Will No-One Think of the Artists?
I’d like to see every citizen receive a basic income of AUD$30,000 per year. No exceptions, no means testing. This is why.
Godfrey Moase, “activist and union organiser,” writing in the Guardian:
I once worked in a call centre where a few of the interviewers would be regularly rostered to do phone surveys about female incontinence products. Asking strangers whether they lost a teaspoon, a tablespoon or more in volume per occasion is a tough gig. Then again, the horror of the role was somewhat less visceral than that experienced by a worker I’d once represented who had to manually slit the throats of chickens at a poultry factory. At Centrelink, he had listed his occupation as “killer.” What strikes me about a dirty job isn’t that it needs doing – it’s that someone has to do it to get by. There’s no other choice for them.
A state of affairs that prompts a radical solution:
Imagine the creativity, innovation and enterprise that would be unleashed if every citizen were guaranteed a living. Universal income provides the material basis for a fuller development of human potential. Social enterprises, cooperatives and small businesses could be started without participants worrying where the next pay cheque would come from. Artists and musicians could focus on their work.
One for our series of classic sentences, perhaps. But imagine the creative avalanche that would be unleashed by Mr Moase alone. 30,000 Australian dollars a year, extracted from others and given to him, could result in even more Guardian articles telling us that artists and musicians shouldn’t be expected to earn a living. Because, well, obviously, they’re artists and musicians. Or indeed “activists.” It’s a bold ambition, the goal of which, as one commenter conceives it, is to “distribute drudgery fairly” via some massive rota system, with dirty jobs – say, abattoir work and drain maintenance – being done, intermittently, by doctors, hair stylists and other random individuals with no relevant expertise. I can’t help thinking that’s been tried somewhere, not too long ago, with – how shall I put this – very mixed results. Though presumably artists and musicians would be exempt from this too.
In the comments Tim Worstall tries to shake some sense into Mr Moase’s skull.
Update:
Elsewhere in the Guardian thread, a fan of Mr Moase says with a hint of triumph, “This universal income… makes employment optional.” For him (and no doubt others), that’s the goal. The sweet, sweet cherry of state-sanctioned slackerdom, all in the name of emancipation and virtue. “Submission to a corporation,” we’re told, “will not be mandatory for your survival on Earth.” Though leeching indefinitely on the
skills and effort of others – who will be forced to submit to him – will be perfectly okay, apparently. And as regular readers will know, this is not an uncommon sentiment among our self-declared moral betters.
Yes, Giving It To The Man™ by taking it from others.
Imagine the creativity, innovation and enterprise that would be unleashed if every citizen were guaranteed a living.
Imagine the idleness that would be unleashed if nobody had to work for a decent living.
Imagine the idleness that would be unleashed if nobody had to work for a decent living.
Yes, but artists and musicians would be free at last!
Let me get this straight.
I get $30,000 whether I work or not.
So I don’t bother working because I’d rather do other things.
And because I don’t work I don’t pay the taxes that pay for everyone else’s “free” $30,000.
And because I don’t work I don’t pay the taxes that pay for everyone else’s “free” $30,000.
Yes, the prospect of chronic and widespread idleness, with a huge number of people using their time to watch TV and generally pootle about – does seem to be a major flaw in the theory. As does the likelihood of a rapidly shrinking tax base to fund this slacker’s utopia. And how any of the dirty or unglamorous jobs – the ones that that Mr Moase frets about – would get done reliably, if at all, remains a mystery. If you’ve a choice of unblocking public toilets or listening to music, and you’re getting paid $30,000 either way, which would you be more likely to choose? Rather than workers getting “fair compensation for what they do,” i.e., something dirty and unpleasant, isn’t it just as likely that many would say, “Bugger it, I’m sitting in the sun”? It’s almost as if Mr Moase and his admirers hadn’t quite grasped human nature. Indeed, one commenter tells us, quite emphatically, that “there is no such thing.”
I find this comment by lil_andy, in response to Tim Worstall, an indication of a far more troubling trend:
I seem to recall a similar article being written in the UK edition a few months ago. The key difference is that article suggested the implementation of a land value tax. This of course would be the essential component, combined with a basic income, in transforming Australia into a truly capitalist society whilst also maintaining the social benefits of a modern economy.
This abuse of the language, the lie of these leftists claiming that they are really capitalists or are true fans of free ” and fair” markets, is down right Orwellian. And for the most part goes unchallenged. Of course arguing with such stilted (being generous with that word) logic is a battle with no end, like trying to nail jello to a wall.
Someone else in the comments points out that every layabout in the world will immediately want to move to Australia. So they’ll be unable to afford it without some incredibly strict immigration rules. Which would, of course, make them monocultural, unvibrant, colourless racists. I doubt Mr Moase would want this, somehow.
It’s as if he hasn’t thought it through properly.
” … with dirty jobs – say, abattoir work and drain maintenance – being done, intermittently, by doctors, hair stylists and other random individuals with no relevant expertise”
Umm, err, wasn’t this tried somewhere? China, wasn’t it? I think it was called the Cultural Revolution??
David
“It’s almost as if Mr Moase and his admirers hadn’t quite grasped human nature.”
Indeed, but I think the problem with leftists is not so much that they don’t grasp human nature, but more that they have some notion that the human animal is perfectible. No doubt Moase would claim that once his socialist paradise has been realised, most humans will simply become better and those that don’t will be worked on by the creatively-freed good people, until they too become better. Schemes for modifying the human race so that it conforms to some ideal dreamed up by self-important intellectuals have been a staple of lefty thinking since the days of the early Fabians. It would be funny were it not for the fact that, if taken seriously, it’s the kind of thinking that invariably leads to misery on a catastrophic scale. Moase’s idea is so bewilderingly stupid and unworkable that I think we can assume it will just disappear, fortunately, but there’s no harm in giving Moase and similar bozos a metaphorical kicking just to make sure!
Umm, err, wasn’t this tried somewhere? China, wasn’t it?
Quite. And what could possibly go wrong with a repeat performance? Hey, it’s what our betters want. Because they care, no doubt.
but more that they have some notion that the human animal is perfectible.
Well, many do deny the existence of a common, statistical human psychology, as if How People Are were indefinitely plastic and therefore amenable to all manner of coercion – sorry, correction – by more enlightened people, i.e., people like themselves. The point, I think, is that the proponents of such utopias tend to imagine themselves as the ones doing the perfecting of others. They themselves already being higher in some implicit moral hierarchy. Not that they would admit to a belief in hierarchies, being as they are so egalitarian.
‘Imagine the creativity, innovation and enterprise that would be unleashed if every citizen were guaranteed a living’.
The only states I can think of that can basically subsidise their own citizens are Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE. These are not exactly beacons of ‘creativity, innovation and enterprise’, let alone places where I’d like to live even as an ex-pat (and definitely not as one of the hundreds of thousands of South and South-East Asian guest workers who are employed as slave labour to do many of the ‘dirty jobs’ Moase despises).
‘I once worked in a call centre where a few of the interviewers would be regularly rostered to do phone surveys about female incontinence products. Asking strangers whether they lost a teaspoon, a tablespoon or more in volume per occasion is a tough gig. Then again, the horror of the role was somewhat less visceral than that experienced by a worker I’d once represented who had to manually slit the throats of chickens at a poultry factory. At Centrelink, he had listed his occupation as “killer.” What strikes me about a dirty job isn’t that it needs doing – it’s that someone has to do it to get by. There’s no other choice for them’.
I’m sure that every digger who has served in Afghanistan can feel your pain, Mr Moase.
Commenter Tenthred: “So I’d say yes to a citizen wage, but guilt-trip citizens into doing a few hours a day (or annualised equivalent) of some unpleasant work that needs doing (but not spend too much time or money enforcing it – some people will always freeload, just leave it to be socially unacceptable).”
They reveal so much about themselves.
Why is Mr Moase being so stingy? Why not crank up the printing presses and hand every Australian and illegal immigrant a billion dollars. Boom! Poverty solved overnight.
Indeed, one commenter tells us, quite emphatically, that “there is no such thing…
David I noticed that to. Unsurprisingly that commentor happens to be the author
They reveal so much about themselves.
Mr Moase’s article first appeared in Overland magazine – tagline: “progressive culture since 1954.” None of the commenters there seem to register any fundamental problems with Mr Moase’s utopia and what it might entail. Instead, they share their feelings and talk about how “positive” and “inspiring” it all is. Likewise, a recent Guardian commenter adds this, “I’m surprised at the amount of people commenting here unable to expand their imagination towards trying something a little different.” Yes, if only people would expand their minds and stop mentioning practicalities and all that unfluffy maths.
I enjoyed the comment that this proposal will never fly because Australia has become such a mean nation.
How does anyone take Leftism seriously? The arrested development of its adherents is embarrassingly visible.
The arrested development of its adherents is embarrassingly visible.
Yes, there’s a distinct air of adolescent pouting. “Why won’t my embarrassing parents see things my way and give me more spending money? Why do I have to get a job and pay bills? Why aren’t all jobs really nice? Why isn’t everything just free? I deserve free stuff, I just do.”
We’ve seen it before, of course. And voiced quite explicitly.
At least now we know Australia’s ‘progressive’ left is as economically illiterate and juvenile as ours.
No pony? Isn’t he supposed to demand a pony?
Cue angry articles berating supermarkets for charging $100 for a loaf of bread because
they have to pay brain-suregeon wages just to get people to stack shelvesthey’re evil capitalists who hate the poor.Imagine how little I care about this lefty twit’s opinion.
Oh, he’s not alone. Laurie Penny has been thinking – radically, no doubt – along similar lines.
“the horror of the role…manually slit the throats of chickens at a poultry factory”
As has been the case since the birth of the human race. This garbanzo thinks that such grubby jobs are caused by eeevil kkkapitalism? Sheesh.
“Someone else in the comments points out that every layabout in the world will immediately want to move to Australia.”
Build a special passenger ship to get them there. Call it the Golgafrincham Space Ark B.
cooperatives and small businesses could be started
What the hell for?
Imagine the creativity, innovation and enterprise that would be unleashed if every citizen were guaranteed a living
Someone has a hard time with the unidirectionality of cause and effect.
Furthermore, if we all felt free to pursue our artistic inclinations, the world would be flooded with genuinely mediocre-to-awful art (more flooded, I mean to say). I can’t imagine he’d enjoy THAT.
In college, I loved the old movie/play “You Can’t Take It with You,” because it was so delightfully goofball and quirky. Why SHOULDN’T some random old bag spend all day writing plays if that’s what floats her boat? Why NOT spend all day in the basement trying to invent something impossible, for the sheer joy of it?
But the last time I saw it I wanted to scream. Right there, in that cute little Frank Capra movie, was the reason we can’t have nice things.
One person worked to support all those free-loading free spirits.
One.
::spit::
The spam filter is being reliably unreliable. If anyone has trouble posting comments, email me and I’ll beat the thing with a stick.
> The key difference is that article suggested the implementation of a land value tax. This of course would be the essential component, combined with a basic income, in transforming Australia into a truly capitalist society
Actually this is totally true and you’re wrong. If you google Adam Smith LVT, or Ricardo’s law of rent you can see for yourself. The foremost opponent of Ricardo is a chap called Malthus, not famous for being a capitalist…
What was Alene Composta’s maiden name?
I find the comments more disturbing than the simplistic article. Most depressing is the suggestion that everyone would have to do some of the ‘unpleasant tasks’ rather than a few people ;sacrificing their whole lives”. The problem of course is that all real jobs tend to stray into the unpleasant category, at least relative to the things we like to do ( and thus are not paid for). I do not know how anyone old enough to bother writing a comment on the Guardian website could be so naive.
“Most depressing is the suggestion that everyone would have to do some of the ‘unpleasant tasks’…”
Far better would be to force those who make such demands to do all the ‘unpleasant tasks’. After all, who better to enslave than those who want to enslave others? “A far, far better thing….”
I suggest that the author has never been in a poultry factory nor spoken to anyone that actually has either, well not in the last 60 years at least since I know from personal experience that they do not “manually slit the throats of chickens.” Don’t read on if you are weak of stomach, but this is how it is actually done.
The chickens are bought in to the factory in large truck loads and put into pens outside the factory. There catchers are employed to grab them and place them upside down locking their feet into a continuous conveyor which disappears into the factory. As they pass into the factory they are greeted by a V shaped device that tears their heads from their bodies while they are still alive and they bleed profusely as they then pass into the hot bath to ready the feathers for plucking. Sometimes the head doesn’t tear off cleanly and parts of the body rip away as well. From these birds you get your chicken nuggets etc. The smell in a poultry processing factory is enough to turn the strongest stomach and will put you off chicken for life. Enjoy.
Haven’t we tried this in Australia for over thirty years? Sit down money I believe it is called.
that tears their heads from their bodies while they are still alive
Know how they kill/killed chickens on small family farms?
You go out with a hatchet and a bucket …. the bucket goes over the chicken’s body then you lop off the head WHILE IT IS STILL ALIVE!!! AAARRRHHHH!!!
Then you tie it up by its feet so it will drain of blood prior to plucking.
I’m actually quite a fan of the concept of a citizen’s basic income, and I consider myself right-wing. I’m pretty sure Mr Moase wouldn’t like my version of it. It would have to be low. Low enough to make the left squeal. Somewhere around 5,000 GBP.
A CBI would address two difficult issues in our economies:
What to do about those who are happy to stay in bed and on the dole?
How to help the working poor who have marginal tax rates of 80-100% because of benefit withdrawal.
I argue that if starving the lay-abouts is politically unacceptable, then a CBI gives them what they are getting already, but gives it to everyone else as well.
The benefit to the working poor is that there is no benefit withdrawal. Every pay-rise or overtime payment goes straight to them (after tax).
A couple of extra points:
A CBI would kill off most benefits, but a large chunk of incapacity benefit or equivalent would remain for those who are disabled and need additional care.
Salary is received on top of a CBI, so any work brings you more money.
Without benefits that claw-back earnings, the low-paid or unemployed would be free to take temporary or part-time work as they like. 5 hours this week, ten hours that.
Without a minimum wage, easy menial work that had been priced out of the job market would be available for a couple of quid an hour.
I see huge issues with the idea, (immigrants, re-shaping the tax system) but I think it has a simplicity and a charm that free-marketeers can appreciate, once they get over the “money for nothing” aspect – which happens already anyway.
Yes Darleen, we used to kill chickens on a regular basis for our own consumption. We never ever used a bucket though, just the axe on the chopping block then hung up by their feet to bleed while Mum got the big pot of hot water ready to gut them and pluck them ready for the oven. I was merely pointing out there is no job in a poultry processors for a knife wielding throat slitter, it would just be too time consuming. Sounds more like one of those urban legend type stories to me especially with the job description for unemployment bit.
I’m pretty sure Mr. Moase has just offered us the first example of a thousand monkeys given the keyboards of a thousand computers.
If it was an infinite number of monkeys on an infinite number of keyboards, they might come up with something to best his drivel!
I like the one guy, replying to Tim Worstall, who says that a guaranteed minimum income will pay for itself through higher tax receipts.
Um.
So we’re going to raise taxes…to give people money…which they will then pay back to the government as taxes…
If the money’s just doing doughnuts then why not leave taxes where they are?
the goal of which, as one commenter conceives it, is to “distribute drudgery fairly” via some massive rota system, with dirty jobs – say, abattoir work and drain maintenance – being done, intermittently, by doctors, hair stylists and other random individuals with no relevant expertise.
It’s actually disturbing that someone can suggest this as if it hadn’t been tried on a massive scale less than fifty years ago.
It’s actually disturbing that someone can suggest this as if it hadn’t been tried on a massive scale less than fifty years ago.
I hope you’re not implying that our state education system is in some way lacking. The Guardian massive won’t stand for that.
A citizen’s income is an excellent idea, say £5-10k per annum. Here’s the kicker though – NO OTHER BENEFITS. No housing benefit, child support, no tax credits, no public subsidy of the arts. No means testing, so we can sack 100,000 useless mouths from the public payroll. If useless ‘artists’ can live on that sum, good luck to them.
An LVT to pay for much of it and switch taxation from useful ecomonic activity.
Believe me, these are not Leftist ideas. They may be attracted by some of them, but they do not understand them and recoil in utter horror when someone explains it to them.
Imagine the creativity, innovation and enterprise that would be unleashed if every citizen were guaranteed a living.
Two words. Public. Sector.
Imagine the inflation. All goods would immediately reprice. 30K would equate to 0 pretty quickly. Riots, scarcity, hording: the entire hit parade of social maladies. Creativity is never cultivated by comfort.
It’s actually disturbing that someone can suggest this as if it hadn’t been tried on a massive scale less than fifty years ago.
I’m quite certain the commenter is well aware of the previous results, and I’m equally certain he is quite giddy at the thought of thousands upon thousands of “rich people” being killed off. Giddy!
” If you’ve a choice of unblocking public toilets or listening to music, and you’re getting paid $30,000 either way,”
In fairness, presumably you would get paid 30K for listening to music, or 30K plus a wage for cleaning the toilet. Of course that doesn’t change the essential lucacy of the proposal.
presumably you would get paid 30K for listening to music, or 30K plus a wage for cleaning the toilet.
Yes, and were the recipient an architect, publisher, pilot or whatever, there’d probably be an incentive to keep working reliably, both in terms of income and satisfaction, etc. But Mr Moase is fretting about the kinds of jobs that people tend to do only because of financial necessity and which often pay less than his proposed guaranteed income. So if you were someone accustomed to earning a modest living – say, by changing and washing the soiled bedding at a care home for the elderly – you might think twice about turning up every day.
Dicentra wrote, regarding You Can’t Take It With You:
One person worked to support all those free-loading free spirits.
You’re forgetting that Lionel Barrymore lived and supported these people off money he had made years earlier, and didn’t believe in paying income taxes. It was a voluntary arrangement, and the government man was pissed that government wasn’t getting its cut.
I like the one guy, replying to Tim Worstall, who says that a guaranteed minimum income will pay for itself through higher tax receipts.
You would not believe the number of lefties who I’ve heard saying the government cannot cut the public sector head count to save money because they would lose the tax receipts from those same employees, thus harming the government finances. One of these cretins was an Open University lecturer!
You’re forgetting…
Well, yes. It has been years since I saw it.
As with the sub-prime loans Jimmy Stewart gave out in It’s a Wonderful Life, there were plenty of mitigating factors to prevent the idealism of the films from being an actual advertisement for statism.
Such as the voluntary association, and the fact that Mr. Potter was just plain bigoted against “those people,” whom he didn’t see as worth the risk. George Bailey gave loans to people who were more risky on paper but whom he could see would do their utmost to pay off the loans and become prosperous citizens.
I’ll just leave this here:
If the protesters DEMANDED 1.FREE clean safe (with no fluoride/chlorine/aluminium) drinking water through taps, 2.FREE sewerage/waste removal,3.COMPLETE CESSATION OF CHEMTRAILS, 4.PERMANENT SHUTDOWN of nuclear energy, 5.stopping use of ALL DU weapons, 6.FREE electricity, 7.FREE gas, 8.FREE safe, clean, reliable, integrated and frequent public transport along with 9.FREE high quality healthcare with all options including natural remedies and 10.FREE safe, organic natural food then the people could be content and would enjoy 11.FREE high quality education and live in 12.FREE high quality NEW public sector council houses. They would communicate with 13.FREE voice and data technology. Open, fair and just and accountable employment conditions with 14.NO EXPLOITATION of employees. The 16. [sic] FREEDOM of EVERYONE to CHOOSE their job/work and be supported in it as long as they are able (with support) to do the job.
What stands between us and this utopia?
17.The rulers of this world hate humans and so the above will NEVER HAPPEN.
Uh-huh.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2138168/Occupy-London-Stock-Exchange-Protesters-claim-fulfilled-goal-setting-new-camp-outside.html
30,000 Australian dollars a year, extracted from others and given to him,
Given to him whether he works or not or is any good at anything. He wants us to pay him just for being a socialist.