Citizen's Income

[zadok]

A CITIZEN'S INCOME is an unconditional, non-withdrawable income payable to each individual as a right of citizenship.




Would this be a good way to get demand going again?


http://www.citizensincome.org/

[metalman]

Re: Citizen's Income

A CITIZEN'S INCOME is an unconditional, non-withdrawable income payable to each individual as a right of citizenship.




Would this be a good way to get demand going again?


http://www.citizensincome.org/

sounds like socialism to me. the gov't issued consumer debit card is bad enough.

[GRG55]

Re: Citizen's Income

sounds like socialism to me. the gov't issued consumer debit card is bad enough.

Just another variation of government as "demand creator of last resort"

[D-Mack]

Re: Citizen's Income

Reminds me of Richard C Cook and his comparison to the Alaska fund

The theory of a National Dividend has been explained by the Social Credit movement which is active in the British Commonwealth, is fiscally sound, and has been examined in detail by this author in his series of 2007 monetary articles. To see how it might work, take a look at the Alaska Permanent Fund, where each resident receives almost $2,000 per year as a share in that state’s natural resource revenues.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.p...xt=va&aid=7852

[metalman]

Re: Citizen's Income

Just another variation of government as "demand creator of last resort"

[GRG55]

Re: Citizen's Income

Reminds me of Richard C Cook and his comparison to the Alaska fund

Alaska is a small beans player in this racket. The privileged citizens [e.g. not all citizens] of the GCC states receive far, far more than $2000 per annum from their "natural resource revenues".

And that's not a model for constructing a society that many in North America would be comfortable emulating.

[ASH]

Re: Citizen's Income

A CITIZEN'S INCOME is an unconditional, non-withdrawable income payable to each individual as a right of citizenship.




Would this be a good way to get demand going again?


http://www.citizensincome.org/

My wife and I think this is where things have to end up in a technological "utopia" in which human labor has negligible economic value. It is socialism. That's why we have social programs today, because there are a lot of people whose labor is of inadequate economic value to support an acceptible standard of living. In the limit of (fantastically) high technology, everyone falls into that category, and capital (in the form of automated factories, artificially-intelligent robotic engineers, raw materials, etc.) is the only thing of value. Under those circumstances, a "citizen's share" of the national capital -- and income derived from same -- is the only thing that makes sense. (Not saying this is our future; I personally think we all end up broke, and too poor to invent this stuff -- but I'm a downer.)

Would this help stimulate the economy? I agree with the other posters on that one.

[c1ue]

Re: Citizen's Income

Anyone who thinks government income will fix everything needs to come down to San Francisco. I'll drop them off in the Western Addition or Hunter's Point at night and see if they can make it out on foot.

The problem with 'government income' is that you have the government giving it out. As various dictators and Communism in Russia (as well as the mutated Communism in China) show, over time inexorably those in government simply start enriching themselves.

Secondly government must HAVE an income - in this instance being defined as national production. While there is plenty of production in the US, said production is far less than US consumption.

Alaska as a commodity based economy, plus being able to leech off American military protection, can survive with 'government income', and so can the GCCs - but it is not a model replicable for the US as whole.

Simply having government pay for (over)consumption just leads you to Zimbabwe.

[zadok]

Re: Citizen's Income

A basic income is granted independent of other income (including salaries) and wealth, with no other requirement than citizenship. This is a special case of GMI, based on additional ideologies and/or goals. While most modern countries have some form of guaranteed minimum income, a basic income is rare.
A basic income is a proposed system of social security, that periodically provides each citizen with a sum of money that is sufficient to live on. Except for citizenship, a basic income is entirely unconditional. Furthermore, there is no means test; the richest as well as the poorest citizens would receive it.
A basic income is often proposed in the form of a citizen's dividend (a [transfer]) or a negative income tax (a guarantee). A basic income less than the social minimum is referred to as a partial basic income. A worldwide basic income, typically including income redistribution between nations, is known as a global basic income.

One of the arguments for an basic income was articulated by French Economist and Philosopher André Gorz: "The connection between more and better has been broken; our needs for many products and services are already more than adequately met, and many of our as-yet- unsatisfied needs will be met not by producing more, but by producing differently, producing other things, or even producing less. This is especially true as regards our needs for air, water, space, silence, beauty, time and human contact...
From the point where it takes only 1,000 hours per year or 20,000 to 30,000 hours per lifetime to create an amount of wealth equal to or greater than the amount we create at the present time in 1,600 hours per year or 40,000 to 50,000 hours in a working life, we must all be able to obtain a real income equal to or higher than our current salaries in exchange for a greatly reduced quantity of work...
Neither is it true any longer that the more each individual works, the better off everyone will be. The present crisis has stimulated technological change of an unprecedented scale and speed: `the micro-chip revolution'. The object and indeed the effect of this revolution has been to make rapidly increasing savings in labour, in the industrial, administrative and service sectors. Increasing production is secured in these sectors by decreasing amounts of labour. As a result, the social process of production no longer needs everyone to work in it on a full-time basis. The work ethic ceases to be viable in such a situation and workbased society is thrown into crisis" Andre Gorz,Critique of economic Reason,Gallile´,1989

The Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN) describes one of the benefits of a basic income as having a lower overall cost than that of the current means-tested social welfare benefits.However critics have pointed out the potential work disincentives created by such a program, and have cast doubts over its implementability,se:Interview with Philippe van Parijs.In later years, Basic Income Studies:How it could be organised, Different Sugesstions,have made a lot fully financed proposals.


Methods of implementation One proposed method of offsetting the cost to the Treasury of this tax expenditure lies in its coupling with a flat tax, a type of federal income tax in which all taxpayers are subject to a single tax rate. The current model of progressive income taxes used throughout the western world could be eliminated, but the system would still be progressive, since those at the lower end of the wage scale would pay less in taxes than they would receive in guaranteed income.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guaranteed_minimum_income