I saw a while back, on Facebook, an article about an idea which is apparently fairly popular both among left-wingers and libertarians worldwide (Republicans probably aren't a big fan, but hey): a universal minimum income.
Basically, here's the idea: have the government pay everyone enough money so that they
start off at an above-poverty income level.
I can't express just how much I love this idea, and just how much this would pretty much solve all kinds of social problems and political debates.
Pay everyone $24,000 of untaxable, no strings attached income and automatically adjust that amount every year based on inflation.
Abolish social security.
Abolish federal and state entitlements (except, perhaps, as an addition to the universal minimum income).
Abolish welfare.
Abolish foodstamps.
Abolish minimum wage laws.
You get the idea.
Combine this with a single payer health-care system, tuition free universities and extremely tight border controls? I can't even express in words just how supremely epic that would be.
All of a sudden, the need for unions just ends. There's no need for unions, for minimum wages or for all sorts of other government regulation about employment. All of a sudden, the employee doesn't need his employer. They can negotiate on a perfectly level playing field.
"You want me to work for you? Ok. Then treat me like a person, not like a number. Oh. You don't want to do that? That's fine. I don't need your job anyway.
"
Not to mention it would simplify things a lot government wise. No need for a dozen different government agencies.
Here, people will complain about the following:
1. It would decrease productivity and take away peoples' incentives to do meaningless, inhuman work.
2. It would be unfair because pay would no longer correspond to merit.
I answer as follows:
A. 1. is going to happen with technological increases anyway.
B. 1. If the job is meaningless and inhuman, then maybe it's not worth doing in the first place.
C. 1. There's only so many jobs anyway. What's the unemployment rate again?
D. 2. Money shouldn't be a standard of personal worth. It should be a mean of acquiring the necessities of a dignified and properly human life.
E. 2. It's not even true. I'm talking about a universal
minimum income. Note the key word: "minimum."