Bob Lancaster and I have been discussing an idea proposed by Milton
Freeman on negative income tax in the Nixon era .. which would get rid
of minimum wage and welfare and replace it with negative income tax ..
you'd receive a guaranteed minimum income but not from your employer
(guaranteed to be inflationary), rather as a redistribution of wealth
through the tax system.
Bob passed on a rather interesting paper:
http://backspaces.net/files/BasicIncome.pdf.. which in turn pointed to a couple of books by Philippe van Parijs,
an economic theorist, who's become the universal basic income (UBI)
advocate in europe. Two of the books are: Real Freedom for All, and
What's Wrong with a Free Lunch?
The basic notion is that a UBI, paid out of tax dollars, would have
interesting impact on the overall economy. It would, for example, help
folks go back to school to learn new skills as the free market takes
swings one way and another. It would aggregate social services into a
simpler to maintain institution with far less bureaucracy. It could
provide the basis for a minimal cost medical service.
The concerns many have is that it might easily remove incentive to such
a degree as to be dangerous. It could also, oddly enough, destabilize
the government by empowering a large number of people.
So I have a question: Is there any chance that this notion could be
modeled in NetLogo or RePast? There are two features I'd like to look
at: 1) would replacement of pressure on the employer by a more diffuse
tax solution eliminate its inflationary pressure, and 2) whether or not
UBI could actually increase productivity which some proponents claim it
could do.
Any pointers or ideas in this direction?
-- Owen
Owen Densmore 908 Camino Santander Santa Fe, NM 87505
Cell: 505-570-0168 Home: 505-988-3787
http://backspaces.net
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