The Last Ditch by Tom Paine

THE LAST DITCH

Guest Post by Mark on “Citizen’s Basic Income: Productivity”

Published by Tom

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A common criticism levelled against the Citizen's Basic Income (guaranteeing each person an income as a right of citizenship (as far as I'm concerned this should be irrespective of the work they do)) is that it would interfere with the process of "creative destruction" and therefore reduce long term productivity gains. We will all be better off in the long term if the government gets out of the way and lets the market run its course. I disagree.

Creative destrucion is a process which applies to institutions, not individuals. If we destroy a bank, an idea, we might replace it with something better. If we destroy a man, take his income, take his self respect, home, possibly his family, will what emerges be something better, or something far worse? 

This should be an important question to even the most self interested free marketeer, as technological change means that the work we require from people will increasingly fall into one of three categories – managerial, creative and direct customer service.

The great creative works of humanity have not generally been born of desperation, though many vile acts have. People worrying about survival are not free to make great things – we should give them this freedom. Likewise, people dealing directly with people are unlikely to be able to do a good job unless they actually want to be there. Let's replace obsequious waiters, who despise you, with people who genuinely wish to provide you with an enjoyable meal.

As for good management, what is it if not creatively dealing directly with people?

Increased protection for individuals would reduce the political pressure to protect institutions and would therefore aid the market in producing more efficient means of managing resources.

The time when we could increase economic production by driving reluctant workers into mindless jobs, with the threat of destitution, has passed. We should recognise this fact.

Mark

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NB: Although posted by me because he had problems with my blogging platform, these are NOT my views but those of Mark – a prolific commenter here of late. His comments all challenge my views from a broadly statist perspective and I thought it might amuse you all to hear them expressed more systematically. Please feel free to comment and let's try to keep the Christians vs Lions vibe to a minimum please!

Tom

43 responses to “Guest Post by Mark on “Citizen’s Basic Income: Productivity””

  1. Andrew Avatar
    Andrew

    “If we destroy” – ugh, a sickening attempt to manipulate through the abuse of language (and far from the only one in this post).
    You really shouldn’t be dirtying your blog with this kind of “robbing from Peter to pay Paul” nonsense. And especially when it’s written in such a weaselly manner.

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  2. Diogenes Avatar
    Diogenes

    ‘A common criticism levelled against the Citizen’s Basic Income is that it would interfere with the process of “creative destruction” and therefore reduce long term productivity gains.’
    A common criticism levelled by the Acme Strawman Cooperative perhaps. The rest of us understand that a Citizen’s Basic Income would destroy the incentive to be productive which makes progress inevitable in a free trading society.
    Statists are so keen to throw out the bathwater of inequality that they usually fail to notice the baby of incentivised selflessness that is the key to the undeniable success of capitalist nations. Yes selflessness, allow me to explain.
    The price mechanism forces people to act selflessly by rewarding creativity and labour which is valued by others not by themselves. In order to be comfortable you maximise the value of your efforts as assessed by society (the market).
    The Citizens Basic Income would lead to people doing what they want like a nation of Surrey wives; all wanting to run florists, interior design boutiques, coffee shops and vintners. Great, until you need someone to do a mindless job like cleaning your drains or killing your rats. Only the free market incentivises those selfless heroes properly.

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  3. Nigel Avatar
    Nigel

    Thanks, Diogenes, you put it far better than I ever could. I must try and remember the ‘Surrey Wives’ line.

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  4. Mark Avatar
    Mark

    Diogenes,
    Where did I say “get rid of the price mechanism”? I’m assuming that people will do the work which they are paid to do, but that the work which is paid least is probably stuff we can do without.
    If cleaning drains is such a vital and unpleasent task, why not pay people more to do it, rather than rely on their desperation?
    Andrew,
    Sorry. First ever blog post. I’ll try to be more abrasive in future… out of a matter of interest, do you think the process of creative destruction should apply to individuals?

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  5. Andrew Avatar
    Andrew

    Mark,
    “Sorry. First ever blog post. I’ll try to be more abrasive in future…”
    Yes, because that’s exactly what I said. By pointing out I didn’t like your use of language I was asking you to be more abrasive (rolls eyes).
    “out of a matter of interest, do you think the process of creative destruction should apply to individuals?”
    This is the first time I’ve come across the term. From your post I’m assuming it means to be completely responsible for the consequences of your actions. Please correct me if I’m wrong, I’m not too smart so I like to break things down to their simplest terms to make sure I understand and I’m not being manipulated through the use of language (hence my initial comment).
    So – through my simpleton filter – you’re asking if I think people should be fully responsible for their actions or not, right?
    Then yes, I believe people should be responsible for their actions and that nobody should be forced to pay for someone else’s mistakes.

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  6. Mark Avatar
    Mark

    No, I don’t think the term implies taking responsibility. It means that by allowing failures to be destroyed, we can release resources to create success.
    Right wingers often believe that by making being out of work as unpleasent as possible we can improve the economy.
    You believe that people should be held responsible for their actions. Do you also believe that they should always be responsible for their situation?

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  7. Andrew Avatar
    Andrew

    “No, I don’t think the term implies taking responsibility. It means that by allowing failures to be destroyed, we can release resources to create success.”
    You “don’t think the term implies”!!
    If you’re not sure what it actually means then how do you expect anyone to give you an accurate answer?
    Statism 101 – warp the language so no-one knows what it actually means, but if you’re against it you’re an evil, bigoted, baby-eating right winger.
    “Right wingers often believe that by making being out of work as unpleasant as possible we can improve the economy.”
    By “as unpleasant as possible” do you mean they put them in cages and poke them with sticks or maybe march them through town naked everyday in exchange for a few scraps of bread? Or do you mean simply not give them as much of other people’s money as the moral heroes of the left would?
    “Do you also believe that they should always be responsible for their situation?”
    Yes, if people don’t take responsibility for their situation – regardless of whether it’s their own fault or not – they’ll never achieve anything.

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  8. james higham Avatar
    james higham

    There’ve been better but he tried.

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  9. Andrew Avatar
    Andrew

    I realise I should probably mention, to give my answers some context, that I’m an anarcho-capitalist (or voluntarist, if you prefer), meaning I don’t believe in the initiation of force.
    So I’m not specifically against CBI, I’m against all forms of non-voluntary welfare.

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  10. Mark Avatar
    Mark

    “If you’re not sure what it actually means then how do you expect anyone to give you an accurate answer?”
    I’m not sure what this means, but I could have a guess. It’s a bit like saying, “unless you are certain what everyone else in thevworld thinks of something how can you speak of it and expect someone to respond?”
    The answer, of course, is easily. It’s what we do every day.
    I wouldn’t be surprised if people did believe that putting people in cages would improve the economy and only refrain from advocating such a policy on the grounds of morality.

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  11. Mark Avatar
    Mark

    The flip side to responsibility is blame.
    Unless we take responsibility for each other, nothing will improve

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  12. Mark Avatar
    Mark

    Do you believe in law?

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  13. Andrew Avatar
    Andrew

    “I’m not sure what this means, but I could have a guess. It’s a bit like saying, “unless you are certain what everyone else in thevworld thinks of something how can you speak of it and expect someone to respond?”
    The answer, of course, is easily. It’s what we do every day.”
    This isn’t a general or social conversation, your post was a counter to the specific objection of “creative destruction” to a CBI. So it’s essential that everyone participating knows what “creative destruction” actually is. Ideally you should’ve defined it in your post, then even if people disagree with your definition they at least know what you’re arguing for.

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  14. Andrew Avatar
    Andrew

    “The flip side to responsibility is blame.
    Unless we take responsibility for each other, nothing will improve”
    Why?
    I’m not willing to take responsibility for someone else’s actions or life. That’s not to say I won’t help those in need. But I’m sure as hell not taking responsibility for them.
    And by “we” do you mean “we, the people” or the state because the state’s welfare projects crushed the previously existing friendly societies and the like where people did look after each other? The state giving people money for nothing is another step in the direction of “the state is mother, the state is father” (see the disgusting Obama “Julia” ad).

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  15. Andrew Avatar
    Andrew

    It’s that belief that kept me a libertarian/minarchist up until about a month ago.
    [We’re heading a bit off topic with this – if you want to get an idea of how it would work check out Stefan Molyneux’s free books and videos at http://www.freedomainradio.com/ and/or David Friedman’s book Machinery of Freedom. If you want to tell me it wouldn’t work – I’ve heard it, I’ve watched the debates, read the books, and know each side’s arguments. You’ll have to give me at least six months for my own thoughts to be completely coherent and settled on the subject (and I might even have crossed back to minarchism by then).]

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  16. Tom Paine Avatar
    Tom Paine

    If he replied “yes” to “do you believe in fire” would that entitle you to flamethrower him?

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  17. Andrew Avatar
    Andrew

    And, of course, anarchy doesn’t mean no rules, it means no rulers.

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  18. Mark Avatar
    Mark

    Ok… believe in using the law…

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  19. Mark Avatar
    Mark

    Fair enough, not sure about that one.

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  20. Mark Avatar
    Mark

    I’ll have a look…

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  21. Diogenes Avatar
    Diogenes

    Creative destruction and the price mechanism are two sides of the same coin.
    The UK coal industry was a perfect example. When the price of coal slumped the operating losses were such that the ‘jobs’ became little more than filthy, dangerous workfare schemes. If you believe, as I do, that miners are capable of more than digging then a powerful incentive to retrain was needed, rather than just dumping them on your citizens scrapheap.
    Your worldview reminds me somewhat of the execrable Venus Project where nobody needs to work because everything is so inherently plentiful and the clever machines will make everything just perfect.

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  22. Damo Avatar
    Damo

    ‘If cleaning drains is such a vital and unpleasent task, why not pay people more to do it, rather than rely on their desperation?’
    Mark, wages are not arbitrary, people get pay a wage base on their education, experience, skills etc.
    May I ask you this question: which one of these jobs would you consider to be more important?
    A burger flipper or an oncologist?

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  23. Tom Paine Avatar
    Tom Paine

    I wouldn’t be surprised to find that you believed that people you oppose believed anything you found it convenient to accuse them of believing. To keep things civil, however, perhaps you could spare us the criticisms of your imagined versions of our thoughts and confine yourself to criticising what we actually say?

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  24. Tom Paine Avatar
    Tom Paine

    So do we all. The question is to what purpose and extent?

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  25. Mark Avatar
    Mark

    Quite. I’m not too sure what it could mean to not believe in the initiation of force or non voluntary action.
    The question is the extent and purpose to which we put force.

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  26. Mark Avatar
    Mark

    An oncologist.
    If it were a top chef, I might have a different opinion.
    Why?

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  27. Tom Paine Avatar
    Tom Paine

    Give you an inch and you take a light year. The libertarian view is that the only legitimate use of force by the state within its borders is to restrain the use of force or fraud by citizens against each other. All else (i.e. all the ways in which you want to deploy force to compel your world view on the rest of us) is wrong. Such a modest state (legislature, judiciary, police and army) could be supported by small taxes, probably on sales. I gave you a platform not to sneer and deride but to advance a cogent argument why we should, like you, support a monstrous and intrusive state such as we have now. Still waiting…

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  28. Mark Avatar
    Mark

    When you say “restrain the use of force”, do you really mean “enforce the law”?
    If I were to take a chocolate bar from sainsburys without paying, I presume you would consider this force.
     Fair enough, but there is no law of nature which dictates that property ownership must take the form you desire. We chose this form on the basis of what we consider to be best for society. And if force is used in your society to maintain law, it is also being used to maintain ideology. 
    I happen to disagree that the distribution of property achieved by a free market will always be the best. But if I live in your libertarian society, I am still bound by law and force to obey your ideology. 

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  29. Damo Avatar
    Damo

    Mark, you would be wrong to pick an oncologist.
    If a job is not important a job would not exist. A burger flipper provides a vital service to the economy just as much as an oncologist.
    Look at all the people from farmers to vets to folks that work in abattoirs that depend on our bugger flipper for their jobs.
    The bugger flipper acts as a vocal point for these folk to sell their product and services, which in turn ensure our economy grows and expands.

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  30. Andrew Avatar
    Andrew

    “I happen to disagree that the distribution of property achieved by a free market will always be the best. But if I live in your libertarian society, I am still bound by law and force to obey your ideology.”
    Classic – “you’re taking away my freedom to remove your freedom”.
    It is you who wants to remove our options and dictate our actions, not the other way round.
    Libertarianism is about letting people live their lives how they want to, not how the state demands.
    So in a libertarian society there’d be nothing to stop you, and like-minded others, buying land and living how you want. You could divide it up equally, pay a CBI, control wages, etc.

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  31. Tom Paine Avatar
    Tom Paine

    Andrew is right. In a libertarian society, the government’s powers would end at the boundaries of your home or business. If you want to set up a commune and live your socialist dream, go for it. Just don’t expect the government to steal money from others to keep you when it fails as every socialist experiment has.
    More than half of mankind lived under socialist rule in the 20th Century. Millions died and hundreds of millions were impoverished as a result. If you think those guys were just not doing it right and that you are wiser – then go for it. Live or die by your principles. Meanwhile, back in the real world, the rest of us can make an honest living, take care of our families and mind our own business in every sense of the phrase.
    Yes stealing from Sainsbury’s (depending on the mode used) would be either force or fraud. Since Sainsbury’s acquired the chocolate bar by buying it from the manufacturer, who in turn bought the ingredients from farmers who in turn had laboured to grow and process them, it’s morally Sainsbury’s to sell – not the thief’s. The current law reflects that morality up to the point where – to sustain a massive and destructive government – half of every profit they make is confiscated.
    If you have another “form of property ownership” in mind, pray tell. I hope it’s not one of those forms tested to destruction already. It sounds painfully like it so far.

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  32. Mark Avatar
    Mark

    Tom, I covered some of this in the post I saved onto your blog last week, which hasn’t yet been approved. Basically, we don’t need that much from each other once our basic needs are met and so demand for services is likely to fall at times, depressions wil result unless government is able to step in, and starvation if government doesn’t provide for the poor.
    Those are the reasons why I don’t think a free market system will work. I could be wrong. It is possible that voluntary societies can serve the same role as government – though in that case we will have ” free rider” problems instead of problems of compulsion. I’m not sure that one is clearly morally worse than the other.
    You might not be concerned whether a free market system actually works – the system might be an end in itself as far as you are concerned. If so, that is your religious belief.
    As for the Soviet Union, I’m not proposing getting rid of private property, shooting peole with glasses or putting us to work on collective farms. I’m propsing giving each person a basic minimum and building markets on top of that.
    I think it is rather childish to make the comparison…

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  33. Mark Avatar
    Mark

    We are social animals, there is no such thing as a complete individual and there is no such thing as complete freedom.

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  34. Mark Avatar
    Mark

    Sorry, I disagree.
    And jobs are a cost, not a benefit.

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  35. Andrew Avatar
    Andrew

    “It is possible that voluntary societies can serve the same role as government – though in that case we will have ” free rider” problems instead of problems of compulsion.”
    We don’t currently have any free riders abusing the system?
    When people’s own money is on the line, rather than from the state’s magic money tree, they’ve got a far greater incentive to ensure it’s not wasted or taken advantage of.
    “You might not be concerned whether a free market system actually works – the system might be an end in itself as far as you are concerned. If so, that is your religious belief.”
    A favoured slur of left-wing politicians and the BBC, but they use ideology rather than religion. And one you’ve got to have some chutzpah to use.

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  36. Andrew Avatar
    Andrew

    “We are social animals, there is no such thing as a complete individual and there is no such thing as complete freedom.”
    ?
    I haven’t argued that there is.

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  37. Cascadian Avatar
    Cascadian

    Mark, what citizens guaranteed income would you recommend for a 63 stone girl, who obviously cannot work?
    Would she be entitled to other benefits?
    Would people who perceive they need more food or purpose-built homes receive a higher citizens guaranteed income?
    Would there be an expectation that people pay into the plan before receiving benefits, like an insurance scheme or is this yet another human right?
    BTW Egan-Jones just downgraded Englands credit rating (as I predicted several weeks ago) As your debt comes due on the £1,055,000,000,000 national debt and other off-the-books debt you will be paying more interest to offset the additional risk. Do you not see that the government has to reduce expenditure to avoid raising tax to pay this additional cost, and that proposing a new benefit is perhaps counter-productive?
    And if your government does not get a grip on over-expenditure I believe you will learn very painfully that creative destruction can and will impact most individuals.

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  38. Mark Avatar
    Mark

    You are telling me that in a libertarian society I will have more freedom to do what I want “libertarianism is about leting people live their lives how they want to”, but there will always be restrictions on the things we do, because we have to take other people into account.
    As for there being “nothing” stopping me buying land, of course there is – money.
    I don’t think your free market land would be as different from the current system as you seem to think. There would probably be more people with the freedom tostarve and the freedom to be degraded as sex workers though.

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  39. Mark Avatar
    Mark

    That’s true, perhaps there will always be a trade off between compulsion and free riders… and you can never comletely get rid of either…
    If you found that a free market system would result in more starvation, would you accept that as a price worth paying? If you discovered it would make everyone worse off, would that also be a price worth paying?
    That’s true, people are more motivated to take care of their own money. Might not people be more motivated to take care of their own soce

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  40. Mark Avatar
    Mark

    The Japamese government debt was downgraded almost ten years ago. Kindly check the interest rate they are paying.
    The debt is a cypher.
    Yes, some sick people would have to recieve more.
    I’m sure there must be a way to build more basic housing for people… I’d build them somewhere cheap, like Wales…

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  41. Andrew Avatar
    Andrew

    I’m done.
    Neither of us is going to change the other’s mind. And you’ve offered me nothing I’ve not heard before (and I’m sure I haven’t to you either).

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  42. Cascadian Avatar
    Cascadian

    Unlike most countries, Japan’s debt is mainly funded internally, their inhabitants have an extremely high saving rate and are willing to buy their governments debt, Do you expect that Briton’s will suddenly start saving again and buy government bonds? I will answer that for you-no, they are also too deeply in debt to save.
    The debt is not a cypher, you have two choices pay-up or default, if you default the chances of borrowing in the future at reasonable rates are minimal, therefore the possibility of running a deficit is essentially nil. If the UK-uncut morons think that this governments present attempts are austere then they are in for a rude awakening should default be considered. The deficit this year (depending on who you believe) is reckoned to be £125,000,000,000, which ministries will you abolish?
    The young lady is not sick she is a glutton, would you pay her more?
    The fact that housing can be built cheaper in some locations is well known, however you have not answered the questions.
    I pose them again.
    What citizens guaranteed income would you recommend for a 63 stone girl, who obviously cannot work?
    Would she be entitled to other benefits?
    Would people who perceive they need more food or purpose-built homes receive a higher citizens guaranteed income?
    Would there be an expectation that people pay into the plan before receiving benefits, like an insurance scheme or is this yet another human right borne by taxpayers?

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  43. ingilizce kursları Avatar
    ingilizce kursları

    Unlike most countries, Japan’s debt is mainly funded internally, their inhabitants have an extremely high saving rate and are willing to buy their governments debt, Do you expect that Briton’s will suddenly start saving again and buy government bonds? I will answer that for you-no, they are also too deeply in debt to save.

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Your blogger

Tom is a retired international lawyer. He was a partner in a City of London law firm and spent almost twenty years abroad serving clients from all over the world.

Returning to London on retirement in 2011, he was dismayed to discover how much liberty had been lost in the UK while he was away.

He’s a classical liberal (libertarian, if you must) who, like his illustrious namesake, considers that

“…government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one.”

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