Yes we spent several million years evolving a set of social emotions, social structures, and decision processes to solve this problem. Those traditional mechanisms of family and community were very effective. If we build a system to replace this (not necessarily a good idea), it would do well to at least piggyback on the emotional machinery: Guilt, obligation, satisfaction, gratitude, indignation.
Poverty insurance would do nothing to help people who are already poor. It would only help people who already have a significant amount of wealth, hedging against their own (or their children's) future risk of becoming poor. If it's about a rich person paying now to prevent their child from ever being poor, they could set up a trust fund to achieve the same effect without some nosy jury evaluating whether the child deserves help or not.
The majority of people who are poor come from poor families and weren't ever rich. This is the big deal about wealth redistribution: the poor people aren't paying for it. Rich people, to whom the marginal value of money is much less, are paying for it, thus increasing the total utility of society. (To spell it out: if $1 is worth 1 unit of utility to a poor person and 0.01 units of utility to a rich person, then total utility is increased by 0.99 by transferring the dollar from the rich person to the poor person.)
“…you’d greatly lower the cost of allowing detailed case-specific judgements about the need for help.”
I’ve probably missed something here, but my first thought is that all we’d create is dual systems operating in parallel—either immediately, or in a short time frame. There will be people who “fall through the cracks”, or to put it less politely, fail to help themselves regardless of the helping hand they’ve been given. They of course, deserve no “help”.
Society has shown itself to not tolerate people sleeping in the streets, or camping out in public parks. “Deserving” has nothing to do with such. People will demand government agencies “take care of the problem”—even though those people are undeserving and incapable of “help”. Short of a sea change in our thinking—like stepping over bodies on the sidewalk with little concern—we can never change the current system effectively.
Society does tolerate people sleeping in streets or parks, elsewhere in the world. It could change its attitudes toward locals who refused to buy insurance when they could. For example by exiling them to other parts of the world.
You’re obviously younger than me. Old age has produced a pretty hardened cynic in regard to our society. Repeatedly offering one’s “hand” to be bitten is a luxury belief we will not shed easily as long as we are as affluent as we are.
Unnecessary complication. Levy a uniform broad-based consumption tax like a VAT, with a single rate and no exceptions. Distribute the receipts as UBI to every resident citizen above a certain age. The interplay of the two will ensure that those who consume above e certain automatically adjusted threshold pay of net to those below.
They were called mutual aid societies. They were popular and effective. Then the government welfare system crowded them out. https://a.co/d/6455Vr7
Yes we spent several million years evolving a set of social emotions, social structures, and decision processes to solve this problem. Those traditional mechanisms of family and community were very effective. If we build a system to replace this (not necessarily a good idea), it would do well to at least piggyback on the emotional machinery: Guilt, obligation, satisfaction, gratitude, indignation.
Community-based insurance deals should be allowed under my proposal.
Poverty insurance would do nothing to help people who are already poor. It would only help people who already have a significant amount of wealth, hedging against their own (or their children's) future risk of becoming poor. If it's about a rich person paying now to prevent their child from ever being poor, they could set up a trust fund to achieve the same effect without some nosy jury evaluating whether the child deserves help or not.
The majority of people who are poor come from poor families and weren't ever rich. This is the big deal about wealth redistribution: the poor people aren't paying for it. Rich people, to whom the marginal value of money is much less, are paying for it, thus increasing the total utility of society. (To spell it out: if $1 is worth 1 unit of utility to a poor person and 0.01 units of utility to a rich person, then total utility is increased by 0.99 by transferring the dollar from the rich person to the poor person.)
“…you’d greatly lower the cost of allowing detailed case-specific judgements about the need for help.”
I’ve probably missed something here, but my first thought is that all we’d create is dual systems operating in parallel—either immediately, or in a short time frame. There will be people who “fall through the cracks”, or to put it less politely, fail to help themselves regardless of the helping hand they’ve been given. They of course, deserve no “help”.
Society has shown itself to not tolerate people sleeping in the streets, or camping out in public parks. “Deserving” has nothing to do with such. People will demand government agencies “take care of the problem”—even though those people are undeserving and incapable of “help”. Short of a sea change in our thinking—like stepping over bodies on the sidewalk with little concern—we can never change the current system effectively.
Society does tolerate people sleeping in streets or parks, elsewhere in the world. It could change its attitudes toward locals who refused to buy insurance when they could. For example by exiling them to other parts of the world.
You’re obviously younger than me. Old age has produced a pretty hardened cynic in regard to our society. Repeatedly offering one’s “hand” to be bitten is a luxury belief we will not shed easily as long as we are as affluent as we are.
Unnecessary complication. Levy a uniform broad-based consumption tax like a VAT, with a single rate and no exceptions. Distribute the receipts as UBI to every resident citizen above a certain age. The interplay of the two will ensure that those who consume above e certain automatically adjusted threshold pay of net to those below.
No need for any means testing.
What do you do about poor people? Government vouchers?
I think a jury is more likely to support the recipients than an objective measure, there is an anti-corporate bias