[pp.int.general] Why a basic income is not so socialistic

[Libero Urus]

I would like to know your thoughts on the text below.

L-I-B-E-R-A-T-U-S
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Why a basic income might be more liberal than social systems (or less "socialistc")
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There is considerable debate among liberals, that basic income is the ground for a more "socialistic" system as the current social systems are.
In this essay 
1) I won't judge whether basic income is a good idea, i.e. whether it would form more common benefit than loss. In fact I have been rather critical myself up to now. On a second thought I came to this argument on a "discussion" with possible conflict arguments, so I probably conclude that I'm still critical, but not as much as before.
2) I will use the term "basic income formulas" in order to umbrella different systems that are commonly considered to fall into such a fuzzy socially constructed category. I won't discuss whether I think that "fixed basic income" (same money distributed to everyone) or negative income tax is better. If given the choice I personally consider the second one more suitable as the required bureaucracy in a state is about the same. But as said that's not matter at discussion here.
3) I won't judge whether basic income is rather "socialistic" or "liberal" par excellence. I have not made a definitive judgement as I think that there is no inter-subjective agreed rate which would form a basis for a percentage judgement. As self-declared "classical-liberal" I personally argue that it's somewhere inbetween and might be a considerable idea to discuss at least.
Rather I would like to flesh out, why the assumption that it more extreme than current social systems might be wrong from a "liberal" point of view.

What is commonly regarded as a fact, is that the person who really prominently first came up with the idea of a "basic income model",  was Milton Friedmann. A person that is usually not put into buckets of big state advocates, but rather to the "liberal" bucket. 
He prominently described the idea in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism_and_Freedom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_income_tax#Specific_models
However as quoted from Wikipedia: "The negative income tax has come up in one form or another in Congress, but Friedman eventually opposed it because it came packaged with other undesirable elements antithetical to the efficacy of the negative income tax. Friedman preferred to have no income tax at all, but said he did not think it was politically feasible at that time to eliminate it, so he suggested this as a less harmful income tax scheme." http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/23/business/23scene.html?_r=3&
Thus I will not consider an amalgamation of current social systems with forced an complex elements with elements of a fixed mathematical formula state provided income described as "basic income formulas". A "basic income formula" is just that: a mathematical formula which describes how money - either "printed" by the state (which is in the longterm probably a bad idea) or provided by taxes (i.e. redistribution) - is given to people according to simple formal requirements, such as age or current income (else it would be more bureacracy which would be an argument why it would not be "rather" liberal).

What is commonly agreed and accepted among a large potion of what might be defined as "liberal"is, that 
a) people should be encouraged to act according to "rational", rather than "irrational" principles
b) people should be encouraged to act on their own will, rather than rely on everything a majority of society tells them to do
c) thus that the state should be discouraged to interfer with the will of the individual if there are no good reasons provided
d) that the state should be kept minimal ("Leviathian") if not quasi non-existent in an extreme libertarian view
e) that there is a certain amount of a "right to life" for individuals


The point (e) certainly might be disputed most; especially among the currently quite visible, emerging "libertarian" groups. However most libertarians agree that their is a limited amount of a right to live. If so, such a right must be rooted at a certain conception of the term "life". I.e. there is a point from the development of a new human organism from embrio to adult where restrictions are somewhat put into place somehow; even if some (libertarians that are in opposition of even a republic) might argue, that these are strictly limited or "magically" emerging from "local" conventions among groups. Similarly there is thus somewhat of an agreement at which point a human is responsible on their own. However what happens if there is a case where a child i.e. looses all relatives? One might argue that there is an econimical gain in the community of providing the child care, thus the community does this by their own without a state. But one might also argue, that this does not necessarily encompass all regions of the world. Now the question is whether the libertarian considers this against his views (on a common definition of "life") thus may start to argue why he considers that there are no situations where there might be neither an economical gain, nor a local definition of ethical behavior (i.e. within a sociopathic group) or is not just refuting it on the basis that it is not his matters to decide upon such a question. In case he argues the question will arise what should be done in such a situation where "liberal" agreement (e) is likely violated. Thus in a proveable case liberals that are at least in favour of a mostly limited republic would probably agree that this might be to some extend be considered a case for a system on a "minimal state" (i.e. in relation to Hobbes' Leviathan ideals).

We add to the arguments
f) that thus there should be a minimal kind of system for how to catch people by a state like authority if not covered by systems which can be inter-subjectively proven to be correct.

As implicitely inferable somehwat by the description of the term "basic income formula" is that a "social system" or similar ideas are considered to be antitheatical to such a model. Thus if there is a system defined by the view that there is "no" simple formula and that this is somewhat state driven (as argued above), 
1) there is some kind of system in place which either does something else than just providing money to people or 
2) that money is completely arbitrarily distributed (as it can't be described by a formula based on "measurable facts").
I would say that there is no argument to be made why option (2) is in opposition to common "liberal" ideas. I.e. I would state that

g) that a state - if in existence - should not act arbitrarily

However let's consider option (1) in contrast. This is exactly what current systems do: they commonly urge people to take courses for job applications, require them to write a number of applications per week or interfere otherwise with peoples lives. 

For a liberal to support such a system there has to be a closer agreement to be made to what extend the state is allowed to interfere with people's lives and where not, as it is in opposition to "liberal" principle (b). Also the resulting principle (c) clearly states that the interference should be kept at a minimum. But what would be a minimum inbetween "interference and money" and just "money" (i.e. "basic income formula")? It is clearly the latter, if one does not consider interference to be in accordance somewhat to principle (e).

According an not closer examined thought the understanding of principle (d) we imply 
h) that a state - if in existence - should avoid bureaucracy and minimize redistribution transactions as much as possible.

At this point it is crucial to note that there is thus quite an obvious difference inbetween such a system and one that just distributes money. Whereas in a system with a non-simple formula, there might be somewhat of state bureaucracy, the argument that there is less state bureaucracy with a simple formula than in case (a) is somewhat strong as a formula can be theoretically processed mostly automatically in constrast to the other described systems which either result in interference, besides money distribution or is arbitrary and thus likely ineffective and likely to be in conflict with a commonly agreed argument.

The questionable effectiveness of social systems is what Friedmann prominently noted in his writings: despite redistribution of money to those who need it according to sociatial conventions, there appears to be somewhat of a heavy deficit in the results, given the amount of money that is invested there. He argued thus for the negative income tax, which is a "basic income formula" on the basis that it is more effective according to his views than the current "non-formula" based models.

What I would like to discuss as an argument for the consideration that "basic income formulas" might be more "liberal" in comparision to "social systems" however is provided by principle (c): a "liberal" - if given an exclusive A or B choice - would rather be in a support of a system that tends to make people less dependent on a "Leviathan" that grows, but on a system which does the opposite according to their weighting. So at some point people might be depended on the state to due to principle (f), yet at some point it would be better for them to be not depended on the state. This could be a somewhat clear change if taken as a simplified case (even though I consider it more likely to be a gradual one).  As the state should not act arbitrarily according to principle (g) there has to be somewhat human intervention which creates interference and likely bureaucracy, and is thus to be avoided to the extend possible. However such a non-dependence has to be provided gradually as it's unlikely that in all cases there is a clear cut point (like "suddenly without a job" in case of an invalid), where there is "non-dependence" and thus the point of "non-interference". In a system with a "basic income formula" as discussed before (or let's even say a more "basic income formua" than the one today - in contrast to systems with interference - there is always some interference by the state that is apart from providing money. One may argue that this might be more cost effective in the long term, but this is questionable. From a standpoint that an individual will be more in favour of a system that creates less work, but provides the intended value, there is an implicit interest in increasing money transfer sums, even though this results into a support of the state to a certain extend.

As a last - but almost completely unrelated argument - I would also argue that a "basic income formula" may provide a more fair competition. If the achievements for an individual should be based on self-dedication and self-determination, there is a considerable amount of people who are deprived of participation, due to a dependence. Given it would be a state dependence, such a formula may - as argued above - should be implecitely more positive for self-determination than other systems of state provided care and interference are. Thus if this is an optimal system leading to the least possible state dependence, the self-determination is overall rising. This provides thus more opportunities for more people to participate in competition. Thus this increases competition and leads thus to a more fair competition.

Furthermore in contrast to social systems the calculation relies on simple formulas. Given the (somewhat partly differing) views of liberals that individuals follow their interest to a certain extend, a "basic income formula" is a simple rule, that allows for little particular abuse as the possible abuse cases are limited and are easier to control by a minimized state.

Lastly for nationalistic libertarians it allows as a mean for a very effective immigration policy, that may make a lot of existing immigration policies superfluos: it is unlikely that every tourist is handed out a basic income just like so in order to avoid freeriding. Thus a company will have to invest additional ressources if they need to gather really important workforces.