Just giving people money turns out to be the most effective way to end poverty.

[Essence]

All the stupid conservative 'workfare' crap needs to die a gory death, because it turns out that we've DONE the social experiments necessary to prove that simply giving people a basic wage -- even for doing no work -- creates a better economy AND a better society than what we're doing now.

Why we should give Free Money to Everyone

We'd be giving the same money to everyone -- no matter how rich or poor -- just because they were living. It would completely gut all existing welfare programs, because once everyone has an agreed-upon living wage, you don't need food stamps, TANF, or any of that other crap. And people would actually live better lives than they do now. Provably.

Literally the only argument against this idea is "But I don't want to pay someone to not work!"  And even that fails when you look at the fact that the vast majority of non-workers in these experiments were full-time moms and college students.

[Blacksmith]

Over here people get paid like 1,5K$ each month if they don't have a job. ( average salary is 3,5K$ a month ( they only get paid if they send in papers asking for it ) ) It only lasts for 1,5 years though and under that time you are supposed to look for jobs. SO every week you have to send in a blanket saying what jobs you been looking for and proof of that. If you don't have a job after 1,5 years you won't get any more money. However they will help you find a job ( if you want ) that goes under special circumstance, in other word not a normal job.

You also get paid if you work part time. So for example if you work 40% and are unemployed 60% of they time you will het 0.6*1,5K every month.

The thought is simple. Not everyone can succeed in a society. And by paying a small amount of tax to those who hasn't succeed as well as you, you give them a chance to succeed just like you.

[dragtom]

Everyone can't succeed in a society.

I hope you meant 'not everyone can...'. There is a slight difference

Doesn't this work demotivating, though? Or should the amount given be equal or under minimum wages, as to still reward a job?

[farscape]

From the examples in the article, it looks like it works when a small number of very poor people gets a lump-sum of gift money once.

However, you have to be careful before jumping to conclusions and suggest something else: to give regularly money to people without requiring them to work for it. That has been tested too on wide scale over long time-period: ~50 years and millions of test subjects. I am talking about Communisms in Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. As you may know the end result was not so great...

[Blacksmith]

From the examples in the article, it looks like it works when a small number of very poor people gets a lump-sum of gift money once.

However, you have to be careful before jumping to conclusions and suggest something else: to give regularly money to people without requiring them to work for it. That has been tested too on wide scale over long time-period: ~50 years and millions of test subjects. I am talking about Communisms in Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. As you may know the end result was not so great...

The system I explain is the system we have over here in Sweden and it's also the system we has had the past 70 years. And personally I think it's great.

Further more I'd like to add that Soviet aren't a very good example since it 1: It aren't a democracy 2: Big parts of the country was a plan economy which aren't really the same.

And what is the alternative? not giving people money and let them starve on the street?

[Naesala]

What the original pot describes is essentially communism (perhaps with tweeks here and there), which is a glorious and wonderful plan that fails because people are inherently corrupt and greedy. Past failing communist countries have been, in a large part, because they were also facist and the elite thought they were better than the peons in making decisions, so wealth wasn't truely evenly split.

In my personal opinion, the greatest country ever would be communistic, were everyone shared wealth equally, with direct democracy, where everyone is permitted to give an opinion on every issue and have their opinion be weighed equally. That would mitigate the number one problem people have with communism, the number two being that it doesn't drive invention/innovation/makes people lazy. But if people were willing enough to give up power and greed, people would be able to see the good in working hard for the good of the commune.

But it won't ever happen. At least anytime in the near future in any large country. The best we can hope for is for big countries to turn socialist, a step towards those things, and to continue progressing towards becoming the kind of countries and more importantly people we should all be.

[Essence]

Neither of you actually read the article, did you? [edit: Farscape and Naesala.]  A basic wage isn't anything like communism. At all. Please go educate yourself about what communism is, and then come back and explain using the actual definition of communism why this isn't that.

[Naesala]

Neither of you actually read the article, did you?  A basic wage isn't anything like communism. At all. Please go educate yourself about what communism is, and then come back and explain using the actual definition of communism why this isn't that.

I said what the original post describes, /not/ what the article says. Please don't rudely accuse and speak as though "better educated".

[antiaverage]

This sort of thing is usually lumped in with a movement to a consumption tax or fair tax, and a lot of conservatives are actually for this.

Give everyone the same x dollars per month, they can live off of it or spend it how they wish. Extract taxes via consumption of goods and services. This also solves underground activities since all that drug money still goes towards buying that expensive car which extracts consumption taxes. Those who normally couldn't find a job and therefore couldn't afford food can now afford food. Etc.

I'm barely brushing this, but there is actually far too much to talk about. Yes, structuring a sustainable and fair government funding method such as a well designed consumption flat tax and then giving a stipend each month to everyone is a valid idea that is in use in some eastern European countries. It has not been studied on large scales like America, but there are those discussing it and pushing for it and many are conservatives, believe it or not. (Not all that hard to understand since this usually gets rid of or drastically reduces income tax, gift tax, estate tax, etc)

[Essence]

Neither of you actually read the article, did you?  A basic wage isn't anything like communism. At all. Please go educate yourself about what communism is, and then come back and explain using the actual definition of communism why this isn't that.

I said what the original post describes, /not/ what the article says. Please don't rudely accuse and speak as though "better educated".

What the original post describes isn't anything like communism either. Your 'defense'...isn't. If you want to be thought of as educated, don't use words like 'communism' where they don't apply.

a society in which all property is publicly owned and each person works and is paid according to their abilities and needs.

That's exactly nothing like a basic wage underlying a capitalist economic system, which is what the original post AND the attached article described.

Global Moderator Comment

Keep it civil, please.

This sort of thing is usually lumped in with a movement to a consumption tax or fair tax, and a lot of conservatives are actually for this.

That's because consumption tax allows rich people to keep the wealth they don't spend -- and you'll notice that capital gains, which is where they get the vast majority of their wealth from, is always left out of 'consumption'. The entire notion of a consumption tax is nothing more than a well-worded ploy to foist more of the tax burden on the 99% while the people the conservatives put on a pedestal get to keep more of the money that they don't need.

[farscape]

Neither of you actually read the article, did you?  A basic wage isn't anything like communism. At all. Please go educate yourself about what communism is, and then come back and explain using the actual definition of communism why this isn't that.

1. Wrong, I read the entire article.

2. I said " I am talking about Communisms in Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.", which is very different from "theoretical" communism, which  is a classless, moneyless, and stateless social order structured upon common ownership of the means of production. I was referring to the eastern European economy in the era between WW II and ~1990, where everybody had a job with a minimal wage sufficient for basic living expenses, pretty much exactly what the article advocates:

The philosopher Philippe van Parijs has called it ‘the capitalist road to communism.’ A monthly allowance, enough to live off, without any outside control on whether you spend it well or whether you even deserve it.

^ this quote is from your linked  article (in case it is you who did not read it and wouldn't recognize it).

3. I have a first-hand experience and knowledge of the actual life in Eastern Europe in that time-frame and my education also included in-depth courses about the theoretical communism -- which was main stream subject in the state education there as I was growing up. So I know very well the difference between them and I can see the perfect parallel between the actual reality of that tried & tested economic system  and the one proposed by the article.

However, based on your outburst quoted above, you clearly lack this knowledge and understanding, hence your missing of my point that I was not referring to some theoretical utopistic communism, but the actual implemented economic system -- which should really be called Socialism.

[Essence]

1. Wrong, I read the entire article.

I stand corrected. I suppose it's possible for you to have read the article and come away with this:

From the examples in the article, it looks like it works when a small number of very poor people gets a lump-sum of gift money once.

When the article says this:

The experiment was to take place in Dauphin, a small city with 13,000 inhabitants north of Winnipeg...For a family of five, the amount would come down to $18,000 a year today (figure corrected for inflation). No questions asked. ...For three years, she analyzed and analyzed, consistently coming to the same conclusion:

Mincome had been a great success.

That's not 'a small number of very poor people.'  That's 'the entire population of a small town.' Everyone, no matter where they were on the economic scale.


Then, it says

Several tens of millions were made available to test the effects of a basic income among 10,000 families in Pennsylvania, Indiana, North Carolina, Seattle and Denver.

Again, that's at least 20,000 people (assuming no kids; statistics say it's probably closer to 25,000), and there's no indication at all that they chose poor families in particular.

So...I guess we could have different definitions of "read"?  Because it seems pretty clear to me that even if you did look at all of the words in the order that they were presented, you missed out on some basic facts.

I said " I am talking about Communisms in Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.", which is very different from "theoretical" communism, which  is a classless, moneyless, and stateless social order structured upon common ownership of the means of production.

Which is entirely not my problem with your post. I already told you what my problem is: a basic wage isn't anything like Communism. Either definition.  If you had actually read the article, you'd see that it clearly and specifically addresses the concern you raise, because it's a very common objection to the idea of a basic wage. So again, either you don't mean the same thing I mean when you say "read", or this:

The decrease in working hours turned out to be limited. ‘The ‘laziness’ contention is just not supported by our findings’, the chief data analyst of the Denver experiment said. ‘There is not anywhere near the mass defection the prophets of doom predicted.’ On average, the decline in work hours amounted to 9 percent per household. Like in Dauphin, the majority of this drop was caused by young mothers and students in their twenties.

Would have nipped your comparison to actual, real-world communism in the bud.