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Comment by BigDaddyD | Hacker News Reader

> the nutty "taxation is immoral" argument.

I agree that argument is nutty! That's why I didn't make it. Where did I say, in fact you supposedly quote me, "taxation is immoral".

I said taking money from some and giving it to others by force is immoral for the reasons people like him give.

Taxation is moral so long as it is spent on programs that benefit everyone. The military, roads, a court system, the post office, police, etc.

Taxation is immoral when you take from someone you "feel" has to much money and give it to someone you think "deserves" it.

I know it's easy to make emotional arguments and I know it's easy to feel charitable with other people's money, I'm in no way rich btw, but you have to see the problem with that?

> We all have a say in the laws. That's why it's fair we all have to live by them.

Tyranny of the masses is a thing and something our founders tried to prevent.

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> Taxation is moral so long as it is spent on programs that benefit everyone. The military, roads, a court system, the post office, police, etc. > Taxation is immoral when you take from someone you "feel" has to much money and give it to someone you think "deserves" it.

Dude... you're just framing it differently. You can easily look at UBI and taxes as they currently are as moneys from individuals that go into a large pot which is then spent to help the greater good. Roads do that, police do that, and so does public assistance programs like social security and welfare. But somehow UBI is different because it is cash? It's all the same. It does the same basic thing: lower income inequality.

It isn't "feeling" they have too much money and "deserving" it. It would be a calculated number that is used to maximize total utility of the economy. You're the one making the emotional argument here.

Not sure why anyone these days would oppose a system that would lower income inequality from the absurd point it has reached.

I'll try and be more specific.

If there are ten people in a country and money is dispersed in this way:

Bottom 2 each have $10 Middle 6 each have $20 Top 2 each have $50

I would support a system that takes say... 10% from everyone.

Bottom 2 are taxed $1 each == $2 Middle 6 are taxed $2 each == $12 Top 2 are taxed $5 each = $10

They then put all of the money in a "pot" to be spent on a military. This benefits everyone because a poor homeless person in Alabama will be defended equally as well as a middle class secretary in Georgia.

However, if you tax the Top 2 for an extra 10% which comes out to $10 more and then put it in a "pot" that will only be spent on the Bottom 2, we have a problem.

This is a problem because you are treating 20% of the population unfairly simply because they have more money than the other 80%. This is being charitable with their money and not letting them decide to do with it as they please. I support the poor in my own way by donating money, volunteering for charity, etc. but it is wrong for you to take a larger percent of my money and give it to another group of people for arbitrary reasons.

> It would be a calculated number that is used to maximize total utility of the economy.

I would love to see the geniuses and God level economists who can make those calculations and factor in every aspect of the economy. You can't, it's impossible.

Riches have more to gain from a working society and more to loose from a failing one.

Or as Adam Smith puts it: "Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defence of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all."

In that sense, it's quite natural that the richer you are the more you contribute.

It's interesting that in your example you seem to tax wealth and not income. I don't know of any country in which the tax system is based around wealth and not income.

And indeed, a flat tax on wealth would probably be the fairest tax, but I imagine that it's a lot harder to do than taxing income or consumption.

You wrote, "Taking money from one person and giving it to another by force is wrong." You had an "especially" in there, so you think it particularly applies here, but you still said that statement is true generally.

And UBI advocates generally say it benefits everyone. In fact, that's why they prefer it over other government programs! Because it goes to everyone! I get the policy disagreement on this, but that's still different than the "taxes are immoral" argument. And that's the one that bothers me when I hear it because it's an attack on democracy.

As to our founders - yes, they built protections in our Constitution. Is your point that UBI is Unconstitutional? Because that's a legal argument I'd be interested in reading!

> And UBI advocates generally say it benefits everyone.

It benefits the poorer at the expense of the rich.

>In fact, that's why they prefer it over other government programs!

I would support the UBI as a replacement for the current welfare system but only as a replacement and only because it is less morally bankrupt and ineffective. Just to clarify, I don't support the UBI in general but if you're willing to completely get rid of our current system then we can talk.

> Is your point that UBI is Unconstitutional?

No that was a response to the commenter supporting Democracy over Republicanism.

But the argument is it benefits the poorer more than it hurts the rich.

A society should search to maximize utility. Let's make some numbers up. One starving person has a utility of 1. One not starving person has a utility of 10. One mega-ultra-rich person has a utility of 100. One ultra-rich person has a utility of 99.

If you take money from 1 mega-ultra-rich person and give it to 2 starving persons:

    99-100   = -1
    2*(10-1) = 18
             +___
              +17

So the society gains 17 units of utility from the change. Are you claiming that 1 unit of utility for the rich is more valuable than 18 units of utility for the poor? Because the rich person agreed to society's contract, and figured out that they gain much more utility from roads, labor, police, laws than they lost from UBI. A rich American wouldn't be rich if they didn't receive any benefits from society.

> But the argument is it benefits the poorer more than it hurts the rich.

This is a really hard point to prove.

> A society should search to maximize utility.

"Society" doesn't do anything. There is no hivemind. We are each individuals pursuing our own self interest. It is up to the individual to help those who need it, not a small group of people who think they know what we should all be doing.

> One starving person has a utility of 1. One not starving person has a utility of 10. One mega-ultra-rich person has a utility of 100. One ultra-rich person has a utility of 99.

If you take money from 1 mega-ultra-rich person and give it to 2 starving persons: 99-100 = -1 2*(10-1) = 18 +___ +17

You are going to have to clear that up for me because I am frankly not understanding it.

> A rich American wouldn't be rich if they didn't receive any benefits from society.

Yes and society benefits from having rich people with capital invest in companies that produce things we want. It's not a fixed pie.

The main issue I see with this line of thinking is that you simply cannot speak for "society" and whenever we as a species tried to organize everything to our personal standards it has failed miserably.

Sorry, the formatting was off. It's fixed now.

>Yes and society benefits from having rich people with capital invest in companies that produce things we want. It's not a fixed pie.

That's my entire point. It isn't a fixed pie. The whole concept that a person "owns" part of the pie is dubious, because they relied on everyone else to get that part of the pie.

>you simply cannot speak for "society"

I'm not speaking for society. Society is speaking for society by voting.

>whenever we as a species tried to organize everything to our personal standards it has failed miserably.

What are you referring to? Because I see:

-public services

-public education

-firefighters

-single payer healthcare

-law & order

-criminal justice

-Software standards (you're talking to me over a "personal standard" called TCP/IP)

The rich have nothing to do with UBI. It's the middle class, or new machines/automation, that we can only take from. Lets do a little thought experiment. Lets forget money and make some assumptions.

First, lets assume that after UBI the total amount of work done does not change. Then lets assume that after UBI the poor does not work any harder and certainly neither does the rich (do the rich even work at all?). So if poor were to come out ahead from this deal, then it must be either the middle class, or the new machines (automation), that are now working harder.

And thus if we come up with new automation, or a way for the poor to work more, then UBI does not have to come at anyones expense.

You are assuming a static system in which wealth transfer is a zero-sum game. Unfortunately that isn't the world we live in. It is entirely possible that administrative systems to transfer wealth could utterly destroy the economy (for example, Venezuela).

In particular I'm at a loss to understand the arguments for UBI that assume the system could/should provide a sufficient income for everyone to 'live' independent of any other source of income. How exactly would that work? Wouldn't the people actually working be just a bit unhappy being taxed to support people who didn't work at all? Wouldn't people on the margins simply stop working? Wouldn't this system drift into a completely unsustainable configuration?

In Scandinavia everyone is already guaranteed a certain amount of income by law. If you can't get it by working, then it is provided by welfare. I don't see UBI being any different.

But you're right. I don't know how people in the US would react. Maybe they would see it as an evil tax from rich to poor and never accept it. However, I'm arguing that it doesn't have to come with any extra tax burden.

There is an UBI experiment starting in Finland in 2017. If it proves to be successful, then I have no doubt that it will be implemented elsewhere too.

Everyone benefits from a strong middle class and not-too-poor class. Including you. Also I believe there is an argument to be made that more equal society is better for everyone involved.

I agree, that's why I support a system that benefits them the most, free market Capitalism and a government that does only what it should.

What if it were true that free market nor capitalism no longer benefit the poor, what do we do then? I think this can be argued since all markets are already regulated (thus not entirely free) nor is capitalism taken to its logical extreme anywhere in the world.

> What if it were true that free market nor capitalism no longer benefit the poor, what do we do then?

If that were true then we would switch to a better system. I don't think it is and I don't think there is one.

I don't know what capitalism's logical extreme is but if you are talking about anarchy then I am not for that. I believe government serves a very important role in capitalism. It enforces contracts (legal system), protects third parties (environmental hazards), and defends against foreign or domestic aggression (police, military).

This isn't to say capitalism is perfect! Of course not but it is better than every other conceived system and has proven so by bringing millions out of poverty.

Afaik income inequality has been rising despite the fact that markets have been deregulated. Of course the two may have no correlation, but if the current trajectory continues, then I suppose it's inevitable that something has to be done. As far as I can tell, if we must do something, then we can either deregulate more or implement socialistic schemes such as UBI.

So you think it makes more sense for the government to force companies to pay a minimum wage? How is that a free market? Yet without a minimum wage, poverty in the US would be tremendous.

Wouldn't the market be freer if we slowly replaced that minimum wage with UBI (i.e. decrease minimum wage and increase UBI over time). The market would then be free to set prices more accurately because there would be a lower artificial price floor. This also helps create more jobs to offset the ones lost to automation, since people can afford to be paid less, a wider variety of jobs can be economically viable. Additionally, people would have more freedom in find jobs that they enjoy and are well suited for. All of this would increase economic efficiency.

Thus, yes, UBI could benefit everyone by making our labour market freer and more efficient. Basically, UBI is a form of economic infrastructure, and thus is a MORAL thing to spend taxes on.

> So you think it makes more sense for the government to force companies to pay a minimum wage? How is that a free market? Yet without a minimum wage, poverty in the US would be tremendous.

That is an assertion/opinion, not a fact. You are also confusing a problem (poverty) with a solution (minimum wage). There are many other ways to tackle poverty that don't involve distorting labor markets with minimum wage. There is also a strong argument to be made that a minimum wage that is above market prices hurts low-skilled workers by making it illegal for them to be employed.

Personally I'd rather have the challenge of supporting people with low-paying jobs vs the challenge of supporting people with no job at all.

I don't think anyone would ever argue that a government should do things it shouldn't. The most common disagreement is not if the government should do more than it should, but what exactly it should do. :P

Wealth redistribution programs do benefit everyone in that it prevents masses of people from getting desperate enough to murder you and take your stuff.

Emotional argument not found reality.

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