Green Party and the Citizens' Income

onlyroz

GeorgeHowell wrote: »

The assumption that anyone has an automatic right to any kind of subsistence without making any contribution is the thin end of the wedge towards economic oblivion.

What if society were to develop such that unskilled workers were completely unnecessary? (E.g. through increased automation, or through the use of intelligent robots etc etc).

Would we really leave the unskilled to starve and die? Or would we provide them with the means for a comfortable existence?

I appreciate this is going off into sci-fi territory but we really might one day end up living in a Culture-esque society where all we have to do all day is lounge about and enjoy ourselves.

GeorgeHowell

onlyroz wrote: »

What if society were to develop such that unskilled workers were completely unnecessary? (E.g. through increased automation, or through the use of intelligent robots etc etc).

Would we really leave the unskilled to starve and die? Or would we provide them with the means for a comfortable existence?

I appreciate this is going off into sci-fi territory but we really might one day end up living in a Culture-esque society where all we have to do all day is lounge about and enjoy ourselves.

That is perhaps a distinct possibility sometime in the future. That will pose immense problems in terms of how work is incentivised regarding the jobs that still need doing by humans, and also how the idle sector is given any sense of purpose and activity, and prevented from becoming completely anti-social.

But it's not where we are now. There is still a demand for unskilled and semi-skilled workers, particularly in the service sectors where jobs are often more difficult to automate. We should not start implementing this distant vision now before it's even happened.

N1AK

tomterm8 wrote: »

Note: In a communist society the government also must control the press and establish total control of the media and political system i.e. in practice a communist society must be a one party state.

There's no reason why the press has to be government controlled in a communist country than a capitalist one. However, given the amount of 'taking' a government needs to do from people to make a country capitalist I imagine it's much easier if you have control of the media. There are plenty of capitalist countries with very strong control of the media after all.

GeorgeHowell

N1AK wrote: »

However, given the amount of 'taking' a government needs to do from people to make a country capitalist I imagine it's much easier if you have control of the media. .

A communist one party dictatorship takes from people their choices, their independence, their self-determination, their ability to realise their full potential, their dignity, and their self-respect. How much more can you take away than that ?

princeofpounds

How much more can you take away than that ?

Indeed.

"From each according to his ability, to each according to his need"

This pretty much is communism in a sentence. Communism aims to take absolutely everything from the individual; property is theft remember?

Graham_Devon

GeorgeHowell wrote: »

The assumption that anyone has an automatic right to any kind of subsistence without making any contribution is the thin end of the wedge towards economic oblivion.

We have that already though.

GeorgeHowell

Graham_Devon wrote: »

We have that already though.

Indeed we do. Only it's not openly admitted that we do, and the wedge is still thin enough to pull it back out ... just.

zagubov

tomterm8 wrote: »

These are the tenants of communism. You can't have a communist state without all of them:

• Central banking system
• Government controlled education
• Government controlled labor
• Government ownership of transportation and communication vehicles
• Government ownership of agricultural means and factories
• Total abolition of private property
• Property rights confiscation
• Heavy income tax on everyone
• Elimination of rights of inheritance
• Regional planning

We have many of these things. We don't have all of them.

We're the closest we've been to a communist state since world war II since the most right-wing labour party in history accidentally nationalized most of the banking sector.

I always thought that was humorous, in a ridiculously dangerous kind of way.

Note: In a communist society the government also must control the press and establish total control of the media and political system i.e. in practice a communist society must be a one party state.

Always looking for an excuse to push my fave website- the Squashed Philosophers.