The problem with the states as laboratories of democracy is that, from a scientific perspective, they're pretty crappy experiments in terms of having any control groups. While an economist can travel to Alaska, it's hard to tell whether any given quality in the current state is due to the experiment or not. For instance, the price of food is quite high in Alaska; is this due to some basic commodity inflation, or is it because there are no road and rail links to most major population centers? Probably the latter, and you can look at Alaska both before and after the Permanent Fund was implemented, but even then, it's not a perfect control.
That is also the disadvantage of state power. At least, if you are a person whose life is being controlled by the coercive power of the state government in ways that might be harmful to you.
If you are powerful in the state, of course, it is very good for you to have fewer checks on your own power. It also helps things like arranging elections, like by excluding demographics less likely to vote for you.
My position is that state's rights is invoked so often in defense of bad or disgusting policy in the United States - and frankly, used so infrequently to test genuinely interesting policy in a meaningful way - that it's not a hugely important thing. I feel this is an empirical observation that won't necessarily hold true in all times or places.
When people try to state these things about how government should work purely out of principle, it usually seems pretty unconvincing. We can judge methods of government based on their outcomes to a large extent.
Or more recently medical marijuana, and in general drug legalization efforts rely on states rights argumentation.
[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/21/national/21coal.html?pagew... [2]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Dakota_oil_boom
then we get Alaska oil production of 2mi barrel per day (it is much lower now than a decade ago). Assuming a very conservative $100/barrel = 200,000,000/day = 2,400,000,000/mo
That's 3% if you tax on top of gross profit (no idea how oil is taxed. it is probably much less than my income tax if i know how the world works...)
And I am not counting fish, gas, lumber, minerals, etc.
That sound like the citizens are doing a much worse job than the gov in setting the rent for the oil companies.
Can you say more about this? What is the perceived impact?
The only people they found that were less represented in the work force were teenagers and new mothers (in my opinion, people that could do without being in the workforce for a while...). Hospital visits decreased (with socialized healthcare, this is a good thing financially). Crime went down. Kids did better at school... Really, the effect was a pretty clear net positive.
(It's important to note, however, that as you earned your own income the money was subtracted from your 'mincome' at half that rate. There was never a point where "working more" or "earning more" would equate to making the same or less money. Something missing in many current social programs.)
The program ended because of a shift from a more socialist party to a more conservative one, not because of any intrinsic issue.
> go back to work
It sounds to me like they're working pretty hard already.
They are working, as you note -- just working in a manner that they clearly prefer to wage labor.
Is it not unfair that they are only shared with people who live in Alaska? Shouldn't they be shared with all Americans? If I was an an American I would be in favour of one of two things:
1. The money from the resources is shared with all Americans either via a handout or government spending on something that benefits all Americans. 2. Use the money to subsidise current unemployment benefits (or some other nationally available benefit) in Alaska.
Currently the fund apparently holds about 1% of the total share capital of all listed companies worldwide (though it is by no means evenly distributed) - about 2% of the share capital of European listed companies - and a few months ago it was worth $670 billion, or more than $130,000 per Norwegian citizen.
Sure, if you have a virtually limitless supply of free money, you can give away free money. Alaskans like the fund so much because a) that money goes into their pockets rather than the pockets of politicians or the wealthy and well-connected, and b) it's not welfare. Unless you have a large resource/population ratio, basic income generally isn't feasible.
The thing is that Alaska is not taxing Alaskan to share the wealth. Alaska is giving everyone a s share of what it gets from what they have underground. Arab countries have generous welfare systems but I doubt they'd have them if the richer ones were taxed to provide for everyone.
Economists who want to study the effect of a basic income can travel to Alaska and see the impact for themselves.
It always struck me as ironic because Alaska is one of the most conservative states, and conservatives are not usually in favor of handouts. In this case, however, the inflows to the fund come not from personal income taxes but from taxes and lease-revenue on the state's natural resources, notably oil and gas. Because of this, people view it as a birthright, similar to an inheritance, rather than a handout, like welfare.
In 1976 Alaska's citizens just banded together and determined that (1) all of these natural resources are shared, and the benefits from them should be shared also; and (2) none of us trust the Government to spend this money for us, better than we could spend it ourselves. Today, it is the most popular Government program in the state with near absolute bi-partisan support.
So there seems to be precedent that this can work, if you have a massive sovereign wealth fund that is fed by revenues from shared resources. There are other countries, like Saudi Arabia or Norway, who will probably be the first to try this on a nation-wide scale before Switzerland.