[pp.int.general] Basic income - how does that fit into the pirate ideology?

[Zbigniew Łukasiak]

Basic income is often mentioned as point of the pirates program.  Do
you think it is a universal thing across all pirate parties - or is it
just the German pirates that stand strongly behind it?

Do you think it is leftist?

Personally I support Basic Income.  It might be viewed as slightly
leftist - but if it is introduced together with a linear taxation
scale and getting rid of unemployment benefits - then it is not
leftist at all.  For me the most important aspect of this whole
package is that it makes governance simpler.  Taxation is decoupled
and can be payed independently for all income sources and the state is
not forced to do things that depend too much on personal circumstances
(like checking if the person is really unemployed and if he really
tries to find a job etc) - state is not good in these - people quickly
learn how to fool it and that is demoralizing.  But state is good for
universal services - like paying everyone the same amount.  So let the
state do what it is good at and let other, smaller organizations do
other things.

There are of course many other benefits as well - but this is what
moves me personally.

--
Zbigniew Lukasiak
http://brudnopis.blogspot.com/
http://perlalchemy.blogspot.com/