Not wanting to nit pick too much but in free societies/systems such as the UK and similar commonwealth nations I'd phrase that differently to say that it is the case that the individual is allowed to do anything aside from what other disallow them. I mean that is the way our society is run, we don't need to be granted rights, we kind of assume that we can do whatever we like so long as it doesn't break the law, it doesn't need active permission from others to allow things but rather we make laws to control or disallow things.
Universal basic income
- Thread starter terley
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Not wanting to nit pick too much but in free societies/systems such as the UK and similar commonwealth nations I'd phrase that differently to say that it is the case that the individual is allowed to do anything aside from what other disallow them. I mean that is the way our society is run, we don't need to be granted rights, we kind of assume that we can do whatever we like so long as it doesn't break the law, it doesn't need active permission from others to allow things but rather we make laws to control or disallow things.
Man of Honour
Perhaps, but not much if it's done right.
The first thing, obviously, is to use bands rather than a single percentage. That ensures that people will always take home more money if they are paid more money, regardless of the tax percentage. I find it bizarre that there are people who don't really understand this, but there definitely are people who don't understand this. I have read (and heard) people saying that they'd take home less if they were paid more because they'd move into the next tax band. Seriously. I have no idea why anyone would believe that, but some people do and it obviously proves the idea that higher pay equates with higher intelligence or education completely false. It might be possible to explain to a chimpanzee what's wrong with that belief. The required intelligence and education level is that low.
The second thing is to set the bands high enough to limit the practical effect and, concurrent with that, to establish the custom that the pre-tax income as the score that matters socially. If being paid 500K is a better score than being paid 400K, people who are driven by that scoring will be driven to get paid the 500K even if they took home the same amount. Of course, banding would ensure they didn't take home the same amount, but it wouldn't really matter anyway because by that stage the scoring outweighs any relatively trivial practical effect.
You haven't, at all. You confused equal treatment with equality of outcome. The two are not the same unless the only relationship that exists is the involuntary relationship between individual and state.
When individuals can choose to interact with other individuals, then equal treatment does not imply equality of outcome.
There's a really simple test you can employ, replace wealth with race and ask if the policy is still acceptable.
If 80% of people thought it was ok to discrimimate by race, would that make it ok? How about gender, religion of sexuality?
Your taxation argument is mental gymnastics to try and change the fundamental nature of taxation. It may allow you to convince yourself that you aren't advocating forced seizure of property, but it is still nonsense. How does it work for a wealth tax?
That is the most absurd false dichotomy I've ever seen, accept progressive tax bands or communism.
The difference being that, by its very nature, a difference in wealth is fundimentally unequal.
Total and utter nonsense
The British state/ UK government does not say what I can have it says that there are a few things that I cannot own as an individual and a few things that I may only own in certain circumstances. It also says that I must pay a percentage tax on certain forms of income BUT DOES NOT RESTRICT HOW MUCH MONEY OR PROPERTY AN INDIVIUDAL OR ORGANAISTATION CAN OWN!
It’s an entirely differently proposition to say either
1) Wealth (and or property) is what the rest of society (or the ‘people’ or the state )allows a person to own
Or two
2) The state will place some restrictions on what a private citizen, group or organisation can own primarily for the purpose of preventing said ownership interfering with the rights of other private citizen, group or organisation and the state will require a percentage take from certain incomes but will not place limits on the extent of amassable wealth or property
THE (UK) LAW/ GOVERMENT DOES NOT SAY WHAT I CAN HAVE IT SAYS WHAT I CANNOT! (AND EVEN THEN ONLY IN RATHER LIMTED CASES ALMOST UNIVERSALLY WHERE OWNERSHIP OF SAID ITEMS WOULD RUN A SIGNFICIANT RISK OF INTERFERING WITH THE RIGHTS OF OTHERS)
Wrong again the worst murderers flourish when the state is strongest as they can seize control of the state and use its powers to carry out mass organised murder as opposed to the smaller scale murder that may flourish under a weak state. For much the same reason the worst sociopaths flourish under totalitarian governments like Marxist ones as the power afforded to said sociopaths by the nation state is far greater that any capitalist corporation can wield. Capitalism properly implemented is good in this regard as it tends to limit the amount of power any one individual or group can wield as that individual must complete with others for business/ employment etc.
Capitalism is not inherently sociopathic it just means a system where the means of production and distribution are in private hands not those of the state or ‘people’. Of course no such modern country could successfully run totally as a 100% capitalist country and so in reality most successful countries run a mixed economy where the state controls some limited area of the economy like healthcare infrastructure etc but the majority of industry is held in private hands with taxes raised from the private economy to fund the activities of the state
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Wealth is acquired via mutual agreement and exchange with other individuals. The success or lack thereof of those exchanges determines the level of wealth.
Totally different to the interaction between the inidividual and the state which is an involuntary relationship underpinned by the state monopoly on the legitimate use of force.
The state has a responsibility to use the forced nature of the relationship in an equal manner with all individuals.
In which sterile and isolated system does that apply?
Wealth creates wealth and sustains wealth. As such, wealth and opportunities are, in reality, predominantly provided for (or are at least directly influenced) by parents, family and the equivalent.
In respect of truly wealthy, they are in the advantageous position of using professional advisors to sustain their wealth in a way which the less wealthy cannot.
It is absolutely not a level playing field, even if there is, on paper (in an isolated system), equal opportunities.
Anyway, that was more of a tangent from the comment I’ve quoted rather than anything else material in the thread.
Man of Honour
Yes it does. Without a state, you would be limited to what you could take and hold by force. It's the state that allows you to have things by preventing other people from taking them from you. In addition, without a state your ability to have stuff would also be very limited by the lack of infrastructure. But mainly by being dead because someone killed you to take your stuff or increase their own power in another way or just because they wanted to.
Very few murderers are capable of doing that even if they have a chance to do so. There is far more scope for murdering when the state is weakest.
And marxism when "properly" implemented would be a paradise where everything is lovely for everyone.
Back in reality, they're both political ideologies that strongly tend to reward and even require sociopathy in the elites.
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In the current circumstances, capitalism would require mass murder on an unprecedented scale because there is no longer any need for a mass of peasants to do almost all of the work. In a capitalist system, they would be both an unnecessary cost and a threat to the elites (people will revolt if their situation is bad enough) and would therefore have to be eliminated as a cost cutting and risk reduction project.
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@Nitefly entitely my point, thank you. 
All of these advocates for “equality of opportunity” are fooling themselves.
To take equality of opportunity and a true meritocracy to its absolute logical conclusion; you’d have a system where children are removed from their parents at birth, they would be ranked throughout their education and would be assigned jobs (and income) based purely on their ability and all wealth would return to the state at death.
This would require massive governement control and intervention, something which most advocates for equality of opportunity decry.
Even a more “liberal” view of equality of opportunity would have to scrap private schools (although not necessarily grammar schools), scrap inheritance, completely eradicate nepotism etc.
To suggest that we have anything close to equality of opportunity when there’s so much inequality in society today is dillusional. It’s just a way for the wealthy (or resentful) to blame the poor for their own “failings”.
All of these advocates for “equality of opportunity” are fooling themselves.
To take equality of opportunity and a true meritocracy to its absolute logical conclusion; you’d have a system where children are removed from their parents at birth, they would be ranked throughout their education and would be assigned jobs (and income) based purely on their ability and all wealth would return to the state at death.
This would require massive governement control and intervention, something which most advocates for equality of opportunity decry.
Even a more “liberal” view of equality of opportunity would have to scrap private schools (although not necessarily grammar schools), scrap inheritance, completely eradicate nepotism etc.
To suggest that we have anything close to equality of opportunity when there’s so much inequality in society today is dillusional. It’s just a way for the wealthy (or resentful) to blame the poor for their own “failings”.
People at the bottom don't choose to get screwed over, but they get screwed over regardless. In other words, since the vast majority of us don't have the option of "opting out" of society, we can be (and are) forced into unequal exchanges by those with power. Be it our employers, our landlords, utility companies, etc, etc, etc.
Forced exchanges of unequal value are a fact of life in the private sector, because it can boil down to not having an alternative.
The state absolutely is not the only actor able to force us to make (unequal) exchanges. Water companies have divided the country between them and in many areas there is only one water utility company. You are forced to pay whatever they demand from you. Heck, there are countless examples.
I never presented a dichotomy, but the alternative to a system where as you earn more gross salary you get provided a higher net salary is one where your net salary is fixed
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If people really want equality of opportunity only then we would also have to force equal wealth and income of parents at the very least, because inequality of wealth is almost entirely the reason why there is no equal opertunities. . People advocating for equal opportunity only should be very careful what they actually envision.
The wealth is only generated because of the environment the state provides, and thus the state has full rights over the distribution of that wealth and the taxation thereof.
There are fundamental differences between discriminating on fundamental personal characteristics and soemthign entirely abstract such as pre-tax income that has no objective significance since it is the state's right to deice what gross income to provide each. This is a very poor way of debating, by replacing the topic in question with soemhtign copletely unrelated.
No, I am presenting internationally understood legal and moral understanding of the state and taxation. Your entire argument is nothing more than the ridiculous "taxation is theft" hilarity that gets regurgitated every year. You fundamentally don't understand the state and your relationship within in it.
Governments are absolutely within their rights to seize property, including wealth. Just look at what happened in Cyprus in 2013, the state acquired nearly 50% of all uninsured savings.
No the state reserves the right to levy taxes on the income private enterprise generates in a capitalist/mixed economy it doesn't 'have full rights over the distribution of that wealth' that's what you get with a Marxist approach.
Man of Honour
You made an error in your quoting, so I can't quote you in the usual way. I'll copy and paste instead.
"Again total nonsense the state doesn't say or dictate what I can have it says what i (in relatively few cases) cannot have. I can understand that these two statement sound superficially similar but they are very different things. What ridiculous state do you live in where the state dictates what you can have rather then prohibiting you from owning others?"
Would you please read what I wrote and reply to it rather than replying to something nobody has said?
"Total rubbish just of the top of my head three names Mao, Stalin and Pol Pot.... Three leaders of collective Marxist regimes that were enabled to kill countless millions because they were able to seize control of the powerful states either at the time of or after a 'Marxist' revolution of some sort. Sure a weak state or an anarchic state isn't good for stopping people doing bad things but if you really want to kill an awful lot of people you need a powerful state to do so"
If one person does, yes, if they can become a de facto dictator. One way of doing so is when the state is weak, as the three examples you give show. In all three cases, the state (i.e. the social and political infrastructure) was very weak.
Also, Pol Pot wasn't really a Marxist. Neither was Hitler, to use another famous example.
But without a state, murder would be more generally widespread as there wouldn't be any law or any way of enforcing it. So anyone who wanted to murder could do so.
"Nonsense, Marxism's end goal 'communism' is a eutopian and hence unobtainable state. Capitalism is just the word for the prvate ownership of the means of production with people or groups able to consensually exchange goods, services and money without there having necessarily having to be a third party involved"
And communism is just the word for the public ownership of the means of production for the good of all.
Both systems can claim laudable goals, but neither system can deliver them in reality. You are a devout extremist believer in one of the systems, so you treat that as if it could deliver on its goals and the other as a hellish monstrosity. Just like a devout extremist communist would do. And you're just as wrong as they would be.
"Capitalism does not require sociopathy although there is a general tendency for sociopaths to rise to the top of hierarchies in most systems. Capitalism is better that collectivist ideologies in this regard as it tends to limit and punish sociopathic tendencies a little better as the market can react to any such tendencies"
Capitalism requires not caring about people, since it's sole purpose is to concentrate wealth/power in the hands of the elites. Much like communism in practice, but with a bit less pretence. So yes, it does strongly tend to reward sociopathy (as you tentatively acknowledge) and I think it's reasonable to say that it strongly tends to require sociopathy. When people are resources to be used and discarded for the benefit of the elite, sociopathy is pretty much required.
"The current system requires the mass murder (of the peasants?) on an unprecedented scale?? "
The system we currently have obviously isn't capitalism. We have a government, partial democracy, a whole slew of restrictions on businesses, laws to protect employees that are sometimes enforced. Absolutely not capitalism. So what are you talking about?
"What total and utter nonsense of the highest order! Did I miss the gas chambers and death camps current necessarily being constructed to kill of the proles? Did it escape your attention that all of the recent mass killings of a nations populace by its own rulers have taken place under socialists be they of the economic or nationalistic kind?
I think you have been reading/ watching too much fiction if you think "
You're writing replies to things that haven't been written. I think it's you that reading too much fiction.
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You are arbitrarily making a distinction between Capitalism and Communism that is irrelevant to the discussion.
You are also completely wrong, as seen by the Capitalist government of Cyprus in 2013.