Re:The Libertarian Case for a Basic Income
by notahacker on Thursday December 05, 2013 @02:57PM
(#6856752)
Who says reparations are linked to "affirmative action"?
Here's a simple case of a prima facie case for economic reparations in the form of unemployment benefit: the government actively manages economic policy to ensure unemployment doesn't fall so low as to stimulate wage inflation. That's not speculation or conspiracy theory; it's explicitly stated as the objective of effective monetary policy in the economic literature. People are unemployed as a direct result of a policy aimed at ensuring macroeconomic stability. Therefore, some form of unemployment insurance is justified (as, for that matter, is expecting the beneficiaries of said economic stability to subsidise it)
NB. I realise that some libertarians would prefer a "gold standard". But the logical consequence is the same: an arbitrary decision of the government to restrict the currency supply[1] in the interests of preventing inflation causes people to be unable to find work for a period of time. Ceteris Paribus, many _more_ people since credit would be a lot more expensive under a gold standard
[1]in this case to "the quantity of gold held in the Fed", which actually sounds a lot less "free market" than the status quo of to "the amount of credit private banks are willing to supply given the Fed's interest rate"
Here's a simple case of a prima facie case for economic reparations in the form of unemployment benefit: the government actively manages economic policy to ensure unemployment doesn't fall so low as to stimulate wage inflation. That's not speculation or conspiracy theory; it's explicitly stated as the objective of effective monetary policy in the economic literature. People are unemployed as a direct result of a policy aimed at ensuring macroeconomic stability. Therefore, some form of unemployment insurance is justified (as, for that matter, is expecting the beneficiaries of said economic stability to subsidise it)
NB. I realise that some libertarians would prefer a "gold standard". But the logical consequence is the same: an arbitrary decision of the government to restrict the currency supply[1] in the interests of preventing inflation causes people to be unable to find work for a period of time. Ceteris Paribus, many _more_ people since credit would be a lot more expensive under a gold standard
[1]in this case to "the quantity of gold held in the Fed", which actually sounds a lot less "free market" than the status quo of to "the amount of credit private banks are willing to supply given the Fed's interest rate"