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The place looked as if it hadn’t changed since the thirties, like a bedroom long walled off that you discover when knocking down a partition in an apartment, with its period furniture, its unmade bed still bearing the imprint of a head on a pillow, and the evening paper lying on the nightstand, its headline announcing the assassination of President Paul Doumer. No doubt that was why the bar was called the Hole in the Wall. From outside, it was very difficult to spot the entrance in the dark wall.
“She got out of there as best she could,” Verzini added. “Thanks to dancing. She acquired a discipline. And I’ve always tried to help her to the best of my abilities.”
He had turned back toward the little table. One by one he picked up the proof sheets of The Glass Is Falling, spread out in disarray, and started putting them in order.
“It’s a little like you. I imagine you work at this table on all these papers because you too need a discipline.”
I was amazed at his insight. It was as if he had seen right through me.
I said, “I’m following the ballerina’s example.”
She found herself alone in the street once more, but this time with a feeling of relief such as she had never known. She was certain she would never see him again and that a new life was starting for her, then and there. Sometime later, overhearing in a conversation the phrases “youthful indiscretion” and “bad company,” she thought that she, too, had committed a “youthful indiscretion” after mixing with “bad company.” But she had already practically forgotten that man and their last meeting in the church of Saint-Louis d’Antin. What exactly, she wondered, was a youthful indiscretion? Most of the time, practically nothing. At her age, everything scarred over very fast, and soon there was no longer even a trace of scar tissue. No more hostile witnesses. No more traces of anything. Innocence, once more.
Latterly, the idea has been taken up by Silicon Valley luminaries and venture capitalists, some putting up money for the cause, as we shall see. They include Robin Chase, co-founder of Zipcar, Sam Altman, head of the start-up incubator Y Combinator, Albert Wenger, prominent venture capitalist, Chris Hughes, co-founder of Facebook, Elon Musk, founder of SolarCity, Tesla, and SpaceX, Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce, Pierre Omidyar, founder of eBay, and Eric Schmidt, Executive Chairman of Alphabet, Google's parent.
good overview
he breaks support for BI into multiple waves, with the fourth wave starting with the establishment of BIEN (his thing) in 1986; includes Stiglitz, Martin Wolf, Philippe van Parijs
citation for the fact that they're scared?
The standard objection to the social dividend rationale for a basic income is that no individual has a right to a share of inherited social wealth because they have done nothing to 'deserve' it. In that case, following the same logic, private inheritance should also be abolished. If private inheritance is allowed, then the principal of social inheritance should be too.
very much agreed here
[...] His personal technical contribution built on a stream of inventions and ideas of others, yet he has gained most of the income attributable to those inventions and ideas as well as his own. And that income in turn is based on the lengthy monopoly he enjoys on Microsoft software and other products, thanks to patent and copyright laws that were vastly strengthened globally by the World Trade Organization in 1995. He was thus helped to gain his fortune by state and international regulations, rather than by his individual endeavour alone. His income is based largely not on 'merit' or 'hard work' but on artificial rules privileging a particular way of gaining income.
More often than not, individual wealth owes more to luck, laws and regulations, inheritance or fortunate timing than to individual brilliance. Leaving aside fortunes criminally obtained, many people have become rich through the commercial plunder of the commons that belong to all, and through rental income derived from the commercialization and privatization of public services and amenities. This is further justification for taxing rental income to give everybody a social dividend, a share of socially created wealth.
preach (though Slavoj Zizek's take on this, in note 1072, is way more metal)
on IP law underpinning success of companies like MS (though note that it's a bit diff for goog, fb, apple - not really IP law but rather lack of access to source code)
Two general principles should be applied to any social policy, especially those pitched as alternatives to an unconditional basic income. The first is:
The Paternalism Test Principle. A social policy is unjust if it imposes controls on some groups that are not imposed on the most free groups in society.
[...]
The Rights-not-Charity Principle. A social policy is just only if it advances the rights or freedom of the recipient or target person rather than the discretion or power of the provider.
good principles
However hard they work, a growing proportion of those in relative poverty and economic insecurity will be unable to escape. Tax credits and statutory minimum wages that have been enlarged steadily have failed to arrest the upward trend. It is the income distribution system that has broken down.
That said, should basic income be touted as a way of eradicating poerty? This would leave the way open to the counter-attack that in practical terms the initial amount paid out would do no such thing. If it were set at a level that tried to do so, the fiscal jolt would be too great to appeal to the popular or political imaginations.
However, if properly designed, a basic income should reduce the incidence of poverty, the number of people living in relative poverty, as well as the depth of poverty of anybody in or near the poverty line, whatever that might be. A basic income will not eradicate poverty. No policy by itself ever will. But it should reduce the threat of poverty, faced by all those hovering just above it.
the point about the fiscal jolt being too great for the average person is a good point (if lamentable)
[...] had the UK's £375 billion of QE been diverted to pay a basic income, everyone legally resident in Britain could have received £50 a week for two years. Instead, QE has enriched the financiers, worsened income inequality and hastened the alarming oncoming crisis of underfunded pension schemes.
or use the money to fund basic goods (would probably be less wasteful)