@jsbarretto

a perfect case in point for #UBI (Universal Basic income)

@tshepang
I would need to give this idea some more thought.

You see, if a service does not cost anything at all, there tends to be waste and abuse.

If everyone is given a basic income to cover their (basic) needs, this would solve that problem too, don't you think?

In any event, public goods should be held by a (non-corrupt) state and not by private citizens or corporations (e.g. water rights).

@jsbarretto

@tshepang @jsbarretto

(1/n)

Very interesting. You thought of corruption by administrators (and rightly so, see my posts, e.g., about Nestlé and water-rights abuses, e.g., in the US and elsewhere.)
I thought more of abuse by citizens. People tend to value services that are free of charge low.

Regarding the showcase of #Scandinavian countries, they cannot be the benchmark. I'm no #anthropologist but I'd suspect that the following factors influence this result:

1) relatively...

@tshepang @jsbarretto

(2/n)

small, and until recently, a fairly
homogeneous population.

2) Rich and highly educated populations.

3) Centuries of common enterprise (e.g. #Viking raids.) Mist other countries lack such characteristics.

Very different: Native American tribes.

There might be other factors.

People, generally, tend to be ill-disciplined in huge crowds where individual stakeholdership and malfeasance don't lead to ostracism, as in ancient times. (My hypothesis)

Therefore,...

@tshepang @jsbarretto

(3/3)

...even public goods must have a monetary, and not just an intrinsic value. This can be offset by #UBI.

It's a zero-sum game, really, but leads to significantly different results, IMHO.

//

@tshepang @HistoPol @jsbarretto

You can't witness the degree of preference though. Suppose you have two beaches, one has better surfing. On any given day 1000 people go to both beaches. Both beaches are "equally good" right? What if I told you that the 1000 surfers would pay $40 to park there, but the 1000 other beach goers would only pay $5. It's not enough to see how many people go where to give you good information about how to allocate resources.

@tshepang @HistoPol @jsbarretto

For example it might tell you to allocate resources to a special bus that goes to the surfing beach that can take surfboards, where you can board the bus a few miles away in some kind of parking structure, enabling more people to surf the beach without requiring us to build parking next to the beach. Just as an example.

@tshepang @HistoPol @jsbarretto

In general there are other ways you can gain information, but money transactions makes for a single comparable measuring stick between any goods and services, do you enhance the beach, or have more concerts in the park, or have more bus transport or plant more fish in lakes or provide more educational opportunities for kids or ... having a way to compare everything (price) is vastly superior to a hodgepodge of surveys and whatnot.

@tshepang @HistoPol @jsbarretto

The problem is we have made money be a thing you only get for working for wages etc. Suppose we start charging reasonable prices for all sorts of public goods, the linux kernel, beach access, census data... whatever. But then on the other hand, everyone gets an equal UBI of maybe $40000/yr which is more or less say twice the average cost of consuming all the public goods we started charging for. So you can buy a typical quantity of the public goods, plus $20k

@tshepang @HistoPol @jsbarretto

The money charged for the public goods can go to public maintenance, and whatever isn't used there, can be paid out again by the govt as part of paying the UBI. you're recycling money, using it as an information-carrier. That's how it's supposed to work, to direct resources where they're needed. If you started charging for public goods you'd triple or quadruple the GDP, but to keep the consumption constant you'd need a lot more money circulation... ie the UBI

@tshepang
The corruption and inflation questions are good questions though. IMHO a transition to UBI should proceed through a gradual process. For example if we give out 10% of GDP/capita, and then slowly transition more services to payed consumption, GDP would grow and therefore UBI would grow.

Corruption needs a different solution entirely. There are plenty of services that serve the corrupt not the supposed targets. Bridges to nowhere etc.
@HistoPol @jsbarretto

@tshepang

(1/2)
That is a good thought.--As you state yourself, though, money was invented after barter trade. And none-monetary IOU's have been quite customary in many cultures.--Not saying that it is corruption, but just think of the "Legacy" anomaly at US Ivy League colleges, for instance.

People are very inventive.

Also, as seen with the price-cap discussion in many European countries during the current #EnergyWars, even...

@dlakelan @jsbarretto

@tshepang

(2/2)

..."rich" G20 countries cannot afford to provide unlimited price caps, so there is always room for fraud, if e.g. a company requires a lot more.

So, in reality, I think reducing the money in circulation (not even abolishing it) by providing UBS would maybe only momentarily reduce the corruption problem. People are very creative.

@dlakelan @jsbarretto

@tshepang
I disagree with that statement.
A lot of resources will be lost with trial and error, trying to find a balance.
If, in the end (I see 9mths to 3 yrs) everything re/ corruption is "back to normal," it is not worth it, I think.

@dlakelan @jsbarretto

@dlakelan

I used to think that way, too.
Until I found out what has really happened during the past 40-50 years.
And I am not only talking about the #GinnyCoefficient (there was an excellent pod of #TheEconomist on this topic some months ago) and the betrayal of the global population by #BigOil, or the neocolonial practices of such Robber-Barron companies like #Nestlé.

(all hashtags are recurrent subjects in my posts)

@tshepang @jsbarretto

@HistoPol @tshepang @jsbarretto

Well, I do think most of those things you decry which I also decry are examples of "special cases" created by the rich by buying government power. This is all too common though. Something needs to change.