Entitlement
Mar. 26th, 2006 08:19 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rowynOver a decade ago, I was entertaining the idea of writing a story set on a long-term colony ship. The ship would travel at sublight speeds and would take decades to move from its origin planet to the one its colonists planned to settle.
What would life be like aboard that generation ship? How would you guarantee that enough trained personnel were available for any given job? How would you handle a shortage, or a surplus of labor? How does the government treat the unemployed?
That last is a particularly interesting question, because on a starship, everything has a human cost. Everything is made and ultimately maintained by human hands. Not just food and clothing, but the ship that shelters you, the air you breathe, the water you drink. On Earth, the basics of human life exist even without human intervention. There was water and air and ground to walk on before there were any people to use it, and it'll all still be there when humans are extinct. We regard them as entitlements. No one manufactures the air I breathe, and no one charges me for it, either.
Now, to some degree, homelessness in this country *is* a crime: it's called "loitering". All of the land in America is owned by someone, whether individual, business, or government. None of it is free, no strings attached. But in practice, if I give up working and renounce money, I'm not going to be immediately executed. I might starve to death, but that's not quite the same as being shoved out an airlock.
What about being on a spaceship, where space and air are at a premium? There's no place to go where your presence is merely neutral, of no help or hinderance to anyone. You are taking up valuable and limited resources just by existing. How should society treat you if you don't give anything back?
"Shove them out an airlock" is one possibility. But I think that would only be implemented if the cost of air or space is comparatively high. If the ship just can't afford to have non-productive people around -- if the strain on the system from a non-contributor is so great that it threatens the whole -- then society might grit its teeth and execute anyone that couldn't provide for themselves.
But that's an unlikely scenario for a colony ship. I'd expect sufficiently advanced technology that the marginal cost of basics would be low. Not non-zero; everything would still need occassional maintenance and other human intervention. But most of the work would be done by machines; one man's labor would provide air for thousands if not millions. Food would likely also be inexpensive. These things are too important to be costly, because the costlier they are, the more
likely the whole venture would be to fail. How many people would get on a colony ship if they thought there was a good chance the food would run out or the air would fail?
Once I made the decision that these the basics of life should be comparatively low, it became harder to argue that the basics of life shouldn't be an entitlement. If it's cheap, am I really going to shove the bankrupt out an airlock? And if I'm already supplying the impoverished with air, water, and space to occupy, I might as well supply food too. Medical care? Well, maybe. But the question had become not "Are the colonists entitled to get anything for free?" but "how much are they entitled to get for free?"
The truth is, it's the same way on a planet, too. We all benefit from entitlements: "The right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." No one seriously argues that we need to earn the right to breathe, or that homeless people shouldn't be allowed to take up space on land. The harshest of penalties imposed against the homeless is prison -- and that's actually providing them with a far more expensive form of shelter than a park bench. You get fed in prison, too! Minors net the largest range of entitlements: free education through high school, and the state will provide free room and board if the parents do not (or cannot).
My point in saying all of this is to explain why I'm not opposed to the concept of "an existance wage", of government providing a certain amount of money and/or necessities to all citizens. I don't think getting a handout is intrinsically bad; the world and our country offers a lot of handouts already, and getting free air and water doesn't seem to be harmful to me. What I like about Charles Murray's plan better than traditional welfare is its simplicity, and its comparative lack of disincentives to work. Yes, all forms of entitlements offer disincentives to work, but one that provides the same benefits to all citizens does so less than one that only benefits non-workers.
What I am concerned about is that such a handout would be too expensive for our society. My hypothetical colonists could provide everyone with free room and board on the assumption that the marginal cost of these things was low.
Mr. Murray proposes a $10,000 entitlement per adult citizen. Is that amount too high? Would it be too burdensome for the collective of those paying more tax than they're receiving in entitlement to cover? Would the disincentive it offered to work be too powerful, and lowering the number of net taxpayers to a point where it couldn't be sustained?
Is it too low? Are there beneficiaries of our current entitlement programs who need a higher level of assistance due to medical conditions, and would they be unable to receive it under Mr. Murray's flat-rate plan? (Perhaps the mandatory health insurance would cover such costs long-term, but I'm not sure how well the transition would or could be managed.)
It's all hypothetical for now; political resistance to such a notion will be much too strong for decades to come.
But as America becomes wealthier and technology more advanced, I think the answer to the question "Is it too expensive?" will one day become a clear "No." But whether that's true today or not, I truly don't know.
What would life be like aboard that generation ship? How would you guarantee that enough trained personnel were available for any given job? How would you handle a shortage, or a surplus of labor? How does the government treat the unemployed?
That last is a particularly interesting question, because on a starship, everything has a human cost. Everything is made and ultimately maintained by human hands. Not just food and clothing, but the ship that shelters you, the air you breathe, the water you drink. On Earth, the basics of human life exist even without human intervention. There was water and air and ground to walk on before there were any people to use it, and it'll all still be there when humans are extinct. We regard them as entitlements. No one manufactures the air I breathe, and no one charges me for it, either.
Now, to some degree, homelessness in this country *is* a crime: it's called "loitering". All of the land in America is owned by someone, whether individual, business, or government. None of it is free, no strings attached. But in practice, if I give up working and renounce money, I'm not going to be immediately executed. I might starve to death, but that's not quite the same as being shoved out an airlock.
What about being on a spaceship, where space and air are at a premium? There's no place to go where your presence is merely neutral, of no help or hinderance to anyone. You are taking up valuable and limited resources just by existing. How should society treat you if you don't give anything back?
"Shove them out an airlock" is one possibility. But I think that would only be implemented if the cost of air or space is comparatively high. If the ship just can't afford to have non-productive people around -- if the strain on the system from a non-contributor is so great that it threatens the whole -- then society might grit its teeth and execute anyone that couldn't provide for themselves.
But that's an unlikely scenario for a colony ship. I'd expect sufficiently advanced technology that the marginal cost of basics would be low. Not non-zero; everything would still need occassional maintenance and other human intervention. But most of the work would be done by machines; one man's labor would provide air for thousands if not millions. Food would likely also be inexpensive. These things are too important to be costly, because the costlier they are, the more
likely the whole venture would be to fail. How many people would get on a colony ship if they thought there was a good chance the food would run out or the air would fail?
Once I made the decision that these the basics of life should be comparatively low, it became harder to argue that the basics of life shouldn't be an entitlement. If it's cheap, am I really going to shove the bankrupt out an airlock? And if I'm already supplying the impoverished with air, water, and space to occupy, I might as well supply food too. Medical care? Well, maybe. But the question had become not "Are the colonists entitled to get anything for free?" but "how much are they entitled to get for free?"
The truth is, it's the same way on a planet, too. We all benefit from entitlements: "The right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." No one seriously argues that we need to earn the right to breathe, or that homeless people shouldn't be allowed to take up space on land. The harshest of penalties imposed against the homeless is prison -- and that's actually providing them with a far more expensive form of shelter than a park bench. You get fed in prison, too! Minors net the largest range of entitlements: free education through high school, and the state will provide free room and board if the parents do not (or cannot).
My point in saying all of this is to explain why I'm not opposed to the concept of "an existance wage", of government providing a certain amount of money and/or necessities to all citizens. I don't think getting a handout is intrinsically bad; the world and our country offers a lot of handouts already, and getting free air and water doesn't seem to be harmful to me. What I like about Charles Murray's plan better than traditional welfare is its simplicity, and its comparative lack of disincentives to work. Yes, all forms of entitlements offer disincentives to work, but one that provides the same benefits to all citizens does so less than one that only benefits non-workers.
What I am concerned about is that such a handout would be too expensive for our society. My hypothetical colonists could provide everyone with free room and board on the assumption that the marginal cost of these things was low.
Mr. Murray proposes a $10,000 entitlement per adult citizen. Is that amount too high? Would it be too burdensome for the collective of those paying more tax than they're receiving in entitlement to cover? Would the disincentive it offered to work be too powerful, and lowering the number of net taxpayers to a point where it couldn't be sustained?
Is it too low? Are there beneficiaries of our current entitlement programs who need a higher level of assistance due to medical conditions, and would they be unable to receive it under Mr. Murray's flat-rate plan? (Perhaps the mandatory health insurance would cover such costs long-term, but I'm not sure how well the transition would or could be managed.)
It's all hypothetical for now; political resistance to such a notion will be much too strong for decades to come.
But as America becomes wealthier and technology more advanced, I think the answer to the question "Is it too expensive?" will one day become a clear "No." But whether that's true today or not, I truly don't know.
no subject
Date: 2006-03-27 05:03 pm (UTC)You're rather missing the point. It's not "The government takes all the money from everyone and then redistributes $10k to each person." That'd be simple socialism. Neither my hypothetical colony ship nor Charles Murray's plan suggests that everyone should live exactly the same life regardless of work done. The point is "Everyone gets $X from the government, whether they work or not." If you work, you will still get your check from the government as well as an income from your job that the guy who doesn't work won't get. You will have a better lifestyle than the people who don't work. The people who don't work won't be starving and homeless, no. But you live in Canada: how many people do you know who don't work but aren't homeless because they get checks from the government? Last I heard, most Canadians still felt motivated to work anyway.
Your government (and mine) are already running deficits in part because we already provide massive entitlements. Here's the 2004 Social Security budget: http://www.ssa.gov/budget/2004bud.html . Total outlay for 2002 was $489.9 billion. That's enough money to give 48.9 million American $10,000 each. There are 217 million citizens over 18 (I don't know how many over 21, which is Murray's proposed cutoff) in the US, so obviously Soc Sec alone isn't spending enough to cover it. But Soc Sec isn't the only entitlement program in the US; there's Medicare and Medicaid, not to mention countless state and local food stamp and welfare programs. <a href="http://rowyn.livejournal.com/234446.html>Murray's numbers</a> said that his Plan would be more expensive than the current system of entitlements from 2006 to 2011, but afterwards it would start to be cheaper. Presumably the savings come in large part from cutting smaller checks to current recipients of entitlements. But they also come from administrative savings; administrating a plan that you have to qualify for and that you get certain benefits based on how much you've put in and that you get certain benefits depending on negotiations with insurance companies and hospitals, etc., ad nauseum, is considerably more expensive than direct-depositing $X to the accounts of everyone over the age of 21. You don't need hundreds of thousands of social workers to evaluate cases and make decisions on disability claims, welfare claims, etc. You just need an accurate database of citizenship, birth and death records and bank accounts. Yes, the money is going to come from taxes. It's efectively a $10,000 tax credit that everyone over 21 gets. If you pay less than $10,000, you get a net benefit, and if you pay more you get a net loss. But that's a much lower psychological obstacle than welfare or unemployment, where virtually every dollar you earn gets you one less dollar in benefits. Here, we'd still be paying 15%-40% in taxes on earned income ... but we already do that, and it doesn't stop most of us from working to get more than $10,000 a year currently.
no subject
Date: 2006-03-28 08:29 am (UTC)Total Current Outlay = $489 Billion
Total Demand = $2.17 Trillion
Additional revenue required = $1.68 Trillion
Additional revenue required per capita = $7741
The immeadiate place that this breaks down is that you cannot take a single cent from the very lowest income earners, and you have to scale that ammount upwards. People with no income couldn't pay into the $7741 that they owe. Every pensioner, welfare reciepient, disability recipient, and unemployed labourer is incapable of paying for this.
Hypothetically (I would have to actually dig up some accurate census data for last year's taxation year to have solid numbers to work with, and I don't quite have that kind of time this evening, as I'm at work) the payment curve could look like:
Under 15,000 income
(50% of populace)
-$6000
15-30,000 income bracket
(25% of populace)
-$12,000
30-60,000 income bracket
(15% of populace)
-$18,000
60-100,000 income bracket
(6.5% of populace)
-$36,000
100,000+ income bracket
-$72,000
These statistics are very rough, but they illustrate the problem. As you rise slowly upwards because you have a smaller margain of people trying to catch up to the ammount of money lost on the lowest tax braket, more weight must be shouldered per capita.
Basically, in the end it ammounts to a huge increase in income tax percentages for the rich, and a diminishing raise of the income tax percentages spiraling downwards. Basically if you cut the $10,000 number out of it like the arbitrary dead wood that it is, is ammounts to reverse tax reform, a diameterically opposed change to the system of taxation that would -NEVER- pass the house, it would never get past the senators, it would never even get past the city council... Because as you rise upwards into the different teirs of governement, you raise upwards in terms of personal wealth.
As for how many people I know who don't work but aren't homeless?
I would suggest that less than 5% of the people in this city who don't work are homeless, realisitically if you remove from the equation the people who's money goes directly to finance an expensive drug addiction, that number probably shrinks to less than ONE percent.
I'll agree with you that most people feel motivated to work. But there are a lot of people who are being entitled in our system that really shouldn't be. I was sitting next to a woman on the bus a week ago May, complaining bitterly to the man next to her about how wellfare just doesn't cover all of her necessary expenses, and how she was having to borrow money to get her car out of impound, and how she was worried she wasn't going to make this month's payment on her big screen TV or her rent. Which she told the gentleman beside her was about $271, utilities included, for a four bedroom house for herself and her three children. (Subsidized housing)
I live with a roommate in a two bedroom appartment, I pay $325 for my half of the rent, and that rises as high as $400 once you take into account the utilities. We don't have a TV in our livingroom, let alone a 'big screen' TV, and my car is waiting in the parking lot because I don't have the finances to fix what's wrong with it currently.
Personally, some of these people are being 'entitled' to a little more than they should be.
no subject
Date: 2006-03-28 12:03 pm (UTC)I'm not saying it would work. I have no idea if it would work; his book could well make assumptions about the economy that wouldn't be true if his plan were implemented, because of the effect it would or wouldn't have. I'm just saying that dismissing it based on a back-of-envelope calculation is unfair.
no subject
Date: 2006-03-31 02:51 am (UTC)Its the knowledge that it comes down, in the end, to a massive lateral tax hike, in this case perhaps even a quintupling of the current tax rates. The US government can't even get on the ball about free medical coverage, how do you expect them to get on the ball on something three times as large financially?