From: golchowy@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca (Gerald Olchowy)
Subject: Re: Negative Income Tax (Was: Social programs)
Organization: University of Toronto Chemistry Department
Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1992 21:59:54 GMT

In article <1992Dec30.164025.7278@athena.mit.edu> cmk@athena.mit.edu (Charles M Kozierok) writes:
>In article <1992Dec30.083937.23926@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca> golchowy@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca (Gerald Olchowy) writes:
>>The fundamental political rights are those of popular sovereignty...
>>the right of a person to exercise a vote "freely" and "without
>>coercion"...a starving person cannot vote "freely" and "without
>>coersion"
>
>you have made it clear that you feel that way, but you still haven't
>told me *why*.
>

A person whose most basic human needs are not being met cannot exercise
free will.

>>and thus is being denied their fundamental individual
>>political right to a vote.  A person who lacks the essentials to  
>>fulfill minimal basic human needs has their political rights denied.
>>These political rights are essential to a democracy...where they
>>are violated, democracy does not exist.
>
>democracy is the right to have your voice heard. you are still responsible
>for taking care of yourself. if you are unable to work enough to enable
>yourself to get enough food to enable yourself to walk into a polling station
>and mark an X on a ballot, you are shirking *your* responsibility in the
>democratic process. with every right comes a responsibility.
>

In a free market system, some people are losers through no fault of
their own...that is just the nature of the market system.  They try hard
and just fail.

A person does not lose their right to life just because they are
stupid...neither should they lose their right to a free vote, because
they fail so badly in the market system that they are unable to meet
their most basic needs and thus be able to exercise free independent
will.

I think I understand very well what Objectivists and libertarians
stand for.

>>But unlike Objectivists, who worship at the grail of individual economic
>>rights alone, individual liberty requires that the full spectrum of
>>individual rights be respected, and the full spectrum of individual
>>rights from free expression and belief, to the right to vote, to the
>>right to work and to own property all pose limits on each other.
>
>ok, you are not an objectivist :^)
>seriously though, you are wrong about at what grail objectivists worship.
>objectivists hold all individual rights paramount. you only hear
>so much about economic rights because those are the ones the government
>keeps coming after. objectivists don't look at economic rights as 
>an end unto themselves, but rather as the fruit of productive capacity,
>and as such an extension of all individual rights.
>

That is what they claim...but their claim is false, because they make
false assumptions about the nature of the human animal.  Objectivists
have such a limited conception of the nature of a human being, that
what they claim and believe about their incomplete set of axioms,
become just another false fundamentalist ideology, where the overlap
between what they believe and reality is very small.

>your argument is not consistent. because some of the "rights" you
>would give others are not rights at all. a right can only be granted
>if it imposes only a "negative" restriction on others. this means
>you can give someone a right which requires that others *not* do something,
>i.e. you have the right to live, so i cannot kill you. you have the right
>to free speech, so i cannot shut you up.
>

As always there is an exception, which proves the rule.  Human beings
are not just logical intellects, but biological animals, and as a
result, if one believes in individual political rights, namely popular
sovereignty and the right to vote, the belief in democracy and in these
individual political rights constrain individual economic rights,
because the logical intellect cannot function freely if minimal
biological needs are not met.  Democracy puts some constraints on
markets; the political rights of the individual put some limits on
the economic rights of the individual.  I know Objectivists and
libertarians do not believe this, but they are wrong...and they
are wrong not because of failed logic but because of false assumptions
about human nature.

>however, you cannot have a right which poses a "proactive" restriction
>on others. you cannot say that you have a right to food, because that means
>someone else has to provide that food. and if i am that person, i work to
>make or earn that food. thus, you are de facto enslaving me -- making me
>work so you can reap the reward. *all* "rights" of that nature end up
>the same way, including such things as "the right to work" (who must
>be forced to provide you with a job, and why?)
>

Democracy and individual political rights are the exception to this.
Political rights do come with an economic imperative.  Democracy bounds
individual economic rights. 

>>
>>Government is allowed to create courts and police forces to protect
>>the rule of law, and individual liberty against lawbreakers.  Legitimate
>>government also requires that every individual is allowed the right
>>to vote freely...which requires a minimal social safety net to guarentee
>>these political rights, just as courts and police are required to 
>>guarentee other individual rights.  Taxes raised for these limited
>>purposes are not theft.
>
>then get rid of 99% of the safety net. because 1% is all that is required
>to ensure that everyone who is hungry has enough food to make it to the
>polling booth. even that i don't think is the government's (read: the
>taxpayers') responsibility; but certainly more is not. certainly $15,000
>a year is not.
>

But then you accept my argument, because the 1% is all I need to
demonstrate that Objectivists and libertarians are wrong.  I fully
agree that our governments do many things that they have no right to
do that all, but belief in democracy and individual liberty does
justifies some types of social safety nets, carefully constructed
so as to minimize the imposition on the economic rights of individuals.

>>The concept of welfare as we have come to know it is on its way
>>out...slowly but surely...the global economy will hasten its demise.
>>The notion of welfare will soon be an artifact of the Western
>>World in the post-war economic boom.  It is a failed idea.
>
>negative income tax is just welfare with an Orwellian name.
>

>>The fight against bureaucratic inefficiency and waste is neverending...
>>I don't disagree with you on this point...workfare is not force labor.
>
>explain why it isn't. you are telling people who currently do nothing
>and get money for it that they must work. what if they say no? will
>you cut off their payments? will you come to their house with a gun?
>what employer will hire such a person? will you come to his business
>with a gun? you'd need one to get *me* to hire someone with so little
>desire to work.
>

There is no coercion involved...you offer the person a choice...workfare
via a guranteed annual income...if they believe that they can fend for
themselves, you allow them that choice...if they fail to be able to
take care of themselves, then they obviously have to be
institutionalized and brought to the point where they are capable
of being offered the choice again.

>>
>>Objectivists basically believe in a hierarchy of individual rights,
>>where individual economic rights are supreme and absolute and unbounded,
>>even by other individual rights. 
>
>as i said, this is not true. rights are rights. you need to learn
>more about objectivism.
>
>>For an objectivist, the right to
>>property, for example, prevails over any other individual right where
>>they conflict.  An Objectivist sees no conflict in this, since their
>>concept of a human being is that a human being is a logical material
>>automaton who sole function is to manipulate their property.  Freedom
>>and liberty is logical necessity.  
>
>why "automaton"?
>
>>There are hardly any individual rights which socialists believe in and
>>they deny individual economic rights such as the right to work and
>>the right to property exist at all.
>
>the "right to work" is not a right because it forces someone to provide
>a job. simple as that. the right to property is not disputed by
>objectivists. why would you say that?
>

The "right to work" is the right for an individual to accept a job
if it is offered...socialists do not believe an individual has the
right to accept employment.

>>>and if you are neither a objectivist/libertarian nor a socialist,
>>>what exactly are you? and again, how are the same socialists who designed
>>>the other programs which you practically admit are failures going
>>>to make anything better with *more* programs?
>>>
>>
>>I am an advocate for individual liberty and democracy, in the full
>>spectrum of human activity, materialistic, political, economic,
>>artistic, logical, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual.  A human
>>being is more than a mere logical intellect, as Objectivists would
>>have us believe, or a mere materialistic animal as socialists would have
>>us believe.  
>
>then you are a utopian, which is in same ways worse than either. you
>can't have "all of the above". you cannot have individual rights if they
>conflict with mine. you cannot have "economic" rights if they conflict
>with my "materialistic" rights. you cannot have "emotional" rights which
>conflict with my "logical" rights.
>

I am not a utopian...my whole argument has been based on the position
that there are natural constraints on the absoluteness of any particular
individual right, because of limitations imposed by the full spectrum
of the individual rights of others.  

The difference between me and an Objectivist,
is that an Objectivist does not believe that the full spectrum of
individual rights legitimately can constrain individual economic
rights.  Objectivists are utopian....because they are absolutist
when it comes to individual economic rights, compared to other
individual rights...they set up a hierarchy of individual rights,
and they are mostly not conscious of this hierarchy, because of
their limited conception of what a human being is.

>you need to sit down and decide which of those things really are rights,
>and which are simply "wants" or "needs". and you don't know as much
>about objectivists as you thought. because aside from not being too
>clear about what a "right" is, you are not far from one. certainly
>closer than 90% of canadians i've talked to.
>

Objectivists mostly don't like how I analyze them...they are entitled
to their opinion...I think I'm right.  Many Objectivists are essentially
fundamentalist in nature, in their rote acceptance of Randian axioms
and arguments...Objectivism practised by mainly is not unlike 
a fundamentalist religion, where there is a rulebook, and people
follow the rulebook...the fundamentalist credo is that freedom is
necessity...in the case of Objectivists, logical necessity...and
this is the flaw in all fundamentalist ideologies.

Gerald
Newsgroups: soc.culture.canada,can.politics