[p2p-research] P2P, Basic Income, and Bankruptcy Law

[Edward Miller]

I was wondering how to deal with bankruptcy in a world with a Basic Income
provided by some combination of the p2p strategies, open manufacturing, and
Guaranteed Minimum Income programs

Considering that the formal economy would still exist, and presumably that
would still require defense of property rights.... which means even
anarchists must recognize that there will be some transition period with
state-managed property rights... how would bankruptcy be handled best?

If people can easily rest on their laurels after declaring bankruptcy, then
they certainly shouldn't be able to do it repeatedly. However, I am quite
averse to the notion of putting people in prison over this. Is there any
middle ground?

Perhaps you could just let the interest and late fees grow and grow forever
while you ignore it and just live off of the abundance generated....  is
that how most of you forsee the fall of the formal economy? The debt just
grows and grows but becomes meaningless. How would that play out? Seems like
it could be very messy, but perhaps not.

Speeding that process up with government-run Guaranteed Minimum Income
programs would be a bigger challenge, since people have negative
associations with "entitlements," and the Basic Income could easily be
stripped away if enough people stop paying their debts and then corporations
gain an overwhelming incentive for attacking the program.... and perhaps
instituting this program and chopping it down would be worse than doing
nothing at all. That scenario is the best argument against the Guaranteed
Minimum Income I have ever thought of.
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