I refer to Thomas Lunde's proposals for a Basic Income.
The idea of a basic income is appealing. Indeed, I have no objections to
it in principle.
But it won't work because it ignores one basic fact of human nature: we are
essentially a tribal species, the product of millions of years of evolution.
A basic income would work in a society of small governments because
fairness and equality of transactions would operate visibly. Recipients
would be seen to pay back their monetary incomes -- as much as they are
able to do so -- by other forms of non-monetary help and service to the
population paying the taxes. Malingerers could be readily identified and
told to pull their weight or lose their basic income.
We cannot institute a basic income when taxes disappear into a distant
central government maw and are then redistributed (after huge
administrative expenses have been paid) to people we do not know and cannot
observe -- and which, besides malingerers, also contain substantial numbers
of confidence tricksters in their midst. (The situation is bad enough
already and the welfare state cannot be sustained for a great deal longer.
In the UK there are twice as many national insurance numbers as the total
population -- and I cannot imagine that we are unusual in this respect.)
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Keith Hudson,6 Upper Camden Place, Bath BA1 5HX, England
Tel:01225 312622/444881; Fax:01225 447727; E-mail:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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