We should not means test social benefit programs (suspect, Sanders, economic)
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Those Doctors and Engineers? If you ask them, they work past the financial need because they want to.
Please explain how you get that unskilled person who has a limited basic education to work when you give them all they need for free without a means test?
if you say that they can improve their lives by working, how so when everyone is getting the same thing for free?
Its the trap in this entire idea. Once you tell someone that if they work they can improve their condition, guess what you end up with?
Free enterprise markets.
If you force them to work to sustain the no means test welfare state, guess what you end up with?
Its called revolution.
It would be interesting to see the explanation out of those two scenarios.
Technology allowed for better manufacturing methods. With that came the ability to mass produce products for consumption and they became practical commodities.
Had the people bot worked to afford high margin products, that cheap phone you say the pooor get for free would never exist.
Somewhere in the idea put forth, forgotten is that if government is the producer and supplier and there is no profit incentive ( the fallacy of machine generated wealth) then the entire cost of innovation goes unfinanced.
When the incentive to work is removed, as in this idealistic world being described where does financial resources come from to get obama phones ibto the hands of the poor? From the labors of the Doctors and Engineers?
Sorry, you are using an unwieldy number of words, so I had to try and just excerpt something like a message from them, which is why I quoted only an abbreviation of one of your posts.
Yes, financial resources for Obama phones ultimately come from the engineering ingenuity/labors of Steve Wozniak and similar guys. Intellectual capital is at the root of any wealth or commodity. Your "work" without that kind of capital would forever amount only to the work of hunting buffalo and gathering edible mushrooms. Following your logic, people who generate intellectual capital should never share their ideas or products of their ideas with the "undeserving" (ie, with 95% of the society), because, heck, I figured something out, and it will belong only to me, my family and my narrow clan.
Your other quote of Marx (I think he is who you are quoting, although it could be Lenin or similar, not sure) to the effect that everybody should work according to his abilities and get according to his needs - this is something neither I nor anybody else on this forum ever advocated (and least of all Friedman, an ultimately free-market-defending economist, whose ideas I think some of us are - or at least I am - discussing here). If your need is for a BMW, I'd flatly say that you should work for it, and if you don't have an ability to work at that level, a second-hand Ford Focus is a driveable vehicle too. So no, I would not give a BMW out for free to those who need it, because taxpayers do not have an easy capability to fund a free a BMW for everyone that needs it. But taxpayers (and I am a major taxpayer myself) WOULD have an easy capability to provide basic food and shelter for everyone, provided that non-taxpayers (ie, the poor) stop procreating like rabbits. Because a scruffy housing and bad food cost so little, I don't even care if the recipients of these low-cost tax gifts would not ever work for a better standard of life; I just ask that they do not burden me with multiplying poverty (and consequent crime) in the form of their numerous children. But this is a bit off the topic - the point is that once the basic commodities (bed and breakfast, basically; not by any means a BMW) are so cheap that they could easily be given to everyone for free, why not give them to everyone?
Again, my incentive to work is not for material gain, but for self-esteem; however, I am also aware that this might be because my family had provided me with basic necessities for survival (and much more than that) when I was developing the awareness that self-esteem comes from a work well done. Had I been hungry and homeless, maybe I would have been so focused on getting food and shelter that I would have never even gotten to the point of feeling a need for self esteem. I was fortunate to have gotten some basic handouts from my family, and if the society overall (ie, the taxpayers) has resources to easily give these basic handouts to everybody (including to those people who cannot get them from their family), then why not?
You have never been in poverty and you don't seem to understand it.
People don't always have the ambitions to improve their life. They are discouraged when odds are unlikely. For a poor person today, it's nearly impossible to rise to where you are. They are used to poverty. Now your welfare adds some comfort in it, why not take it and be happy with it. You have time in your hands to spend with your family, go out for a walk, and they are free of charge. A poor person's quality of life goes down when they find the kind of work they are able to find. Their quality of life might actually be better when they are on welfare.
You don't want that life, but you are not them.
The system is designed not to lift them, but to provide minimum comfort in exchange for safety and peace for the rich. Regulations and high-end environmentalism raise cost of living, discourages businesses from hiring, etc. Eventually, all that shifts the burden to the poor. It makes them less likely to walk out of poverty.
I do not think that the Democrats are interested in eliminating poverty. I think they need poverty as a strategic agenda for votes. They represent just the left side of the establishment.
You seem like a good person, who has a genuine interest in the propaganda agendas of the ruling class. You need a political party that doesn't yet exist. There are many of you out there, horrified by Trump and disappointed by Hillary. But we all know that the establishment will once again get the White House and nothing will change.
I suggest that you first have to fix the lack of willingness to help the poor. The left (who have betrayed people like you) has an issue of unwillingness, not yet an issue of what to do yet.
Sorry, you are using an unwieldy number of words, so I had to try and just excerpt something like a message from them, which is why I quoted only an abbreviation of one of your posts.
Yes, financial resources for Obama phones ultimately come from the engineering ingenuity/labors of Steve Wozniak and similar guys. Intellectual capital is at the root of any wealth or commodity. Your "work" without that kind of capital would forever amount only to the work of hunting buffalo and gathering edible mushrooms. Following your logic, people who generate intellectual capital should never share their ideas or products of their ideas with the "undeserving" (ie, with 95% of the society), because, heck, I figured something out, and it will belong only to me, my family and my narrow clan.
Your other quote of Marx (I think he is who you are quoting, although it could be Lenin or similar, not sure) to the effect that everybody should work according to his abilities and get according to his needs - this is something neither I nor anybody else on this forum ever advocated (and least of all Friedman, an ultimately free-market-defending economist, whose ideas I think some of us are - or at least I am - discussing here). If your need is for a BMW, I'd flatly say that you should work for it, and if you don't have an ability to work at that level, a second-hand Ford Focus is a driveable vehicle too. So no, I would not give a BMW out for free to those who need it, because taxpayers do not have an easy capability to fund a free a BMW for everyone that needs it. But taxpayers (and I am a major taxpayer myself) WOULD have an easy capability to provide basic food and shelter for everyone, provided that non-taxpayers (ie, the poor) stop procreating like rabbits. Because a scruffy housing and bad food cost so little, I don't even care if the recipients of these low-cost tax gifts would not ever work for a better standard of life; I just ask that they do not burden me with multiplying poverty (and consequent crime) in the form of their numerous children. But this is a bit off the topic - the point is that once the basic commodities (bed and breakfast, basically; not by any means a BMW) are so cheap that they could easily be given to everyone for free, why not give them to everyone?
Again, my incentive to work is not for material gain, but for self-esteem; however, I am also aware that this might be because my family had provided me with basic necessities for survival (and much more than that) when I was developing the awareness that self-esteem comes from a work well done. Had I been hungry and homeless, maybe I would have been so focused on getting food and shelter that I would have never even gotten to the point of feeling a need for self esteem. I was fortunate to have gotten some basic handouts from my family, and if the society overall (ie, the taxpayers) has resources to easily give these basic handouts to everybody (including to those people who cannot get them from their family), then why not?
If I invent something, there is no law, no rule and no mandate that requires me to share it with anyone.
Yes, I can keep it all for myself.
If you want it, you must pay me for it but first I must be willing to sell it to you. I don't need to sell it nor do I even need to tell you I have it.
You are caught up trying to say that the innovation comes first and then continues to support the make believe fantasy you described. What you fail to understand is that in the system you describe, there is no Apple or Microaoft or any other company in the first place.
You seem to present that in the dream world the people who founded them would do so under the rules you say are needed. No, they wouldn't because the ideas you present are wanting the cake, eating it and then thinking someone else is going to bake it for you.
Those Doctors and Engineers? If you ask them, they work past the financial need because they want to.
Please explain how you get that unskilled person who has a limited basic education to work when you give them all they need for free without a means test?
if you say that they can improve their lives by working, how so when everyone is getting the same thing for free?
Its the trap in this entire idea. Once you tell someone that if they work they can improve their condition, guess what you end up with?
Free enterprise markets.
If you force them to work to sustain the no means test welfare state, guess what you end up with?
Its called revolution.
It would be interesting to see the explanation out of those two scenarios.
Millions of people work now and never get ahead. Obviously, working was for them not a solution.
Work according to your ability and receive according to your needs.
Where have we heard that before? Where has it worked? Just as important, how many people were enslaved because of it and how many killed?
To whom much is given, much shall be required. Yes that does sound familiar.
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