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Anrakyr
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Don’t be obtuse.
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Ridgerunner
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It gets more complicated, though. It isn’t just rent. I know people here in the Ozarks who feed their families with their gardens, hunting and fishing, and eat pretty well. Lots of wood and you can cut it in the national forests for free, or a deadfall on a farmer’s land. I know people for whom that’s their entire heat source. Candles are easy to make and kerosene lamps are cheap. Old cars are incredibly cheap. The electricity it takes to run a refrigerator and freezer is not much. People get rid of appliances all the time for new ones.
I truly don’t know how a basic income could be formulated without being excessive as to some and inadequate as to others.
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Ridgerunner
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Well, to the extent they contribute to welfare and Medicaid, they do. But that’s not the totality of it. I am not sure what the administrative costs of those things are.
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Anrakyr
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So replace services with a UBI program.
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Ridgerunner
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But don’t we already have it in a way with the EArned Income Credit and welfare?
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Ender
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Although I think the idea of a guaranteed basic income is terrible I am not all that bothered by arguments made in support of it. What does bother me, however, is the assertion that it is somehow supported by Catholic social teaching. Catholic teaching directs us to help the poor, the hungry, and the needy, but it says nothing whatever about the best way to achieve those goals.
If someone supports the idea of a basic income because he thinks it will work then he has done what is asked of him. By the same token, if someone opposes basic incomes because he thinks it will not work but be harmful, then he too has done what is asked of him.
The church tells us what our objectives should be, but she is generally mute on telling us how to achieve them. The Jesuits notwithstanding, this is no exception.
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edwest211
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“The problem with Socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.”
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Anrakyr
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You’d be amazed how often people in their ignorance will block an idea reaching fruition because they think its ‘anti catholic’ or some such.
A few weeks ago I was at my sisters house and her mother in law is a biologist. We got into a conversation that given the right stem cell treatments and the strides in nano tech we could end aging all together. The conversation drifted into how society would change, how much more care of the planet would we take if we were around to see the consequences.
One of the mothers there suddenly became indignant and said the entire point was bordering heretical. humankind should not become immortal.
I tried to calm her by reminding her even if it worked it doesn’t stop accidents, violence, illness or any other act of God from taking you out.
Not to derail the thread with the topic of immortally but I find that reaction A typical of most Christians. Holding their own internal Vatican councils instead of listening and doing research.
Good thing we arn’t talking about socialism.
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Anrakyr
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have a nice day Ed.
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edwest211
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You too. characters
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phil19034
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I think it’s a mistake to focus it this way.
It think it makes better sense to focus on the difference between the very poor vs the cost to survive (or the lower middle class).
Comparing the very poor to the very rich leads to nothing but envy.
Exactly, and, at least in the U.S. today, that’s what we do.JoeShlabotnik:
I think it’s a mistake to focus it this way.
It think it makes better sense to focus on the difference between the very poor vs the cost to survive (or the lower middle class).
Comparing the very poor to the very rich leads to nothing but envy.
We have a social safety net. We provide people with a basic minimum.
And it’s laudable that we do it. In the Great Depression we had people who were absolutely dirt poor. One of my father’s friends couldn’t even afford shoes. Thankfully today we try to keep people out of that kind of poverty.
But we don’t take the dishwasher and the CEO in my earlier post and take half the CEO’s income and give it to the dishwasher just so everyone will be equal.
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Benjinho
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- Your criticism of welfare, while correct, has nothing to do with what he said
- UBI cannot be a “floor” for the people if fewer people have jobs due to increased legal minimum income requirements
- Show us that article
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pnewton
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Yes. That is what disparity means. Good or bad, fixable or not, that is the meaning.
I was unhappy with this thread starting with a misunderstanding (deliberate) of what was said. Supporting the aim of basic income, that is human dignity is a long way from supporting basic income. All these suggestions sound great because their goal is great. However, for all the sophomoric youngsters that think they have learned everything, there is no free lunch. The down side to otherwise good ideas might well produce disaster. Artificially inflated wages, if inflated too much will reduce massive unemployment. Free money to some means extra taxes to others, as well as having the potential to encourage zero productivity.
I am all for a full social safety net, but it must be built with stability that will not collapse the economy. I reference the story of the goose that laid the golden egg.
I know of few solutions, and none without consequences. For example, we could have the biggest military, instead of twice the size of the biggest military.
The middle class could be taxed a little more. The poor could be taxed some, at least. The richest could have a higher tax bracket. Only the first of these three would produce much revenue. And in my opinion, no one who is not willing to pay more in taxes should have any say in, or ability to implement, a wider social safety net.
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Anrakyr
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- Truth is always applicable.
- We arnt talking about minimum income, we are talking about people having a functional safety net that doesn’t trap them.
- Warning, it’s long: The Basic Income Guarantee Experiments of the 1970s: a quick summary of results | BIEN — Basic Income Earth Network
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TK421
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There is indeed a lot more to justice than distributing wealth from the excessively wealthy to the poor, because traditions/habits/knowledge in order to sustain the wealth also need to be transferred. But, the fact that there are individuals with more wealth than the budgets of some countries is indeed a problem and the one person’s wealth is directly linked to another person’s suffering. Of course, it isn’t only the vastly wealthy that this applies to.JoeShlabotnik:
How is that relevant? What would matter is the conditions of the poor and whether there is opportunity to improve their lot.
This is actually spoken of quite frankly by the Church Fathers. and people who would be considered among the highest moral authorities, as they were no strangers in their time to excessively uneven division of wealth and the injustices inherit in the system that allowed people to acquire it and hold onto it… There are many such citations that could be used by many saints, but I suppose this one by the mentor of St Augustine serves the purpose well enough:
"You are not making a gift of your possession to the poor person. You are handing over to him what is his."
Ambrose of Milan
Blunt, bold, uncomfortable, and taken directly from the Gospel. It isn’t a stray quote either. It was a sentiment that was basically unanimous among the Fathers. To a great extent this teaching became forgotten by the late 18th century as Europe was acquiring vast sums of wealth and power, and no surprise, communism attempted to fill the void when Christians themselves were neglecting these teachings or in many cases despising them outright.
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Theo520
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This is ridiculous. You accuse the wealthy of directly causing suffering.
Let’s take Gates. He earned his wealth and created wealth for many other people. He is also giving back where he thinks he can have a real impact. His efforts are saving many lives from disease. However, it seems you insist the govt must control where his money goes.
You are prooftexting quotes to justify forced redistribution of wealth by the Govt.
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pnewton
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He said they were linked. This is in keeping with Catholic teaching on our interdependence, and may not be a reflection of guilt on the rich, though Jesus had plenty to say about that. The quote from St. Ambrose is reflective of the Catholic teaching on universal destination of goods. I think it was used properly. Why do you think it proof-texted?
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Theo520
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“directly linked” indicates causing
That Catholic teaching is that the rich have a moral responsibility to help is very different from indicating they are causal in how they made their money.
That Catholic teaching is that the rich have a moral responsibility to help is very different from indicating they are causal in how they made their money.
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Ender
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And there really is nothing in Catholic teaching to support that idea.
Should we look to kings and princes to put right the inequalities between rich and poor? Should we require soldiers to come and seize the rich person’s gold and distribute it among his destitute neighbors? Should we beg the emperor to impose a tax on the rich so great that it reduces them to the level of the poor and then to share the proceeds of that tax among everyone? Equality imposed by force would achieve nothing, and do much harm.
Those who combined both cruel hearts and sharp minds would soon find ways of making themselves rich again. Worse still, the rich whose gold was taken away would feel bitter and resentful; while the poor who received the gold from the hands of soldiers would feel no gratitude, because no generosity would have prompted the gift. Far from bringing moral benefit to society, it would actually do moral harm. Material justice cannot be accomplished by compulsion, a change of heart will not follow. The only way to achieve true justice is to change people’s hearts first – and then they will joyfully share their wealth.
St. John Chrysostom
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