Haven - cutting welfare

Daryl wrote:In a modern developed society it is difficult to go "off grid". You have to pay council rates and possibly land tax on your property. There are charges like sales tax, VAT, or GST on the goods you buy. In many cases you get charged a service fee for water, sewerage or power if it goes past your property even if you don't use it.

Thus just shutting the gate and living by growing your own food, fuel and textiles is not possible. You have to have a cash income to pay these mandatory imposts. I see nothing unethical for those trying to be self sufficient to access some minimal welfare as it would be government money going to pay government automatic charges.

The trouble with this is that even if you could economically isolate yourself, you are are still dependent on the social framework for such things as police protection, education, defense against outsiders trying to overthrow the framework. There are those who home educate, of course, but comparatively few parents are capable of doing a good job of it. Then unless you completely lock yourself on you property, you are using roads that need to be paid for, medical services and, I am sure, other services which don't come to mind right now.

Then, if you want to look at the moral and ethical issues, at least from a Christian point of view, you confront the question of how we meet our love obligation to our neighbor.

The upshot of the whole thing is that I really don't think it is possible for us to isolate ourselves to the extent that we are dependent only upon ourselves and are free of being indebted to the community at large. The only real serious question is if we are making our contribution to making things go.

Don

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n7axw wrote:

Daryl wrote:In a modern developed society it is difficult to go "off grid". You have to pay council rates and possibly land tax on your property. There are charges like sales tax, VAT, or GST on the goods you buy. In many cases you get charged a service fee for water, sewerage or power if it goes past your property even if you don't use it.

Thus just shutting the gate and living by growing your own food, fuel and textiles is not possible. You have to have a cash income to pay these mandatory imposts. I see nothing unethical for those trying to be self sufficient to access some minimal welfare as it would be government money going to pay government automatic charges.

The trouble with this is that even if you could economically isolate yourself, you are are still dependent on the social framework for such things as police protection, education, defense against outsiders trying to overthrow the framework. There are those who home educate, of course, but comparatively few parents are capable of doing a good job of it. Then unless you completely lock yourself on you property, you are using roads that need to be paid for, medical services and, I am sure, other services which don't come to mind right now.

Then, if you want to look at the moral and ethical issues, at least from a Christian point of view, you confront the question of how we meet our love obligation to our neighbor.

The upshot of the whole thing is that I really don't think it is possible for us to isolate ourselves to the extent that we are dependent only upon ourselves and are free of being indebted to the community at large. The only real serious question is if we are making our contribution to making things go.

Don

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Yeah, even if you never call the police, their presence is keeping criminals away from you by policing other cases in the region. Even if you never catch a disease or go to the hospital, the local health department and Federal Health organs are actively keeping outbreaks from occurring and spreading to you. The Fire departments and parks services are keeping fires from getting out of control and burning onto your property, even if you never call them for your fires. The military, while not stationed on your property, is keeping foreign invaders at bay, so you are not having to fight off people from "Overthereistan". The list could go on and on.

I heard a similar argument from members of suburbia in the US - people complaining about paying high taxes, yet never using 90% of the government functions. Unfortunately everyone has to pay their part or everything falls apart.

Theemile wrote:

n7axw wrote:"="Daryl"]I
snip-

Thus just shutting the gate and living by growing your own food, fuel and textiles is not possible. You have to have a cash income to pay these mandatory imposts.
snip "

The trouble with this is that even if you could economically isolate yourself, you are are still dependent on the social framework for such things as police protection, education, defense against outsiders trying to overthrow the framework.
snip

Then, if you want to look at the moral and ethical issues, at least from a Christian point of view, you confront the question of how we meet our love obligation to our neighbor.

The upshot of the whole thing is that I really don't think it is possible for us to isolate ourselves to the extent that we are dependent only upon ourselves and are free of being indebted to the community at large. The only real serious question is if we are making our contribution to making things go.

Don

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Yeah, even if . . ..
snip The list could go on and on.

snip

Unfortunately everyone has to pay their part or everything falls apart.

Quite so. The Amish try to reduce dependency (no objection to technology, just dependency) but there are limits. I read of some people who hated cities, etc., went to the Rockies and lived much like the mountain men of the 1800s. But when the oldest son got to courting age, there was trouble because he hadn't been properly socialized. It isn't just helping pay for things, it is also finding ways to relate well to the rest of society.

In the book, "Possum Living" by Dolly Freed, FIRST they invested until they had a solid income, THEN they went back to the land. Also, they did part time work for a change of pace. Retired, we are living mostly on social security, with investments producing about 15%, part time work another 15%, and as BJ comments, PTW lets us get out of our small town once in a while, without adding to expenses.

OTOH, you can help your wallet (and improve health) by doing garden work, etc., and there are many other things that can be done. MEN has articles on urban homesteading, etc. And if the massive debt level crushes social security or makes the fiat paper worthless there is at least a little backup. For some reason, if we can't eat we don't do well.

IMHP, I don't dislike cities, but with modern weaponry, my nickname for them is "ground zero."

There was an article a few decades back on what made the most livable situation. The conclusion was strips - a strip of transportation, ditto both sides for industrial, parkland to isolate a bit, stores, residences, more park, farmland. Walk one way and you are getting more urban, the other way more rural. The strips were to be narrow enough for people to be easily exposed to variety.

And, of course:

Everybody, in other words, should do his best, subject to the inevitable vicissitudes of life, to live within his own means so that he doesn’t have to live within others’ means – whether charitable donors’ means or taxpayers, which these days effectively means other people’s children’s means.

Makes sense

The best way to make money is to create value. If I personally owned Apple as a private company, I'd be making more money – completely honestly – than many governments, and they are the biggest thieves in the world.

The welfare state encourages people to concentrate on getting money. In Haven, when the dolists became interested in fighting the "greedy capitalists" it moved some of them away from a money focus into creating one or another kind of value. Eventually this moved them out of the welfare trap.

Someone wrote "Capitalism means that if I don't create value for others, I starve." This would be for any honest free economy, in fact. The problem is that too many who do well want to reduce competition from below, and this is true in many economies.

The best pattern is to encourage those who create real value, and discourage those who lie, steal, kill, or destroy to put others down.

To weaken others, to degrade them by making them dependent upon generosity, as we discussed in our conversation on charity, is not doing those people any good. If you really care about others, the best thing you can do for them is to push for totally freeing all markets. That makes it both necessary and rewarding for them to learn valuable skills and to become creators of value, and not burdens on society. It's a win-win all around.

same source

Unfortunately, many of the rich people in the world today didn't get their money by real production. They got it by using political connections and slopping at the trough of the state. That's bad.

same source

= "John Stossel"

Wages can't be set at will either. Sure, what boss wouldn't like to pay a workforce one dollar per year? But other companies need laborers too, and those that underpay lose good workers. So the bidding process continues endlessly -- it's why the median household income in the U.S. is more than $50,000 a year. That wouldn't happen if bosses could just wake up and decide, "Let's pay workers less!"

The credit for good wages doesn't go to labor unions or politicians' passing a minimum wage, though they sure hog the credit. The credit goes to market competition and a growing economy. After all, 95 percent of workers earn more than minimum wage, and most jobs aren't unionized.

Mr. Stossel teaches economics.

But I think Sir Winston Churchill gave the best answer to Chris Matthews’ question, “Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, i.ts inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.”

To be blunt, value isn't money, or else Zimbabwe would be rich instead of a very poor nation. Value is food, clothing, and other necessities, conveniences, and luxuries. To someone living in a desert, a means of getting almost any water is valuable. If they live by a great fresh water lake, the value might be in making sure it is uncontaminated water. In Joseph's time, during the seven years of plenty, food wasn't very valuable. During the seven years of dearth, people traded everything to be able to eat.

A focus on money is counterproductive. The only value of money is in easing trading for something with real value.

Sometimes I think authors understand this better than politicians. Look at the way Howsmynn and his friends treated their workers in the Safehold series, and the results they got.

The real solution is to build a future in which bailouts aren't necessary, in which growing businesses, not government spending projects, flourish.

From:

http://townhall.com/columnists/johnstos ... sletterad=

About Puerto Rico, which isn't rich since the government has been trying to produce jobs.

DDHv wrote:

The real solution is to build a future in which bailouts aren't necessary, in which growing businesses, not government spending projects, flourish.

From:

http://townhall.com/columnists/johnstos ... sletterad=

About Puerto Rico, which isn't rich since the government has been trying to produce jobs.

in the US almost all liberals and democrats follow Keynesian economics,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keynesian_economics
created by British economist John Maynard Keynes during the Great Depression.The theory is that bailouts and government stimulus work.

The majority of conservatives and republicans follow the economics of
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_Friedman
Milton Friedman (July 31, 1912 – November 16, 2006) was an American economist who received the 1976 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his research on consumption analysis, monetary history and theory and the complexity of stabilization policy.
The theory is that government regulations, bailouts and stimulus hurt the economy.

Actually, conservatives and libertarians tend to follow Austrian Economics. Hayek is merely one of many Austrian Economists in the past couple hundred years, although certainly one of the more pre-eminent ones. Von Mises is another big shark in that pond.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austrian_School

Austrian Economics has been experiencing a rebirth since the 1970s, after spending 4 decades in the wilderness due to the rise of Keynesian-ism during the Great Depression. If you want an exemplary American politician who subscribes to this look at Ron Paul.

Erls wrote:Actually, conservatives and libertarians tend to follow Austrian Economics. Hayek is merely one of many Austrian Economists in the past couple hundred years, although certainly one of the more pre-eminent ones. Von Mises is another big shark in that pond.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austrian_School

Austrian Economics has been experiencing a rebirth since the 1970s, after spending 4 decades in the wilderness due to the rise of Keynesian-ism during the Great Depression. If you want an exemplary American politician who subscribes to this look at Ron Paul.

Libertarians like Ron Paul yes, conservatives, not necessarily.

Large numbers of conservatives subscribe to "crony capitalism" where businesses are "too big to fail". Don't believe me, look at the US vote for the bank bailout, almost 1/3 of republicans voted for it.

darrell wrote:...
The theory is that government regulations, bailouts and stimulus hurt the economy.

The problem is that NOT using bailouts and especially stimulus hurts it even more.

And government regulations, well look at Russia under Yeltsin and you will see what kind of nightmare THAT ends up as.

darrell wrote:

Erls wrote:Actually, conservatives and libertarians tend to follow Austrian Economics. Hayek is merely one of many Austrian Economists in the past couple hundred years, although certainly one of the more pre-eminent ones. Von Mises is another big shark in that pond.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austrian_School

Austrian Economics has been experiencing a rebirth since the 1970s, after spending 4 decades in the wilderness due to the rise of Keynesian-ism during the Great Depression. If you want an exemplary American politician who subscribes to this look at Ron Paul.

Libertarians like Ron Paul yes, conservatives, not necessarily.

Large numbers of conservatives subscribe to "crony capitalism" where businesses are "too big to fail". Don't believe me, look at the US vote for the bank bailout, almost 1/3 of republicans voted for it.

Completely true.

I would liken those 'conservatives' to Sollys, while liberals are definitely more Haven circa the People's Republic. If I had to guess I would say that the Manticore Centrists are what we would call libertarian.