Dear Landrights4all,

There is no shame or stigma in compensation, how much more so when EVERYONE receives it!
Negative-income-tax is NOT a "basic wage", but a rightful compensation for damages made by society.

The reason it needs to be financial is that now with all the mess already created by society, it will take centuries to fix, that is to reduce human population to a level where money is no longer required. It's less than ideal, but negative-income-tax is practical, more flexible, readily implementable, and non-violent. In parallel certainly, it should be made legal for individuals to settle away from cities and live money-free, but it currently suits only a few and most city-dwelling people living today would be too spoiled to agree.

Everyone suffers from the situation, hence everyone needs to be compensated including those who do not complain but force themselves to get up every morning to do a job for someone else: the vast majority of the billions who do it don't like it, in fact most hate it!

<<We already have the dole which is distributed only to the right people.>>

You just mentioned yourself that it is a terrible system. It is not distributed to the "right people" anyway, but mainly to those who feel no shame in lying and cheating. It's a system that encourages and trains people to lie! Negative-income-tax will remove their incentive to lie because there will be no questions asked and no financial incentive to do so. There will however be an incentive to work, because that would mean extra money for comfort and luxuries.

Freedom and dignity are not gained by being demanded to contribute against one's will. Those who do not wish to contribute (at least not in a formal manner), but are willing to remain on subsistence income, should be free to do so. Those who wish to enter into NTW-like agreements with others should also be free to do so.

landrightsfree4all
"Why would you want to take what I need when there is plenty for all"

If there's plenty for all then you don't need anyone else's do you? = self-contradiction.

"In your fear you jump to the assumption that I am talking about forced redistribution of land titles. You will not find anything I said that suggests that because that is not what I believe – so where did you get it from?"

I got it from you talking about your "right" to "free" land. So you're contradicting yourself again.

A farmer farming his land commits no act of aggression against the landless. But if your "rights" are to be enforced, then you are advocating aggression against him =>self-contradiction.

And if they are not to be enforced, then you are arguing for a charitable gift, which
a) contradicts yourself again, and
b) is outside the scope of the OP.

I told you that you cannot defend your theory without immediately falling into a welter of self-contradictions, and you have just gone ahead and proved me right.

But don't worry, you're not alone. The original article has all the same defects, for all the same reasons. If he tried to defend his thesis, he would end up in the same moral and intellectual confusion as you have been displaying so un-self-consciously.

Yuyutsu,
First, do you think NTW is a rural idea? – it’s suburban, and it’s for people already in or eligible for suburban public housing. It needs to be suburban for a modern life with access to modern facilities AND to be sustainable. It’s also easier for participants to be socially included and to contribute to society.

From my perspective they’re eligible for free land access (the land on which suburban public housing is built) because $250 gives them resource access at an environmentally, economically and socially sustainable level – it means they aren’t already using more than their rightful share of land access.

I see the land as restitution. Compensation is the dole, the housing materials, the cost of labour paid by taxpayers, the modern infrastructure and the access to modern technologies. If we want to continue to enjoy these benefits we also should do something to maintain them.

Eligibility for public housing, income support (ie free land access) erodes once you increase your income with paid work. Your increased income is your compensation and you can afford to pay for more “goodies”, if that’s what floats your boat. This is already accounted for by Dept of Housing and Centrelink – rent increases and income support reduces as income increases - no change needed there. If you really don’t like the work, quit and get income support and eligibility for public housing.

But a change is needed to make this respectable, viable AND attractive for taxpayers.

Currently the only way to contribute is to get paid employment. We should be able to meet our obligation to society by doing ANYTHING that society would value. Unemployed over55’s can already do community work for approved community organisations in full satisfaction of their “mutual obligations”. This should be extended to all unemployed people.

This would be the foundation for neighbourhoods that work. It would immediately cost less and, as food and building skills grew from gardening and building maintenance, public housing could become tenant built, and the need for income support for food and shelter would reduce. Sustainable neighbourhoods would evolve.

Dear Landrights4all,

I thought we were over this, but you keep making references to the existing welfare system, evil even by your own words, which should be totally dissolved and replaced with a negative-income-tax.

Whether one wants to have a modern or an ancient lifestyle, whether in cities, suburbs, country, outback or in the middle of the ocean, whether one works and whether one charges money for their work, is none of anybody else's business and nobody else should be forced to pay for another's choices and preferences. People (and all other living beings) should not be classified by their "employment" status, any more than by their race, gender and eye-colour.

The only thing that morally justifies taking people's money as tax and giving it to others is that society has wronged everyone and should therefore compensate. As we were all wronged, we should all receive compensation, which has absolutely nothing to do with one's work-situation, including whether, and how much, one charges money for their work. Compensating some and not others (or compensating some more than others) is a theft. Negative-income-tax is a simple, straight-forward fixed sum given to everyone, ending all complexities, loop-holes, humiliation, waste and injustices of the
current welfare system.

We have no obligation to society unless we willingly benefit from being in it. A fixed-percentage income-tax, starting from the first dollar earned is due, so one pays in proportion to the benefit they derive (if any) from being in that society which caused the damage.

Dear Yuyutsu,

What I see as evil about the dole is the thinking behind it and so the use to which its mechanisms are put, not the mechanisms themselves. I’m not advocating for the current welfare system, but for a revision of it that would recognise rights rather than demonise recipients.

You originally decided to talk to me about the issues I was raising (basically landrights4all) – but now you are raising an entirely different topic, negative income tax. Fair enough, but you will understand if I want to stay on topic.

Most work these days has a very negative environmental impact – that is everybody’s business (including the other species you rightly insist on mentioning again).

Most work also provides access to resources way beyond anything remotely just – that is everybody’s business too.

Nobody should be forced to do anything, but the injustice of resource distribution resulting from the work done and the incomes raised is forcing many (especially the poor and other species ) to pay severe consequences for those choices and preferences – that’s what's wrong and that is my business.

In Australia at least, everyone is “compensated”, either by having access to wealth or access to welfare. But while these can be seen as financial compensations for historic wrongs, neither of these compensations restores the rights. Without restitution of the freedom which land provides, the property system just goes on creating more wrongs. Even if a few would take their “compensation” and just opt out, that is no way out for people generally.

Increasing taxes on the rich (much as I like that idea) and increasing spending power of the majority just cranks up consumerism further. In the words of a wise character, “She won’t take it any more Scotty”.

On the face of it a fixed-percentage income-tax might be OK so long as it couldn’t lead to increased consumerism of those already over-consuming. – to avoid that disaster perhaps it could go to foreign aid for those who are starving and homeless.

@landrights4all
Chris Baulman

Dear Landrights4all,

The original topic is "our fragile liberty", where the author wishes to replace our inherent liberties with some bill-of-rights, to which I'm opposed because nobody has a right to "grant" me what's already mine by nature.

For the same reason I don't accept "recognising rights" in the welfare system. The state isn't my father or my mother, I haven't married it or otherwise accepted it as my relative: let it not steal my freedoms to begin with, then it need not chew them and hand me back the stuff as "rights".

Next you address the issue of environment. While a noble cause, it mustn't be used as another pretext for government to impinge on our freedoms.

The environmental situation is already way beyond sustainability and is mainly caused by overpopulation. Even if population-levels were sustainable, we pay a very high price for it, including-but-not-limited-to environmental-demands; killing-off-other-species; property-system; and consumerism which you mentioned as well as dependence-on-high-technology with I mentioned. To combat this, making-babies should be stigmatised rather than encouraged, and while it must never be prohibited by law, parents should pay out-of-pocket the full costs of raising new children, including for their health-and-education.

Employment also has a high environmental impact (though not as high as population-levels). You can cut much unproductive employment both in government and by those employed to comply with government regulations. You can also cut the unproductive advertising industry by making it a point to avoid buying anything that's advertised (meaning, a significant part of your payment goes to the advertisement-industry rather than for your product/service) and stop recognising advertisement-expenses as tax-deductable. To cut any further, you must make personal sacrifices, but it's hard unless you have a spiritual alternative, because much of our consumerism is a way of compensating ourselves for the stress caused by overpopulation.

<<Even if a few would take their “compensation” and just opt out, that is no way out for people generally.>>

Exactly, there is no way to eat the cake and have it too, enjoying a modern lifestyle without taking part in the rat-race which makes it possible.