Universal basic income

[Dolph]

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.

You are again confusing what currently occurs with what should occur. Just because states abuse property rights inconsistently and so far haven't been stopped is not a counter to the argument that they should not be able to do so, any more than the acceptance of slavery or segregation by states in the past legitimises the position.

As has been mentioned before, we fundamentally disagree on equal treatment. I want it in all circumstances, you do not. We won't agree on this while you continue to defend something I find morally and ethically reprehensible.

To me, discrimination by the state against people based on property ownership is equivalent to discrimination based on gender or race. That you don't believe them to be equivalent is irrelevant to me, and any such justification on that basis can be dismissed out of hand.

What gets me is the attempt by you to justify this discrimination, while pretending you aren't advocating it. Its he direct equivalent to "I'm not racist but... " and prevents an honest discussion.

The pre tax post tax debate is also irrelevant because the unequal treatment is happening during that phase, if I was to accept your argument despite it being unrelated to reality. Nothing in it justifies unequal or inconsistent treatment.

 

[D.P.]

You are again confusing what currently occurs with what should occur. Just because states abuse property rights inconsistently and so far haven't been stopped is not a counter to the argument that they should not be able to do so, any more than the acceptance of slavery or segregation by states in the past legitimises the position.

As has been mentioned before, we fundamentally disagree on equal treatment. I want it in all circumstances, you do not. We won't agree on this while you continue to defend something I find morally and ethically reprehensible.

To me, discrimination by the state against people based on property ownership is equivalent to discrimination based on gender or race. That you don't believe them to be equivalent is irrelevant to me, and any such justification on that basis can be dismissed out of hand.

What gets me is the attempt by you to justify this discrimination, while pretending you aren't advocating it. Its he direct equivalent to "I'm not racist but... " and prevents an honest discussion.

The pre tax post tax debate is also irrelevant because the unequal treatment is happening during that phase, if I was to accept your argument despite it being unrelated to reality. Nothing in it justifies unequal or inconsistent treatment.

So at the end of the day your argument is you don't believe in the current system and you disagree with all the countless academics, lawyers, judges, economists etc. that support the states rights.
You don't have a logically sound argument, it is just your opinion that their is an ethical issue.

Fortunately, your opinion doesn't actually count for much. Your failure to differentiate between personal characteristics and wealth does not make for a convincing argument either. Can you at least attempt to provide any kind of reasoing why you think the gender or skin colour someone is born with has any relationship with wealth rather than you arbitrarily decid9ing their equivalence?

 

[Dolph]

Fortunately, your opinion doesn't actually count for much. Your failure to differentiate between personal characteristics and wealth does not make for a convincing argument either. Can you at least attempt to provide any kind of reasoing why you think the gender or skin colour someone is born with has any relationship with wealth rather than you arbitrarily decid9ing their equivalence?

The state should treat all individuals in the same manner in the same transaction, without discrimination or prejudice. Can you justify why this should not be the case without circular arguments about it already doing so, or lies about the nature of property?

Why should property rights be a special case where the government is allowed to infringe them inconsistently?

 

[Irish_Tom]

@Dolph out of interest (I can’t remember the figures we discussed in the last thread about this):

In your UBI model (getting back to the OP) you’d have a flat rate of tax on all income including capital gains, dividends etc. that are over the UBI threshold.

Do you believe that this model would in any way reduce the huge concentration of wealth at the very top of the wealth distribution or do you not think that it’s a problem?

 

[Zethor]

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.

What is the legal and/or philosophical framework on which you define 'equal treatment under the law'. With links.

 

[D.P.]

The state should treat all individuals in the same manner in the same transaction, without discrimination or prejudice. Can you justify why this should not be the case without circular arguments about it already doing so, or lies about the nature of property?

Why should property rights be a special case where the government is allowed to infringe them inconsistently?

For the same transaction everyone is treated equally, i.e. for the same income there is equal taxation without discrimination or prejudice.
The government is not infringe upon anyone's property rights. You are just not understanding whose property it is in the first place.


I can only assume what you are advocating here is a 100% taxation on everyone with a fixed UBI. Thereby, everyone is treated absolutely equally in every way.

 

[solado]

My biggest concern over UBI is taxation, my brother runs a highly successful business online and i'd hate for him to have to pay anymore tax than he did this year. He works 14 hours a day. Sometimes 6 / 7 days a week and after his tax bill this year he's pretty much given up on the idea of trying to generate more wealth because so much was taken away.

I am a low income so UBI would benefit me but seeing how hard he works and how much was taken.. I just can't support this if it leads to hard working people like him facing a higher tax bill.

 

[ltron]

My biggest concern over UBI is taxation, my brother runs a highly successful business online and i'd hate for him to have to pay anymore tax than he did this year. He works 14 hours a day. Sometimes 6 / 7 days a week and after his tax bill this year he's pretty much given up on the idea of trying to generate more wealth because so much was taken away.

I am a low income so UBI would benefit me but seeing how hard he works and how much was taken.. I just can't support this if it leads to hard working people like him facing a higher tax bill.

It may not require higher taxes though if we are able to abolish much of the department of work and pensions and its associated bureaucracy as it would no longer be necessary. This would save a lot of time and money as well as stress for the poor and vulnerable.

 

[Dolph]

For the same transaction everyone is treated equally, i.e. for the same income there is equal taxation without discrimination or prejudice.
The government is not infringe upon anyone's property rights. You are just not understanding whose property it is in the first place.

Once again you are wrong. The tax liability on a single transaction is not dependent on the value of that transaction, but the value of your aggregated transactions, hence the same transaction can lead to different liabilities for different people.

I can only assume what you are advocating here is a 100% taxation on everyone with a fixed UBI. Thereby, everyone is treated absolutely equally in every way.

So after lies and personal insults, you are now onto logical fallacies. This doesn't bode well for the validity of your position.

 

[Dolph]

@Dolph out of interest (I can’t remember the figures we discussed in the last thread about this):

In your UBI model (getting back to the OP) you’d have a flat rate of tax on all income including capital gains, dividends etc. that are over the UBI threshold.

Do you believe that this model would in any way reduce the huge concentration of wealth at the very top of the wealth distribution or do you not think that it’s a problem?

The opportunity would be reduced for tax avoidance, both technically (as you can't shift income from one form to another with a lower rate) and morally (as everyone is having the same proportion of their pre tax income removed), so I would expect it to reduce slightly.

However, I don't buy into the idea that inequality is something the state should actively work to reduce. The most cited piece on it (the spirit level) is flawed due to cherry picking, and the claimed correlations disappear when you pick different years to the one quoted, and stop cherry picking the countries to analyse.

To me, the key part that matters is ensuring everyone has their basic needs met, not to compare their income to others.

 

[Dolph]

What is the legal and/or philosophical framework on which you define 'equal treatment under the law'. With links.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equality_before_the_law

Equality before the law, also known as: equality under the law, equality in the eyes of the law, or legal equality, is the principle that each independent human being must be treated equally by the law (principle of isonomy) and that all people are subject to the same laws of justice (due process).[1]Therefore, the law must guarantee that no individual nor group of individuals should be privileged or discriminated against by the government.

Simple enough really

 

[Caracus2k]

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.

Completly wrong again the actions in Cyprus in 2013 were because the banks had fallen into financial difficulties themselves

'The ECB had threatened to cut off funds propping up Cypriot banks'

The Cypriot goverment made the decision that (some) savers would have to take a haircut to stop the whole lot collapsing. It was heavily critised and if a more capitalist approach had been taken the banks concerned would have been allowed to fail with the savers potentially losing everything.

But them comes the real kicker.....

The collapse of the Cypriot banking sector came under the rule of the EU's first and only communist goverment!


https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demetris_Christofias

You really should have done your research before posting the Cyrpriot banking deal as being an example of a capitalist Goverments actions given that the banking collapse occurred during the rule of a bunch of communists!

Can I kindly suggest that you take some time to consider your previous post for the nonsense that it was...


Anyway your example (with the deal be finalised up under the goverment that had replaced the previous Communist one) does not assist in proving any point to do with a system were the state takes a prescriptive approach to what a private individual can own as opposed to what we have in the UK where the goverment take a restrictive approach where necessary and justified (what is 'necessary' and 'justified' is to be debated democratically in parliament)

 

[Caracus2k]

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.

It has been explained to you on more than one occasion that a mixed economy/capitalist goverment does not say what I can have (like you suggest) but instead says what I may not have. One is a prescriptive appoach the other a restrictive one.

Its the same difference between me telling you that you are only allowed to do 'x' and nothing else vs me saying that you can do anything you want except from 'z' (and I will justify that restriction by showing that its neccesary and justified to prevent your possession or actions negatively affecting an other rights).

You seem to think I am some anarcho capitalist, which I am not

I accept the need for a goverment and accept that s successful modern state will necessarily be a quite large entity. I beleive however that the means of production and distribution should remain in the hands of private enterprise unless a very compelling argument can be made on an individual basis that certain enterprises can best be managed via a level of generalised state monopoly... Examples for me being infrastructure, health care and the power grid. L

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.

Demonstrable nonsense.... The biggest death tolls have always occur under the direction of poweful organised states... Be they the Mongols, the Romans, the Nazi's, the USSR or China under Mao. If you want to kill a lot of people you need a stage to orchestrate it.

 

[Caracus2k]

Would you please read what I wrote and reply to it rather than replying to something nobody has said?

- I read what you said.... you said an individual is only allowed what the state prescribes that they can own which is wrong as the state (In the case of the UK) actually uses a restrictive approach.


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. - -

-nonsense the examples I gave where one of powerful totalitarian states not some weak ineffctive one

Also, Pol Pot wasn't really a Marxist. Neither was Hitler, to use another famous example.

-please don't talk nonsense by playing the 'no true Scotsmen' fallacy for Marxism/socialism where by any disastrous Marxist/socialist regimes or leader are dismissed as

1) not really being Marxists/socialist
2) not being 'true' Marxists /socilaist

Pol pot was a Marxist, Hitler was a national Socialist these are facts


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.

And communism is just the word for the public ownership of the means of production for the good of all.

- Attempts at ideas like communism have conclusively shown that the poisonous collective ideologies of socialism do not result in the 'good for all' far from it. People that advocate for such collective ideologies are therefore not only wrong but immoral.

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.

-As previously stated I believe I beleive in a mixed economy.... I'm not an anarcho capitalist


Capitalism requires not caring about people, since it's sole purpose is to concentrate wealth/power in the hands of the elites.

-Stop pretending ideas like socialism results in the general people being cared for it demonstrably does not. Human behaviour in general, is to care for oneself and family above others. This is not some unique feature of capitalism which is just the name for the private ownership of the means of production and distribution which allows for individuals and groups to engage in trade with one another without their necessarily having to be a third party to control or mediate everything about the trade. Capitalism like all systems can be abused but its sole purpose is not to enrich an elite.... It is the name for a generally free market system which is demonstably the best (or at least lease worse) system humans have tried....

Much like communism in practice, but with a bit less pretence. So yes, it does strongly tend to reward sociopathy (as you tentatively acknowledge

No I don't see above

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.

Collective ideologies have far worse outcomes.... a demonstrable fact.... sociopaths exists in all societies it how to best manage and curtail there negative effects

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?

Its a mixed economy based on capitalism not 100% anarcho capitalist much like all 'Marxist/communist' countries have had some small capitalist elements to them. You made a foolish claim that the current system necessitated the mass murder of thrle peasants which is ironic as the only recent mass murders of the peasantry have occurred under Marxist rule!

I think you have been reading/ watching too much fiction if you think "

Hahaha..... no I think you have..... I wasn't the one saying that plans were afoot in the current system in the west for the mass murder of the peasantry!

You're writing replies to things that haven't been written. I think it's you that reading too much fiction.

Kettle meet pot....

 

[bloodiedathame]

Get a room you two.

 

[Caracus2k]

Get a room you two.

Careful...... Angilion might think that room could be a gas chamber for the imminent plans afoot to do away with the peasants.....

 

[Zethor]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equality_before_the_law

Equality before the law, also known as: equality under the law, equality in the eyes of the law, or legal equality, is the principle that each independent human being must be treated equally by the law (principle of isonomy) and that all people are subject to the same laws of justice (due process).[1]Therefore, the law must guarantee that no individual nor group of individuals should be privileged or discriminated against by the government.

Simple enough really

The first sentence you quote is from the UN Declaration of Human Rights. Nowhere in that document does it say that progressive taxation goes against the principle of equality in the eyes of the law.

The second sentence is attributed to Chandran Kukathas, the chair of Political Theory at the London School of Economics. I've sent him an email (I can post a screenshot here if you want) with the question "Does a progressive tax system go against the principle of equality before the law?". He replied within 10 minutes (the professors who work for LSE are not just world renowned experts but also top class people): "There isn’t a straightforward answer to this question. There is not a natural or default conception of equality — or of equality before the law. If one could say that a progressive tax treats people unequally, one could also say that of a flat tax, which would take a higher proportion of a poor person’s income and a lower proportion of a rich person’s. In the end, any objection to any tax regime would have to be couched in more complex arguments, and not in simple terms of equality before the law."

His reply is a mix of my points (how do you definite equality before law / the concept can't be used to support your argument) and DP's (a flat tax takes a greater % of lower wages). Maybe he is reading these forums!

 

[Dolph]

The first sentence you quote is from the UN Declaration of Human Rights. Nowhere in that document does it say that progressive taxation goes against the principle of equality in the eyes of the law.

The second sentence is attributed to Chandran Kukathas, the chair of Political Theory at the London School of Economics. I've sent him an email (I can post a screenshot here if you want) with the question "Does a progressive tax system go against the principle of equality before the law?". He replied within 10 minutes (the professors who work for LSE are not just world renowned experts but also top class people): "There isn’t a straightforward answer to this question. There is not a natural or default conception of equality — or of equality before the law. If one could say that a progressive tax treats people unequally, one could also say that of a flat tax, which would take a higher proportion of a poor person’s income and a lower proportion of a rich person’s. In the end, any objection to any tax regime would have to be couched in more complex arguments, and not in simple terms of equality before the law."

His reply is a mix of my points (how do you definite equality before law / the concept can't be used to support your argument) and DP's (a flat tax takes a greater % of lower wages). Maybe he is reading these forums!

I advocate a flat rate tax, not a flat value tax, so it takes the same percentage of income irrespective of the size of that income.

 

[D.P.]

I advocate a flat rate tax, not a flat value tax, so it takes the same percentage of income irrespective of the size of that income.

Then it is not equal taxation then, since if you earn more then you are paying more tax.

 

[Dolph]

Then it is not equal taxation then, since if you earn more then you are paying more tax.

Taking the same percentage of income from everyone is the state treating everyone equally. taking different percentages from different people is not.