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Bill: Creation of a Moderate Economy
Details
Submitted by[?]: Reform Party
Status[?]: defeated
Votes: This is an ordinary bill. It requires more yes votes than no votes. This bill will not pass any sooner than the deadline.
Voting deadline: October 2428
Description[?]:
| There are more interests to the Cildanian economy than just money. A small safety is wise. |
Proposals
Article 1
Proposal[?] to change Guarantee of minimum income.
Old value:: All veterans shall be guaranteed a very basic subsistence income by the government.
Current: All adults shall be guaranteed a very basic subsistence income by the government.
Proposed: All adults not supported by another person shall be guaranteed a very basic subsistence income by the government. However, the provision of this is not to exceed a certain period of time.
Article 2
Proposal[?] to change The nation's policy on minimum wage regulation.
Old value:: There is no provision for a minimum wage.
Current: There shall be a minimum wage at a level considered a "living wage," well above the poverty line for a full time worker.
Proposed: There shall be a minimum wage at a level that a single full time worker on it can adequately subsist.
Debate
These messages have been posted to debate on this bill:
| Date | 21:45:11, June 14, 2007 CET | From |  Justice League of Cildania | To | Debating the Creation of a Moderate Economy |
| Message | Article 1 will create a parasitic subclass, and article 2 will make the unemployment rate shoot up. If that's your idea of a moderate economy, you can keep it. |
| Date | 20:12:56, June 16, 2007 CET | From | Reform Party | To | Debating the Creation of a Moderate Economy |
| Message | Article 1 is unemployment insurance, and it doesn't create a subclass because it's only temporary. So, it's a little hard for a permanent subclass to develop from 3-6 months of unemployment insurance. As for article 2, yes, minimum wage does increase unemployment. That's why it should be kept at a low rate as proposed here. It should be held at moderation. What use is having a job if you can't buy even the most essential things from having it? If you can't afford food even when working long hours every day, you might as well not have a job at all. |
| Date | 23:03:21, June 16, 2007 CET | From | Justice League of Cildania | To | Debating the Creation of a Moderate Economy |
| Message | Private unemployment insurance already exists, not to mention the vast charity organizations in Cildania. Thanks to the government NOT picking the citizen's pockets for redistribution schemes, our people are some of the most generous people on Terra thanks to lots of discretionary income. |
| Date | 00:00:25, June 17, 2007 CET | From | Reform Party | To | Debating the Creation of a Moderate Economy |
| Message | How exactly do you know that everyone is generous? Do you go about in this fake country and ask the people? It's impossible to assume those things. Besides, there is such a thing tax deductions for charitable donations. So, people have a choice of giving to charity rather than taxes. As for the unemployment insurance, somehow I doubt that would be minimum income job workers would be able to afford it. It's more for middle and upper income people. So, the people that would need it the most wouldn't really get it. Also, you didn't address what I said about the minimum wage. |
| Date | 06:27:52, June 17, 2007 CET | From | Justice League of Cildania | To | Debating the Creation of a Moderate Economy |
| Message | It's also impossible to assume people are not generous as well, I 'm just using the logical conclusions. As for minimum wage, would you rather have a a job with low wage with some money, or no job with an artificially high wage and no money? Except you don't get to choose, the great government has chosen for you. What happened to giving people opportunity? |
| Date | 16:11:09, June 17, 2007 CET | From | Reform Party | To | Debating the Creation of a Moderate Economy |
| Message | "It's also impossible to assume people are not generous as well, I 'm just using the logical conclusions." So, perhaps we should go with the estimate that will end up doing the least damage if wrong. "As for minimum wage, would you rather have a a job with low wage with some money, or no job with an artificially high wage and no money? Except you don't get to choose, the great government has chosen for you. What happened to giving people opportunity?" First of all, the minimum wage isn't a choice between job or no job, not for everyone anyway. Such a minor reform as I've suggested will do little real damage while making sure that people are able to adequately subsist. The situation you described is false. The real question is would you rather have a job with a low wage that doesn't get you enough to even take care of basic commodities like food and shelter, or take a very small risk of losing your job which will be enhanced to the point of allowing you to get the commodities most necessary to living. I'll take the latter choice. I think most people would. Lastly, the government isn't forcing this upon the citizenry. If the citizenry don't like it, then they can take steps to get the law reversed or the party that proposed the law out of power. |
| Date | 00:12:50, June 18, 2007 CET | From | Justice League of Cildania | To | Debating the Creation of a Moderate Economy |
| Message | First, you want to turn the government into something that we routinely put people into prison for, how is that least damaging? Second, bully for you for taking the latter choice, but you're trying to make a law... you're not giving anyone else that choice to make. Supply and demand dictate that basic commodities will rise in price to meet the new standard of living anyway, meaning minimum wage earners end up having almost the same low buying power as before the artificial wage laws. The laws of economics and reality are against you here. |
| Date | 01:29:31, June 18, 2007 CET | From | Reform Party | To | Debating the Creation of a Moderate Economy |
| Message | Don't give me any of that "theft" crap. People choose to pay taxes by choosing to live within a nation that requires them and choosing to elect people that endorse them. People choose to give money to the government with the understanding that the government will use it wisely and for the programs that the people chose to have the government to do. When you pay for a service, you aren't being stolen from the guy who is doing the service. You're choosing to pay for the service. As for your concerns described in your second statement, society chooses which laws they want and don't when they elect someone that supports or goes against them. As for your third statement, that isn't really true. It all depends upon the gap of wealth. If the gap of wealth is high, commodity prices won't be low enough for the poorest in the nation. Either that or commodities will be of such low quality that it will be unfit for animals. If the gap of wealth is smaller, commodity prices will be low enough for everyone. The minimum wage attempts to set up a minimum income so that the former scenario won't occur, all while having everyone still earn their pay. That sounds fair to me. You're running out of arguments. Admit it, I'm correct. |
| Date | 06:12:26, June 18, 2007 CET | From | Justice League of Cildania | To | Debating the Creation of a Moderate Economy |
| Message | The only direction we're running is in circles. Look, a Service is negotiated ahead of time, with agreed terms and both parties choosing to cooperate. The government tax is doing something with your money that you never agreed to, then threatening to send you to jail if you don't pay them. You don't need it, you didn't ask for it, but you gotta pay for it. It's not a service, it's extortion. Nor does your wealth gap excuse work. It might, if there was one product per commodity that the entire economy buys, but in a free market like ours, that is far, far from the case. And again with the society nonsense... You realize you hold society as the unit of reality and the standard of value. On this view, the individual has reality only as part of the group, and value only insofar as he serves it. I don't think you believe the individual has any absolute rights... that his life and work belong to the group... and that the group may sacrifice him at its own whim to its own interests. The only way to implement a doctrine like this is with brute force, with this statism you so espouse. Cildania and the Justice League realize that humanity is not an entity, and organism or a society. Every person is an independent, sovereign entity who possesses an inalienable right to their own life. A proper civilized 'society' (or any form of human association, cooperation or peaceful coexistence) can be achieved only on the basis of the recognition of individual rights... and that a society, or any group as such, has no rights other than the individual rights of its members. Artificial wages increase an employer's costs. If the employer can't afford to pay everyone higher wages, the employer has to fire some employees. Employers do not dictate this, reality does. You say it's acceptable that some people are forced out of their jobs due to the actions of the government... that it is for the greater good of society. But you deny these fired workers their freedom to trade their labor for wealth. You have usurped and destroyed their status as free individuals. No matter how much you think you have benefited the society organism, you have violated the peoples' individual rights. This is immoral, this is wrong. And this is the only argument I'll ever need. |
| Date | 23:13:59, June 18, 2007 CET | From | Reform Party | To | Debating the Creation of a Moderate Economy |
| Message | Well, this is interesting. By a minanarchist like you, I'm called a Statist. When I was arguing against a socialist earlier, I was called an anarchist. Well, the truth is, I'm neither. I do value individual rights, probably more than the average person. However, at the same time, I don't fool myself into thinking that the individual is absolute, that the collective doesn't exist. I don't fool myself into thinking that we are all completely independent of one another. The empire that humanity has created upon the world is a result of many people working together in specialized labor. Everyone affects one another. Your future is partially determined by the actions of yourself and partially by the actions of others and the environment that you are in. To make the latter of what affects your future not negative or an impediment, individuals assembled together to create government. There are many theories as to how government should work, but they all generally share the mentioned goals and hope to accomplish them by providing security and opportunity. You say any violation of freedom is a violation of an individual's rights. Well, rights include those of knowledge and the right to be able to grasp hold of your future. These rights are major and are worth compromising small amounts of economic freedom. As to how this applies to the above mentioned articles, how can you grasp hold of your future when you're out on the streets, hopeless, after losing your job and finding it difficult to find new work? A small unemployment insurance for a severely limited amount of time can prevent this. How can you have grasped hold of your future when you can barely survive when you don't even have the wages to subist. If Cildania is so prosperous with real wages being so high, then the minimum wage should barely affect businesses or anyone at all, only positively affecting a few that desperately need it. |
| Date | 03:44:37, June 19, 2007 CET | From | Justice League of Cildania | To | Debating the Creation of a Moderate Economy |
| Message | You said, "I do value individual rights, probably more than the average person. However, at the same time, I don't fool myself into thinking that the individual is absolute, that the collective doesn't exist." This is statism, those that espouse this political philosophy are statists. You said, "rights include those of knowledge and the right to be able to grasp hold of your future." No, knowledge is not a right. A right is a guarantee of freedom of action in a social context, every right only pertains to an action, the freedom to act... and never to a thing. We do not have the right to knowledge, but we have the right to pursue knowledge. We have no right to a secure future, but we have the right to pursue one. We have no right to force employers to pay us more than we are worth, or force others to pay for our welfare. We do have a right to produce enough wealth to sustain our own welfare, and we do have the right to earn more pay from employers. The Justice League will never agree to sacrificing the rights of individuals no matter how much it may help the greater good. |
| Date | 04:11:51, June 19, 2007 CET | From | Reform Party | To | Debating the Creation of a Moderate Economy |
| Message | "This is statism, those that espouse this political philosophy are statists." Then apparently, if this were true, more than 90% of all people of the world are statists and are justified for being so. Ignorance of the collective will not make it disapear. Tell me, do you deny any or all of the reason I explained to you in my previous post? "No, knowledge is not a right. A right is a guarantee of freedom of action in a social context, every right only pertains to an action, the freedom to act... and never to a thing. We do not have the right to knowledge, but we have the right to pursue knowledge. We have no right to a secure future, but we have the right to pursue one." So, we agree. Pursuit of knowledge and of a secure future are rights. However, how can you pursue these things when the circumstances of one's birth denies or severely detriments your ability to pursue them? "We have no right to force employers to pay us more than we are worth, or force others to pay for our welfare. We do have a right to produce enough wealth to sustain our own welfare, and we do have the right to earn more pay from employers." Even if, without these things, our right to life is strained? "The Justice League will never agree to sacrificing the rights of individuals no matter how much it may help the greater good." Then apparently, without assemblies of the citizens being able to have flexibility to address problems, the world the Justice League dreams of will remain exactly that. |
| Date | 05:08:16, June 19, 2007 CET | From | Justice League of Cildania | To | Debating the Creation of a Moderate Economy |
| Message | You said, "if this were true, more than 90% of all people of the world are statists and are justified for being so." It wouldn't matter if 100% of the people were statists. None would be justified for violating individual rights. You said, "Pursuit of knowledge and of a secure future are rights. However, how can you pursue these things when the circumstances of one's birth denies or severely detriments your ability to pursue them?" Can you elaborate on how someone's birth circumstance denies their ability to pursue a better life? You said, "Even if, without these things, our right to life is strained?" Remember a right implies an action, there are no rights to things. Your life is not guaranteed, just your freedom to maintain it. Your freedom does not imply force on someone else to make things easier for you, just like they can not force you to maker their own lives easier. You said, "without assemblies of the citizens being able to have flexibility to address problems, the world the Justice League dreams of will remain exactly that." The people are perfectly free to assemble and address problems! But we both know you are not talking about freedom. No, you want these assemblies to be able to cheat... to make up laws that violate human rights to forcibly create a quick fix. But your problem-solving laws will only create more problems. You may cling to your beliefs that people's lives are malleable to the whim of the gun-wielding mob, but the laws of reality cannot be manipulated by a majority vote. |
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Voting
| Vote | Seats | |||
| yes | Total Seats: 0 | |||
| no |
Total Seats: 425 | |||
| abstain | Total Seats: 0 |
| Random fact: Real-life religions should not be referenced in Particracy. Terra has its own religions, many of which mirror real-life ones. See: http://particracy.wikia.com/wiki/Illustrated_Catalogue_of_Religion |
| Random quote: "Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages." - Thomas A. Edison |