel ]

Yet, a species that can take the very atmosphere we depend upon and encapsulate it in an missle along with some human beings, fire it off the moon and bring it back again, can surely create a better, fairer, more equitable economic system than we have seen so far.

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the critics stridently demand that every question and concern raised has to be addressed before they will agree to it

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Incredible.

You mean before they make a change that will drastically alter our economy, they want to address the concerns? Preposterous.

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Imagine if project managers behaved this way.

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Not to detract from the thread, but the ones running projects I'm on definately behave that way

Side thought, sorry if it's been discussed, but how would a GLI be determined in value when the cost of living varies so greatly between rural/urban and province to province? I can garentee you that a GLI that could be lived off of in say rural Ontario wouldn't have a hope of being livable in a place like Vancouver... Or Fort MacMurray.

How feasible is GLI when the cost of living varies so?

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Originally posted by unionist:

Where is Arborman's response now that GLI supporters one after another are rejecting or scorning the need for minimum wage legislation.

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Well, I wasn't hiding from you. I was with this 'family' thing that I have, enjoying a 'weekend'.

I'll concede that minimum wage is a contentious issue within the GLI discussion. I personally favour a minimum standard for payment - if someone is contributing value to an enterprise, they should be compensated fairly for it. It should be irrelevant to the existence of a GLI.

The hazard of removing minimum wages would be that the GLI would, over time, become insufficient to meet basic needs. Any such program would be in the sights of every conservative on the planet, especially if it works. They'd do anything they could to undercut it, and thus a minimum wage would be an essential counterbalance to any such urges.

That being said, a GLI would dramatically limit the attractiveness of any jobs that paid poorly. If my basic needs were covered, there's no way I'd take a boring job that paid shit wages just to 'make ends meet'.

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Originally posted by jrootham:
Well, if people got paid according to their productiveness this would work fine. They don't. They get paid according to how much economic power they have.

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Originally posted by Noise:
Side thought, sorry if it's been discussed, but how would a GLI be determined in value when the cost of living varies so greatly between rural/urban and province to province?

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The hazard of removing minimum wages would be that the GLI would, over time, become insufficient to meet basic needs. Any such program would be in the sights of every conservative on the planet, especially if it works. They'd do anything they could to undercut it, and thus a minimum wage would be an essential counterbalance to any such urges.

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The inclusion of a COLA clause protects everyone from creeping inflation while the GLI makes a minimum wage redundant.

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Originally posted by otter:

The inclusion of a COLA clause protects everyone from creeping inflation while the GLI makes a minimum wage redundant.

As for the neo-cons attacking a GLI, every one i have mentioned the idea to is more than happy to see it implemented as long asit is a universal program, meaning that they get the money too. In fact, it is the universiality of a GLI that ensures it is fair, equitable and supported by all but the most petty of personalities.

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Ok, let me see if I have this straight now:

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1. GLI means no more minimum wage laws.
2. Neo-cons are more than happy with a universal GLI program.
3. Only the most petty of personalities don't support it.

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You've done it again - strung many of us along with an endlessly shifting string of straw men, irrelevancies, non-sequiturs, topic changes and overheated nonsense. Throw in some personal attacks/slurs and we have our man.

Time to go back to your blog and brag about how you pulled the wool over our eyes again. I'm sure done talking with you.

[ 12 September 2006: Message edited by: arborman ]

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Originally posted by Stephen Gordon:

Setting aside the mechanism by which 'economic power' is bestowed and how it evolves, wages will still end up reflecting productivity. If workers get some extra power and force an increase in wage that isn't related to productivity, profits fall. Firms will respond by reducing output and employment. If firms get some extra power and force a decrease in wage below what a worker's productivity really is, then it will get higher profits than others are getting. This will encourage other firms to enter, hiring workers and bidding back up the wage until the wage corresponds to productivity.

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OK, so that means that every firm in the economy has equal profitibility. Like, say, Microsoft.

This analysis only works if there are no barriers to entry or exit from a market. Somehow, that doesn't seem to describe the real world. If you want to argue that competition provides some limits to exploitation (and its inverse) you then need to figure out what those limits are and then work out if they are small enough to not require further remediation. My observation of the world is that the limits are broad enough in favour of the powerful that they are grossly inadequate and therefor need to be reinforced.

It also assumes that all workers in a firm share equally in the exploitation or its converse. The changing ratios between lower level workers and the brass would suggest that this is not the case. It would be trivially easy to construct a model of a firm with the lower paid workers being heavily exploited and upper level workers absorbing all the fruits thereof, leaving the investors with lowered profits and therefor no incentive for other firms to enter the market.

BTW I am using the term exploitation to mean the difference between the productivity of a worker and their wage. There well may be a different term used in economic academia for this. I suspect it would be a term with a connotation of temporary disequilibrium. An interesting question would be what is the evidence of the temporary nature of the phenomenon.

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Originally posted by arborman:
I'm suddenly recognizing unionist's tactics. Hello, Masterdebator, it's been awhile.

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I beg your pardon?

Calm down and think before you make comments like the one above (which I don't grasp, are you feeling well?), as well as like this:

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Nobody is proposing elimination of minimum standards, labour norms or social programs. Not explicitly or implicitly, despite your baseless attempts to impute that motive.

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I think people would certainly be less likely to take those kinds of jobs unless there was safety up the wazoo. I think a certain level of financial independence for workers would place more emphasis on safety and for private enterprise to dip into profits to provide safe working enviro's for employees. A GLI would provide them with some incentive to do things like that.

How well a company treats its workers and the environment could be rated by workers themselves and public auditing agencies with annual ratings published in a national labour-oriented free newspaper.

[ 12 September 2006: Message edited by: Fidel ]

As a youth, I had a friend that worked in a tannery, in the raw processing end where the hides where 'defleshed' by chemicals and was replusive just to walk by. Working in there was brutal and was not fairly compensated by a few pennies more in wages.

A GLI might well force employers to spend the cash to automate the tasks, wholly or in part, and it would certainly motivate them to improve both the money and the working conditions otherwise.

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Originally posted by unionist:
And if you can't answer arguments or don't want to, that's fine. Ignore them, go somewhere else, say "I don't know", your choice. But don't accuse people of personal attacks - where did I do such a thing?? ...

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Originally posted by unionist:
... quoting something which does not qualify as a personal attack either.

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Originally posted by Martha (but not Stewart):

Well, I think that being called "disingenuous" is a pretty serious personal insult. I was suprised by it because, up to that point, you had treated me in a civil manner.

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[ 12 September 2006: Message edited by: Martha (but not Stewart) ]

The GLI, and what it should be set at, as has been mentioned before, can either be good or bad, depending on how it is set up and what information is used to base its standards.

Of course, it can be used as a weapon against public sector workers who implement our varied social programs.

But it doesn't need to, especially when you couple it with some of the suggestions here about expanding public enterprises and/or democratizing the means of production (which, as far as I can tell, is the fundamental ingredient to any serious long-term economic, social and ecological improvement).

Anything short of this is largely tinkering with the economy to make things somewhat more livable for a large number of people. That's fine in itself, but a bit superficial and short-sighted compared to what ultimately needs to happen over time.

In terms of the overall economy, a GLI in itself likely won't have much effect on redistributing wealth on a more equitable basis or rewarding people on the basis of their productive work.

But it can contribute to these effects by overall raising the low end of income, thereby putting pressure on lower paying jobs to pay higher wages and offer benefits.

Even if it's true that most people would rather work that sit at home and collect a check (which I agree that most would rather work), the very fact that they would have this option might be enough of an incentive to raise the standards of the working poor.

As we have seen in the past, raising the lower end of the economic ladder also quite often results in increases and improvements for the big middle income brackets. This usually leads to somewhat more equitable wealth distribution and more public money available for further development.

It seems to me that most countries that have adopted some form of successful GLI also have large and active labour movements, which are largely supportive of such measures and have not been hurt by them.

[ 12 September 2006: Message edited by: Fidel ]

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But it doesn't need to, especially when you couple it with some of the suggestions here about expanding public enterprises and/or democratizing the means of production (which, as far as I can tell, is the fundamental ingredient to any serious long-term economic, social and ecological improvement).

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Yes, that is an important consideration to bear in mind for sure.

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Well that's why we need a bloody revolution - because multiparty demockeracy for the last 100 years in a row in this frozen Puerto Rico has us being ruled by the same old line corporate-sponsored plutocrats purporting to be two separate political parties.

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Absolutely. You and I are almost in lockstep on that perspective if i can change the term re-volution to ev-olution, you betcha

You know, the thing i can't get is this:
The whole world is in transition. Everything is changing, from the rocks and the universe itself.

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Originally posted by arborman:
I'm suddenly recognizing unionist's tactics. Hello, Masterdebator, it's been awhile.

You've done it again - strung many of us along with an endlessly shifting string of straw men, irrelevancies, non-sequiturs, topic changes and overheated nonsense. Throw in some personal attacks/slurs and we have our man.

Time to go back to your blog and brag about how you pulled the wool over our eyes again. I'm sure done talking with you.

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