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DanielLC comments on Non-standard politics - Less Wrong Discussion
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I generally call myself a quasi-libertarian. I am in favor of basic income. That seems to be something libertarians would be against, but I feel like it's the most libertarian way of helping the poor. They talk about how giving money to the poor is just paying them to be poor, and how minimum wage introduces deadweight costs. Basic income does neither of these. I also think no taxes and subsidies is a good schelling point, but when externalities get strong enough, it's worth while to let the government tax or subsidize it.
I also support basic income, but I think you are wrong when you say it is not "paying people to be poor." If you give everyone the same amount, but then just take it right back from the rich in taxes, this is basically the same a just paying the poor for being poor.
"Paying people to be poor" carries an additional connotation of "encouraging them to remain poor"; it's distinct from "paying people because they are currently poor".
I do not understand your argument. If people know that taxes/basic income are coming in the future, that is an incentive for them to become poor relative to if taxes/basic income was not coming. They may not say "Oh, that is a good deal, I want to be poor," but they may work less or take bigger financial risks because of it, because being poor is relatively less bad than it would be otherwise.
The ability to declare bankruptcy has a similar relationship to the riskiness of entrepreneurial activity, but we do not generally describe bankruptcy law as "encouraging people to fail at business" or "paying people to fail at business."
Maybe we should?
IANA native speaker, but I'm not even sure it's just a connotation. It sounds to me like it's part of the denotation, and if I didn't want it I'd word it as “paying people for being poor”.
No. There are cases where a person has less money/health insurance if they get a low paying job than if they register as unemployed. Marginal tax rates of >100% do happen in the real world and effectively lead to "paying people to be poor".
Correct me if I am wrong:
Ah, so you and DanielLC define "paying people to be poor" to be when government incentives make it better for people with less normal income than for people with more normal income.
I was trying to say that we would still be paying people to be poor, just not enough to cancel out 100% the negative of being poor, so that making more money is still monotonic in increasing happiness.
I think my definition is more reasonable, but yours is also reasonable, as it seems to capture some extra connotations. I retract my complaint under your definition.
In the real world there are cases where a person with 0 income get's X support from the government. On the other hand there are people with income less than X who don't get government support.
That means there an incentive out there to have income 0. The phrase "paying for" suggests to me that you create a monetary incentive for something.
I think you dilute the value of the phrase "paying for" when you don't let it mean "create a monetary incentive for something".