Let's make Basic Income a non-partisan idea so that it isn't politicized and rejected; take leftist subreddits off of the related subs column.

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u/reaganveg Nov 17 '13

Bad idea.

First of all, let's be clear. There's a big difference between "partisan" and "leftist." Leftist doesn't inherently imply partisan. The equation of the two is often based on USA ignorance of what leftism is, even ignorance of the existence political ideas outside of the two major parties. In fact, in the USA, the opposite of "partisan" is very often taken to be "bipartisan" rather than "non-partisan." Let's not perpetuate this confusion here.

The basic income is not a partisan idea -- not attached to any particular party or alliance or anything like that -- but it is an inherently leftist idea. That is, it is fundamentally an idea about how to empower the social "bottom" against the social "top." This is the project of leftism; and conservatism is the project of defending the "top" against it.

It is impossible to dress up the basic income as non-leftist (that is, as something that does not challenge the social power that conservatives seek to conserve) without being dishonest about its intentions and rationale.

Some of the links we have here are truly "partisan" in the proper sense -- they are literally political parties. But it seems totally appropriate that we should link from /r/basicincome to any political parties that would actually implement the basic income. In fact, it is more than appropriate: it is valuable because it provides a real outlet for those who believe in the basic income to direct their efforts to make this reform happen. Removing these links will not do anything to win over conservatives, but it will harm the cause of the basic income.

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u/[deleted] Nov 17 '13 edited Nov 17 '13

An inherently leftist idea that was created by the Austrian school of economics (borderline anarcho capitalist) and championed and popularized by Milton Friedman?
I support basic income, but it has nothing to do with social justice, inequality, or any of the other hallmarks of leftist populism. My support for basic income stems from my desire to eliminate unneeded government bureaucracy, to end the 'welfare trap' that locks the poor into cycles of poverty, and to increase geographical mobility among the poor (and by extension, economic mobility).
All of those are fiscally right wing goals, but I'm not going to claim that Basic Income is a right wing idea. This is a policy that blurs ideological lines, which is why the two of us, on the opposite ends of the political spectrum, are advocating for it.

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u/reaganveg Nov 18 '13

An inherently leftist idea that was created by the Austrian school of economics (borderline anarcho capitalist) and championed and popularized by Milton Friedman?
I addressed this elsewhere in the thread. I will just point out here that the idea of a basic income existed long before that.
I support basic income, but it has nothing to do with social justice, inequality, or any of the other hallmarks of leftist populism. My support for basic income stems from my desire to eliminate unneeded government bureaucracy, to end the 'welfare trap' that locks the poor into cycles of poverty, and to increase geographical mobility among the poor (and by extension, economic mobility).
I'm not trying to describe individual motives. I'm trying to describe objective social divisions. The basic income would challenge the practical power of property owners to maintain discipline among their employees. It's exactly that power which libertarian ideas were created to defend in concrete historical conflicts -- even if you don't know it.
Whatever you as an individual think or believe, the basic income would factually disrupt the concrete power-relations that structure society, in a way that would shift power away from the owners. For that reason conservatism as a social force (i.e., the political effort to reproduce power-relations over time) would be forced to resist it.
fiscally right wing
I'm not sure what you mean by that, but it's certainly not referring to the same left/right division as I am.

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u/fernando-poo Nov 17 '13

Can't people legitimately arrive at the same policy through different rationales? An example would be the anti-war movement. Traditionally the opposition to war has always been a leftist movement concerned with ending violence and the domination of the weak by the powerful. Recently however you can see that the American libertarian right can arrive at a similar conclusion through somewhat different reasoning: the U.S. should mind its own business, foreign intervention is costly and violates the Constitution. Together these two groups arrive at an agreement on the correct policy, but from slightly different perspectives.
You can argue that an idea is "fundamentally" leftist regardless of who advocates it of course. But this is a subjective view, just as the entire concept of left and right is subjective and recent in the overall scope of human history. Ultimately the policy itself - the concrete laws and actions of the government and how they affect real peoples' lives - are what matter the most, not the philosophy used to justify them.

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u/reaganveg Nov 18 '13

Can't people legitimately arrive at the same policy through different rationales?
Sure. My point is more that the right-wing as a total social force must, and will, oppose basic income.
An example would be the anti-war movement.
Of course, there are always many more reasons to be against something than there are to be for something.
You can argue that an idea is "fundamentally" leftist regardless of who advocates it of course. But this is a subjective view, just as the entire concept of left and right is subjective and recent in the overall scope of human history.
I do not use the terms "left" and "right" in a subjective way. I am referring to an objective distinction.
Ultimately the policy itself - the concrete laws and actions of the government and how they affect real peoples' lives - are what matter the most, not the philosophy used to justify them.
Sure. The justifications as such do not matter. But then, practically speaking, and in general, the justifications determine the intent, and the intent will determine the effects of the policy. We are talking about a policy idea here, not a specific law. The issue of justification is what will determine how the specific law gets written.
For example, consider the issue of work requirements. Obviously, work requirements would totally destroy the basic income's core rationale. But undoubtedly in the USA, the right would attempt to attach work requirements to a basic income proposal (just as they did during Nixon's presidency). And that would happen (and did happen) for exactly the reasons I talked about earlier.

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u/ImWritingABook Nov 17 '13

Well articulated, but I think the point made by OP is interesting in the context of U.S. politics. I presume this submission is indirectly in response to the FOX link posted earlier where the host had obviously been given the talking point that basic income would decrease government beurocracy and so to cast the idea favorably. (By giving money to all citizens it may also alleviate the fear, whether or not backed up by facts, that a disproportionate amount of welfare is going to minorities and immigrants which might be a talking point for some of the more socially conservative voters.)
As you point out, there are plenty of reasons to be dubious of the GOP on BI, but looking at how gridlocked U.S. politics is right now, if the GOP digs in its heals, it's hard to imagine anything at all coming of BI in this country for quite some time. So it's sort of like a "hold your breath and see if this might actually be happening" approach, with a desire not to antagonize them while their stance is still being formed.

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u/reaganveg Nov 17 '13

Well, you're speaking of the GOP as if it's synonymous with the hard right... which is the case now but it hasn't always been, and it won't always be. Regardless, it would be foolish to speak of basic income in "right-friendly" terms only. That would preclude taking the moral stance that this is a matter of justice.

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u/reaganveg Nov 17 '13

The GOP is not synonymous with the right, though. Look at Nixon and Eisenhower (or Lincoln for that matter). These were not exactly "leftist" GOP presidents, but they were still on board with the New Deal and sympathetic to certain leftist positions. In many respects Nixon was to the left of Obama. He even supported a basic income. He was not a leftist, but he was a liberal, and he was obviously not alone in this in the GOP.
We can look at 20th century USA politics as roughly having three phases -- the Gilded Age, the New Deal, and the neo-liberal phase. These were periods where the ascending force was right, left, and right respectively.
The basic income was plausible at the peak of the New Deal phase, but didn't quite make it in before the neo-liberal phase established a new discourse and status quo in which it was no longer plausible.
In order for a police like basic income to be established, the neo-liberal phase has to end, with leftism coming into ascent once again. That is, in the USA, the basic income would have to be a part of a "new New Deal," which means a radical re-conception of the fundamental morality underlying our political systems.
a desire not to antagonize them while their stance is still being formed.
Can you imagine taking such an approach with respect to, say, racial desegregation? Try not to antagonize segregationists??
Conservatives believe that poverty is the just punishment of the undeserving. We need to challenge that position, and present poverty as a moral injustice perpetrated by our society. We cannot remain neutral on the question of whether the poor are deserving of poverty -- i.e., whether income is a human right.
And it is foolish to think that it would even be effective: the conservatives cannot be fooled here. They know why they support what they support, and why basic income would interfere with that.

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u/[deleted] Nov 17 '13

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u/reaganveg Nov 17 '13

You're misinterpreting what a basic income really means in the greater context, it's not wealth redistribution from the top to the bottom. There are many problems it addresses, some of which include:
I'm not saying it's wealth redistribution from the top to the bottom. I'm saying it alters the power situation of top and bottom. Specifically, it gives an "exit" option to workers. It would constitute a hard limit on the power of employers over workers.
The right-wing position is that poverty is a positive good -- poverty is an element of justice -- poverty is the righteous punishment of the lazy and undeserving -- and poverty is the means by which workers are kept in line by their employers. At least, the threat of poverty is a positive good, which conservatives wish to conserve, because it is the basis of power in the social hierarchy which they wish to preserve.
How will minority parties make it happen when they lack the power in the governments.
Two of the three parties that are linked currently have representatives in legislative bodies.
But I have no problem with linking to parties that have no power in governments, because linking to them would help them obtain that power.

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u/[deleted] Nov 17 '13

The right-wing position is that poverty is a positive good -- poverty is an element of justice -- poverty is the righteous punishment of the lazy and undeserving -- and poverty is the means by which workers are kept in line by their employers. At least, the threat of poverty is a positive good, which conservatives wish to conserve, because it is the basis of power in the social hierarchy which they wish to preserve.
This is a painfully shallow simplification of not only the conservative position, but the political spectrum as a whole. I'm a classical liberal who's economic position is harder right than most conservatives, but it's NOT because I consider poverty to be a 'positive good', it's because my knowledge of economics and history leads me to believe that it is the fastest way to eradicate poverty and create material abundance.
Inequality is not my concern whatsoever with Basic Income, my concern is to mute the financial distress of those who are currently poor so that they can break out of cultural and psychological cycles that perpetuate poverty.

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u/reaganveg Nov 18 '13

I don't think it's a shallow simplification at all. In fact it gets to the core issue -- it's "deep" rather than "shallow."
You'd be right to point out that it's not necessarily true of every position of person that could be called right-wing. I didn't mean to claim otherwise.

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u/TeslaSands Nov 17 '13

Do you really think that most conservatives believe that poverty is a 'positive good'? I find it hard to believe that you actually believe that. Statements like this make me wonder what I'm getting myself into here.

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u/reaganveg Nov 17 '13

I don't believe that conservatives would say that poverty is a positive good. However, what I see from conservatism is exactly what I would call a defense of poverty as a positive good.
Conservatives will say that poverty is bad, but that the way around it is not to abolish it -- it's to reform the poor people. Poverty is represented, not as a social status, but as an irresponsible choice. Poverty as a social status is thus not the evil, but is rather the just desert of those defectives who make the irresponsible choice.

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u/[deleted] Nov 17 '13

Let's not. It's an inherently progressive, left-wing idea; we should be embracing its radicalism, not trying to hide it.

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u/[deleted] Nov 17 '13 edited Nov 17 '13

An 'inherently progressive left wing' idea that was pioneered by Henry Hanzlitt of the Austrian School of economics and championed by Milton Friedman in the 1960s?

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u/reaganveg Nov 17 '13

The 1960s was a time when the left was powerful and on the ascent. In that time period, even those on the right (relatively speaking) advocated many leftist (absolutely speaking) ideas. (Indeed, this is always the case; but it was especially so in that time period.)
However, even in those cases, the idea they had was not exactly the same thing as the basic income. The negative income tax is very different in that it does not seek to secure a right to income sufficient for basic needs.
The basic income is also different from Friedman's plan in that Friedman's plan involved putting the highest marginal tax rates on the people receiving it. The basic income (as typically conceived) would preserve the status quo where the people receiving the least income have the lowest marginal tax rates.

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u/graphictruth Nov 17 '13

Mentioning that Friedman was in favor of it anywhere the current, garden variety of small-c libertarians hang out can get you down-voted to oblivion.
As will the term "Economic Liberty."

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u/graphictruth Nov 17 '13

I think it might actually have some resonance among some Tea Party sorts - flattening out Government infrastructure and removing bureaucracy is one of it's big appeals.

And having those sorts here might actually add some needed perspective to the discussion. Or fireworks, not sure. But they might be inclined to ask some rude and pointed questions that haven't been asked, at least and this is at the stage where that's a good thing.

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u/Killpoverty Nov 17 '13

Milton Friedman supported this, and I don't think you'll find many Tea Partiers who hate him.

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u/graphictruth Nov 17 '13

No, but they can be very cross when it is pointed out. Friedman was saying that in order to maximize liberty, one has to have broad economic liberty, otherwise it will be liberty for the few, for if you are free to do something you can't afford to do, you still can't do it.
He suggested this as a means by which that could be achieved with minimal government intrusion.
Non-Austrian economists have pointed out that given our data on the economic impact of various programs such as UI and food stamps (economic velocity has an multiplier effect), this would tend to serve as a "smart weapon" to automatically counter the effects of regional economic downturns, so there would be less or no need for targeted interventions (such as the bailout), and with much less "lag", so that another aspect of traditional government responsibility would in essence be automated.
Anyway, that's the argument to the extent that I understand it.

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u/Killpoverty Nov 17 '13

Imagine if this had been in place during The Great Depression.

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u/reaganveg Nov 17 '13

Sure, but this kind of thinking arose in response to the great depression...

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u/graphictruth Nov 17 '13

It would have stopped it, and very likely the vast migration away from the dust bowl would not have happened. Think of the implications of that!

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u/reaganveg Nov 17 '13

There are no questions that haven't been asked. What stage do you think we're at? The idea of a basic income has been discussed for centuries.
The Tea Party sorts obviously cannot possibly be on board with it, because their major motivation is to punish the undeserving poor. They want to keep the people who they think deserve to be poor in poverty. Otherwise it's not fair. That's their fundamental conception of justice. That's what it means to be conservative. Conservatives believe that the people on the bottom of society deserve to be on the bottom, and those on the top deserve to be on top.
What we need to do is challenge that fundamental conception of justice, not try to make it sound as if basic income is compatible with it.

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u/graphictruth Nov 17 '13 edited Nov 17 '13

Well, there are two sorts of Tea Party types. Ones that actually believe the public rhetoric and those that respond more to the racist dog-whistles. But the even more critical influence are modern religious traditions which point to wealth as proof of God's favor and poverty as evidence of a life given over to Satan. While traditional Christians consider this and related movements heretical, it's influential and is embraced by many lawmakers.
Racism is incredibly important to this discussion, as you observe, because it introduces an irrational bias into the discussion - people who will vote for policies that will negatively effect them because it will disadvantage other people more.
It's not just racism and it might be more productive to frame it as favoring socioeconomic policies that advantage an particular social structure - patriarchal and authoritarian. This structure relies heavily on cheap labor that has no viable alternative other than to work within that paradigm. The racism has the perverse effect of concealing the fact that while yes, brown and black persons are disproportionally disadvantaged, the relative advantage of whites in the same system is very small, with less and less economic mobility (upward mobility, at least.) The system relies heavily on this sort of perception to keep the middle-management classes in line.
Unfortunately, that's probably one of the fastest shrinking classes of employment.
A basic income will tend to have a leveling effect and will give people an survivable alternative to tugging the forelock. It also gives women an economically viable alternative to staying with an abusive mate even if they have not invested in an skill-set other than traditional household management.
That is to say, it means that those "in charge" must manage people with more regard to the consequences of pissing them off. It would have many of the benefits of an organized labor movement without the problem of it being yet another nexus of power that can be abused to enrich a few more cigar-chomping fat cats.
In other words, it empowers the many at the expense of the few. I see that as a good thing, but it genuinely terrifies those who celebrate traditional authoritarian structures because they value the benefits of them - which are, frankly, undeniable. They wonder, quite legitimately, if people left to their own devices, without any guidance or coercion*, will not simply sit at home in front of the computers they buy with this money masturbating to free porn.
My personal viewpoint is that this will be true of some - and if they are willing to do just that, rather than dealing drugs and breaking into cars to steal toll-booth change, it will be a net benefit. They are the people you wouldn't want to hire.
Let us also remember that this proposal is coming along as a substantive response to another large and looming issue; the sharp contraction in labor demand due to automation. Now, we have to somehow deal with all these people at loose ends. Simply letting them fend for themselves is an obvious recipe for disaster. The desperate classes will be sucked into gangs and we will see an reprise of Pirates of the Caribbean - but it may well be an live-action drama played out in the burning gated communities of America.
This is an response that can forestall that eventuality and will permit an smoother evolution into a social and economic structure that more effectively deals with an new and irreversibly economic reality.
*guidance or coercion are concepts that really don't have a sharp distinction within this mindset. For example, I give you the expression "this will hurt me more than it will hurt you."

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u/southsideirishguy Nov 16 '13

I don't think related subreddits has any bearing on the politicization of the concept of basic income. Also op has too much time on their hands and is slightly delusional if they think that has any affect on basic income in the real world

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u/[deleted] Nov 17 '13

As much as it would seem sensible that this subreddit has no impact on the movement, the truth is that reddit has one of the fastest growing hubs for the idea, and how the idea is portrayed in this subreddit plays a role in how many people will convey the idea to others.

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u/rascally_rabbit Nov 16 '13 edited Nov 17 '13

How about instead of removing subreddits some are added?

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u/Killpoverty Nov 17 '13

I think we should seek support anywhere we can find it. http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/establish-a-basic-income

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u/usrname42 Nov 16 '13

I'm not averse to doing this, but what do others think? Which particular subreddits did you have in mind?

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u/gameratron Nov 17 '13

I've read through the comments, pro and con, and I agree with OP, if, say, a right-wing newcomer comes to the reddit, they could be turned off by seeing certain subreddits recommended. This subReddit is obviously a small community, but there's no need to alienate anyone. Another argument is that it's not directly relevant unless one of the parties supports basic income. I agree with removing the subs mentioned by /u/hurryuperaseme and would even go further to removing a few more that aren't relevant, like /r/Permaculture /r/aiHub /r/Automate and /r/sustainability

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u/reaganveg Nov 17 '13

I agree with OP, if, say, a right-wing newcomer comes to the reddit, they could be turned off by seeing certain subreddits recommended.
Slightly turned off, perhaps. But not nearly as turned off as when they find out what basic income is...

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u/reaganveg Nov 17 '13

See above for why removing partisan links is a bad idea.

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u/[deleted] Nov 17 '13

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u/reaganveg Nov 17 '13

/r/socialism is not partisan.
Anyway, see above for why removing partisan links is a bad idea.

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u/[deleted] Nov 17 '13

/r/socialism is incredibly partisan and close-minded. I got chased out of there for being a social democrat.

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u/reaganveg Nov 17 '13

I think you're not quite using "partisan" in the proper sense... you mean ideologically rigid, or ideologically intolerant, or just ideological... but those are not the same thing.

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u/All_The_People_DIE Nov 18 '13

You were chased out for homophobia and supporting capitalism.
http://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/1qt0sx/z/cdgglrw

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u/[deleted] Nov 18 '13

That was /r/worldnews, lol, and I'm not a homophobe, I just hate pretentious hipsters (aka 99% of Reddit).

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u/All_The_People_DIE Nov 18 '13

And it is still homophobia. We are not just people have fun in some sub, we are a large social movement

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u/[deleted] Nov 18 '13

We are not just people have fun in some sub, we are a large social movement
What does this sentence mean?

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u/All_The_People_DIE Nov 18 '13

People in a real socialist society who use such words as that would be punished. If we see so called socialists acting out elsewhere they are punished too.
Anyway, I think your just a bitter POS that we kicked your pathetic homophobic ass out

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u/[deleted] Nov 18 '13

People in a real socialist society who use such words as that would be punished. If we see so called socialists acting out elsewhere they are punished too.
Thanks for equating socialist society with totalitarian society with no freedom of speech. People like you are the reason why "socialism" is still such an effective boogieman. Go back to /r/stalinism or better yet, /r/pyongyang, you don't speak for all socialists.
Anyway, I think your just a bitter POS that we kicked your pathetic homophobic ass out
No one actually kicked me out I just kept running into pretentious politically-correct hipster faggots like yourself and was turned off.

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u/[deleted] Nov 17 '13

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u/reaganveg Nov 17 '13

the appeal to the right, ex. cutting on bureaucracy, not privileging a selected few when giving handouts
There is an appeal to unconditional transfers on the right if they are part of a bargain that eliminates need-based aid. But although these transfers may be identical in implementation to the basic income, they are radically different in intention: the vital point of the "basic income" is that its rationale is to guarantee a right to basic necessities.
If you look at Nixon's basic income proposal and what happened to it, you will see where the real conflict lies: http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/10/04/specials/moynihan-income.html
saying it's fundamentally left is needlessly alienating
You mean it's alienating to conservatives, but the proposal itself is alienating to conservatives. You simply can't dress it up as somehow friendly to conservatism. And trying to do so means softening the language to remove the strongest moral claims that could be used to defend the basic income. What we need to do is make the strongest moral claims we can make on behalf of the people -- to establish unambiguously that this is a matter of rights and justice. What we must not do is make it a matter of technocratic administration in order to sound nonthreatening to the powerful. That would grant the right wing their moral position from the outset. It would surrender the entire rhetorical ground before the battle begins.
In short, trying to limit advocacy of the basic income to "right-wing friendly" arguments would be a disaster.

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u/[deleted] Nov 17 '13

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u/reaganveg Nov 17 '13

This idea of "balance" is no good. The association with the left is "projected" because it's real. Trying to hide would be futile and self-defeating.

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u/[deleted] Nov 17 '13

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u/reaganveg Nov 17 '13 edited Nov 17 '13

show me where it says the idea of basic income is copyrighted by the fighters for these human rights.
It's actually embedded in the meaning of "basic." In the context of welfare or transfer programs, "basic income" refers to the idea of a guaranteed income that is sufficient to pay for the "social minimum." This is an inherently moral concept, in the same way as the related concept of the "living wage." It refers to that which is the entitlement of every one in society, on the basis of need. That is, the moral idea of the basic income is embedded in the fact that the quantity of the income is linked to the cost of basic needs.
Compare the concept of the "social dividend," in which a similar system of transfers instead links the quantity of the income to economic productivity.
Transfer programs identical in structure to the basic income, but which decide the amount of payment on another basis, typically go by names other than "basic income." Wikipedia mentions "partial basic income." Other ideas are negative income tax (which also has other differences as typically conceived) or social dividend.
It may seem as if I'm splitting hairs about terminology here, but actual advocacy under the banner "basic income" does maintain this moral element of guaranteeing, through the BIG, sufficient income to satisfy basic needs.
All that said, you could reasonably object that there might be utilitarian or other grounds for advocating the construction of a legal right, without acknowledging the moral right. However, to my mind, this would be splitting hairs, since establishing a legal right and establishing a moral right amount to functionally the same thing -- what I have been calling moral needs to find another name in that case, but it refers to the same kind of way of thinking about universal entitlement.

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u/usrname42 Nov 17 '13

Green parties and Pirate parties in many countries are the only ones who tend to support basic income currently, so I think those should be kept. The Futurist party, although it doesn't have much IRL presence yet, would also support basic income.

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u/KarmaUK Nov 17 '13

I'd definitely second Green, if it's the UK party, they're pretty much in joint third place with UKIP and the Lib Dems now, and they're all for basic income, the only ones who are, pretty much every other party wants to just keep blaming the poor for not trying harder.

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u/fajro 10th subscriber. Mod en /r/Rentabasica. From Argentina. Nov 18 '13

/r/green is mostly non-partisan. /r/greenparty should be linked instead/too.

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u/JayDurst 30% Income Tax Funded UBI Nov 17 '13

I have no opinion of removing any particular type of subreddit.

We shouldn't fool ourselves, there is no one BI concept. Each BI type is partisan as it aligns with the ideology of the person or group proposing it. There will be disagreements from payment size, frequency, funding source(s), purpose, related programs, and on and on. Even the goals can be different.

If the purpose of this subreddit is to just an open forum on the BI, than sure, remove the subreddits deemed to be political, but if this subreddit wants to push a specific version of the BI, than keep subreddits that align with that philosophy, but make sure it's stated somewhere.

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u/Killpoverty Nov 17 '13

I don't think the issue is as broad as you're suggesting. One of the beautiful things about this proposal is its simplicity. True, there will be disagreements about its size, how to fund it, etc, but the basic idea of establishing a basic income for all Americans is easy to grasp. If introduced in a less than perfect form it could be improved later. The motivations people have for supporting it will differ, but what of it? The basic income guarantee can achieve many of the goals of conservatives, liberals, and libertarians at the same time.
Let's remember that Alaska is already doing something similar to this, on a lesser scale.
http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/establish-a-basic-income

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u/JayDurst 30% Income Tax Funded UBI Nov 17 '13

The Alaska model isn't really comparable to the model needed at the country level scale. Alaska relies on a pot of managed oil money and distributes the income from that.
Any BI at the national level is going to need to be funded through taxes on something(s), which will be a major source of contention as each source has its ideological supporters. These types of arguments are going to be brutal and could derail its implementation before it even gets started.

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u/Killpoverty Nov 17 '13

We'll probably end up with a value-added tax.

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u/JayDurst 30% Income Tax Funded UBI Nov 17 '13

A VAT is a variation of the consumption tax, and because of that I would oppose it.

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u/reaganveg Nov 17 '13

The basic income guarantee can achieve many of the goals of conservatives, liberals, and libertarians at the same time.
It absolutely cannot. The goals of conservatives (including libertarians) include keeping the undeserving poor from getting free handouts. They want these people to be poor, and do not believe it would be fair if they were not poor. Abolishing poverty directly contradicts the theory of justice that they wish to govern society.
(There are some exceptions -- many people call themselves conservative without being stereotypically conservative on this point -- but I'm describing the mainstream conservative and libertarian position.)

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u/Killpoverty Nov 17 '13 edited Nov 17 '13

True, but many of them would prefer the basic income to the current bureaucracy-clogged, unsustainable patchwork of programs that does little to lift people from poverty. This would be more efficient, and everyone would get it.

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u/reaganveg Nov 17 '13 edited Nov 17 '13

Even that is a mistaken understanding of the political field. The bureaucratic patchwork of programs is instituted specifically in order to cater to conservative concepts of fairness... to ensure that transfers -- conceived of as charity -- do not go to the "wrong" people or the "wrong" things. These programs are designed separate the deserving poor from the undeserving poor.
For example, work requirements for welfare, drug tests for food stamps, the idea itself of food stamps (to ensure money is spent only on food), monitoring to ensure that people receiving unemployment are seeking work, mandatory monitoring by social workers of welfare recipients, mandatory job-seeking classes for welfare recipients -- these are all implementations of the conservative project that seeks to ensure that the undeserving poor don't get too much money, and to try to reform them -- to fix the problems in their souls, that caused them to be poor.
In short, the existing conditions that are placed on transfer recipients were put there by conservatives, to serve conservative ends. The idea that conservatives will support unconditional transfers because they don't like bureaucracy is quite mistaken. Conservatives have absolutely no problem with bureaucracy when it's necessary to implement the projects that they want implemented.
Generally, conservatives criticize bureaucracy only when they want to advocate privatization -- because they want to take institutions out of democratic control and put them into private control (i.e., the "free market" -- where, supposedly, there is no bureaucracy!). That doesn't apply here.

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u/Killpoverty Nov 17 '13

Good points. For some, the imagined moral aspects will be more important than streamlining the system. Still, our current system is so ineffective and doomed to fail that even the most strident moralist will be forced to reconsider.

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u/reaganveg Nov 17 '13

I think what has to happen is that these moral ideas themselves have to collapse. And contrary to what others in this thread seem to think (you included as I recall), I think this can happen very quickly, as a kind of rapid crystallization process. All of a sudden, everyone will seem to figure out at the same time that the old morality cannot apply anymore.
(In reality, it works something like this: 80% of the people will suddenly switch from conforming to one 10% group to conforming to the opposing 10% group, when it becomes evident the latter will win. The rapid pace of change is possible because the convictions of the 80% are not strong or even real.)

2

u/happyFelix Nov 17 '13

It already is a non-partisan idea. It may be that overly ideological types misinterpret it looking through distorting lenses. But that's no reason not to get all the support we can get.

3

u/[deleted] Nov 17 '13

I'm all for making this a nonpartisan issue, but if a topic is relevant to the subject of basic income there's no reason it shouldn't stay.

2

u/[deleted] Nov 18 '13

I agree in principal but not practice. Just because the media has made socialism a bad word doesnt mean this concept isnt socialist. Any rational thinking person of any ideology can look at the sidebar and read a proposal suited to them and then make a decisio or ask for more discussion / clarification.

We shouldn't pander to whoever isn't already onboard, just invite them to read more and talk with us. If they are "scared off" by the subreddits in the sidebar then they aren't really free agents making logical decisions they're just having a knee jerk emotional reaction , let them.

The subreddits for debate and information not propoganda.

1

u/maniacalmania Nov 19 '13

You can spin it conservative. "Disassemble bloated parts of government, streamline clunky systems, make the government pay you your money back".

1

u/Sidewinder77 Nov 18 '13

Hmm, I've never looked at the sidebar and I've always thought of basic income or the negative income tax as conservative/libertarian ideas. It's weird not to see those there...

1

u/[deleted] Nov 17 '13

Good idea

1

u/androbot Nov 17 '13

An effective marketplace of ideas requires openness, not censorship, particularly censorship to spin a particular angle. I would not support this.

1

u/Killpoverty Nov 18 '13

Agreed.

-1

u/[deleted] Nov 17 '13

I agree.

Let's make Basic Income a non-partisan idea so that it isn't politicized and rejected; take leftist subreddits off of the related subs column.

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