And ways to harness the desire for social change to more productive ends.
This essay was written in part as a response to a Quillette article entitled ‘How Liberal Elites Use Race to Keep Workers Divided—And Justify Class-Based Inequities’
A good essay and one which correctly identifies class, rather than race, as the pre-eminent concern of our Western societies. It also shows how wokeism has become performative at a corporate level- surely a cynical form of gestural politics aimed at distracting from the more ruthless aspects of corporate governance in terms of worker relations. Even the defence industry has gotten into the act, with Raytheon recently named "Best Place to Work" by a nonprofit Human Rights advocacy group for LGBT. The CIA, however, has to take the prize for the most cynical manipulation of the new paradigm shift, with its recent depiction of a proud Latino cisgender woman, as is amply demonstrated by this article from the Hill's *Rising* team:
On a more serious note, it is entirely predictable the Woke branding would be co-opted by corporate and institutional power. Although there can be little doubt that most of the followers of Woke have noble intentions, and truly believe Woke can build empathy and bring about positive social change, one has to retain a strong degree of scepticism as to whether the negatives outweigh the good. It is also impossible to ignore the very real disincentives to leaving the movement- with many no doubt worried about the likely social censure they will face if they abandon any aspect of the ideologies intellectual presuppositions, its articles of faith.
But at a foundational level, it's pathologically dangerous to base a social movement on arbitrary distinctions of race, gender and sexuality, needlessly dividing us into oppressors and the oppressed, for the simple reason that no one is immune to ideological attack along multiple fronts for perceived transgressions. Kevin Hart, noted and highly successful comedian found this out to his cost, when he happened to make an unfortunate joke about not wanting to have a gay son.
The fact that he was making the joke with the full intention of making his own ironic ignorance the butt of the joke, seemed lost by his detractors at the time. It's nice when some overly privileged white young gay man can take to YouTube to denigrate a hardworking Black man. JK Rowling faced similar vitriol and social censure, when she happened to take to Twitter, always a bad mistake, to defend a woman who was fired for questioning the orthodoxies over Trans- as though merely suggesting that trans inclusion in protected female spaces might be open to abuse by bad actors posing as trans, in order to gain access to women and girls where they are at their most vulnerable is somehow a fireable offence.
Two things become clear with these two cases. First, that subtlety and nuance are lost when it comes to those who have an ideological axe to grind. As the late filmmaker and Beatles chronicler Albert Maysles noted 'Tyranny is the deliberate removal of nuance'. Second, whilst the Woke movement may claim to desire to punch up, rather than down- to challenge Power, rather than defend it- the internal dynamics are all wrong, if 'punching up' is the desired aim.
Within Cancel Culture, power is always gifted to the most vindictive ideological enforcers. The key constituent to going viral seems to be the most scathing critiques, or the best video evidence of malfeasance, real or imagined. Over time, this will lead to the most nasty and vitriolic becoming social media influencers, and the champions of Cancel mobs. Cancellation also tends to work best against the least powerful, the little guys, for the simple reason that those with greater cultural relevance, and presence in the public imagination, seem better able to weather the storm, whilst for the anonymous, the least powerful, social ostracism and cancellation are almost a foregone conclusion. Louis C.K. is back to making comedy- surefire evidence that Cancel Culture actually reinforces power for the powerful, while making the least powerful vulnerable.
It is far better to base social progress movements on our Common Humanity, rather than dividing us up into arbitrary groups and asking the perceived dispossessed to unite against a Common Enemy. With the common humanity approach we get the successes of MLK and the Civil Rights movement. With the common enemy approach we get the Chinese Struggle Session, the Soviet denunciations that led to the Gulags.
This might point to the real problem with Socialism, and the reason why it has failed, often catastrophically, each of the 42 times it was fully implemented, rather than causing the inevitable economic stagnation which becomes apparent when it gains limited power through democratic institutions. Conventional thinking on the failures of Socialism blames a lack of incentives within collectivism for its failures, but the incentives argument doesn't hold water- for the simple reason that status can be a far stronger motivation than money. There is a term from Austrian economics which amply explains the fact that a Swedish doctor will undertake seven or more years of education, racking up debt from her living expenses, only to finally earn roughly double the money of a forklift driver, after taxes and transfers. The term is Psychic Profit and it describes perfectly the reasons why we as humans are not simply motivated by money, once our basic needs are met.
Instead, we need to question the fundamental human dynamics which Socialism sets in motion. It recruits actively from the Intelligentsia and students as a future managerial or apparatchik class. Although Capitalism can make no claim to a Meritocracy of Moral Intent, often rewarding the most amoral and ruthless, it does at least provide the benefit of ensuring that those who reach the apex level of our hierarchies are able and effective, provided the system is not entirely corrupt. By contrast, it would seem that social movements which rely upon galvanising the masses against a common enemy, regardless of whether the common enemy is a wealthy and privileged elite, or a white male oppressor class, are predestined to promote the worst kind of leaders, drawn from the ranks of the least able, in terms of practical experience.
Even if such movements do sometimes create charismatic and benign leaders concerned over the plight of those less fortunate than them, often their tenure is shortlived as the more ruthless displace them, and if they do manage to hold onto power long enough to effect some positive, their successes will be hampered by the byproduct of their movement- the creation of bureaucratic apparatchik with far less noble intentions. And of course, such movements are also hampered by what Adam Smith would call the 'Man of Systems' approach, a tendency towards interventions by the State which was only slightly less harmful and disruptive to the economy under *Keynesian economics*, as it is under Socialism.
So where should budding Leftists intent upon bringing about positive social change focus their efforts? Where should they look for examples of ideas that work in practice? The Scandinavian countries are the prime example- because they are most definitely not Democratic Socialist in political orientation. Instead they seem to have managed to successfully fuse a form of turbocharged, low regulation free market economics with much larger social safety nets. But take my word for it- here is a video of the former Danish Prime Minister speaking at Harvard about the Nordic Model:
Most of the Nordic Model countries have abandoned the traditional diatribe against the rich and Capital in order to build their utopian societies. Corporation taxes are low, and inheritance taxes are low to non-existent. They largely ignore wealth inequality, whilst focusing instead upon income inequality and the Gini coefficient- the distance in income gaps between the worst off and those who earn most through income. Their tax is system is designed to transfer income from anyone earning 50% to 60% more than the average income downwards to the working poor.
Their unions aid in the endeavour. Often engineers who might otherwise earn $120,000 through the market will find their salaries reduced as part of a negotiation which raises wages for those further down the economic spectrum. But the real magic happens by government limiting itself to one very specific form of regulation- stronger worker protections. Of the top ten countries on the Index of Economic Freedom, only Singapore has a higher rating for 'Labour Freedom' (a rather disingenuous way of stating a lack of statutory rights for workers) than the US. The US ranks at number 20:
There are also any number of ways which incremental and fine-tuned ways to jury rig towards more fairness, which taken together could be greater than the sum of their parts. A Tobin-style tax on financial transactions which largely only effects large volume of trade brokerage firms is a good way of raising revenue provided it is used to alleviate taxes on the poor and middle classes. A very modest wealth tax, set between 0.1% and 0.3% would be much more likely to succeed and avoid the negative repercussions of capital flight, for the simple reason that those who sought to avoid it would face pillory and a likely drop off in revenue and profits from their businesses.
At the same time, welfare could be reformed by turned it into a negative income tax scheme- providing exactly the same level of benefits, whilst getting rid of bureaucratic bloat and removing the disincentive to work from welfare, as recipients might only see their welfare reduced by between 25 and 33% for every dollar they earn. Statutory redundancy pay for longer serving employees would provide a strong disincentive to employers to throw fiftysomething workers on the scrapheap before their time, as age begins to slow them, which would not only cut the taxpayer burden of funding disability, but also allow workers to reap the benefits of claiming social security later.
The article is right that class is a far better means of evaluating society and social progress than race, even though race might possess more emotive power which can be harnessed for building social movements- the cynical might think this is entirely the point. But the activists should heed the lessons from history and perform a postmortem on why Marxism so often fails in practice. It precisely because of the need to pick a common enemy or scapegoat in order to galvanise such movements which inevitably dooms them to failure. Stronger worker protections are but one way in which a common humanity approach can work, where the Manichean mindset fails.
In the final analysis, for economic justice to prevail, stop focusing on the protagonists in the story, or trying to overturn the only economic system which has ever really worked, and instead remember the ways in which previous labour and government movements have introduced reforms that worked. Labour and Capital are mutually dependent- it’s an ecosystem which history has proven is prone to catastrophe if either Labour or Capital gains the upper hand- with the Gilded Age and its desperate poverty at one end of the spectrum, and the implicit holocausts of Communist regimes at the other.
If we want to avoid another Gilded Age we at least need to acknowledge the dangers and look to the types of solutions which worked in the past. It’s also worth noting that the solutions which worked in the past may no longer be relevant today, so it behoves us to look around the world to those countries which have best managed to mitigate worst aspects of the current economic system. For the Scandinavians this seems to mean addressing income inequality while leaving wealth alone. It might well be a necessary compromise to avoid the very real dynamics of resentment which common enemy movements capitalise upon, in their headlong journey towards disaster.
Good stuff again Geary. As a progressive, you've definitely helped me understand the "Nordic Model" - I admit I had thought these countries were more 'socialist' than they are. I am curious - where did you get the number 42 from? I'm not doubting you, I've just never encountered a definitive number before.
The American definition of socialism seems to somewhat differ from the rest of the world's definition of socialism. For the rest of us, state ownership of the means of production tends to be the benchmark. I wouldn't classify more comprehensive social safety nets as necessarily socialist. The 42 figure came from a Joe Rogan podcast with the CEO of Whole Foods, but I did quickly check it against a Wikipedia source.
Remember, communism is the natural progression of socialism, because of its inherent tilt towards totalitarianism, so communism would be included in this figure. As an interesting side note, both Sweden and India oscillated between periods of socialist influenced government and Keynesianism in the post WWII period, with predictably stagnant economies. It was only when they both embraced the free market in the nineties that both rapidly began to experience rapid economic growth.
This doesn't mean they abandoned their ethos or their social programs- India still has its rice dole, and Sweden still has its social safety nets. But it does mean a different attitude towards capital and tax policy.
This should be engraved at the entryway of every place where governments discuss and decide policy:
"It is far better to base social progress movements on our Common Humanity, rather than dividing us up into arbitrary groups and asking the perceived dispossessed to unite against a Common Enemy. With the common humanity approach we get the successes of MLK and the Civil Rights movement. With the common enemy approach we get the Chinese Struggle Session, the Soviet denunciations that led to the Gulags."
42 failed experiments of rebuilding a society based on an extreme collectivist policy. It simply reinforces "someone" has skin in the game of seeing assets divested from "people", uploaded to government and downloaded to government cronies when the collectivist state fails as it must. An asset concentration strategy - as can see by the A) Chinese billionaires, their kids in Canada "Daddy bought a corporation for me to run, and I love spending the little time I spend in the office bossing people around like a tyrant and the rest trying to circumvent regulations and tax policy!" (if I sound bitter, its because I've lived it) and B)Russian oligarchs. None of these give a f about the actual people. The culture wars are a divide & conquer process if you ask me, the predecessor to consolidation of assets to the government.
One of the things I really like about the Swedish model is that they have gone through their period of worst case interventionalism, and realised they need a more ergonomic approach to free market capitalism and that long-term welfare is not a healthy life path. Have you seen Johan Norberg's Sweden: Lessons for America? It has to rate amongst my top ten YouTube documentaries.
Something worth thinking about- in the nineties I went through a low point after a compromise agreement with a retail bank. For some reason, although I would have found work- it might not have been entirely appropriate for my abilities, given my low morale. On a whim I signed up for one of the vocational training course which Tony Blair's government was spending a fortune upon. Granted, the course was crap- for call centre workers- but It gave me a much needed boost to morale, which in turn meant I showed keen at exactly the right moment to land a job with the manufacturer I spent a number of years with.
We should be willing to spend money to triage people when they become unemployed, because it's well worth it as an investment- when one considers the alternative cost over the long run. This is why I also believe in targeting criminal reform towards youthful offenders. Scotland achieved amazing results with their efforts at tackling youth knife crime- through a combination of community resourcing and access to economic opportunities.
Of course, what the America activists get wrong is that they see it as an alternative to proactive policing, when every time it has worked the proactive policing was maintained- often giving police officers an extra incentive to get wayward kids into productive programmes.
I more often hear about the culture clashes between conservative immigrants as they encounter an outwardly permissive society, so looking forward to the Norberg vid and re-evaluating Sweden's social policies.
Oh God! Job loss. My salary never recovered from the credit crisis. It illustrated for me that the value proposition of public sector vs. private sector was no longer valid. As corporations fired, they adjusted salaries and benefits downward, unthinkable for the public sector, so even when jobs started reappearing, they were recharacterized at a lower salary with unpaid overtime, 2 weeks annual vacation. Police and teachers entering the workforce could make close to what I could almost out of the gate after the salary attrition in finance was complete. If I get laid off again I'm selling up and moving to a pleasant backwater. I tried for one of those programs in Canada, but was never able to obtain a place. Def need a better triage process in Canada.
I remember you talking about Scotland's approach in another article you wrote. I do agree that policing and community should be symphony of interaction. I would love to be pleasantly surprised, but I have yet to meet the activist that has a balanced viewpoint. We hear "defund the police" in Toronto from the activists and never-do-wells, meanwhile everyone else, the silent majority who just get on with it really don't feel that way at all. They want the protection police afford.
"I have yet to meet the activist that has a balanced viewpoint. We hear "defund the police" in Toronto from the activists". Hello Polly, from a fellow Torontonian! I've enjoyed reading your comments, and I'd certainly put myself in the 'balanced view-holding activist' category, although Geary may differ on that point. Personally, I don't know anyone who advocates 'defunding' the police - it's such a stupid term. But I know and agree with plenty of people who advocate for reform - I'd say cops here in TO have a pretty bad track record on mental health issues - mostly through no fault of their own, they have enough on their plates - so that strikes me as an easy place to start. Where are you seeing these huge homeless camps? I haven't been downtown much with the pandemic, but I lived in Chinatown a decade ago and there certainly wasn't a huge problem at that time.
The 2020 reference is indeed a reference to eyesight related issues. As I wear glasses for short sightedness, I thought it was quite ironic- although it could also be taken as a claim of special insight!
Yes, X-Ray Spex - good catch. Homeless encampments are in Lamport Stadium (50+ tents), Trinity Bellwoods Park has 50-75 tents currently, under the Gardiner was cleaned up. There's people pitching tents pretty well anywhere - Bay Street, random parks like the one south of Queen on Spadina or the one next to St james Church (?) east out on King. I can't say I've been to a park in the last 2 years that doesnt have people camping out.
I don't agree with the cops having a bad track record though - you have no idea the volume they have to deal with and these aren't easy people to deal with, from personal experience. Many don't want to enter the system, even a system that offers compassion and help.
nah, I've worked with cops, one of my oldest friends is a cop, and I have a long, personal history with the mental health industry. I do know the subject well. Bill Maher always asks, why are cops so willing to use lethal force when mildly threatened? the job isn't even top-ten most dangerous. here in Toronto, we've got at least half a dozen dead on mental health calls since Sammy Yatin and Andrew Loku. that guy who wandered out of East General hospital in a hospital gown and got shot on the street. two recent calls that ended in deaths for a suicidal young woman and an older dude with dementia. these interactions are all spectacular fails by the cops. it's not anti-cop to call them out when they fail, everyone has good and bad days at work.
Mental health calls are tough. Toronto police are actively doing more in concert with social workers which is awesome, esp. since family was there, but weapons calls - they don't know how it's going to pan out, and peel has less experience. Everybody reacts differently in the heat of the moment, they're not machines. But not all those you reference above are the cops fault. Politics influence alot of how these things pan out, esp. in the press. I have 5 cops in my immediate family including one whose name you'd know being from the GTA - so I get the inside scoop on alot of this (and 2 teachers). This gang and their privileges colour my perception of overpaid public servants. I still wouldn't want to do that job.
Is class warfare really better? "Class" is its own odd term, as it's been used to keep people in their place, in their station of life, high class vs. low class, just as miserably as any other form of grouping lots of people by some feature, in this case wealth.
There are lots of reasons for someone to have lots of money, and others to have very little, and their circumstances aren't all the same, nor are all people in that condition of a group identity. A safety net for temporary setbacks during hard times can easily be handled by negative income tax. A safety net for the disabled, sick, elderly or otherwise incapable can too, though many incapable people would need more expensive and personalized attention. A safety net for drug addicts, lazy people and those playing the system would cause many taxpayers to eventually reject based on the "welfare queen" stereotype.
I really don't understand why governments don't move towards negative income tax. The only hindrance I can see is Pournelle's Law. How horrible would it be if the only obstacle is the fact that an NIT ends much of the bureaucracy?
Affirming what you say here. The average person who through hard work (and not through cronyism) has built wealth, why don't they deserve it? And yes - a discerning safety net for the disabled, sick, elderly or people suffering a temporary set back (such as unexpected job loss) - well who would argue? I feel where this goes off the rails is in politicians attempting to drum up voters and a surplus of social activists who over-advocate for permissions for never-do-wells that have unintended consequences throughout society. Toronto parks and sidewalks downtown are literally over run with homeless encampments - many of them have been provided actual apartments or a hotel room at taxpayer expense but they can't use drugs/drink and socialize as they wish there, so they prefer to spend summer in the parks. You can literally not find a bench to sit and eat your lunch at, garbage and human waste is found everywhere, not to mention discarded needles because apparently walking to the garbage can is an inconvenience. Tough love for these and there's way too many of them, they are a growing demographic, because they are enabled.
Good stuff again Geary. As a progressive, you've definitely helped me understand the "Nordic Model" - I admit I had thought these countries were more 'socialist' than they are. I am curious - where did you get the number 42 from? I'm not doubting you, I've just never encountered a definitive number before.
The American definition of socialism seems to somewhat differ from the rest of the world's definition of socialism. For the rest of us, state ownership of the means of production tends to be the benchmark. I wouldn't classify more comprehensive social safety nets as necessarily socialist. The 42 figure came from a Joe Rogan podcast with the CEO of Whole Foods, but I did quickly check it against a Wikipedia source.
Remember, communism is the natural progression of socialism, because of its inherent tilt towards totalitarianism, so communism would be included in this figure. As an interesting side note, both Sweden and India oscillated between periods of socialist influenced government and Keynesianism in the post WWII period, with predictably stagnant economies. It was only when they both embraced the free market in the nineties that both rapidly began to experience rapid economic growth.
This doesn't mean they abandoned their ethos or their social programs- India still has its rice dole, and Sweden still has its social safety nets. But it does mean a different attitude towards capital and tax policy.
This should be engraved at the entryway of every place where governments discuss and decide policy:
"It is far better to base social progress movements on our Common Humanity, rather than dividing us up into arbitrary groups and asking the perceived dispossessed to unite against a Common Enemy. With the common humanity approach we get the successes of MLK and the Civil Rights movement. With the common enemy approach we get the Chinese Struggle Session, the Soviet denunciations that led to the Gulags."
42 failed experiments of rebuilding a society based on an extreme collectivist policy. It simply reinforces "someone" has skin in the game of seeing assets divested from "people", uploaded to government and downloaded to government cronies when the collectivist state fails as it must. An asset concentration strategy - as can see by the A) Chinese billionaires, their kids in Canada "Daddy bought a corporation for me to run, and I love spending the little time I spend in the office bossing people around like a tyrant and the rest trying to circumvent regulations and tax policy!" (if I sound bitter, its because I've lived it) and B)Russian oligarchs. None of these give a f about the actual people. The culture wars are a divide & conquer process if you ask me, the predecessor to consolidation of assets to the government.
One of the things I really like about the Swedish model is that they have gone through their period of worst case interventionalism, and realised they need a more ergonomic approach to free market capitalism and that long-term welfare is not a healthy life path. Have you seen Johan Norberg's Sweden: Lessons for America? It has to rate amongst my top ten YouTube documentaries.
Something worth thinking about- in the nineties I went through a low point after a compromise agreement with a retail bank. For some reason, although I would have found work- it might not have been entirely appropriate for my abilities, given my low morale. On a whim I signed up for one of the vocational training course which Tony Blair's government was spending a fortune upon. Granted, the course was crap- for call centre workers- but It gave me a much needed boost to morale, which in turn meant I showed keen at exactly the right moment to land a job with the manufacturer I spent a number of years with.
We should be willing to spend money to triage people when they become unemployed, because it's well worth it as an investment- when one considers the alternative cost over the long run. This is why I also believe in targeting criminal reform towards youthful offenders. Scotland achieved amazing results with their efforts at tackling youth knife crime- through a combination of community resourcing and access to economic opportunities.
Of course, what the America activists get wrong is that they see it as an alternative to proactive policing, when every time it has worked the proactive policing was maintained- often giving police officers an extra incentive to get wayward kids into productive programmes.
I more often hear about the culture clashes between conservative immigrants as they encounter an outwardly permissive society, so looking forward to the Norberg vid and re-evaluating Sweden's social policies.
Oh God! Job loss. My salary never recovered from the credit crisis. It illustrated for me that the value proposition of public sector vs. private sector was no longer valid. As corporations fired, they adjusted salaries and benefits downward, unthinkable for the public sector, so even when jobs started reappearing, they were recharacterized at a lower salary with unpaid overtime, 2 weeks annual vacation. Police and teachers entering the workforce could make close to what I could almost out of the gate after the salary attrition in finance was complete. If I get laid off again I'm selling up and moving to a pleasant backwater. I tried for one of those programs in Canada, but was never able to obtain a place. Def need a better triage process in Canada.
I remember you talking about Scotland's approach in another article you wrote. I do agree that policing and community should be symphony of interaction. I would love to be pleasantly surprised, but I have yet to meet the activist that has a balanced viewpoint. We hear "defund the police" in Toronto from the activists and never-do-wells, meanwhile everyone else, the silent majority who just get on with it really don't feel that way at all. They want the protection police afford.
"I have yet to meet the activist that has a balanced viewpoint. We hear "defund the police" in Toronto from the activists". Hello Polly, from a fellow Torontonian! I've enjoyed reading your comments, and I'd certainly put myself in the 'balanced view-holding activist' category, although Geary may differ on that point. Personally, I don't know anyone who advocates 'defunding' the police - it's such a stupid term. But I know and agree with plenty of people who advocate for reform - I'd say cops here in TO have a pretty bad track record on mental health issues - mostly through no fault of their own, they have enough on their plates - so that strikes me as an easy place to start. Where are you seeing these huge homeless camps? I haven't been downtown much with the pandemic, but I lived in Chinatown a decade ago and there certainly wasn't a huge problem at that time.
BTW, is your name an X-Ray Spex reference?
The 2020 reference is indeed a reference to eyesight related issues. As I wear glasses for short sightedness, I thought it was quite ironic- although it could also be taken as a claim of special insight!
Yes, X-Ray Spex - good catch. Homeless encampments are in Lamport Stadium (50+ tents), Trinity Bellwoods Park has 50-75 tents currently, under the Gardiner was cleaned up. There's people pitching tents pretty well anywhere - Bay Street, random parks like the one south of Queen on Spadina or the one next to St james Church (?) east out on King. I can't say I've been to a park in the last 2 years that doesnt have people camping out.
I don't agree with the cops having a bad track record though - you have no idea the volume they have to deal with and these aren't easy people to deal with, from personal experience. Many don't want to enter the system, even a system that offers compassion and help.
nah, I've worked with cops, one of my oldest friends is a cop, and I have a long, personal history with the mental health industry. I do know the subject well. Bill Maher always asks, why are cops so willing to use lethal force when mildly threatened? the job isn't even top-ten most dangerous. here in Toronto, we've got at least half a dozen dead on mental health calls since Sammy Yatin and Andrew Loku. that guy who wandered out of East General hospital in a hospital gown and got shot on the street. two recent calls that ended in deaths for a suicidal young woman and an older dude with dementia. these interactions are all spectacular fails by the cops. it's not anti-cop to call them out when they fail, everyone has good and bad days at work.
Mental health calls are tough. Toronto police are actively doing more in concert with social workers which is awesome, esp. since family was there, but weapons calls - they don't know how it's going to pan out, and peel has less experience. Everybody reacts differently in the heat of the moment, they're not machines. But not all those you reference above are the cops fault. Politics influence alot of how these things pan out, esp. in the press. I have 5 cops in my immediate family including one whose name you'd know being from the GTA - so I get the inside scoop on alot of this (and 2 teachers). This gang and their privileges colour my perception of overpaid public servants. I still wouldn't want to do that job.
Is class warfare really better? "Class" is its own odd term, as it's been used to keep people in their place, in their station of life, high class vs. low class, just as miserably as any other form of grouping lots of people by some feature, in this case wealth.
There are lots of reasons for someone to have lots of money, and others to have very little, and their circumstances aren't all the same, nor are all people in that condition of a group identity. A safety net for temporary setbacks during hard times can easily be handled by negative income tax. A safety net for the disabled, sick, elderly or otherwise incapable can too, though many incapable people would need more expensive and personalized attention. A safety net for drug addicts, lazy people and those playing the system would cause many taxpayers to eventually reject based on the "welfare queen" stereotype.
I really don't understand why governments don't move towards negative income tax. The only hindrance I can see is Pournelle's Law. How horrible would it be if the only obstacle is the fact that an NIT ends much of the bureaucracy?
Affirming what you say here. The average person who through hard work (and not through cronyism) has built wealth, why don't they deserve it? And yes - a discerning safety net for the disabled, sick, elderly or people suffering a temporary set back (such as unexpected job loss) - well who would argue? I feel where this goes off the rails is in politicians attempting to drum up voters and a surplus of social activists who over-advocate for permissions for never-do-wells that have unintended consequences throughout society. Toronto parks and sidewalks downtown are literally over run with homeless encampments - many of them have been provided actual apartments or a hotel room at taxpayer expense but they can't use drugs/drink and socialize as they wish there, so they prefer to spend summer in the parks. You can literally not find a bench to sit and eat your lunch at, garbage and human waste is found everywhere, not to mention discarded needles because apparently walking to the garbage can is an inconvenience. Tough love for these and there's way too many of them, they are a growing demographic, because they are enabled.
Very interesting! Thanks a lot!
The phrase "an insult to lemmings springs to mind!"