What you describe is a fear of what people might do if they are not forced to work. None of us really knows, but my feeling is that it is natural for humans to go out and explore things, make things, strive for recognition by others, etc. Homer Simpson does not expemplify the natural equilibrium of the human psyche.

What you describe is exactly the current situation in Europe, but the reason is not some bohemien ideal. The reason is fear. By tieing entitlements to a lot of conditions people are incentivised to stay put in their current status once it is officially acknowledged. Once you have your piece of paper that makes you unfit for work you avoid doing anything that could threaten that hard won status. I personally know people who live off benefits but would much rather work if they were not threatened with losing _all_ of their benefits the day they start to take up self-employed work.

The only solution would be a tradeoff no one would agree to--guaranteed minimum income, but no franchise for net negative taxpayers.

A milder form of the same would be to have a bicameral legislature, where one house is elected by universal suffrage (including the perpetually dependent), and another house limited to those who are net-positive taxpayers. (Or perhaps similar: subject to a poll tax equal or larger than the guaranteed minimum income.)

An interesting question is whether government employees and large government contractors count as dependents for representation purposes or not. Some of the same tight-feedback-driving-increased-benefits-without-regard-for-true-value loops that are of concern in the generous-welfare case are also at play with regard to civil servants and large companies wholly dependent on government spending.

By that you mean "The right to vote". Here in the US I haven't ever heard of the word used in that context so I thought other's would find it useful to know what you meant.

http://www.google.com/dictionary?langpair=en|en&q=franch...

It's the root word of "disenfranchised", which is the form most people are familiar with.

I think a lot of people pick it up from reading Starship Troopers. I know I did.

AKA, No representation without taxation

That's an absolutely terrible idea.

I anticipate a lot of people would think so (which is why I called it a tradeoff no one would agree to). It would be more interesting to know why you think it's a terrible idea.

Well, for one, it treats poor people like criminals who need to be punished for being poor. Granted, we do that to a large degree in the US now implicitly, but this would be very explicit -- and, I feel, tremendously mean-spirited.

More practically, it removes the poor as a voice in their own governance by using what amounts to a bribe. And in practice, it would probably remove most poor people from the voting rolls, because short-term, taking the 10k or whatever to make ends meet is the rational decision over pulling a lever that may or may not have any affect on your particular situation.

I think my main objection here is that there is no real guarantee that the extra money, generally, will push people out of poverty and back into enfranchisement -- and if it doesn't work, what you've done is institutionalize bribery and legitimize an explicit oligarchy of the rich.

So if you think there's "no real guarantee that the extra money, generally, will push people out of poverty", then why bother giving them extra money at all?

Won't this just attract the slackers of the world to come live in Canada, or the part of Canada that tries this? If this is intended as a sort of experiment, it can only be done in a closed environment.

It takes a lot of energy to switch countries (barring something like the EU). By definition, most slackers aren't going to make the effort.

Besides that, Canada already has rules in place that deny full welfare benefits to recent immigrants.

I imagine that our current immigration policies would be sufficient to prevent this. There are probably a large number of people who would want to become citizens solely for our health care or existing safety net.

Let me be frank: It seems to be like that already for Sweden, which is a welfare state with the most open borders in EU.

That said, most immigrants to Sweden do seem interested in working -- there just seems to be a strange glut of uneducated people, compared to the available jobs.

(Remember, it is a welfare state -- high minimum wages.)

Educated people that can choose country prefer places with lower taxes -- which are high in Sweden to pay for the welfare state.

Edit: The real problem is that Sweden might be on the way to ghettos, US-style in a few decades. :-( A sociologist might mutter something about a perfect storm to generate a criminal underclass, also US-style. :-(

Edit 2: Worst case, I could go to Canada... Would love to relearn my French, anyway. :-)