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

[illunatic at greenpirate.org]

Thank you. Covering each persons cost of living is important if funds  
are going to be taken from current social programs. People with  
disabilities, for example, can not work to compensation for receiving  
less government aid.

Wouldn't a system like this make it easier to shut down other  
unnecessary government organizations without the usual barrier of jobs  
being lost? That's no longer a valuable negotiating chip when losing  
your job doesn't come with severe implications. Any funding that can  
come from current government programs would be less of a burden on the  
budget while allowing increased tax rates to a minimum.

Relying too heavily on taxing business is a surefire way to stir up  
significant resistance.

"Tax the rich, feed the poor till there are no rich no more." - Alvin Lee

Quoting Charly Pache <charly.pache at gmail.com>:

> Schwaab is a socialist member of parliament in Switzerland. In my opinion
> he is not yet aware of the dynamic that is going on for decades: more
> automatisation, robotisation, and we need each year less human work to
> produce the necessary goods for our societies, it's what we call progress.
> There is no more a job for every working capable human (about 40% of the
> population works nowadays, and pays for the 100%, children, elders, it
> seems that after we introduce the UBI, 8% will stop working, probably a lot
> of working poors).
>
> The problem is that in the current system humans need a payed job to live.
> The first solution would have been to reduce progressivly everyones'
> workhours without being paid less (as the productivity increased thanks to
> new technologies). But it didn't happened this way. The workers work mostly
> 100% and the others have no more job.
>
> The technological progress makes the owners of the production facilities
> earn more and more thanks to an increased productivity. There are less jobs
> but not less benefits. That shifts the overall money towards the richest in
> the society. The UBI is a solution to share this money among all the
> participants in the society, it's like everyone would become a SHAREHOLDER
> of the society, that's why we have to take the missing money where it is,
> by the super rich companies and people.
>
> About the financing, Richard Stallman is right. I would add as a small
> sarcastic footnote for Anouk: Earth is a planet that has the funds to do
> this.
>
> In our computations, it's true that for our country we need about 200
> billions swiss francs. About 110 billions of this amount will be transfered
> from salaries charges as it is today, 60 billions exists already as money
> for the socialcare, it means we would miss about 30 billions BUT with the
> UBI we will need less money for the overall administration of the state and
> examples (see Dauphin experience, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mincome)
> show that a society with UBI spends less money for healthcare. The missing
> money, as said before, will have to be taken where it is: taxing the very
> rich companies and people. This is the price to pay to live in a more equal
> society. I see no problem there as these companies and people get very rich
> thanks to the efforts of the whole society.
>
> Just one more remark, someone said that 'basic income would only cover half
> to little more than half of their cost of living', that's not true, the
> basic income will cover the full but minimal cost of living (food, roof,
> social activities).
>
> And a big step forward will be that we will finally get rid of the working
> poors, who struggle nowadays for very little wages, they won't need to go
> into slavery to get the necessary money to live.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Wed, Jul 17, 2013 at 2:35 PM, Antonio Garcia  
> <ningunotro at hotmail.com>wrote:
>
>> Only resorting to protectionism if not done by all countries at the same
>> time, evicting radically from their marketplace any company that does not
>> comply.
>>
>> I dare suggest the mere impossibility of such a scheme is what finally
>> brought down the Berlin wall.
>>
>> It takes a far more conscious civic movement to impose this kind of
>> protectionism as a de facto reality rather than a political imposition.
>> When dodging taxes translates automatically into brutally losing sales to
>> aware citizens.
>>
>> Like when Microsoft collaborating with the NSA translates automagically
>> into sufficient people switching over to Linux on their existing machines,
>> and refusing to buy any new computer with Windows preinstalled.
>>
>>
>> Antonio.
>>
>> > Date: Wed, 17 Jul 2013 07:46:08 -0400
>> > From: rms at gnu.org
>> > To: pp.international.general at lists.pirateweb.net
>> > CC: pp.international.general at lists.pirateweb.net
>> > Subject: Re: [pp.int.general] Basic income - how does that fit into the
>> pirate ideology?
>>
>> >
>> > [ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider
>> > [ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,
>> > [ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example.
>> >
>> > Small sarcastic footnote, Switserland is a country that has the funds to
>> > do this.
>> >
>> > Any developed country can have the funds for a basic income
>> > (or whatever else is needed) if it stops businesses and the rich
>> > from tax-dodging.
>> >
>> > --
>> > Dr Richard Stallman
>> > President, Free Software Foundation
>> > 51 Franklin St
>> > Boston MA 02110
>> > USA
>> > www.fsf.org www.gnu.org
>> > Skype: No way! That's nonfree (freedom-denying) software.
>> > Use Ekiga or an ordinary phone call.
>> >
>> > ____________________________________________________
>> > Pirate Parties International - General Talk
>> > pp.international.general at lists.pirateweb.net
>> > http://lists.pirateweb.net/mailman/listinfo/pp.international.general
>>
>> ____________________________________________________
>> Pirate Parties International - General Talk
>> pp.international.general at lists.pirateweb.net
>> http://lists.pirateweb.net/mailman/listinfo/pp.international.general
>>
>>
>
>
> --
> societal activist @ utilopia.com, pirate party switzerland, ch-open.ch,
> swiss entrepreneurship association and bien-ch.ch
>