From: Mike Lorrey (mlorrey@datamann.com)
Date: Sun Jul 22 2001 - 08:54:48 MDT
Chris Rasch wrote:
>
> Barbara Lamar wrote:
>
> > I still favor the unqualified guaranteed minimum income as the option that
> > would involve the least
> > regulation of human behavior (by unqualified, I mean that everyone gets it,
> > regardless of income level, health, etc.)
>
> An unqualified guaranteed minimum income may be better than our (U.S.)
> current welfare system. However, if such a program were tax supported, it
> still involves forcibly taking assets from one person to fund another persons
> lifestyle. It's obvious to see how the person who receives the subsidy
> benefits, as well as how the people from whom the money is taken lose out.
Of all rationales for equalization, the only one I find at all, even
minimally, justifiable, is in funding education. IMHO, every citizen
must have a significant level of education, especially in civic virtue,
in order to be an effective citizen that fulfills his or her
responsibilities that come with the rights of citizenship. However, I do
not think that this is something that HAS to be state financed or
managed.
For example, schools at all levels could entirely finance themselves and
provide equal educations to all if they instituted a system whereby
contracted students received educations in exchange for a guaranteed
percent of the individual graduates future income that goes to the
school directly, instead of through multiple layers of government
bureaucracy.
All the state would be needed for (and not necessarily in a libertarian
context) would be to help enforce the honoring of these contracts.
Schools could easily contract with insurance companies to guarantee its
graduates make their remittances, thus eliminating the need for
government in the equation entirely.
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