Showing posts with label welfare state. Show all posts
Showing posts with label welfare state. Show all posts

Wednesday, October 23, 2019

Close Encounters of a Green New Deal Kind — Douglas Holtz-Eakin

In the end, MMT looks like an extreme version of conventional economics in which there is no independent monetary policy and there are a lot of unused resources. But when resources get tight, the reflex is command and control central planning.
This cuts to the quick of it. The question is how much market state (where free markets determine outcomes, in theory at least) and how much welfare state (where the economy is managed based on desired outcomes). This is an ongoing dialectic among Libertarians, conservatives, liberals and progressives in the US.

However, the GND is different in that it is a special case. The name indicates that it is being compared to the New Deal that addressed the effects of the Great Depression. Proponents also point to the American economic response in WWII, in which John Kenneth Galbraith played a major role. In the minds of the proponents of the GND, this is about government mobilizing resources and "taking charge" in order to meet an existential threat. Opponents view this as overreaction to a supposed threat that does not appear to exist, in their minds.

This is reminiscent of the lead up to WWII, where Americans in general preferred isolationism to preparation until events were forced on them at Pearl Harbor. Then the race to catch up.

American Action Forum Douglas Holtz-Eakin | President

Wednesday, May 8, 2019

Climate Change, the New Green Deal, and the Resurrection of Social Democracy and the Welfare State (links)


We did this before (New Deal). We can do it again (Green New Deal). The article shows why the ND and GND are similar as responses to environmental degradation. Most have forgotten what a paroblem this became in the US in the 30s. Kevin Baker refreshes our memory. The present threat is potentially much graver and presents a greater challenge than the Great Depression did, as bad as it was.

Harpers
Where Our New World Begins
Kevin Baker
ht Yves Smith at Naked Capitalism
Several leading Democratic candidates in the 2020 US presidential race favor introducing elements of a modern welfare state in health care, childcare, and education. Whether a Democrat wins or loses in 2020, social democracy has re-emerged in American politics for the first time since the 1930s.
CastaƱeda is curiously quiet about Bernie Sanders, AOC, and the Green New Deal. No mention of MMT either. Focuses most on Elizabeth Warren.

Project Syndicate
Is America Ready for a Welfare State?
Jorge G. CastaƱeda
Human beings are more prosperous and numerous than we’ve ever been, while the Earth’s other species are dying off faster than at any time in human history.
These two conditions are related. But if the second one persists long enough, we will be following our fellow organisms into the dustbin of geological history.
This is the primary takeaway from a new United Nations report on our planet’s rapidly diminishing biodiversity.
It's pretty easy to see the way this is going. First, people think that everything is going so well that the brouhaha over climate change is unnecessary alarmism. No need to react. Then, things start to go downhill. People think that if they cut back, they will lose their lifestyle. Heaven help that. Finally, the vise closes and it is too late to escape its jaws.

New Yorker Magazine — Intelligencer
Humanity Is About to Kill 1 Million Species in a Globe-Spanning Murder-Suicide
Eric Levitz

  • 'Big' government is here to stay - we must make sure it contributes to freedom and dynamism
  • Some of the most open and freest markets also have some of the largest welfare states
  • Social insurance helps the essential free market process of creative destruction remain a positive-sum game
May not be as simple as that, but it would be a step in the right direction anyway. What we are doing now is not working for a large swath of the population, and impending climate change is putting all at risk. That is to say, challenges are emergent and require a fresh approach to addressing them.


Wednesday, April 18, 2018

Tazra Mitchell — Some House Leaders Ignore Evidence, Cite Flawed Reports to Justify Taking Basic Assistance Away From Needy Individuals

Some Republican policymakers continue to propose basing eligibility for assistance programs on participants’ ability to meet strict work requirements — most recently with House Agriculture Committee Chairman Michael Conaway’s proposal to reauthorize SNAP (formerly food stamps)[1] — despite a lack of credible evidence that the requirements would work as intended.[2]

To build support for work requirements that take away assistance from adults who cannot work a set number of hours per month, conservative policymakers are pointing to three methodologically flawed studies touting the policy’s alleged success in Kansas’s and Maine’s cash and food assistance programs. The three studies misrepresent or omit key findings, and in many instances, make inappropriate claims about the impact of work requirements on work and earnings that the facts do not support.
Our analysis of the same data sharply contradicts the studies’ findings. We found that many adults in these programs already worked or would likely work soon anyway, but many of them found it difficult to find steady work and had earnings far below the poverty line or would have otherwise still qualified for assistance after their exits from the program....
The studies have at least four key flaws....
Center on Budget And Plicy Priorities
Some House Leaders Ignore Evidence, Cite Flawed Reports to Justify Taking Basic Assistance Away From Needy Individuals
Tazra Mitchell

Thursday, September 7, 2017

Neil Wilson — The basic income means that you are requiring somebody else to use up their finite lifespan to…

The basic income means that you are requiring somebody else to use up their finite lifespan to produce output, take it from them by force and give it to somebody who *refuses* to contribute to the production process. There is no value exchange, only theft. That is no different to the process the idle rich use today — and are rightly resented for it.
So you have to justify, politically, why society should support people *for their entire life* who simply refuse to contribute when they clearly can. Good luck with that one....

Anything else is working tax credits, disability pensions, old age pensions, or child benefit. The Job Guarantee replaces them all with a simple demand: you are required to work for the wage unless exempted by age or infirmity. If you are exempted then you still get the supporting income — which neatly covers sickness, disability, old-age, child benefits....
In my view, the next step is recognizing that the attempted market state is not working and cannot be made to work by trying to impose the conditions necessary for it. That is the basis of a political ideology, rather than application of scientific method — as is often advertised either through ignorance or disingenuously.

The need is for a reinvigoration of a well-functioning welfare state that considers good comprehensively, defining good in terms of positive values versus negative values. Norms are cultural, and such decisions should be taken politically in democratic environments such as democratic republics and participatory democracies. At present there are as yet no large scale participatory democracies but technological innovation is making that possible.

Past attempts at creating sustainable welfare states have not been entirely satisfactory for various reasons. A basic income is unlikely to be successful in doing so for the many reasons that critics have set forth. In summary the issues are not chiefly monetary, but real.

My recommendation is to institute a non-monetary social dividend based on provision of social goods in terms of distribution of and access to the available real resources of a society, along with a job guarantee that guarantees paid work including benefits for all willing and able to work. Obviously, the pay is a monetary benefit. But this is tied to work as a productive social contribution unless a person is unable to make a productive social contribution in the context of a job. However, monetary contributions such as stipends for students and pensions for retirees would also be part of the "fair deal," positioned between work as non-monetary aspects of the social dividend like universal access to quality health care.

The social dividend would cover social goods like education, health care, R&D, and infrastructure, including continuously state of the art universal broadband access, for one thing. The proportion of available real resources committed to public use instead of private use is a political decision to be arrived at democratically in different jurisdictions. 

I would not include a universal monetary disbursement in a social dividend, but rather restrict the social dividend to distribution of available real resources for social benefit. This is the basis for a welfare state committed to the common good and general welfare that is not achieved in a market state, since markets behavior based on accumulation of private property is not concerned with provision of social goods.

I would begin with the enduring question, what does it mean to live a good life as an individual in a good society, recognizing that the micro, meso and macro levels are aspects of a system in which each affects all. Interdependence in a networked environment implies that causation is cross-level in all directions with varying degrees of effect. Therefore, a systems approach encompassing an institutional approach is required.

Tuesday, June 27, 2017

Lars P. Syll — Marketization undermining the welfare system


1. Privatization is supposed to reduce cost by increasing efficiency. However, "efficiency" can be increased by trading off effectiveness and reducing quality.

2. The argument about privatization and deregulation generally assumes that there is no distinction between public and private goods, and it often also ignores externalities.

Lars P. Syll’s Blog
Marketization undermining the welfare system
Lars P. Syll | Professor, Malmo University

Sunday, March 26, 2017

Branko Milanovic — The welfare state in the age of globalization

In my previous post that looked at policies to reduce inequality in the 21st century, I mentioned that I will next discuss the welfare state. Here it is...
Global Inequality
The welfare state in the age of globalization
Branko Milanovic | Visiting Presidential Professor at City University of New York Graduate Center and senior scholar at the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS), and formerly lead economist in the World Bank's research department and senior associate at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Monday, February 27, 2017

Andrea BrandolinI — Inequality and economics: Tony Atkinson’s enduring lessons

Sir Tony Atkinson, the doyen of inequality economics, passed away in January. This column, by a longstanding friend and co-author, outlines his contributions to the analysis and measurement of inequality – and many other areas of economics, including taxation, social protection, and the welfare state. The ultimate goal of Atkinson’s research was to translate economic analysis into policy actions: economics is a tool for understanding the world and taking informed decisions on policies, but economists must strive to communicate their results beyond the narrow circles of decision-makers, making them accessible for public discussion.
VOX.eu Andrea Brandolini | Head of Statistical Analysis Directorate, Bank of Italy

Monday, November 7, 2016

Oleg Egorov — Over 50 percent of Russians miss the Soviet Union

When the Soviet republics of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus signed the Belavezha Accords on December 8, 1991, dissolving the Soviet Union, Marat was just a few months old. He did not know life in the Soviet Union. Nevertheless, he says he misses that country.
Marat, whose real name is being withheld at his request, is now 25 years old. He works in one of the Russian ministries, is satisfied with his salary and life, but still believes that things must have been better in the USSR.
"Free education, free medicine," Marat said, listing the advantages of the Soviet state. “People lived modestly but the state took care of them. Now money controls everything. The inequality is immense. Whoever is stronger is right. It wasn't like this in the USSR."
Marat is not alone in his nostalgia. Sociological surveys indicate that more than 50 percent of Russians today regret the collapse of the Soviet Union. In an April 2016 poll by the Levada Centre, 56 percent of the respondents said they wished the Soviet Union still existed. A recent survey by the All-Russian Centre for Public Opinion (VTsIOM) showed that 64 percent of Russians would vote for the preservation of the USSR if a referendum was held today, similar to the one held on March 17, 1991, which asked Soviet citizens if it was necessary to preserve the country in that form.
Nostalgia for the Soviet Union is highest among Russians over the age of 55, and those who live in rural areas, according to Karina Pipiya, a Levada Centre sociologist. But there are a number of those like Marat — young people who are successful, integrated in modern society and who do not remember the Soviet Union — who long for it. A huge 50 percent of young people surveyed on the topic by VTsIOM share Marat's opinion, said Mikhail Mamonov, director of the VTsIOM research projects.….
Mamonov said those who are positive about the Soviet Union always point out the same three things: "A small but guaranteed salary, employment, things that are guaranteed for you." In an era of harsh market competition, people want to retreat to a time when they think all these things existed, Mamonov explained.
People don't miss the USSR as much as the socialistic welfare state. Polling shows that there is little support for recreating the Soviet Union and the Communist Party is stuck at least that 15% of the vote. Neoliberals advocating close ties with the West, Western liberalism, and a market sate are under 5%. It appears that Russians prefer something along the lines of the Scandinavian social democratic model or democratic socialism.

Russia & India Report
Over 50 percent of Russians miss the Soviet Union
Oleg Egorov, RIR

Thursday, October 27, 2016

Tyler Cowen — My Second Thoughts About Universal Basic Income

I used to think that it might be a good idea for the federal government to guarantee everyone a universal basic income, to combat income inequality, slow wage growth, advancing automation and fragmented welfare programs. Now I'm more skeptical.
Bloomberg View
My Second Thoughts About Universal Basic Income
Tyler Cowen | Bloomberg View columnist and professor of economics at George Mason University

Saturday, March 19, 2016

Daniel Sharpiro — What is “the welfare state?” Thoughts on Matt Zwolinski’s recent post


Daniel Shapiro and others seem to conflate state welfare (transfer payments) with a welfare state. They are different.

The welfare state is in many ways the opposite of the market state. 

The market state assumes that the state is a "nightwatchman" whose job is ensuring security of person and property and the sanctity of contracts. It has no further intrinsic function than to allow individuals to maximize utility as they see fit as long as they "do no harm" in doing so.

The welfare state is based on the purpose a modern liberal state constituted by the people with whom sovereignty resides that is, the common good.  The modern liberal state is brought into being for the common good. 

This is encapsulated in the preamble to the US Constitution:
We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
The US Constitution and the constitutions of other modern liberal states empower the state to meet these goals.
 
The welfare state is a social, political and economic system based on institutional arrangements determined freely by the governed, in whom sovereignty ultimately resides. Popular sovereignty which is exercised by voting in free elections for candidates of the citizens' choosing. In this way, the citizenry gets the government it deserves.

In a modern liberal state, the citizens have generally exercised their political sovereignty in ways that support the common good through means that include state welfare (transfers). This is a prerogative of citizen sovereignty acting through the institutional arrangements of the social, political and economic system. It is part and parcel of the liberal order, which is oriented toward the common good.

There is nothing illiberal about a welfare state. But there are many things that are potentially illiberal about a market state, which is not organized based on the common good or public prose. In addition, markets may lead to privilege and power accruing from wealth and the accrual of wealth through economic rent, that, without actual merit or with respect to just deserts. Furthermore, a market state is also vulnerable to becoming a corporate state owing to economies of scale and the concentration of capital it produces.

Bleeding Heart Libertarians
What is “the welfare state?” Thoughts on Matt Zwolinski’s recent post
Daniel Sharpiro

Sunday, February 21, 2016

Brad DeLong — The Melting Away of North Atlantic Social Democracy


Assessment 
When I try to evaluate the state of the debate over Thomas Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century two years after its first (French) publication, I find myself driven to three conclusions. The factors that Piketty identifies as leading to the melting-away of the social-democratic North Atlantic economy are operating, but so far their effects on income and wealth inequality have been smaller than other largely-unrelated factors that have been operating in the past generation and generating the rise of housing as a source of wealth and the rise of the super-incomes. Piketty's factors have been supercharged by other forces over the past generation, but that does not mean that they are not at work—and, in fact, reinforces the chances that Piketty's inequality-driving factors will be of decisive importance over the next seventy years. The question of whether our road leads to Piketty (2014)—a new Belle Ɖpoque plutocracy—or Keynes (1936)—a euthanization of the rentier in which the wealth of the rich is outlandish but their incomes are not due to low rates of profit—hinges on our politics. And our politics is something we can control.
We as a civilization could decide that we are not willing to let money talk so loudly in politics. We could keep our politics from being one of establishing monopoly after monopoly and rent-extraction chokepoint after rent-extraction chokepoint. If we manage that, then the forecasts of Keynes (1936) and Rognlie (2015) will come true, and a rise in wealth accumulation will carry with it a fall in the rate of profit, and a highly-productive not-too-unequal society.
But right now money talks very loudly indeed. And I leave the Piketty debate more depressed about our ability to keep it from talking so loudly. What makes me more depressed? The Piketty debate itself does: The eagerness of so-many economists to aggressively make so many shoddy arguments that Piketty does not know what he is talking about.
Talking Points Memo
The Melting Away of North Atlantic Social Democracy
J. Bradford DeLong

Sunday, February 14, 2016

Robert Waldmann — Welfare Reform Killed People

A 20th anniversary reminder that an authentic randomized control trial proved beyond all conventional statistical significance levels and all reasonable doubt that welfare reform killed people.
Angry Bear

Monday, November 9, 2015

Chris Dillow — Lies we've told our children

In this context the fact that many of these youngsters are supporting Jeremy Corbyn is not at all surprising. What is surprising is that the political establishment are so narcissistically self-absorbed that they cannot see that his rise represents their own abject failure.
Stumbling and Mumbling
Lies we've told our children
Chris Dillow | Investors Chronicle

Sunday, October 25, 2015

Eric Michael Johnson — What Philanthropic Organizations Need to Know about Giving – Is philanthropy driven by morality or markets?

The notion that philanthropy resulted from the invention of money is a pillar of classical economics. It is also a myth. After more than two centuries of searching for an indigenous society that approximates Adam Smith’s parable of the original barter system, anthropologists have concluded that it can only be imaginary. “No example of a barter economy, pure and simple, has ever been described, let alone the emergence from it of money; all available ethnography suggests that there never has been such a thing,” wrote Cambridge anthropologist Caroline Humphrey in a 1985 paper titled “Barter and Economic Disintegration” in the journal Man. Instead, researchers have discovered that philanthropy is far more central to human social organization than economists had ever imagined.

The notion that philanthropy resulted from the invention of money is a pillar of classical economics. It is also a myth.…
This suggests that Adam Smith wasn’t so much chronicling the evolution of modern market economies as he was observing what existed during his time and then projecting it onto the human past.…
Evonomics
What Philanthropic Organizations Need to Know about Giving
Eric Michael Johnson

Monday, October 19, 2015

Lars P. Syll — Denmark’s euro problem [Paul Krugman]


Paul Krugman quote.

And the US is imposing austerity on itself with predictable results by pretending that it is still on the gold standard.

Lars P. Syll’s Blog
Denmark’s euro problem
Lars P. Syll | Professor, Malmo University

Tuesday, September 22, 2015

Don Quijones — Uruguay Does Unthinkable, Rejects Global Corporatocracy [TiSA]

Often referred to as the Switzerland of South America, Uruguay is long accustomed to doing things its own way. It was the first nation in Latin America to establish a welfare state. It also has an unusually large middle class for the region and unlike its giant neighbors to the north and west, Brazil and Argentina, is largely free of serious income inequality.
Two years ago, during JosĆ© Mujica’s presidency, Uruguay became the first nation to legalize marijuana in Latin America, a continent that is being ripped apart by drug trafficking and its associated violence and corruption of state institutions.
Now Uruguay has done something that no other semi-aligned nation on this planet has dared to do: it has rejected the advances of the global corporatocracy.…
Despite – or more likely because of – its symbolic importance, Uruguay’s historic decision has been met by a wall of silence. Beyond the country’s borders, mainstream media has refused to cover the story.…
This post is more about the spread of Global Corporatocracy through trade agreements being spearheaded by the US. It is about TiSA in particular, which includes more countries that TTP and TTIP combined.

Important.

Good summary of what we know about TiSA as the installation of neoliberal global corporatocracy and why not only Uruguay but also China and Russia are right in opposing it. It is the end of liberal democracy and the institution of plutocracy. Since the US has written the rules, it would give the US power elite and their cronies permanent global hegemony to extract rent without limitation.

The contents of TiSA would not be revealed publicly until five years after ratification.

There agreements are being designed as the final step enclosure and the suppression of democratic governance by neoliberal global corporatocracy.

This is a power play on a grand scale and little Uruguay has courageously said "nothing doing" to the gringos.

Pass this on.

Wolf Street
Uruguay Does Unthinkable, Rejects Global Corporatocracy
Don Quijones, Spain & Mexico, editor at WOLF STREET