Socialism Vs Capitalism

Why not eliminate the income tax altogether and use a sales tax? Not VAT but an end user sales tax. That way all tax is nominally voluntary. Purchasing goods and services incurs a sales tax. Don't want to oat taxes don't buy goods and services. I would exempt food (groceries), clothing (below a certain price), home purchases and rentals below certain values and medical goods and services.

The exemptions are not voluntary and so should not be taxed. Its much simpler that way. So if a citizen wants to vote, he cannot take subsides from the government. Your 4 year rule will work as good as any other that attempts to make self sufficiency a habbit.

Michael Everett wrote:Regarding voting rights, I always thought that the best thing to do would be to reduce taxation to a voluntary percentage of the wage, but require someone to pay something like 20% flat-rate tax for a minimum of four years before they gained the right to vote (or have a minimum amount paid for them by a spouse/lover/relative/friend) with the provisio that if they claim any money from the government, they are forbidden from paying tax for that year and thus lose the right to vote until they have paid tax for four more years.

This means that since politicians would be unable to rely on the benefits underclass for votes (the way that Labour does in the UK), politicians would seek to reduce the red tape that keeps many people from working in order to get them into a position where they can vote. This would encourage economic growth and discourage the growth of a parasitic underclass known by the politically incorrect name of Benefit Scroungers.

It would also tell people that voting is important.

namelessfly wrote:I will be dipped in shit!

Someone finally offers a cogent argument for universal sufferage. Evenimbeciles should be allowed to vote because by allowing imbeciles to vote, society assumes moral authority over the imbeciles andcanthus expect the imbeciles to abide by societies laws.

This requires thought.

How can you get the imbeciles to not vote like imbeciles

Glad I could oblige!

As for the "imbeciles", how do you define who isn't and who is?

That is the greatest challenge for any politician, regardless of political affiliation. How do you connect to all of the electorate, not just your reliable core vote? How do you get people off their arses and down to the polling station?

Here in the UK, the greatest threat to our democracy is voter apathy. This manifests itself along socioeconomic lines and, most crucially at the moment, age. The research and polling that I have seen indicate that the Under-30's are the most disenchanted with UK politics.

From my own experience talking to work colleagues and friends who are in that group the main issues are:

1. No one party reflects their views.

2. All political parties are the same.

3. Even if they vote, that vote doesn't make a difference.

4. Politicians are lying, corrupt scum.

5. Politicians only care about older voters.

6. Politicians don't care about young people.

7. Governments are only interested in supporting big business and the banks.

8. Governments don't do enough to help those in low wage brackets.

This manifests itself as poor voter turnout in that age group. If they don't feel their participation matters, why bother voting for something that doesn't work for them?

Of course, you can see that there are substantial holes in the logic, but trying to explain why their vote matters is.... difficult, shall we say. I've tried, but I might as well bang my head against a wall for all the good it's done!

It can be argued, however, that by disenfranchising themselves, they are minimising the "imbecile" factor in elections....

Mike.

namelessfly wrote:Interesting observations.

I would point out that increased population not only increases the supply of labor but also the demand for products and hence the demand for labor.

I also find your observations about resource constraints reducing the demand for labor interesting. This is why I am so hostile towards environmentalists alarmism. The AGW folk have declared that their goal is to reduce not only CO2 but reduce industrial production and population to achieve that goal. Any sane populist should oppose this.

Yeah, but their is a maximum a person is able to consume. Their are two limitations for a single person to consume:

1. The real ability to consume a product. For example, I can just eat so much in a day, even in really extrem cases a person can not eat more than like 10 000 calories a day or I have only 24hour a day, I just can watch 24h TV, or play a game or read a book. The ability to consume, to generate demand for products is limited and at least in the western civilization, for most people the limited is reached. The advertising industry tries to create more and more demand, but their is just a freaking limit. Of course you can start to waste, but even theirfor is a limit unless you go crazy with wasting things.
2. The money/wealth you can spend on your consume. For example I'm from Germany. Statisticly, every German buys a new car every two or three years. At least is was like that ten years ago. Now, after some welfare reform which increased the supply of laborers, the lower classes have shrinking income and theirfor can't buy new cars every two years. The same, when you destroy jobs in Europe or the US by outsourcing them to china to chinese people who work for a thenth of the price, the ability to consume is reduced, because people have less money.
Their are some tricks to postpone the decline of consumtion, like taking a credit, what the US and a lot of poor people in the US did, but this only works for some time and not forever, what you can see now in the US (and in Europa, like Greece).

For the Anti-Global-Warning-Folks, I think they are right. We need to reduce CO2 and also I think consum.
But in capitalism that would mean recession and a destruction of the economical system.

I think that is the problem of the AGW-Movement. They don't understand that they need to ask the system-question (its a german term, 'Die Systemfrage stellen', it means calling the entire system into question).
They think, they just can reduce some CO2 and production, but this is impossible with the current economical and political system in the US, Europe and most of the world. The Anti-Anti-Global-Warming People understand that, they don't want to change the economic system, so they fight against the AGW people.

The free-market capitalism is just 200 years old, before that their were a lot of different systems with a lot of different views and goals.
For example the medieval guilds in Europa implemented an economical and social system with the aim to have a very strong workplace security. Nobody would have to be afraid to loose his job because of competition and a surplus of supply.
No free markets, no competition and that worked most of the time very good for nearly 1000 years.
Now, I don't say that we should implement the guild-system again but I say we can learn a lot from the past.
And we have to review the goals of our economic system and if our current system works to reach that goals.

Having worked hard all my life I'm anything but a doleist, but I am horrified by the proposal that no one receiving government financial assistance could vote. That would be approaching the bad old days where only male landholders could vote.

Many of the smartest people I've known have been in receipt of some assistance and to disenfranchise them would be to waste all that intellectual capital. That proposal also seems to say that unless you achieve financial success you are not a respected contributing member of society. Many who make a lot of money are not people I'd want to have making policy for my society anyway.

Having retired early from paid work I still pay tax on income from my investments, and don't begrudge some of it being spent helping those who haven't been as financially fortunate as I have. I still contribute to society in many ways just not being paid for it anymore.

The requirement for no voting after receipt of govt money would also reject all nz tertiary students as our government loans us our student loans. so you are suggesting that around a quarter to a third of nz's population between 18 and 26 (4 year degree, 4 years unable to vote) be disenfranchised for attempting to better themselves. this will do the opposite of what you are trying to prevent, namely discourage people from getting uni education, and stifle progress, increasing the population relying on the government.

I rather like the namelessfly's idea of a bicameral legislature. One chamber taxpayers only, one chamber everyone else. The bicameral system rural (Senate)/ population (House) in the US has for the most part worked well (not perfectly, but well), keeping the cities from stomping too much on the rural areas and keeping the rural areas from stomping too much on the cities. So I see no reason why a taxpayer/everyone pairing won't work as well. Having taxpayer's only reduces the risk of politicians buying the votes of those on the dole by unsustainable welfare schemes. While having the everyone chamber blocks the return of the bad old days where only rich landowners could vote. Since both chambers would be required to pass legislation, only legislation that was acceptable to both groups would pass, so they would need to negotiate and compromise with one another.

biochem wrote:I rather like the namelessfly's idea of a bicameral legislature. One chamber taxpayers only, one chamber everyone else. The bicameral system rural (Senate)/ population (House) in the US has for the most part worked well (not perfectly, but well), keeping the cities from stomping too much on the rural areas and keeping the rural areas from stomping too much on the cities. So I see no reason why a taxpayer/everyone pairing won't work as well. Having taxpayer's only reduces the risk of politicians buying the votes of those on the dole by unsustainable welfare schemes. While having the everyone chamber blocks the return of the bad old days where only rich landowners could vote. Since both chambers would be required to pass legislation, only legislation that was acceptable to both groups would pass, so they would need to negotiate and compromise with one another.

Look, if you want to go back to feudalism, just say so. Don't use all the formal elements of feudalism and call it democracy, that's just false advertising.

The E wrote:

biochem wrote:I rather like the namelessfly's idea of a bicameral legislature. One chamber taxpayers only, one chamber everyone else. The bicameral system rural (Senate)/ population (House) in the US has for the most part worked well (not perfectly, but well), keeping the cities from stomping too much on the rural areas and keeping the rural areas from stomping too much on the cities. So I see no reason why a taxpayer/everyone pairing won't work as well. Having taxpayer's only reduces the risk of politicians buying the votes of those on the dole by unsustainable welfare schemes. While having the everyone chamber blocks the return of the bad old days where only rich landowners could vote. Since both chambers would be required to pass legislation, only legislation that was acceptable to both groups would pass, so they would need to negotiate and compromise with one another.

Look, if you want to go back to feudalism, just say so. Don't use all the formal elements of feudalism and call it democracy, that's just false advertising.

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In a Feudalistic system only the top 0.01% had any say at all. The peasants were one step above property. Wise Lords utilized the peasant resource well, gaining the devoted loyalty of their subjects which could be very valuable in a crunch situation. Other Lords abused their people horribly. The only check on the actions of the Lords were their own consciences and their own self interest (gaining that loyalty).

A bicameral legislature is very different. Usually bicameral legislatures work the best if there is a significant rivalry between disparate interests. With a bicameral legislature the competing interests must agree, which means that no measure can exclusively benefit one side or the other. In the USA the problem was between low population rural states vs high population states dominated by cities.

In a situation where a portion of the population pays taxes and another portion of the population benefits from those taxes in the form of welfare etc, there is inherent conflict. One way (not the only way by any means) to handle this conflict of interest is a bicameral legislature. Taxpayers i.e. those who are paying for everything in one house and everyone i.e. those who benefit in the other house. With both sides represented neither side can impose policies which benefit themselves alone. Taxpayers won't be able to slash taxes, add exemptions etc etc without convincing society at large that it will benefit (for example a tax rate cut packaged with a simplified exemption/deduction policy, benefiting overall society by a simpler and fairer tax code). The everyone house won't be able to buy votes by adding every benefit program it can think of. The taxpayer house would demand things like accountability (for example a jobs program wouldn't be able to get an increase in funding if it failed to produce jobs, but an effective jobs program would be beneficial to the taxpayers as well as society at large and thus a case for increased funding could be made).

This is precisely what I want to do.

Feel free to get an education at taxpayer expense. It will delay you getting the francnise for a few years. This is good because college students vote like imbeciles. If you get a good paying job, you then pay taxes and vote for the rest of your life. If voting is important to you, that will motivate you to learn useful skills.

Spacekiwi wrote:The requirement for no voting after receipt of govt money would also reject all nz tertiary students as our government loans us our student loans. so you are suggesting that around a quarter to a third of nz's population between 18 and 26 (4 year degree, 4 years unable to vote) be disenfranchised for attempting to better themselves. this will do the opposite of what you are trying to prevent, namely discourage people from getting uni education, and stifle progress, increasing the population relying on the government.

The basic concept that taxpayers are different to and more important than other citizens is abhorrent to me. I'm a white, well educated, well off, male landowner who has paid tax for about 50 years so I'd be eligible, yet still disagree totally with the approach.

Many effective ways of ensuring that the Haven Dolist trend won't occur. All western democracies seem to be operating effectively with no such trend developing. The countries with more highly developed national welfare nets (Australia, New Zealand, all of Scandinavia, Canada)rode out the GFC better than the others.