the idle poor
However, in Western societies, a continually growing group of people
are not able to command sufficient return from their work to sustain
a minimal standard of living, unless they go begging to the governments
for handouts. Such people are also placed in a position where large
corporations can gouge their wages, because there is a considerable
surplus of people with insufficient skills to fill a steadily lessening
number of low-skill positions. Both the demeaning demands of socialistic
governments, and the puritans of the right, must adapt to modern
conditions, not continue with practices that grew from a far more
backward and poverty-stricken era.
Much of the reason for low wages is that market competition in
the presence of a growing over-supply of lower skilled workers will
not allow corporations to pay a reasonable living wage. The competition
among the weak for limited wages is also unreasonable because of
the fear and health-threatening insecurity that is associated with
such stress. A citizen’s wage can be set to allow the markets
to clear, while those on a small citizen’s wage will have
the free choices and independence to take jobs only if they wish
to increase their basic standard of living, thus removing the unreasonable
power and bullying by the more fortunate and the more able.
taxation
Some have suggested that a citizen’s wage should be funded
from a very large inheritance tax, but this is to misunderstand
basic economics and the nature of tax.
All tax is collected from
current production
It does not matter a fig where a tax is applied, it is always a
tax on current transactions or production. There is no special merit
in an inheritance tax, and much difficulty in the application or
collection of such a tax. The citizen’s wage would primarily
be spent on goods here and now (or saved/invested). It would not
be spent on deals concerning the great concentrations of wealth.
It would be spent on the production from the factories, or on services,
or go towards accommodation (for instance, on land).
A large amount of intrusive modern government is devoted to deciding
just to whom they award a mess of ‘allowances’ and ‘wage
supplements’, ‘pensions’ etc. All this can be
steadily and systematically removed with a citizen’s wage,
and the great superstructure of government administrators released
instead to do useful work. Much everyday government intrusion would
no longer be ‘necessary’.
Citizens would be considerably more free to choose their activities
and contributions. They could in due course live frugally on the
citizen’s, while writing their masterpiece; or learn to play
a banjo in the attic. If they wanted to move into better accommodation,
purchase a new music player, eat more luxuriously or visit the cinema
regularly, they could select the work and hours necessary, while
not constrained to accept wages below a level they considered acceptable.
So, there would be no need for minimum wage laws either.
common
wealth and the common wealth dividend
Some dislike the term ‘citizen’s wage’ because
it is not a wage for any effort or work. It is a right allowed to
all citizens.
Some claim that any such wage must be taken from the work of others
but, in fact, a very great deal of the wealth available to modern
society does not stem directly from the hand and head work of those
performing the tasks. It comes from the inventions and efforts of
long dead ancestors, and from the fact of the earth we find ourselves
upon and the air we breathe. Quite apart, this argument fails on
the inconsistency that very large amounts are already distributed
by taxation.
It is quite reasonable to regard any fund as a royalty upon those
efforts of past generations, distributed as a dividend to those
now living. What Marx was pleased to call “Mister Moneybags”
did not somehow gain a moral right to the results of the inventions
of Newton, or to possession of the land. That Moneybags builds a
great industrial empire from his (or her)
creativity and energy is admirable and useful to us all.
But his children have no obvious ‘right’ to the power
that accrues to large accumulations of wealth, once the founder
and builder moves on to the great factory in the sky.
However, breaking up such organisations on the demise of Moneybags
and dispersing the organisation for whatever it will fetch is a
bit harsh on the rest of the ‘family’, especially if
some of them have spent years training under the originator to run
the organisation effectively. A tax to repay the windfall extending
over say 20 years may mitigate such complications.
The part of the productive machinery that is not down to the creativity
of Mr. Moneybags can easily be considered common wealth, and hence
our citizen’s wage can as easily be called the common wealth
without even changing the initials! Or else, call it the common
wealth dividend – c.w.d. In due course, it is probable that
the c.w.d. would become converted into actual share or loan certificates.
With these certificates, future Moneybags or co-operatives could
assemble the large concentrations of wealth required for productive
corporations.
The ‘right-wing’ puritanical
classes [2] use
different excuses from the ‘left-wing’ socialist puritans
to keep the poor enslaved (always for the ‘moral good’of
the poor, of course). The‘right-wing’ puritans wish
to ensure that government ‘charity’ is not ‘misdirected’
and that the poor do not lose the motivation to work! It is strange
that the puritans do not imagine that their own wealth has no such
deleterious effect on their moral standing and motivation!
An examination of a large proportion of those
who have contributed to the advance of civilisation shows that they
have indeed come from the ‘idle’ moneyed classes.
The leisure has, in fact, given them time to think and to develop
human knowledge. I see not the slightest reason why greater freedom
to choose among all citizens should not also greatly increase the
numbers who choose to benefit society and study with that objective
in mind. Increasing leisure, and spreading that leisure around throughout
society, is a high public good. Most of what is necessary is reasonable
access to adequate education when necessary.
a
considerable proportion of waste is caused by the wage and dole
economy - what to do
The drive to ‘get a job’ and to ‘stay off the
dole’ pushes people to waste time, energy and resources producing
rubbish. Then they seek ever bigger peacock feathers as they strive
for meaningless status with 10,000 sq ft houses and SUVs.
The normal person does not have to strain to ‘be different’
in among a herd of conformist sheep. Individuality comes along naturally
by simply doing whatever you want to. In among a bunch of sheep,
‘individuality’ amounts to an ear-ring, a shorter skirt,
or a pierced belly button.
The richest man in the world lives in the same house he purchased
in 1950. Children are now being taught that the bigger the box,
the more important the scraps of plastic inside.
Only with a citizen’s wage will people be able to decide
whether their time is of more value than pieces of plastic crap.
You do not need a full-time job to feed, clothe and house yourself,
but to work for just enough to feed, clothe and house yourself requires
a full-time job. After all, you cannot just go and do a bit of casual
work when you wish or the mood takes you. You must register with
the government and satisfy their spies.
To pay the dole requires a vast army of means testers, tax collectors
and other useless time-wasting parasites. Earn enough for the full-time
job and the parasites are on your case. Don’t earn at all,
and you must go begging to the parasites.
With a citizen’s wage, vast amounts of this time-wasting,
followed by inevitable resource wasting, can be removed.
With a citizen’s wage, there is nothing to stop you earning
more, and there is no need for the begging bowl.
With a citizen’s wage, most of the parasites become redundant,
so you do not need to work to keep them either.
And there is no need for Gordon Brown the Clown’s ever expanding,
polluting, useless make-work.
useful background
reading
In our hands by Charles Murray
This book studies a worked-out form of citizen’s wage based
on giving every American $10,000 a year for life from the age of
twenty-one.
The book is fairly short at a little over a hundred pages, with
another hundred pages of appendices and other notes. It has a lot
of detailed work., but at points, in one or two of the short chapters,
verges on ‘idealism’ and the rose-coloureds’ puritanism.
“America’s population is wealthier than any in history.
Every year, the American government redistributes more than a
trillion dollars of that wealth to provide for retirement, health
care, and the alleviation of poverty. We still have millions of
people without comfortable retrements, without adequate health
care, and living in poverty. Only a government can spend so much
money so ineffectually. The solution is to give the money to the
people.” [p.1]
“The experimental NIT [negative income tax] produced disappointing
results. The work disincentives were substantial and ominously
largest among the youngest recipients. Marital breakup was higher
among participants than among the control group in most of the
sites. No headlines announced these results, but the NIT quietly
disappeared from the policy debate.” [p. 8] For
extended details, see chapter 11 of Losing ground: American
social policy 1950-1980 by Charles Murray, Basic Books,
1984.
 |
In our hands by Charles Murray
American Enterprise Institute [AEI Press
2006,
ISBN-10: 0844742236 / ISBN-13: 978-0844742236
$13.60
[amazon.com]
£9.45
[amazon.co.uk]
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