What if I paid for all my free software?

I suspect this fellow is just getting his ideas out onto paper so he can look at them. There are a couple of internal inconsistencies that I can't explain otherwise.

> What makes us corruptible though? My bet's on a lack of money.

This was a good example. This bet is then followed by a compelling evidence that lack of money is not the problem, and proposes education as a solution. Money is a lot of things, but lacking it as a cause of corruption is hard to put. Poor people are not known for being corrupt, they don't have enough power to wield it corruptly.

Ditto taxes, where he wants people to pay a fair share but I can't figure out what that is or what the justification is for it being fair. Taxes are, from top to tail, completely artificial and there is no inherent moral issue with tax avoidance. Some taxes - like a tax on alcohol - is often explicitly to trigger tax avoidance. The fairness of taxes is a complex question that is independent of the law. (Although the answer usually seems to be "the fair option is people who aren't me pay more!" and people fail to see the irony).

And since we're talk about tax fairness, this gentleman would probably enjoy researching land taxation. That is the most promising way towards everyone paying their fair share.

IMO free software exists at the noise floor where the value of software fluctuates around zero. Give a large but finite number of bored monkeys typewriters and they'll eventually write a really great guide to swinging on vines. But they won't create King Lear.

People shouldn't have to work.

UBI and social services should be funded by high tax rates so people can go to school and think and produce free stuff made from free stuff that was developed, mined, harvested, produced and transported by free stuff with free energy and production costs.

Governments get taxes from...?

Edit: And for those who were alive to experience it the high tax rates under Eisenhower were sustainable by the only first world economy in the aftermath of a global conflagration when the US was rebuilding W. Europe and Japan and had abundant access to energy. They continued into the 60s, dropped to 70% for a long time and led to Stagflation at the same time OPEC formed.

Basing anything on the pretty unique anomaly of the US in the 50s is a mistake.

It's a lot of words to write "From each according to his abilities to each according to his needs," which if you belive is fine--"A least it's an Ethos"--but argue for it instead of smoke and mirrors. Mega-taxing the rich is as much short-term thinking as maximize shareholder value.