From: phoenix@ugcs.caltech.edu
Date: Thu Jun 29 2000 - 18:31:12 MDT
"altamira" <altamira@ecpi.com> wrote:
> welfare system generally depends on rather steep levels of taxation which in
> turn often discourage innovation.
What's the evidence that this is actually the case, to any significant degree?
I mean, 90% marginal rates, sure, but I think even Sweden's backed off from
that.
> The reason I say this discourages innovation is that it tends to preserve
> the staus quo. This is intuitively obvious, and I've seen it operate time
Not to my intuition.
And innovation seems to be brimming along in the US.
> mind? Voluntary insurance, for one. I get pretty excited about some of the
TANSTAAFL. People like discouraging free riders. When humanity was organized
in small, intimate, and not very mobile groups, throwing yourself upon the
mercy of the community worked well; the cost of leech exclusion was borne by
the natural process of community formation and maintenance. And you didn't
have lots of strangers to scrutinize. Distinctly unlike the modern situation;
to have unemployment insurance/welfare with our large and mobile society, we
need bureaucratic scrutiny, income monitoring, and such. (Or, possibly,
figuring we're rich enough to just hand a low level of subsistence around to
everyone, and trading the cost of leech for exclusion for a lower cost of
simple leeching.)
> There's also human kindness which, sadly, doesn't seem to figure much in
> people's plans these days. Over the span of my life, people have mostly
See above.
-xx- Damien X-)
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