A half-century of the “War on Poverty” has not yet come close to making poverty in the United States a thing of the past. Even so staunch a defender as Paul Krugman admits that “progress against poverty has nonetheless been disappointingly slow.” Supposedly, poverty is simply so intractable that even a gargantuan initiative cannot be expected to end it. So today is an opportune time to look back on the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King’s call in his 1967 book Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community? for “the total, direct and immediate abolition of poverty” by a distinctly different method.
King noted that the antipoverty programs of the time “proceeded from a premise that poverty is a consequence of multiple evils,” with separate programs each dedicated to individual issues such as education and housing. Though in his view “none of these remedies in itself is unsound,” they “all have a fatal disadvantage” of being “piecemeal,” with their implementation having “fluctuated at the whims of legislative bodies” or been “entangled in bureaucratic stalling.”
The result is that “fragmentary and spasmodic reforms have failed to reach down to the profoundest needs of the poor.” Such single-issue approaches also have “another common failing — they are indirect. Each seeks to solve poverty by first solving something else.” In contrast, King noted that “[w]e are likely to find that the problems of housing and education, instead of preceding the elimination of poverty, will themselves be affected if poverty is first abolished” and concluded that he is “now convinced that the simplest approach will prove to be the most effective — the solution to poverty is to abolish it directly by a … guaranteed income.”
Market anarchists can fully agree with King that “[t]he dignity of the individual will flourish when the decisions concerning his life are in his own hands, when he has the assurance that his income is stable and certain.” An antipoverty program that empowers ordinary people to run their own lives would be both more respectful and more effective than the top-down approach whose often-lauded, less-often-read bible “The Other America” referred unabashedly to the “Negro who must be patronized and taken care of like a child.” King approvingly quotes laissez-faire populist Henry George’s view that creative activity “is not the work of slaves, driven to their task either by the lash of a master or by animal necessities” and thus would be “enormously increased” in a post-poverty society.
A society-wide economic floor could, and should, be sustained by means consistent with free markets. Henry George’s single tax was the culmination of a line of classical liberal proposals to provide all members of society with a share of common natural resources. Self-sustaining voluntary organizations that pool members’ resources have an array of models to draw on, such as the Peace Mission Movement that made enough from nonprofit cooperative businesses to hold daily feasts during the Great Depression. And even a simple repeal of the countless legal barriers to subsistence would go a long way towards establishing a de facto floor. With a combination of such approaches, the abolition of poverty need not take another fifty years.
Citations to this article:
- Joel Schlosberg, The Abolition of Poverty, Norwalk, CT Hour, 01/20/14
- Joel Schlosberg, The Abolition of Poverty, Before It’s News, 01/19/14
- Joel Schlosberg, The Abolition Of Poverty, Charleston, SC Chronicle, 1/20/2014
Society-wide and voluntary seems at first glance to be a "pick one" proposition. Perhaps complete attainment of both is an asymptotic goal? I suspect that left-styled libertarians have a clear idea what their priorities are, push comes to shove. First order of business of a left-libertarian alliance (alliance of leftists and libertarians) should be to make sure IF push comes to shove, we agree to stay as close as possible to the efficiency frontier of the tradeoff; resisting the temptation to steer the agenda toward one of the endpoints, especially if it compromises the state of the multi-objective problem.
Another pseudo-libertarian argument for a tax. Bleckh.
Ahhh, Coxey's Army marches one more time to beg Washington to abolish poverty by legislative fiat. Sorry my friend but you do not get rid of poverty by taxing the productive and effective members of society while you subsidize those that choose not to work.
Even if we choose to dispense with the 'taxation is theft at the point of a gun' position there are practical questions that must be answered. Why should an able bodied person who chooses to stay home be paid by those that choose to work? Who decides who qualifies for a payout and who doesn't? How do you avoid corruption? What are the long term effects of paying people to be idle? Etc., etc., etc…
So yeah, C4SS has basically for all intents and purposes completely adopted the progressive/Democrat narrative here and is just masking this by hiding behind their particular jargon, combined no doubt with appeals to definition and finally resorting to no true Scotsman arguments when challenged.
But if we have taxes, legal privilege and state-based property rights anyway, what's the problem with using the money for a guaranteed income instead of wars and corporate bailouts?
It's not like he is suggesting resurrecting taxation into a taxless world of free markets and global peace and harmony. I can't understand why a libertarian in 2014 wouldn't support a guaranteed income paid for by taxing those who have made a living through exploitation.
I think the previous comments have raised some important point. I am actually quite supportive of the idea.
The only problem is that I would discount the cash flow and give people a onetime payment to buy a house, a car, prostitutes or drugs. This, I would securitize and sell as AAA Debt because it's insured by a solvent sovereign to the funds of the smart who live on capital gains.
The problem isn't rich and poor, its education and knowledge that creates disparities in an otherwise meritocratic society.
The will to knowledge is the only way out of poverty.
"But if we have taxes, legal privilege and state-based property rights anyway, what's the problem with using the money for a guaranteed income instead of wars and corporate bailouts?"
Because there's no "instead of" to it. The state, by its nature, is the executive committee of the ruling class. Any "guaranteed income" scheme would be entered into for the purpose of making it possible for the political class to continue having its wars and corporate bailouts, not as an alternative to those things.
Some stateless/voluntary organization might, for whatever reason, consider a "basic stipend" arrangement to care for its disabled, give its productive time off, whatever. Not sure it would work, but I could see it being considered.
On the other hand, Bruce, Mike et. al seem to have completely misunderstood Schlosberg's point. I don't think he was endorsing a state-granted "basic income guarantee." At least I hope he wasn't.
I don't think he was either.
No it hasn't.
How isn’t it? You’re literally talking about a society wide property tax used to fund an extensive public welfare system. How about you hop through some hoops and show us all your mental gymnastic skill in reconciling that with “anarchy” and “libertarianism”?
I don't see how anyone could possibly tell the difference. And I don't see how you could possibly explain it without throwing up a bunch of esoteric, elitist, intellectual jargon. In practice it would be the same thing. Unless people were allowed to not pay it, but then the Georgist land value tax is out of the question.
Of course you can always turn libertarianism on its head (the way you always do), get in bed with the anarcho-syndicalist or anarcho-communist camp and start claiming that people that enforce their property rights are REALLY the aggressors. Either way it amounts to the same thing. Pay up or there will be consequences.
The author might be a geoarchist, a view that is by nature completely voluntarist, a sort of compromise between minarchy and anarchy. http://www.foldvary.net/works/quebec.html the suggestion is basically that geolibertarianism would outcompete anarcho-capitalism though those who want an anarcho-capitalist society would be entirely free to have one. The same social structure can even include mutualism as well and such a society where individuals have a choice of how to contract between mutualist, geolibertarian or anarcho-capitalist communities using the basic assumptions of each would be a.worth fighting for b.far more libertarian in basic truth than some straight out rothbardian/objectivist society which would be hell for those who don't want that c.could establish such anti-poverty measures rather easily and d.would be consistent with everything else in C4ss as a plan of "what sort of society we want", unlike some return to statism as seems to be assumed in these comments. Trees are society wide, this does not mean that everyone is compelled under pain of death to plant as many trees as possible. A geoist land tax is not out of the question in a voluntary society, and neither is an essentially syndicalist*gasps in mock horror* hybrid with mutualism; given the choice people are quite likely to prefer them most of the time to rothbard-land, the existence of such choices would solve most of the problems that lead people to want to seize property in the first place and so is a real alternative to anarcho-syndicalism(and no, "you just need to suck corporate cock harder" is not a real alternative no matter how much you personally might get off on it) and, like anything mutualist, is hence an alternative to communism for those wishing to advance proletarian interests-an essentially libertarian alternative especially when part of a choice between three such social structures(mutualist, geolibertarian and ancap); a society that eliminates explicit, statist coercion while also reducing or eliminating implicit, economic coercion is better than one that does the former but not the latter even if the former is more important than the latter, unless you want to personally enjoy the results of implicit economic coercion and privilege in which case all I can say is "no".
The idea of a universal guaranteed income is pretty simple. Everyone gets paid weather they work or not, so there's never a point where work won't pay.
As far as the effects wage labor has a much better bargaining position with employers. Opportunities for education, entrepenuership, and creative endeavors go up. Instead of pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, a rope has been lowered. It's still a lot of work an luck and a little bit of luck to get to the top but more people will be able to make it.
I don't think anyone here is saying we should tax everyone to do it, but why we might choose to be in a community that implements such a practice.