Leftists should stop talking about Taxing The Rich

The YouTube Channel Tribunate has a good video on the Grain Dole of Ancient Rome.  There is a lot that’s misunderstood about it including over stating just how progressive it actually was.  But regardless it was upon introduction a massive relief to the Poor and Working Class.

And the Rich did not in any way pay for it, it was paid for unfortunately by the exploitation of the conquered people of the colonies.  Not a single Grain of it was paid for by Taxing the wealthy.  Yet Rome’s Aristocratic Patricians hated it anyway, they despised it and never stopped trying to undermine and destroy it.  Because the more Desperate the poorest in a society are, the easier they are to exploit.

And that fact is even more true under modern Capitalism than it was in ancient economies.  

There are now a number of good YouTube videos on Modern Monetary Theory or MMT.  The fact is Modern States with Currency Sovereignty like the United States create the money they spend and do not need a source of income to have enough money.  One of 1dime's videos on the subject is about how wrong it is to claim social programs are funded by Taxing the Rich.

However 1dime said one thing in that video I do disagree with, he said we should still Tax the Rich for “moral reasons”, well in my opinion as doing things for “moral reasons” is the height of immorality actually, it’s founded upon an Idealist rather then Materialist framework.  Morality should be based on reducing harm and benefiting society.

These videos do explain why some Taxation is still needed for the Government Backed Currency to have it’s objective value.  But once we understand that the Rich will oppose social programs like UBI and Free Healthcare and so on regardless and that how much money the Government has doesn't actually matter, I say we should stop giving them the excuse of perceived victimization, because however hallow to us online Leftists that is, America’s ruling ideology has made most even working class Americans very sympathetic to the idea of wanting to keep what you think you’ve earned.

And another added benefit is that if CasualHistorian is right about Lowering Taxes being the only truly unifying principle of the Republican Party, then once self proclaimed Communists stop pretending we need to tax the rich to achieve even our short term goals we can start trying to run in primaries even when only the Republican Party is having one.  Their Primaries are easier for a GrassRoots candidate to win anyway, and the right kind of Communist can build a coalition based on being pro Gun Rights and being Libertarian on Social Issues and courting the non-interventionist Anti-War wing of the Party.

I wish I understood this MMT stuff 4 years ago when I tried to argue something similar after the 2020 Election.

A lot of Leftists like to use Austerity as a scare word, as a core embodiment of the Capitalist Economics they oppose.  Well the actual way to be the exact opposite of Austerity is to propose increased spending and lowering taxes at the same time.

We need to start making it more clear that our objective is for the masses to have more, not inherently for anyone to have less.  

But if the existence of the Ultra Wealthy bothers you that much, I believe what they have will naturally start to diminish once the masses are less exploitable, we don’t need to take from them directly.

Basic Income could become the next New Deal

Andrew Yang liked to cite Thomas Paine's Citizens Dividend from Agrarian Justice as part of arguing that the Basic Income is a very American idea.  What's interesting though is that Thomas Spence criticized Paine in The Rights of Infants, he agreed with having a Basic Income but combined it with full Abolition of Private Property.  Spence was an influence on Charles Hall who Karl Marx cited as an influence.  The Basic Income was part of the Socialist Tradition before Marx was.

But in the last several years as the Basic Income has become a trendy proposal online among progressives and social democrats, a number of Socialist and Communist YouTubers have made videos on how it's bad actually because it's another Capitalist plot to appease the Proletariat with a mere reform of the Market Economy.  And the thing is The American Left has made this mistake before.

During the first term of the FDR administration both the Socialist Party of America and the CPUSA under William Z Foster opposed the New Deal because they saw it as a Capitalist plot to appease the Proletariat with a mere reform of the Market Economy.  And that decision more then anything else is what killed the early Socialist Movement in the United States.

In the 1932 Presidential Election the Socialist Party Candidate Norman Thomas got 884,885 votes and Foster got 103,307, which were both up from their 1928 numbers.  In 1936 Thomas got only 187,910 votes and the CPUSA Candidate Earl Browder got 79,315 votes.  Now Browder would actually reverse Foster's position on the New Deal but it was in 1936 itself he took over the party, it was kind of too late but still perhaps why the CPUSA didn't have as big a drop.  

Marxists love to talk about materialism, how our main objective Politically should be to advocate for The Working Class not get all caught up on some specific Utopian Vision.  It was absolutely possible to support the New Deal and Huey Long's Share Our Wealth project while still talking about how that's a drop in the bucket compared to what our Party wants to do and also criticizing the Racism in how the New Deal was being implemented.  Their decision not to do that but flat out oppose the New Deal destroyed most of the support the Socialists had in the country, they never returned to their 1932 numbers.

Caleb Maupin loves to white wash the CPUSA's New Deal era history, lying by omission to make it sound like they were always in support of the New Deal.  He calls himself a Foster Communist not a Browder Communist even though his opinions on the New Deal and the Popular Front are exactly what Browder's break with Foster was.  It also amuses me how all his hyping up of the early CPUSA's legacy ignores how the Socialist Party was always more popular, they Elected multiple Mayors the CPUSA elected none, they twice got a Representative in Congress the CPUSA never got anyone in Congress.

The Basic Income isn't Communism or Socialism, but as far as Goals achievable in the short term to do something for the Working Class it's doable alongside Universal Healthcare and Student Loan Debt Forgiveness.  We need to be seen fighting for them not against them.

Yet some Communists especially MLs actually have bought into the American fetishization of Work as a concept, and that is a problem.  Most people do want to work and not just sit around all day doing nothing, making it so they don't literally have to in order to not starve increases their bargaining power.  But some people don't, and that's why I recommend the book The Right to be Lazy by Paul Lafargue.

The thesis of that book has nothing to do with why Marx said of certain French Marxists "If they are Marxists then I am not a Marxist". Rather it was Lafargue and Guesde's militant Anti-Reformism that he was referring to.  Now someone who's still anti-Reformism as a general rule may say Marx supported those Reforms because they organically arose out of the demands of the working class, and I'd argue the same is happening with the Basic Income, it's growing broad popularity is at it's core coming from the left of center yet being supported even by some conservatives and libertarians makes it a true manifestation of the will of the Proletariat.

The Ten Planks of The Communist Manifesto are NOT the definition of Communism.

Taking the 10 Planks out of their context is where the basis of defining Socialism as "when the Government does stuff" comes from.

For a lot of people this small piece of the Manifesto is the only Marxist material they've ever been exposed to.  Which frankly would be like claiming to understand Christianity if your knowledge of The Gospel narrative ended on Good Friday.  I long ago used to think these were the entirety of the Manifesto from how people like Kent Hovind presented it, but the truth is they occur at the end of chapter 2 of a 4 chapter manifesto almost as an after thought.

The Definition of Communism is a Moneyless, Classless, Stateless Society.  The definition of Socialism is collective ownership of the means of production.  Most politically educated people know that the core disagreement between Anarchists and Marxists is on the transitional state.  However Marxism actually has two transitional states, Lower Phase Communism (which Lenin called Socialism) is itself the product of a prior transitional period.  Lenin on the eve of his death still did not believe Russia was Socialist yet but only almsot ready for it, and remember for Lenin Socialism referred specifically to the Lower Phase.  The 10 Planks are still State Capitalism even when genuine Communists are doing them.

The problem with someone like Casual Historian thinking they can critique how "Communist" America is by going down these planks and measuring how much they apply like some sort of Political Compass test is that Marxists do not support these measures inherently for their own sake.  They are the measures Revolutionaries are supposed to take after a Revolution.  A State doing these things is only even mildly Communist if it's a truly Proletarian State, if it's far more actually Democratic then The United States has ever been.  Or at the very least a State controlled by unapologetic Socialists, not merely mildly socially progressive Liberals who the Conservatives will call Socialists no matter what.

I am a Communist who does not in fact fully agree with these planks even in their proper context, but that's besides the point of this post.  Even to the most enthusiastic apologists of these planks, they are not themselves what Communism is.

The thing about the 2nd Plank, the Income Tax plank.  Is that even in a proper revolutionary context it is not compatible with an income tax on hourly wages.  In the context of what Marxist ideology is, it's obvious that Profits or Surplus is the income meant here, however the Manifesto didn't feel the need to explain that since I don't think the idea of taxing hourly wages was even proposed yet back then.  

Unfortunately in the modern U.S. the Taxation discussion has become so poisoned that everyone now thinks calling for any kind of Tax cuts much less abolition is inherently right wing.  But the truth is there is nothing Socialist about taxing wages, Marxist ideology is founded on the belief that wage laborers already aren't getting nearly the compensation they deserve even before they are Taxed. Liberal progressives and even many Social Democrats have convinced themselves that "paying taxes is how I contribute to society", but if it's only Corporate Profits being Taxed those Profits are still generated by the labor of the workers, it's still a contribution you are truly responsible for.  It's not greedy or selfish to want the Government to stop stealing from the already minimal compensation you were forced to accept.

After the Paris Commune Marx and Engels actually said that the 10 planks of the Manifesto should be rewritten to clarify that the Communists can't simply co-opt the existing state institutions, they are fundamentally Capitalist institutions at their core, so the Revolution needs to tare those down and rebuild them from scratch.

That leads me to Plank 5, the Central Bank.  The problem with saying The Federal Reserve can be a fulfilment of this plank is that in addition to all the context I provided above, a truly Socialist Central Bank would be actually Publicly owned not privately owned with alleged Government oversight.  A lot of supporters of our current monetary status quo really want to dismiss the Private nature of the Federal Reserve, saying it's only privately owned in the most technical sense. And yes I know a lot of the Anti-Federal Reserve rhetoric out there comes from a Right Wing conspiracy theorist world view, but that doesn't change that Socialists should also oppose such an institution.  The Fed being run by presidential appointments means nothing when the shareholders of the Fed are the same super rich people financing both major parties.

It's not always just Anti-Communists who misuse the Manifesto in this way.  Plank 8 for example is why there is any leftist opposition to The Basic Income.  And  I've also seen Leftists argue that we should ban Home Schooling by pointing to the 10th Plank.

Now Plank 10 is the one I most disagree with even in it's proper context, I'm agaisnt Public Education as a concept.  But regardless the current Prussian Model Public School system is a fundamentally Capitalist institution who's goal is to indoctrinate not educate, to create passive industrial wage laborers.  It's become long outdated even within the framework of Liberal Capitalism as society is now deindustrializing.  So it's certainly not something The Left should defend just because there is talk of Public Education in an 1848 Manifesto.

In my opinion Communists should themselves be doing Homeschooling and not subjecting our children to this broken and evil system.  If that comes with allowing Conservative Evangelicals to do their Right Wing home schooling then so be it.  Even Conservative Home Schooling is better then the existing School System which doesn't have a single redeeming quality.

The French Revolution is still one of the most misunderstood subjects of History

[Update: My conflation of the Girondins and the Society of the Friends of Truth was a Mistake and Brissiot was ultimately a Liberal.  But it is still true that the primary perpetrators of the Terror were not the Communists and the people who were became victims of it.]

The Truth about the Hamiltonian v Jeffersonian conflict

First of all it's a bit of an oversimplification even to make it seem like all the "founding fathers" fell neatly into two simple camps.  Even Adams was not quite a pure Hamiltonian.

Meanwhile Thomas Paine was literally a Pre-Marx Communist.  And for nearly 200 years everyone knew that, he was disowned from being counted as a Founding Father by Patriotic Americans for most of the 19th and 20th Centuries during which time the only people who liked him were Marxists and other Socialists.  But then Ronald Reagan started quoting Paine as if they agreed on anything and only then did even Paine become a founder the modern American right thought they could appropriate.

However the greater point of this post is the absurdity of the desire Americans have to see our current political debates as a neat linear continuation of the debates between Hamilton and Jefferson.

Alexander Hamilton was a big government Conservative while Thomas Jefferson was a small government Liberal.  In modern American politics those terms seem like inherent contradictions, but the historical fact is the modern American way of thinking about that is the aberration.  During the age of Revolutions the idea of being a small government Conservative was a complete and total oxymoron completely unprecedented in 6000 years of human history.

On the modern American political spectrum the closest group we have to modern Jeffersonians are the American Libertarians, but even that analogy has flaws.  Plenty of Libertarians are aware of their overlap with Jefferson and like to then paint the Democrats and Republicans as merely an internal dispute among the Hamiltonians.  However even that doesn't pan out.

The modern Democrats and Republicans in addition to each breaking with Hamilton in some way on where they disagree with each other are in fact in even greater conflict with Hamilton in the areas where they agree.  Neither party wants the Presidency to be a lifetime appointment, neither wants to limit the right to vote to only wealthy land owners and both support legal immigration only disagreeing on how much leniency to give "illegal immigrants".

On some of those issues it may seem like many Republicans would like to take Hamilton's position but just know they can't get away with it currently.  But their fundamental belief in "states rights" and "cutting taxes" make them firmly incompatible with Hamiltonian Federalism.  The only modern parties that kind of agree with Hamilton on having a strong federal government are completely opposed to Hamilton in terms of what that government power should be used for.

I'm going to be consistent and not call Hamilton a Fascist since I am someone who criticizes when that term is used too loosely including by my fellow Leftists.  There is at least one core ingredient of Fascism Hamilton was hostile to and that was Populism, Hamilton was disgusted by the very idea of trying to gain political support from the unwashed peasants.  But his actual position on Immigration would get him called a Fascist by most of Tumblr and Breadtube.

There is no actual Hamiltonian party in modern American politics, and no that's not based on allowing any minor disagreement to rule someone out, every Party or Politician capable of gaining even 1% of the vote in a modern election has some major break with a core foundational principle of Hamilton's ideology.  That's why he was the least celebrated Founding Father before a certain Rapper decided he weirdly identified with him as that Musical laments at the end. 

However the United States is ironically the only nation where Hamiltonianism is completely dead.  I would say Alfred Hugenberg was basically the Hamiltonian of Weimar Germany.  The Party that has dominated Japan for most of it's post-War history the LDP is Hamiltonianism for Japan as purely as any party could be.

Now remember Anime is a Niche interest even in Japan.  Most Art tends towards being at least a little left of the center of the culture that produced it, but Anime in particular makes most of it's money off less then 10% of the total population.  So with few exceptions most Anime is made by people who's political leanings range from Jefferson to Paine.  Though obviously none of them would use American figures to define their politics, Franklin, Jefferson, Paine and Lafayette don't even show up in any of the many Anime depicting The French Revolution (which Hamilton btw absolutely opposed long before the Terror gave him an excuse).

Update April 2021:  I stumbled on this YT video which in fact already existed when I first wrote this.

https://youtu.be/Zt4lmLK_OUc

That video is not the Libertarian perspective I criticized above, but rather part of the Genre of trying to make the Federalists sound like modern Democrats and the Jeffersonians sound like modern Republicans.  The deception in this video is mostly lies by omission, and it generally misrepresents Hamilton more then it does Jefferson.  Because yeah if Jefferson were alive today he probably would vote Republican at least during Primary season.

Hamilton wanted the Government involved in the Economy, in that sense he looks more like a modern Progressive.  But he did NOT want that interference to be on behalf of the workers or the poor, he wanted the Government getting involved to help big business.  He would absolutely be a Union buster if Unions were a thing yet.  He was for higher Taxes then Jefferson was, but he didn't want it being the wealthy who were Taxed but the workers.

The Federalists were also in bed with the Congregationalists who really wanted the Federal Government to enforce their Puritan Christian Moral Values on everyone which made that party greatly feared by the South (which was believe it or not fairly irreligious back then, and nominally what they were was Anglican/Episcopalian with Presbyterians in Appalachia) and all of the religious minorities in the Northern Colonies.  

Jefferson's "wall of separation" letter was to a Baptist Pastor (Baptists back then were still far from becoming the nation's largest Sect) in the context of promising to protect them from the Congregationalists.  Hamilton meanwhile constantly used Jefferson's lack of devoutness against him in his public attacks.  Hamilton was the only Founding Father who used Religion Politically the way modern Evangelical Republicans use it, even though Benjamin Rush was closer to agreeing with them Doctrinally (minus his belief in Universal Salvation).  Hamilton would absolutely have called Obama a Muslim.

His position on Immigration was openly Racist, he wanted the Untied States to be a WASP Ethno-State.  The Hamilton Musical presents Hamilton as an "immigrant" and stresses that repeatedly, but that was the most technical of technicalities.  He was a WASP who was born in one overseas WASP colony and moved to another overseas WASP colony.  No one would have thought of him as an Immigrant.

Another thing about that Musical that bugs me is how it tries to present the debate about getting involved in the post-French Revolutionary wars as analogous to the 2002-2003 Iraq War debate.  Now I am a Pacifist on nigh universal principal, but Hamilton was taking this position for the wrong reason.  And later when we got pulled into those wars on the other side of what Jefferson wanted the Federalists were the ones responsible for that, because Hamilton weirdly actually loved Britain in-spite of how he just successfully rebelled against it.  So no he didn't actually want us out of the War, he just wanted to wait till he could get us in on Brittan's side.

Since we're dealing with Europe which then like in the 1930s-40s was geo-politically the center of the world.  The debate over involvement in that war should perhaps be considered more analogous to the debate about World War 2 then Iraq.  The French Republic abolished Slavery and Emancipated Jews, but Brittan under Pitt's government was determined to re-enslave the Hattians.  Jefferson did change his tune on supporting the Republic when the Terror got out of control under Robespierre, but Hamilton and his modern selective fanboys paint The Revolution itself as inseparable from that madness.

2020 will be a pretty important Election Generationally.

It will be the first election in which 100% of people who qualify as Millennials will be old enough to vote, even the absolute youngest of us.  And also the first Presidential Election in which people too young to qualify as Millennial will be old enough to Vote, in which people born in this Century/Millennium will be able to contribute to deciding who will shape it.

I've already talked about how I believe the voting age should be lowered and so it shouldn't have taken this long.  But it did and we should pay attention to that.

What's disappointing is that this is the 2nd Election in which some Millennials are old enough to Run for President, and yet none has.  The youngest Candidate running in either of these Elections to be considered viable enough to even get into the Debates is Andrew Yang and he was born in 78, so still two years to old to qualify as a Millennial.

But perhaps he's close enough, many people his age have younger siblings who qualify, and the 90s would have the same Nostalgic significance to him that the 00s have to me.

But in the 2024 Election I will tolerate no more excuses, if someone born in the 80s isn't on one of those debate stages I will be vocally annoyed.  "But the Boomers didn't get a President till some of them were in their late 40s" you may respond.  Well yes that's part of the problem, the Boomers didn't take power till they were already too old for it and we don't need that happening again.

Hell we still have people older then the Boomers being allowed to run which is just ridiculous.  Someone who'd be turning 80 during their first year in office should definitely not be allowed to run in my opinion.

In addition to wanting to lower the Age you can Vote at, I'd also lower the Age you can run for President by at least five years. I feel most truly great forward thinking world leaders of Human History were younger then 35 when they took power.  From a Biblical Standpoint David was Crowned at 30.

Technically in 2020 I'm about the youngest person old enough to run in 2020.  I'll be turning 35 on the last day of October of that year.  I however am someone who's done nothing with my life besides writing these Blogs.

I'm probably gonna Vote for Yang even if someone younger jumps in, I am using more then just age to decide.  But my message to politicians my age is simply to prepare to run in 2024.

Marxism has become a Regressive Ideology

I'm really tired of seeing Left Tubers like PedRo/Zeria and BadMouseProductions act like you must be supporting the Status Quo if you're not treating the writings of a man who died in 1883 as the Inspired Infallible Word of God.

What Karl Marx proposed may well have been the most ideal system to implement while he was alive and for like maybe a century after.  But his ideas were also heavily dependent on the Industrial Revolution, the whole "working class" emphasis.  The Industrial Revolution is over, we're entering a New Technological Revolution now and so clinging to this idea that we need a "working class" is simply being stuck in the past.

As far as I'm concerned right now opposing the Basic Income is opposing poor people, I don't care what you're ideological excuse is.  And if your alternative to the Basic Income is to make it illegal to be unemployed then you have literally just called for what I consider the worst possible nightmare dystopia.  I don't care if in theory you want the law enforced in such a way that only the Employers and never the Unemployed would be punished, there is no way that is how it would ever be implemented.

I still hypothetically desire a Star Trek style cashless society, but there is no chance of implementing that in the next decade.  But there is something that could massively help the poorest and least privileged in society that we have a real viable chance of implementing in less then half of that time, and that is a Universal Basic Income.

If you're going to claim the UBI can never be "Progressive" because it's technically still "Capitalist" then you've missed the point of why we're opposing Capitalism in the first place. 

You're not going to fear monger me into opposing it because there are Billionaires who support it, I've never based my ideology on demonizing people.  Nor do I care about any guilt by association augments based on pointing to the "Libertarian" supporters who want implementing it to go with removing all the other social safety nets, I obviously oppose that.  I'm proposing we pay for it by implementing a 5% Wallstreet Sales Tax, raising the Capital Gains Tax and abolishing the 50c3 Tax Exempt Foundations (including Churches).  And also legalizing Weed and Taxing it.  The Wallstreet Sales Tax alone can make more then what is needed yearly to give every American a Thousand dollars a month leaving plenty of money aside for a Universal Healthcare System and other safety nets.  Plus I want to cut our Military spending at least in half as well as completely de-funding ICE, the DEA, the ATF and Homeland Security.

Opposing the UBI because you fear it would "Save" Capitalism simply proves you've put your ideology before your principles.

I will be voting for Andrew Yang in the Democratic Primary, and I also know from what I've observed that only he has a chance of beating Trump in the General Election anyway.  Yang's version of the UBI is not the best, but he's the only one championing it in this Election.

A recent Twitter Thread I made

https://twitter.com/JaredMithrandir/status/1090615530824916992

I might be adding to it in the future.

I'm not an expert on Economics, but here is broadly what I support.

Hopefully someone who is more of an expert then me will get where I'm coming from and work out the details.

First you should know that some of the earliest posts I made this blog I'm not exactly gonna stand by anymore.  For example the post I made a little over 4 years ago on Taxation has some of what I still view as the truth in it, but in 2014 my politics were still broadly in Ron Paul mode.  The three documentaries I recommended in that post I'm not gonna recommend anymore, one was an Alex Jones film, another was one Alex Jones did repeatedly endorse.  I don't know much about the over all politics of the people behind The Money Masters.  But basically I don't care as much about the Federal Reserve as I once did, I think it does need more oversight but it's not my main boogeyman anymore.

I'm also undecided on what my ultimate position on Tariffs is.  I know I oppose all existing "Free Trade Agreements" but I'm not sure what to do after that.

At the end of this post I'm gonna link to three Peter Coffin videos.

Phase 1: Taxation.

The problem with how we talk about Taxes is that it simplistically comes down to Conservatives lower them and Liberals raise them, with not nearly enough discussion of the different kinds of Taxes.

There is even specifically more then one Tax called an Income Tax, so I need to be really specific about what I mean when I say I want an Income Tax abolished altogether.  What I'm referring to is sometimes called the Personal Income Tax or the Labor Income Tax.  It's the Tax on the worker's hourly wages.  The working class isn't making what they deserve to start with, so their wages certainly shouldn't be Taxed.

There might be some people who, compared to what the average America makes, seem to qualify as "Rich" that are making an hourly wage. But when I talk about the "Super Rich" I'm talking about people who even make Hollywood Celebrities and Rap Stars look humble.  Contrary to the impression you get from watching how the Business world is depicted in most movies and TV shows, most people holding the position of CEO are not the actual owners of the Company but a person hired to run the Company for them, like The Hand of The King on Game of Thrones.  But even owners who do hold that title themselves, whatever wage their paying themselves is a small percentage of their total income.  No one in the Fortune 500 is in any significant way effected by the Labor Income Tax.

So I ideally want the Basic Income Tax abolished, but for now I'm willing to settle for it being massively lowered.  It's percentage should certainly be lower then the Capital Gains percentage.

I do not want to lower the Capital Gains Tax, or any other type of Income Tax that focuses on big businesses.  In fact I want to introduce a new one.  I support the Wallstreet Sales Tax.  I suspect that can easily more then make up for the income the Government would lose by getting rid of the Labor Income Tax, but I don't know for certain since I'm not an expert.

It's not about "penalizing people who are more productive", it's about the fact that with great power comes great responsibility, and under Capitalism wealth is the only real power.

I believe the 50c3 Tax Exempt Status needs to be abolished.  Tax Exempt Foundations are a big part of how the Rich avoids paying the taxes they're already supposed to pay.

Also I fully support Legalizing marijuana and putting a Tax on that similar to the current Taxes on Tobacco and Alcohol.

Phase 2: Minimum Wage.

I fully support the current movement to raise the national Minimum Wage to $20 an hour.  In the long run I think the working class should be making even more then that, but this is a good place to start.

Phase 3: Basic Income.

As I've said before, I support having a Basic Income sometimes called a Guaranteed Minimum Income. (Scott Santens follows me on Twitter.) 

I think it's highly Immoral that so many Americans are offended by the notion of Feeding people who don't work.  Scarcity is a Myth, we are now producing enough to provide for everyone, we simply don't.  All life is Sacred whether or not one "Contributes to Society" and many may have the ability to contribute in ways that aren't so easy to make money off of.

The notion that if everyone gets money for Free we'll wind up with not enough people working to be able to Tax to pay for that simply isn't true.  Maybe if we tried to do it in our current Taxation system, but certainly not in a model like what I proposed above.

The two main Basic Income models being proposed ares $10,000 a year, or $1000 a month which would come to $12,000 a year.  Most people are going to need or at least want more then that ultimately, especially if they're raising a family.  And those making Millions or Billions every year certainly aren't going to suddenly decide a Thousand a month is enough, those people are addicted to constantly making more money.

The people who are so lacking in ambition that $1000 a month would be enough for them, are mostly people who are having trouble holding a job anyway.  I can say that because I'm one of them.  But even then those people are a small percentage of those having trouble holding a job.  For many people their need to hold a "real job" are only slowing down their ability to peruse their true talents.

Now some Basic Income supporters are saying that it would be Cheaper then our current system of social safety nets and so we wouldn't even need to increase the Government's revenues.  I do want to increase the state's revenue since I want to keep at least some of those.  Charles Murray is a racist which is why some on the Left use his support of it against the Basic Income. The problem is people like Webster Tarpley are still Capitalist in their mindset, they still worship the idea of work.

Phase 4: I support having a single payer Health Care system, like most other developed nations.

Phase 5: If you wanna cut Government spending, it's military spending we waste the most money one.  Ron Paul proposed cutting the Defense Department's budget in half and that is one area I still agree with him on.   If you want to abolish some government agencies, abolish ICE, Homeland Security, the DEA and the ATF.  Not the the ones that regulate corporations.  We could also be spending a lot less money on Prison and the Police by decriminalizing Drugs and other Non Violent Victimless Crimes.

That's all the phases for now.

My ideal society arguably goes even beyond that.  But these proposals are the compromises that I think could vastly improve things.

Here are three Peter Coffin Videos I recommend.  The third is much longer then the others but still essential information.  I don't always agree with him, but these three videos are very informative and enlightening.

Why Criticize Capitalism?

Why We Need Single Payer Healthcare.

Overpopulation.

The Average Anti-Marxist American doesn't even understand what Marxism is.

I consider myself a type of Communist and even now a type of Socialist, yet I am not a Marxist.  And the ability to explain what that means is complicated by the fact that most Americans treat those three terms as completely interchangeable.  The irony is my objection to Marx is that he actually encourages the very mentality I find so offensive about traditional conservative American values.  You see what makes Marxism more specific then the first two labels is it's emphasis on the Working Class or "Proletariat".

Where I agree with Marxism is that the Working Class do deserve more then what they actually get for the Work they do.  A mere Hourly wage, even the proposed $20 an hour Republicans and "Libertarians" currently find to be too ridiculously high a minimum wage, is mere pocket change compared to what they deserve.  The people working full-time especially deserve well over twice that.

My Dad spent most of his life working hard for various employers, one in particular for over 30 years, and yet he's not as financially secure as he should be.  He had to retire later then he originally planned with less then he originally planned.  But the sad Irony is it's the Pride he puts in all that hard work he's done that makes him hate anything "Socialist" because he thinks all forms of Socialism simplistically come down to taking from those who work and giving to those who don't.

Karl Marx's proposed "Utopia" included forcing everyone who was physically able to to work.  He was not about giving people Free money for nothing.  The difference between Marxists and American Conservatives is simply that Marxists see the super-rich as the parasites leeching off the working class while Conservatives are selling a ridiculous narrative that it's the poor who are the parasites.

The thing is I kind of am the Strawman these people think all Socialists are.  My ideal world is one where I can get away with doing nothing but sitting around watching Anime all day.  So that's part of why I support things like a Basic Income or "Guaranteed minimum income".

But of course I'm the kind of person people are going to be least tolerant of hearing propose such an economic system.  As someone who's currently and has been for most of my adult life Unemployed, and yet am Privileged and Lucky enough that I haven't suffered the way most people for whom that can be said are suffering.  But I'm going to attempt to defend it anyway.  And I am after-all still worried about my future.

I'm offended by the notion that only those who work matter, that you have to "contribute to society" to deserve to get anything from it.  Left-Wing Marxists may put more polite dressing on how they express that attitude then Conservatives, but it's still basically the same attitude.

I think everyone is entitled to the means to keep them alive. You should work for what you want in addition to that.

The argument against the proposed Basic Income system is a belief that if you allow people to get money for nothing you'll eventually wind up with not enough people working to Tax to pay for that system.  But most people are going to want more then the proposed $10,000 a year or $1,000 a month.  Those currently used to making millions every year aren't going to just stop.  And those raising families are gonna need more then that.  Which goes back to my belief that those working should be making far more then they are.  I also want the Labor Income Tax to be drastically decreased and the Capitol Gains Tax to be significantly increased.  And I support the proposed Wallstreet Sales Tax.

But the people who's desires are small enough that they could live off just that should.  I'm not saying NEETs should live in luxury, just that those who don't want to work because they don't want that much from life shouldn't be forced to have to.

The thing is not everyone who contributes to society does so in a way that is viable to make money off of.  Many artists were starving the whole time they were alive and not appreciated till they were dead.  And the equivalent of that does still exist.  I'm not even the biggest EndlessJess fan, but I feel he's an artist who's contributed more then enough society to deserve to be set for life.

And me, I'm someone trying to contribute to society via these Blogs and interacting with people in Social Media.  But I'm not yet remotely doing anything I think anyone would feel worth Paetroning me for.