Rolling Stone published an article about a month ago called “Five Economic Reforms Millenials Should be Fighting For.” Here are some quotes, followed by my assessment of the ideas.
1. Guaranteed Jobs
“Unemployment blows. The easiest and most direct solution is for the government to guarantee that everyone who wants to contribute productively to society is able to earn a decent living in the public sector. There are millions of people who want to work, and there’s tons of work that needs doing – it’s a no-brainer…
“A job guarantee that paid a living wage would anchor prices, drive up conditions for workers at megacorporations like Walmart and McDonald’s, and target employment for the poor and long-term unemployed…”
I don’t think I agree with this. Where would we find the money to fund this giant project, for one thing? For a second thing, I suspect universal basic income, which I have blogged on before (see here and here) would largely eliminate the problems faced by the poor, and by making work less of a necessity it might even drive wal-mart to make wages and benefits better than they currently are.
2. Social Security, Writ Large
“But let’s think even bigger. Because as much as unemployment blows, so do jobs. What if people didn’t have to work to survive? Enter the jaw-droppingly simple idea of a universal basic income, in which the government would just add a sum sufficient for subsistence to everyone’s bank account every month. A proposal along these lines has been gaining traction in Switzerland, and it’s starting to get a lot of attention here, too…”
I agree with universal basic income, as I’ve blogged on here and here. I’ve got a little bit of uncertainty on it due to a few remaining questions I have about its plausibility, but I suspect those questions, once researched and answered, would turn out positive.
3. No More Land Ownership
“Ever noticed how much landlords blow? They don’t really do anything to earn their money. They just claim ownership of buildings and charge people who actually work for a living the majority of our incomes for the privilege of staying in boxes that these owners often didn’t build and rarely if ever improve. In a few years, my landlord will probably sell my building to another landlord and make off with the appreciated value of the land s/he also claims to own – which won’t even get taxed, as long as s/he ploughs it right back into more real estate.
“Think about how stupid that is. The value of the land has nothing to do with my idle, remote landlord; it reflects the nearby parks and subways and shops, which I have access to thanks to the community and the public. So why don’t the community and the public derive the value and put it toward uses that benefit everyone? Because capitalism, is why.”
I must admit, I’ve hardly given any thought to this concept. My knee-jerk reaction is that taking land from people seems like a huge rights violation, but I don’t know: maybe if we could do it in an ethical way, i.e. if the government paid everyone who owns land a reasonable sum for it, and from then on out the government charged a reasonable fee for land rental, this might be a workable and reasonable idea (assuming we ignore the potential human rights violation and possible negative effects on the free-market due to nobody having a motive to improve housing conditions). This idea needs to be seriously fleshed out and all potential objections need to be thoroughly addressed before I would consider endorsing this.
4. Quasi-Communism, or, as the writer put it: “Make Everything Owned by Everybody”
“Hoarders blow. Take, for instance, the infamous one percent, whose ownership of the capital stock of this country leads to such horrific inequality. ‘Capital stock’ refers to two things here: the buildings and equipment that workers use to produce goods and services, and the stocks and bonds that represent ownership over the former. The top 10 percent’s ownership of the means of production is represented by the fact that they control 80 percent of all financial assets.
“This detachment means that there’s a way easier way to collectivize wealth ownership than having to stage uprisings that seize the actual airplanes and warehouses and whatnot: Just buy up their stocks and bonds. When the government does that, it’s called a sovereign wealth fund. Think of it like a big investment fund that buys up assets from the private sector and pays dividends to all permanent U.S. residents in the form of a universal basic income. Alaska actually already has a fund like this in place. If it’s good enough for Levi Johnston, it’s good enough for you.”
My knee-jerk reaction, once again, is total disgust and rejection of this wild-eyed idea. Once we’ve bought up every stock and bond, where do we get money for future investments, since no investor in his right mind would buy a stock that could be seized by the government? Does the government direct the future of investment? How do we know they would do a good job of picking good investment projects? What do we do about the problem of corruption (what if a government official, chosen to direct investment money, chooses to invest in a friend’s business even though it is a bad idea)? No one is more careful with a dollar than when that dollar is his, so private investments probably work better. Perhaps there is something to be said for taking a profit percentage from a company that uses up natural resources, like oil (which is natural, and in a sense belongs to everybody) but that is the limit for me, and I’m not so sure I’m in favor of that. You’d have to write a really big book answering all objections and taking this idea on at all angles before you’d have a chance of convincing me.
5. A State Bank
I’m actually in favor of this one. North Dakota has a state bank, and it works better in many respects, and is widely loved by the citizens of North Dakota (which is a surefire sign that it works; North Dakota is a largely republican state). In fact, my own experience with credit unions (which is a form of socialist banking, only it isn’t run by the state)* is excellent: less fees, risk-free interest on your checking account, it’s great all around.
*Credit unions are cooperatively run financial institutions, and co-ops are ultimately socialist entities, since socialism in the broad sense is characterized by social ownership, regardless of whether that social ownership takes the form of ownership by a democratic government or just ownership by some collection of people.
