Right-libertarians certainly claim Paine, but his Agrarian Justice proposal is strictly redistributionist — taxing inheritances and land ownership to fund pensions, a move specifically targeted at aiding the dispossessed at the expense of the wealthy. Moreover, he considered this obligatory, and not merely a charity or a political compromise. There is a whiff of Georgism or Geolibertarianism about Paine, and he is certainly no anarcho-capitalist. But he’s in that quadrant.
(Although by U.S. terminology today, anyone associated with the French Revolution would be a terrorist, sadly.)
That said, the notion of basic income is found in More’s Utopia as an alternative to killing thieves who steal because they are poor. In early examples it’s difficult to distinguish basic-income proposals from make-work proposals, though, in part because of the notion that idleness was a social ill. (Which is distinct from the right-libertarian notion that people do not deserve sustenance if they don’t work on projects the market demands.)
but his Agrarian Justice proposal is strictly redistributionist
Minimally. The funds for widows and orphans would be. Old age pensions could either be seen as redistribution or forced retirement plans from funds owed. Paine considered payments obligatory because they were based in justice, compensation from the land possessors to the non land possessors for their exclusive use and control of “their” property. It’s land title that is redistributionist.
I don’t consider More’s basic income the same as Paine’s. Paine’s was a just compensation to a free citizen—More’s was the feeding and watering of citizen livestock subject to forced labor. Might as well say that a pack mule gets a basic income. They did at least agree on the inherent injustice of property in land, though I don’t think More made the connection between that injustice and a basic income as compensation.
Which is distinct from the right-libertarian notion that people do not deserve sustenance if they don’t work on projects the market demands.
To understand right libertarian thought, you first must see how they distinguish between what you deserve and what you have a right to (which I argue is crucial to a non theocratic state). No one deserves cancer, but that doesn’t give one a right to rob one’s neighbors to pay for treatment. For right libertarians, you earn what you get in free exchange with others, and they object to having those earnings confiscated by force.
All states are theocratic. The question is who the god is. For capitalist states, it’s capital accumulation (a term I use for its increased information content compared to the mere, “money”).
Libertarians aren’t telling you to accumulate capital
Certainly they are. They’re setting up a society whose core, whose driving engine, is an optimization process for capital accumulation. With that in place, the systemic incentive structure affecting everyone becomes: accumulate capital or die.
Right-libertarians certainly claim Paine, but his Agrarian Justice proposal is strictly redistributionist — taxing inheritances and land ownership to fund pensions, a move specifically targeted at aiding the dispossessed at the expense of the wealthy. Moreover, he considered this obligatory, and not merely a charity or a political compromise. There is a whiff of Georgism or Geolibertarianism about Paine, and he is certainly no anarcho-capitalist. But he’s in that quadrant.
(Although by U.S. terminology today, anyone associated with the French Revolution would be a terrorist, sadly.)
That said, the notion of basic income is found in More’s Utopia as an alternative to killing thieves who steal because they are poor. In early examples it’s difficult to distinguish basic-income proposals from make-work proposals, though, in part because of the notion that idleness was a social ill. (Which is distinct from the right-libertarian notion that people do not deserve sustenance if they don’t work on projects the market demands.)
Minimally. The funds for widows and orphans would be. Old age pensions could either be seen as redistribution or forced retirement plans from funds owed. Paine considered payments obligatory because they were based in justice, compensation from the land possessors to the non land possessors for their exclusive use and control of “their” property. It’s land title that is redistributionist.
I don’t consider More’s basic income the same as Paine’s. Paine’s was a just compensation to a free citizen—More’s was the feeding and watering of citizen livestock subject to forced labor. Might as well say that a pack mule gets a basic income. They did at least agree on the inherent injustice of property in land, though I don’t think More made the connection between that injustice and a basic income as compensation.
To understand right libertarian thought, you first must see how they distinguish between what you deserve and what you have a right to (which I argue is crucial to a non theocratic state). No one deserves cancer, but that doesn’t give one a right to rob one’s neighbors to pay for treatment. For right libertarians, you earn what you get in free exchange with others, and they object to having those earnings confiscated by force.
All states are theocratic. The question is who the god is. For capitalist states, it’s capital accumulation (a term I use for its increased information content compared to the mere, “money”).
So theocrats like to claim. “Hey, everybody is doing it.”
Libertarians aren’t telling you to accumulate capital, they’re telling you to expect retaliation if you kill or rob your neighbors.
Certainly they are. They’re setting up a society whose core, whose driving engine, is an optimization process for capital accumulation. With that in place, the systemic incentive structure affecting everyone becomes: accumulate capital or die.