<story><title>Scrap the Welfare State and Give People Free Money</title><url>http://reason.com/archives/2013/11/26/scrap-the-welfare-state-give-people-free</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ctdonath</author><text>&lt;i&gt;You give poor people a basic sum of money so they don&amp;#x27;t climb over the fence and kill you in your sleep.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Once you&amp;#x27;ve established a &amp;quot;protection money&amp;quot; system, establishing their &amp;quot;right&amp;quot; to your money &amp;amp; property, they are now incentivized to demand - and take - more. Panem et circenses is the last stage of polite society; the cost eventually becomes unbearable as fewer work and more expect comfort &amp;amp; leisure for nothing.&lt;p&gt;You give poor people money because it&amp;#x27;s generosity, kindness and help - &lt;i&gt;freely given as your choice&lt;/i&gt;. The recipient receives knowing the charity is out of goodness, and is coupled to an expectation that the recipient will make a respectable effort to overcome poverty.&lt;p&gt;As an American, we ensure people don&amp;#x27;t climb over the fence and kill us in our sleep because (A) the firepower many have within 3 steps of bed will give potential attackers pause, and (B) the local police will apprehend surviving thugs. We also strive to reduce legal barriers to productivity, promoting liberty to earn an honest wage for honest work (rather than creating high cost of entry with a flurry of stifling regulations). Between severe disincentives to crime, coupled with easy access to rewarding opportunity, we don&amp;#x27;t have to pay people to not kill us.</text></item><item><author>pinaceae</author><text>As a European we are bit further down that path than the US.&lt;p&gt;I assume most of the readers here are &amp;quot;wealthy&amp;quot;, would not need basic guaranteed income. So let me explain why this is a good idea from a rich man&amp;#x27;s perspective.&lt;p&gt;You give poor people a basic sum of money so they don&amp;#x27;t climb over the fence and kill you in your sleep.&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#x27;s it.&lt;p&gt;Behind all the nice language this is what it boils down to. It is paying off poor people to stop pestering you. Chump change for security. Europe learned it the hard way through numerous revolutions and war - keep the lower classes happy and &lt;i&gt;everyone&lt;/i&gt; benefits. Social housing, healthcare, the lower rungs of Maslow&amp;#x27;s pyramid.&lt;p&gt;The Romans called it panem et circenses. Not a new idea. Focus on the panem. Hungry people do desperate things.&lt;p&gt;Want to see how society looks like that does not get that? Brazil. Mexico. Have a nice house in Sao Paulo or Mexico City? Then enjoy your 3m high wall with barbed wire around it.&lt;p&gt;Sharing a bit of wealth means personal security for you. You don&amp;#x27;t get robbed. You don&amp;#x27;t get infected by shit because no one gets shots (yes, you want basic healthcare for all). You have a nice large market to sell shit to, so job security (the basic Henry Ford insight).&lt;p&gt;So there you have it, even if you hate poor people there is good reason to give them some money.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>pinaceae</author><text>Right, and looking at stats like murder rates, incarceration numbers, etc. the US system is clearly working and superior.&lt;p&gt;I can walk &lt;i&gt;any&lt;/i&gt; street at 2am in Vienna without looking over my shoulder.&lt;p&gt;Oakland? Philly?&lt;p&gt;A personal gun doesn&amp;#x27;t stop anyone. Fantasy from lala land.</text></comment>
<story><title>Scrap the Welfare State and Give People Free Money</title><url>http://reason.com/archives/2013/11/26/scrap-the-welfare-state-give-people-free</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ctdonath</author><text>&lt;i&gt;You give poor people a basic sum of money so they don&amp;#x27;t climb over the fence and kill you in your sleep.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Once you&amp;#x27;ve established a &amp;quot;protection money&amp;quot; system, establishing their &amp;quot;right&amp;quot; to your money &amp;amp; property, they are now incentivized to demand - and take - more. Panem et circenses is the last stage of polite society; the cost eventually becomes unbearable as fewer work and more expect comfort &amp;amp; leisure for nothing.&lt;p&gt;You give poor people money because it&amp;#x27;s generosity, kindness and help - &lt;i&gt;freely given as your choice&lt;/i&gt;. The recipient receives knowing the charity is out of goodness, and is coupled to an expectation that the recipient will make a respectable effort to overcome poverty.&lt;p&gt;As an American, we ensure people don&amp;#x27;t climb over the fence and kill us in our sleep because (A) the firepower many have within 3 steps of bed will give potential attackers pause, and (B) the local police will apprehend surviving thugs. We also strive to reduce legal barriers to productivity, promoting liberty to earn an honest wage for honest work (rather than creating high cost of entry with a flurry of stifling regulations). Between severe disincentives to crime, coupled with easy access to rewarding opportunity, we don&amp;#x27;t have to pay people to not kill us.</text></item><item><author>pinaceae</author><text>As a European we are bit further down that path than the US.&lt;p&gt;I assume most of the readers here are &amp;quot;wealthy&amp;quot;, would not need basic guaranteed income. So let me explain why this is a good idea from a rich man&amp;#x27;s perspective.&lt;p&gt;You give poor people a basic sum of money so they don&amp;#x27;t climb over the fence and kill you in your sleep.&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#x27;s it.&lt;p&gt;Behind all the nice language this is what it boils down to. It is paying off poor people to stop pestering you. Chump change for security. Europe learned it the hard way through numerous revolutions and war - keep the lower classes happy and &lt;i&gt;everyone&lt;/i&gt; benefits. Social housing, healthcare, the lower rungs of Maslow&amp;#x27;s pyramid.&lt;p&gt;The Romans called it panem et circenses. Not a new idea. Focus on the panem. Hungry people do desperate things.&lt;p&gt;Want to see how society looks like that does not get that? Brazil. Mexico. Have a nice house in Sao Paulo or Mexico City? Then enjoy your 3m high wall with barbed wire around it.&lt;p&gt;Sharing a bit of wealth means personal security for you. You don&amp;#x27;t get robbed. You don&amp;#x27;t get infected by shit because no one gets shots (yes, you want basic healthcare for all). You have a nice large market to sell shit to, so job security (the basic Henry Ford insight).&lt;p&gt;So there you have it, even if you hate poor people there is good reason to give them some money.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>barrkel</author><text>Ideological response: Police are the thugs that rich people buy to defend themselves from the poor.&lt;p&gt;Actually, basic income &amp;#x2F; negative income tax is a very good idea, much better than welfare schemes of almost all kinds - it has almost no administration overhead. Charity, like you advocate, has huge amounts of overhead. Milton Friedman was an advocate, for example, and he was hardly a socialist.&lt;p&gt;And the idea that charity comes from goodness? That is utter bullshit. It&amp;#x27;s 95% social signalling. Altruism doesn&amp;#x27;t exist.</text></comment>