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Apr. 1st, 2018
Our final morning session on Saturday, July 29, 2018 was "The People's Endowment: Common Resources and Basic Income," with Karl Widerquist and Vitnarae Kang. First we heard an introduction by Dan Sullivan, who said that Henry George mentioned per capita citizens' dividends in a couple of places. Then Karl Widerquist spoke, and referred to Thames Payne's Agrarian Justice and to Thomas Spence, among others, as having anticipated the idea of citizens' dividends paid for out of land value taxation/resource rent.
A basic income could be financed by per taxes, but it makes a good combination with resource rent taxes. The basic income is Karl Widerquist's main idea. A farmer or fisherman doesn't have a boss; he works for himself. These days, most people aren't really free, because they don't have access to resources, and must therefore follow a boss's orders. Mr. Widerquist has no problem with people choosing employment, but that's not our current situation. He gave us some more rhetoric on the point, and mentioned the Alaska Permanent Fund.
He spoke of two books, I think books of his: Independence, Propertylessness, and Basic Income and Prehistoric Myths in Modern Political Philosophy.
There is an argument, made by Hobbes, Locke, Hume, Kant, Nozick, and others, that society has created a better life for all, even the poor, than our ancestors had with no private property in land. Thomas Payne disagreed, and K.W. disagrees. There is no evidence for this claim. Thomas Payne wrote, "The life of an Indian is a continuous holiday compared to the life of the poor of Europe, and abject poverty compared to the life of the rich." Henry George wrote similarly.
Prehistoric Myths in Modern Political Philosophy addresses the question empirically, and the last page mentions basic income. The book is expensive for academic libraries, and available free online as a PDF.
To be continued.
A basic income could be financed by per taxes, but it makes a good combination with resource rent taxes. The basic income is Karl Widerquist's main idea. A farmer or fisherman doesn't have a boss; he works for himself. These days, most people aren't really free, because they don't have access to resources, and must therefore follow a boss's orders. Mr. Widerquist has no problem with people choosing employment, but that's not our current situation. He gave us some more rhetoric on the point, and mentioned the Alaska Permanent Fund.
He spoke of two books, I think books of his: Independence, Propertylessness, and Basic Income and Prehistoric Myths in Modern Political Philosophy.
There is an argument, made by Hobbes, Locke, Hume, Kant, Nozick, and others, that society has created a better life for all, even the poor, than our ancestors had with no private property in land. Thomas Payne disagreed, and K.W. disagrees. There is no evidence for this claim. Thomas Payne wrote, "The life of an Indian is a continuous holiday compared to the life of the poor of Europe, and abject poverty compared to the life of the rich." Henry George wrote similarly.
Prehistoric Myths in Modern Political Philosophy addresses the question empirically, and the last page mentions basic income. The book is expensive for academic libraries, and available free online as a PDF.
To be continued.