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Re: [ox-en] Re: Basic income as an option?



Hi Michel and all!

2 weeks (20 days) ago Michael Bouwens wrote:
Stefan Merten <smerten oekonux.de> wrote:
Hi Michel and all!

2 weeks (19 days) ago Michael Bouwens wrote:
Thanks Stefan, for your interesting comments and
probing questions,

I understand this in that way that you are no longer interested in
discussing. Sorry I noticed this so late. I'll stick to
some minor clarifications.



NOT AT ALL STEFAN. Please note that I was travelling for ten days,
and I never take a laptop with me. So, if I do not reply directly it
could mean: 1) that I was a way 2) that your email got to the bottom
of my list (I work in reverse chronological order); 3) that I do not
know what exactly to reply to your arguments. It rarely means "I'm
no longer interested"

Ok, so this was a misunderstand on my side. Sorry. E-mail is a rather
narrow communication line and it is even harder when dealing with
different cultures.

Our current currency
system is not 'smart' at all, since 90% of it cannot
be used in productive endeavour, and it creates global
poverty.

You are thinking in moral terms.

What I find at least dangerous with moral terms is that they are
fundamentally idealist. I'm *very* sceptical of all idealist
approaches.

NO, I'M NOT <only> thinking in moral terms, though there is nothing
wrong with that, but also in terms of efficiency. A society that
excludes from participation a majority of the world population is
not very <efficient> as well, so the money system is not working
well, from that perspective.

Yeah if you take this perspective and mean something different by
efficiency then usual in capitalism. Under conditions of exchange,
however, their is little room for other efficiency schemes. I'd say
you'd need a different society already to apply more moral efficiency
schemes.

Furthermore, you reason in black an
white terms, i.e. exchange is bad, no exchange is good. These are
just two poles on a continium. Many people desire fairer exchange,
as in fair trade, etc.. If we think that exchange will remain part
of the equation for a long time, then it is important, in terms of
social justice, to make it fairer.

In a sense when I'm arguing here I'm thinking black and white, yes.
There are already enough people mixing things up ;-) .

May be here is a main difference between our approaches.

Sorry but this sounds really ridiculous to me. If I get money because
I'm in a bad social situation and I have to prove this then you say
this kills incentive to work. If I get money even without needing to
prove the necessity the incentive to work is higher. What???



NO WHAT KILLS the motivation to work is that, compared to what I
conditionally get, so that I can stay home and take care of my
family, the marginal gain for alienating and hard work is not
motivating. [...see below...] But since you
cannot loose the basic income, this negative incentive falls away.

I'm really sorry, but to me this sounds even more ridiculous as
before. May be I didn't get you.

You argue that motivation for (alienated) work is some additional gain
to what I receive already. I agree. You need to (structurally) force
people to alienate from themselves. In other words: the negative
incentive is the alienation.

If what I receive already is even unconditional why the hell should I
be more motivated to do (alienated) work? The negative incentive of
alienation is present in both models but in the basic income model I'm
not even forced to alienate to prove that I fall into some
bureaucratic conditions.

There are many people taking this option, which I
respect, but a large part of the population, in conditions of
scarcity, and the Right is playing on this, does not accept this,
hence the shift from welfare to workfare schemes.

Well IMHO the shift from welfare to workfare is mainly motivated by
the labor religion where "thou may not eat if thou does not work" -
regardless of how high the unemployment rate is. It is typical for
declining regimes that the more the fundament crumbles away the more
it it enforced. Anything else would mean accepting that the fundament
breaks away which is probably the hardest thing to do.


						Mit Freien Grüßen

						Stefan

--
Please note this message is written on an offline laptop
and send out in the evening of the day it is written. It
does not take any information into account which may have
reached my mailbox since yesterday evening.

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