Universal basic income: Why not?

[Analyzer]

I didn't fully follow your line of reasoning, but I will try to answer the questions I think you are asking me.

Re: capital in a pre-contract world. It was pretty simple. Those that had resources could buy force. Those that had force could get resources. This is a self-perpetuating cycle. Examples in the pre-contract world include the Mongols (resources via force) and resource-rich trading society (e.g., salt/silk traders that gained power through resources). More often then not, in the pre-contract world, force was the initial prerequisite. In that world, without force you were at the mercy of those who had force. Self-governing/self-policing villages would exist, of course, at the micro-level, but those were often razed/dominated by external forces. Trade/markets certainly flourished where it was allowed to (capitalism), but there was much disruption and massive corporations did not exist for several obvious reasons (e.g., lack of scalable technology, lack of factories, lack of government protections against theft/force, etc.)

The fact that self-governing communities existed alongside "might makes right" societies, means property rights functioning in a non social contract environment is possible. Historically, States only came to be once it was feasible and beneficial to control a population. Like once it got a certain size and there were resources to exploit.

Coercion is not a requisite for civilization, on the contrary without economic and voluntary action productive processes of society are eliminated. Seems like the hobbesian idea of leviathan is just an ideology, granted it's the dominant one.

Re: states and meta-states. Governments need no contract, they are the top of the food chain. Why would the government need a contract to give it legitimacy if it controls the army and police force that can subjugate any threats to its power?

Well if no social contract needs to be made in the state of nature, then the state is a fiction.

Look, I'm not saying that without official contracts, no cooperation would exist. I am saying that even if 95% of people "played nice", the 5% that didn't feel like playing nice and decided to use force to get what they want would ruin it for everyone else. Hence the perceived need for police, defense, etc. Self-policing can work in small communities but not in a global community with several competing populations.

So a society with 5% of evil justifies creating a State(which is evil in itself) where the rest of 95% of people are forced to abide? The Minoan civilization which lasted over 2000 years, ancient Iceland, and the Indus Valley civilizaiton are some empirical examples of self-governance broadly working.

But maybe you are right. Self-policing in a global community today wont work if people are trapped by statist thinking. Or if humans by their very nature are all statists, doesn't this imply a determined arrangement of the furniture in ones mind? And to those whose furniture is arranged differently, then they must be out of step?

 

[Artsu Tharaz]

The 14 year old you sounded like Kasich, only smarter and more grounded in reality.

Um after skimming through a wikipedia article on the guy, I gotta say, wtf??? Apart from a bit on reforming the criminal justice system, most of that stuff was wtf that I have never promoted.

But it's cool that I was smarter and more grounded than a politician back when I was 14.

 

[WALKYRIA]

Artsu Tharaz President? Anyone?

 

[Sly-fy]

Um after skimming through a wikipedia article on the guy, I gotta say, wtf??? Apart from a bit on reforming the criminal justice system, most of that stuff was wtf that I have never promoted.

But it's cool that I was smarter and more grounded than a politician back when I was 14.

I meant it only in terms of the being "smarter and more grounded in reality" part, not referring to any specifics but in general terms (because IMO that`s guy`s a dumbass (although to be real the 14 year old you was a dumbass as well (I was a worse dumbass.)))