Systems that don’t require people to work are only beneficial if non-human work (or human work not motivated by need) is still producing enough goods that the humans are better off not working and being able to spend their time in other ways.
I don’t think we’re even close to that point. I can imagine societies in a hundred years that are at that point (I have no idea whether they’ll happen or not), but it would be foolish for them to condemn our lack of such a system now since we don’t have the ability to support it, just as it would be foolish for us to condemn people in earlier and less well-off times for not having welfare systems as encompassing as ours.
I’d also note that issues like abolition and universal suffrage are qualitatively distinct from the issue of a minimum guaranteed income (what the quote addresses). Even the poorest of societies can avoid holding slaves or placing women or men in legally inferior roles. The poorest societies cannot afford the “full unemployment” discussed in the quote, and neither can even the richest of modern societies right now (they could certainly come closer than the present, but I don’t think any modern economy could survive the implementation of such a system in the present).
I do agree, however, about it being a solid goal, at least for basic amenities.
Even the poorest of societies can avoid holding slaves or placing women or men in legally inferior roles.
To avoid having slaves, the poorest society could decide to kill all war captives, and to let starve to death all people unable to pay their debts. Yes, this would avoid legal discrimination. Is it therefore a morally preferable solution?
Since when has the institution of slavery been a charitable one? Historically, slave-owners have payed immense costs, directly and indirectly, for the privilege of owning slaves, and done so knowingly and willingly. It is human nature to derive pleasure from holding power over others.
I’m not sure about those direct costs. According to my references, a male slave in 10th-century Scandinavia cost about as much as a horse, a female slave about two-thirds as much; that’s a pretty good chunk of change but it doesn’t seem obviously out of line with the value of labor after externalities. I don’t have figures offhand for any other slaveholding cultures, but the impression I get is that the pure exercise of power was not the main determinant of value in most, if not all, of them,
I seem to recall someone arguing that, in combat between iron age tribes, it was basically a choice between massacre and slavery—if you did neither, they would wreck revenge upon your tribe further down the line.
This wouldn’t be charity, as I guess the winners did benefit from having a source of labour that didn’t need to be compensated at the market rate, but it would be a case where slavery was beneficial to the victims.
(I think Carlyle was wrong about other supposed cases of slavery proving beneficial for the victims)
One could argue that happened in Ancient Rome, with prisoners fo war as the main source of slaves. Also they/their descendants arguably benefited in the long term from being part of the larger more sophisticated culture, if they survived that long.
In poor societies that permit slavery, a man might be willing to sell himself into slavery. He gets food and lodging, possibly for his family as well as himself; his new purchaser gets a whole lot of labour. There’s a certain loss of status, but a person might well be willing to live with that in order to avoid starvation.
I’d also note that issues like abolition and universal suffrage are qualitatively distinct from the issue of a minimum guaranteed income (what the quote addresses). Even the poorest of societies can avoid holding slaves or placing women or men in legally inferior roles.
Elections can take quite a bit of resources to run when you have a large voting population...
No, politicians can afford to spend lots of money on them. The actual mechanism of elections have never, so far as I know, been all that expensive pre-computation.
IAWYC, but the claims that most of the economic costs of elections are in political spending, and most of the costs of actually running elections are in voting machines are both probably wrong. (Public data is terrible, so I’m crudely extrapolating all of this from local to national levels.)
The opportunity costs of voting alone dwarf spending on election campaigns. Assuming that all states have the same share of GDP, that people who don’t a full-state holiday to vote take an hour off to vote, that people work 260 days a year and 8 hours a day, and that nobody in the holiday states do work, then we get:
Political spending: 5.3 billion USD
Opportunity costs of elections: 15 trillion USD (US GDP) (9/50 (states with voting holidays) 1⁄260 (percentage of work-time lost) + 41⁄50 (states without holidays) 1⁄601⁄8 (percentage of work-time lost)) ≈ 16 billion USD
Extrapolating from New York City figures, election machines cost ~1.9 billion nationwide. (50 million for a population ~38 times smaller than the total US population.) and extrapolating Oakland County’s 650,000 USD cost across the US’s 3143 counties, direct costs are just over 2 billion USD. (This is for a single election; however, some states have had as many as 5 elections in a single year. The cost of the voting machines can be amortized over multiple elections in multiple years.)
(If you add together the opportunity costs for holding one general and one non-general election a year (no state holidays; around ~7 billion USD), plus the costs of actually running them, plus half the cost of the campaign money, the total cost/election seems to be around 30 billion USD, or ~0.002% of the US’s GDP.)
Correction accepted. Still seems like something a poor society could afford, though, since labor and opportunity would also cost less. I understand that lots of poor societies do.
The actual mechanism of elections have never, so far as I know, been all that expensive pre-computation.
What? If anything I’d assume them to be more expensive before computers were introduced. In Italy where they are still paper based they have to hire people to count the ballots (and they have to pay them a lot, given that they select people at random and you’re not allowed to refuse unless you are ill or something).
According to Wikipedia, the 2005 elections in germany did cost 63 million euros, with a population of 81 million people. 0,78 eurocent per person or the 0,00000281st part of the GDP. Does not seem much, in the grander scheme of things. And since the german constitutional court prohibited the use of most types of voting machines, that figure does include the cost to the helpers; 13 million, again, not a prohibitive expenditure.
“Low electoral costs, approximately $1 to $3 per elector, tend to manifest in countries with longer electoral experience”
. In Italy where they are still paper based they have to hire people to count the ballots (and they have to pay them a lot, given that they select people at random and you’re not allowed to refuse unless you are ill or something
That’s a somewhat confusing comment. If they’re effectively conscripted (them not being allowed to refuse), not really “hired”—that would imply they don’t need to be paid a lot...
Is that that little? I think many fewer people would vote if they had to pay $3 out of their own pocket in order to do so.
If they’re effectively conscripted (them not being allowed to refuse), not really “hired”—that would imply they don’t need to be paid a lot...
A law compelling people to do stuff would be very unpopular, unless they get adequate compensation. Not paying them much would just mean they would feign illness or something. (If they didn’t select people by lot, the people doing that would be the ones applying for that job, who would presumably like it more than the rest of the population and hence be willing to do that for less.)
Systems that don’t require people to work are only beneficial if non-human work (or human work not motivated by need) is still producing enough goods that the humans are better off not working
Well, yes. Almost tautologically so, I should think. The tricky part is working out when humans are better off.
Systems that don’t require people to work are only beneficial if non-human work (or human work not motivated by need) is still producing enough goods that the humans are better off not working and being able to spend their time in other ways. I don’t think we’re even close to that point. I can imagine societies in a hundred years that are at that point (I have no idea whether they’ll happen or not), but it would be foolish for them to condemn our lack of such a system now since we don’t have the ability to support it, just as it would be foolish for us to condemn people in earlier and less well-off times for not having welfare systems as encompassing as ours.
I’d also note that issues like abolition and universal suffrage are qualitatively distinct from the issue of a minimum guaranteed income (what the quote addresses). Even the poorest of societies can avoid holding slaves or placing women or men in legally inferior roles. The poorest societies cannot afford the “full unemployment” discussed in the quote, and neither can even the richest of modern societies right now (they could certainly come closer than the present, but I don’t think any modern economy could survive the implementation of such a system in the present).
I do agree, however, about it being a solid goal, at least for basic amenities.
To avoid having slaves, the poorest society could decide to kill all war captives, and to let starve to death all people unable to pay their debts. Yes, this would avoid legal discrimination. Is it therefore a morally preferable solution?
Since when has the institution of slavery been a charitable one? Historically, slave-owners have payed immense costs, directly and indirectly, for the privilege of owning slaves, and done so knowingly and willingly. It is human nature to derive pleasure from holding power over others.
I’m not sure about those direct costs. According to my references, a male slave in 10th-century Scandinavia cost about as much as a horse, a female slave about two-thirds as much; that’s a pretty good chunk of change but it doesn’t seem obviously out of line with the value of labor after externalities. I don’t have figures offhand for any other slaveholding cultures, but the impression I get is that the pure exercise of power was not the main determinant of value in most, if not all, of them,
I seem to recall someone arguing that, in combat between iron age tribes, it was basically a choice between massacre and slavery—if you did neither, they would wreck revenge upon your tribe further down the line.
This wouldn’t be charity, as I guess the winners did benefit from having a source of labour that didn’t need to be compensated at the market rate, but it would be a case where slavery was beneficial to the victims.
(I think Carlyle was wrong about other supposed cases of slavery proving beneficial for the victims)
One could argue that happened in Ancient Rome, with prisoners fo war as the main source of slaves. Also they/their descendants arguably benefited in the long term from being part of the larger more sophisticated culture, if they survived that long.
In poor societies that permit slavery, a man might be willing to sell himself into slavery. He gets food and lodging, possibly for his family as well as himself; his new purchaser gets a whole lot of labour. There’s a certain loss of status, but a person might well be willing to live with that in order to avoid starvation.
Elections can take quite a bit of resources to run when you have a large voting population...
No, politicians can afford to spend lots of money on them. The actual mechanism of elections have never, so far as I know, been all that expensive pre-computation.
IAWYC, but the claims that most of the economic costs of elections are in political spending, and most of the costs of actually running elections are in voting machines are both probably wrong. (Public data is terrible, so I’m crudely extrapolating all of this from local to national levels.)
The opportunity costs of voting alone dwarf spending on election campaigns. Assuming that all states have the same share of GDP, that people who don’t a full-state holiday to vote take an hour off to vote, that people work 260 days a year and 8 hours a day, and that nobody in the holiday states do work, then we get:
Political spending: 5.3 billion USD Opportunity costs of elections: 15 trillion USD (US GDP) (9/50 (states with voting holidays) 1⁄260 (percentage of work-time lost) + 41⁄50 (states without holidays) 1⁄60 1⁄8 (percentage of work-time lost)) ≈ 16 billion USD
Extrapolating from New York City figures, election machines cost ~1.9 billion nationwide. (50 million for a population ~38 times smaller than the total US population.) and extrapolating Oakland County’s 650,000 USD cost across the US’s 3143 counties, direct costs are just over 2 billion USD. (This is for a single election; however, some states have had as many as 5 elections in a single year. The cost of the voting machines can be amortized over multiple elections in multiple years.)
(If you add together the opportunity costs for holding one general and one non-general election a year (no state holidays; around ~7 billion USD), plus the costs of actually running them, plus half the cost of the campaign money, the total cost/election seems to be around 30 billion USD, or ~0.002% of the US’s GDP.)
Correction accepted. Still seems like something a poor society could afford, though, since labor and opportunity would also cost less. I understand that lots of poor societies do.
What? If anything I’d assume them to be more expensive before computers were introduced. In Italy where they are still paper based they have to hire people to count the ballots (and they have to pay them a lot, given that they select people at random and you’re not allowed to refuse unless you are ill or something).
According to Wikipedia, the 2005 elections in germany did cost 63 million euros, with a population of 81 million people. 0,78 eurocent per person or the 0,00000281st part of the GDP. Does not seem much, in the grander scheme of things. And since the german constitutional court prohibited the use of most types of voting machines, that figure does include the cost to the helpers; 13 million, again, not a prohibitive expenditure.
http://aceproject.org/ace-en/focus/core/crb/crb03
“Low electoral costs, approximately $1 to $3 per elector, tend to manifest in countries with longer electoral experience”
That’s a somewhat confusing comment. If they’re effectively conscripted (them not being allowed to refuse), not really “hired”—that would imply they don’t need to be paid a lot...
Is that that little? I think many fewer people would vote if they had to pay $3 out of their own pocket in order to do so.
A law compelling people to do stuff would be very unpopular, unless they get adequate compensation. Not paying them much would just mean they would feign illness or something. (If they didn’t select people by lot, the people doing that would be the ones applying for that job, who would presumably like it more than the rest of the population and hence be willing to do that for less.)
Well perhaps fewer people would vote if they had to pay a single cent out of their own pocket—would that mean that 0.01$ isn’t little either?
How much are these Italian ballot-counters being paid? Can we quantify this?
IIRC, something like €150 per election. I’ll look for the actual figure.
Why so? Usually when people can’t refuse to do a job, they’re paid little, not a lot.
Like jury duty. Yeah. Why would it be different in Greece?
In the UK, the counters are volunteers.
Well, yes. Almost tautologically so, I should think.
The tricky part is working out when humans are better off.