An American Birthright

[fearfaoin]

Al calculates that this American birthright is about $20,000 per person per year. He reasons that the wealth of this country should not belong to corporations, which are ficticious and not real people.

While I agree that corporations are not people, and are not entitled to the special treatment they currently get, each corporation is an abstraction of a large group of people. The money going to corporations don't just disappear into black holes, they go to shareholders, and to exhorbitant CEO salaries, and eventually to the saleries of every worker in that corporation. I would agree that something has to be done to make the division of wealth among corporate workers a bit more equitable (e.g., a CEO should not get $300,000 bonuses after laying off 10% of his workforce). But I don't think we should add to the feeling of entitlement that most Americans seem to have these days. People shouldn't be discriminated against because of where they were born, and people equally aren't entitled to other people's hard work just because they were lucky enough to be born in the same country.

[emmline]

Hard question.
Somehow $20K handouts don't seem like they'll do as much for a lot of folks as better planned healthcare, etc.
Politically, I'm a nitwit, but this is my instinct.

[GaryKelly]

Where is this money going to come from? Is the country spending enough already?

Maybe a tax free saving account for parents to get their children in college. And just so that people think that this is for the rich only, limit it to households that make less than $50K a year.

"Bruce Ackerman at Yale Law School, would like to have
much higher inheritance taxes – and use the money to give each and
every citizen 80,000 dollars when they turn 21. Yes, that’s 80,000
dollars or 50,000 pounds. For everyone."


See the transcript of the radio programme I posted above... it's the blue link that says "Read the programme transcript".... oh buggrit, here it is again:


Read the programme transcript

It's an interesting idea...

[Jack]

Christian Socialism, Christian Socialism...

[jbarter]

Oh no! I've been Merkanised.

Resistance is futile...you will be assimilated. Your biological and technological distinctiveness will be added to our own.

Does that mean I get the money?

[Tyler]

Oh no! I've been Merkanised.

Resistance is futile...you will be assimilated. Your biological and technological distinctiveness will be added to our own.

Does that mean I get the money?

No, it just means that you get to be a mindless, souless drone and assist the Merican Collective in assimilating the rest of the known universe

[djm]

My very simplistic understanding of this "resources" thing is that, in a democracy (no, I won't niggle about that one) the elected government holds the natural resources of the country for the citizens. That's why the government owns all lands, and if you want to own a piece of land with its resources you buy it from the government, or it is granted or ceded to you by the government. So the citizens already own the resources, but through the citizenry's agents, the government, they have given up the rights to those resources by sale to individuals or corporations that bought or received those lands and their resources, i.e. the transfer of resources from public to private hands. Adopting this Yale twit's wunderplan would be to negate or ignore all property sales to the private sector since the establishment of the country.

djm

[Will O'B]

I think it's important to make certain distinctions here. While I would agree (to a certain extent) that the residents of ANY country have a certain right to the NATURAL resources of their country, I cannot agree that we all have a right to the LABOR resources. The resources that have been made by another man's labor are not something that we have some kind of divine right to, especially if we had no hand in making or growing it. But also, with rights come responsibilities. I would agree that we all have a right to food, shelter, clothing etc. But if I am an able bodied person, I have an obligation to give back to my country as well by working, serving, whatever. These things must go hand in hand.

Very well put, IMHO. Score one for the Iz.

Will O'

[Wormdiet]

I'm kinda thinking (Econ teacher mode here) that all this would accomplish would be to create a great deal of inflation without much changing in the long run. MOney isn't a resource, it's a counting mechanism. When you add too much to an economy without backing it up with something, then the counting mechanism gets skewed.

I believe everyone is entitled to some minimum acceptable standard of living, but I'm not sure how handing out a check is the way to go about it.

On the other hand. . . how many whistles could one buy for $50K?

[Tyler]

I'm kinda thinking (Econ teacher mode here) that all this would accomplish would be to create a great deal of inflation without much changing in the long run. MOney isn't a resource, it's a counting mechanism. When you add too much to an economy without backing it up with something, then the counting mechanism gets skewed.

I believe everyone is entitled to some minimum acceptable standard of living, but I'm not sure how handing out a check is the way to go about it.

On the other hand. . . how many whistles could one buy for $50K?

But, hey, mebey there's an upshot to that much inflation...I mean hell, if the dollar was only worth what China's currency is worth, they'd stop trying to make a buck off us!

[Tommy]

My Quaker friend, Al Anderson, in a number of books argues persuasively that, as people born in the USA, we have a birthright which entitles us to a share of the wealth of the country. This share is not something that we have to earn or work for; it is a condition of our birth. Al calculates that this American birthright is about $20,000 per person per year. He reasons that the wealth of this country should not belong to corporations, which are ficticious and not real people. The resources of this country belong to the people of this country as a condition of their birthright. The implications of this idea are rather obvious. We shouldn't have to beg for universal health care, for example. We are entitled to it, without cost, because this is our country, and we own a share of its bountiful resources.

You have got to be kidding me, a birthright to America's natural resources ? What ever happened to the Puritan work ethnic! William Penn, the leader of the early American Quakers of Pennsylvania, certainly did not believe that Americans were entitled to the natural resources, because he insisted to pay the Native Americans for their land. Penn further promoted that Quakers would take a stand against slavery, therefore reinforcing the concept that if the Quakers wanted a better life in America, that the work ethnic must prevail. The ongoing discussion about entitlements and universal health care reminds me of the philosopy preached by Karl Marx in the 1800s. His socialist views continue to be discussed here. The only thing that is missing is someone advocating a violent overthrew of our government. Open up a history book and read about the Bolshevik Revolution if you truly believe Americans are entitled. The Bolsheviks believed this and look what happened to Russia in 1917! Spare me the argument of entitlement, America roll up your sleeves and find solutions to our massive problems.

[izzarina]

The ongoing discussion about entitlements and universal health care reminds me of the philosopy preached by Karl Marx in the 1800s. His socialist views continue to be discussed here.

The major line of thinking here goes beyond just socialistic. It's Communistic. In socialism, the state owns everything, while in Communism the people own everything. So Doug's friend seems to be more of a Communist rather than a Socialist.

[Doug_Tipple]

Here is a link to a brief autobiography of my friend, Al Andersen. You can draw your own conclusion about what label you want to use to describe his views.
http://www.cooperativeindividualism.org ... tobio.html

[izzarina]

Here is a link to a brief autobiography of my friend, Al Andersen. You can draw your own conclusion about what label you want to use to describe his views.
http://www.cooperativeindividualism.org ... tobio.html

There are a couple of quirky aspect to what he is saying, but it still sounds very much like Communism to me. So that's my conclusion There are some differences, though. Does he have a label for himself, Doug?

[BillChin]

It is an interesting idea. I do wish experiments of this sort could be conducted, because the social result would be most interesting. I believe under this plan, if people were able to borrow against their future checks, in ten or twenty years, the income distribution would only be a little different than it is today. Why? Because there would be huge marketing campaigns about take this trip TODAY, or get this gadget TODAY, or buy this car or boat TODAY, or buy these clothes TODAY, just sign over you next xxx years worth of checks to us. Many people would borrow, and then lobby for their checks be doubled after they squandered their share for their forseeable lifetime.

In my opinion, what would be far more useful than giving everyone money for nothing, would be to teach them the value of money, the value of saving and investing, the value of earning a day's pay. The old saw of teach a man to fish or give a man a fish comes to mind. In this case, I fear it might be give a man a fish and in five years he will demand two fish per day and in ten years demand four per day.

I much prefer Jefferson's words "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" as the American birthright. No one came to this country with any monetary guarantees. In my opinion, trying to turn the United States into a communist-style "workers paradise" as I see this proposal as doing, would have one major result--making everyone poorer in the long run. I thought those ideas were thoroughly discredited with the collapse of the old Soviet Union, the economic failure of North Korea, and Communist China embracing some free-market principles. I guess there are a still old liners out there, writing their books, evidence be damned.