And they shouldn't be forced, because it's their money after all. Just because they are richer than you that doesn't mean they owe you anything. Also, you contradict yourself by first saing that rich "never want to contribute" and later giving example of people actualy doing this for "marketing/PR reasons". Those reasons may be selfish, but still people like Bill Gates donate literaly billions of dollars to help others.
> contradict yourself by first saing that rich "never want to contribute" and later giving example of people actualy doing this
its not an contradiction - i assumed it was obvious that "never want to contribute" implies true altruistic behaviour, where as doing it for "PR" reasons dont count.
IN any case, yes its true that the rich shouldn't be forced to give up their assets for those who didn't earn it. But for BI to work, this essentially _has_ to be the case! Lets say the total amount of money (however you want to count it) is M, while the total amount of goods and services produced in 1 period of time is P. If BI were instated, how could it be paid for? Either increase M (by printing money essentially), or by keeping M constant, but redistribute it from those who have more (the machine owners) to those who don't have as much. Increasing M simply causes inflation, since P didn't change in this case, and so after a while, shit just gets more and more expensive. Redistributing M is what you said above - forcibly taking the assets from someone and give it to someone else. Neither is going to work imho. You might say P would increase, offsetting the problem of increasing M and the inflation it causes. THat might happen, but i don't think the rate at which P increases will match the rate at which M increases.
Ok, so now you're saying that "the rich shouldn't be forced to give up their assets for those who didn't earn it." and still "for BI to work, this essentially _has_ to be the case!" So basically you're saying that BI is in it's essence totally immoral, which is exactly what I wanted to prove.
It's not "their money after all". They did not make it alone, they were supported by the community in countless ways. How do you propose the government be paid for? How do you propose we deal with people for which there is no work to do?
If you don't have some kind of solution for the poor then they'll simply kill these rich people and take everything they have. And since you don't want taxes to pay for the police, they'll be shooting in the same direction.
> If you don't have some kind of solution for the poor
puts on tin hat
these NSA/illegal surveillance is a ploy to gain control of information, such that when time comes for the poor to revolt, they will have no privacy with which to organize their actions. Their every move will be monitored, and the smallest spark will be snuffed out before it spreads, leading to a state where each citizen is too afraid for their own personal safety (or safety of their loved ones) to really commit much, and such is a way to end revolutions before it starts.
Don't agree to laws that might seem benefitial now, but will be used later to enforce laws you don't agree to later.
They were not "supported by the community", they used other's people work to get rich but they paid each of those people fair amount of money, called "salary". that's all they owe society: paying their workers their salary.
I also never told I don't want to pay the police, in fact it is one of three things that are worth paying taxes for: police and courts to provide internal safety and justice, and army to protect from external enemies (other countries, terrorists etc.)
Also, unemployment is an artificial problem that only exists in fundamentally sick, socialist economies. In capitalism there's always more work to do that workforce available. You can only break this by introducing high employment costs. If you tax work at the same level as luxury goods (and all taxes average worker has to pay add up to about 50% of his gross income) then work itself becomes "luxury". And if you pay people for doing nothing large part of them will have no motivation to find any meaningful job.
>they used other's people work to get rich but they paid each of those people fair amount of money
If they paid them a "fair" amount of money, how did they get so fabulously rich? But even if I allow your dubious use of fair, did they really pay them all? Did they pay for the streets that they used? Did they pay a higher price for the fire department since they probably have a lot more, much more expensive properties than me? Did the pay the police more for similar reasons?
Did they pay their parents for raising them into privilege? And on, and on, and on. Anyone rich today got there on the backs of the society they lived in. Elon Musk would be nothing had he been born and raised in an Amazon tribe and you know it.
>Also, unemployment is an artificial problem that only exists in fundamentally sick, socialist economies.
Now you're just showing off ignorance [1]. Chile was as close to laissez faire as has ever been tried on that scale. Where did their mass unemployment come from?
>In capitalism there's always more work to do that workforce available.
Ideological dreaming. Nothing more.
> And if you pay people for doing nothing large part of them will have no motivation to find any meaningful job.
Reagan's "welfare queens" lives on. Anyway, even if that's true, how about you mind your own goddamn business and stop worrying about what other people choose to do with their lives? I suspect we'd get enough Tesla's out of such a system to offset all your mythical welfare queens.
> If they paid them a "fair" amount of money, how did they get so fabulously rich? But even if I allow your dubious use of fair, did they really pay them all? Did they pay for the streets that they used? Did they pay a higher price for the fire department since they probably have a lot more, much more expensive properties than me? Did the pay the police more for similar reasons?
If police, streets and so on were funded from taxes, then yes, they paid much more. If they were built by private companies - the same is true.
>Did they pay their parents for raising them into privilege?
That's that pure luck, agreed. But you can't punish people for being lucky. You just have wrong understanding of the concept of people being equal. We can be considered equal in our basic rights, but we'll never be equal in talent, IQ, motivation, and so on. So if two people start doing the same thing they can have equal chances at the beginning, but will never achieve exactly the same results. One person will always be more successful than other, and there's nothing wrong with that.
It is like sprinters race on the Olympic games: you have to ensure that all competitors will start running at the same time, but forcing them to also cross the finish line at the same time is just ridiculous. And that's what you postulate.
> Chile was as close to laissez faire as has ever been tried on that scale. Where did their mass unemployment come from?
Stupid monetary policy (fixed exchange rate between dollar and peso), which was against liberalism philosophy that Friedman tried to impose. However Chile basically continues this liberal economical politics and their unemployment rate is currently 6.1%
>>In capitalism there's always more work to do that workforce available.
>Ideological dreaming. Nothing more.
That's not a dreaming, just a mere fact: people's needs are unlimited, we always want new cars, computers, clothes, exotic holiday journeys, etc. otherwise economical growth would have stopped once we had learned how to provide basic food and shelter for everyone (which was in late Middle Ages, i think)
>Anyway, even if that's true, how about you mind your own goddamn business and stop worrying about what other people choose to do with their lives?
That is just ridiculous statement when coming from your mouth: it is my goddamn business when someone tries to rob me from my money in a name of your weird understanding of "fairnes" Poor people can do what they want with their lives as long as they stay away from me.
>However Chile basically continues this liberal economical politics
No they don't. They use the mix of capitalism and socialism that every functioning country on earth uses (though their settings and dials are unique, like everyone else is).
>people's needs are unlimited
And at some point, given enough time, robots will be able to fulfill even unlimited demands. Your world view has no answer to such a situation.
>it is my goddamn business when someone tries to rob me from my money in a name of your weird understanding of "fairnes"
It's not "robbing". Money itself is something the state made, so consider taxes a charge to use it. You're welcome to trade in "widgets" if you can find anyone who will.
> Poor people can do what they want with their lives as long as they stay away from me.
No they can't because you've bought up all the land and allocated all the resources despite using a small fraction of them.
> Money itself is something the state made, so consider taxes a charge to use it
That's a nonsense. Money itself are not a goods, because they are worthless: you can eat those banknotes you have in your wallet or do anything usefull with them. They only serve as a symbol that allows more convenient trade of real goods. And I'm not gonna create any "widgets" to replace them, but still many people uses alternative to state made money, like Bitcoin. Thinking about money the way you think is a main reason of the current economical crysis.
>No they can't because you've bought up all the land and allocated all the resources despite using a small fraction of them.
Billionaires usually don't spend much on consumption, neither they keep their resources unused. Most of every billionaire wealth is his company, or companies, in which they employ thousands of people (giving them opportunity to earn for their living) and produce things that fulfill needs of millions. That's all they owe to the rest of society.
>They only serve as a symbol that allows more convenient trade of real goods.
That sounds pretty fucking useful.
>Thinking about money the way you think is a main reason of the current economical crysis.
That's a rather silly thing to say. You need to step your game up when posting on HN.
>Billionaires usually don't spend much on consumption, neither they keep their resources unused.
Did you miss the part where I mention land?
>Most of every billionaire wealth is his company, or companies, in which they employ thousands of people (giving them opportunity to earn for their living) and produce things that fulfill needs of millions.
You don't have a clue what you're talking about. This is the case for billionaires that you see on HN because that's what we're interested in. There are plenty of billionaires who don't work and don't have businesses. "Old money" families.
No, you can't do anything useful with money themselves. they are just junk pieces of paper.
People created money as a way of remembering favours they did to each other. So basically your income reflects your worth for society (how much society values things you can produce). That worked pretty well as long as money were somenthing physical and rare, as gold. Once money became "state made", as you called it, government won an opportunity to manipulate them. And that manipulation, creating money without creating actual goods that you can buy in exchange for them, is in fact the reason for the crisis. Banks created derivates from risky mortgages, do some mathematic voo-doo to convince everyone that they are safe and profitable.
>Did you miss the part where I mention land
No, but what's the point of keeping the land unused? it's much more profitable for a billionaire to build some houses, apartments, offices there and then rent them. And by renting apartments to poor people you're making them a favour, because they have not enough money to build their own place to stay.
>You don't have a clue what you're talking about. This is the case for billionaires that you see on HN because that's what we're interested in. There are plenty of billionaires who don't work and don't have businesses. "Old money" families.
How much money can you spend on your own needs? House (or houses)? $200M? private jet? another $100M Collection of sport cars (Ferrari, Bugatti, etc.)? Let's give it $30M Travel around the world? that's hardly $10$ So you see that spending BILLIONS of dollars just for your own good is not an easy thing. That's why sooner or later every billionare engages in a some big project which is supposed to be his legacy for the mankind.
Your problem is that you see people that earn more than you as inherently evil and want to punish them.
> that's all they owe society: paying their workers their salary.
No, that's what they owe their workers. What they owe society is tax [0]. And society can decide to use that tax to provide basic income, or anything else.
