The Case for Separation of Welfare and State

[fluxrazza]

Hi all

I've become a big fan of Stefan's podcasts over the past 6-12 months. He, along with other prominent thinkers, has opened my eyes to powerful ways of viewing the world. I've attempting to start contributing some ideas of my own. I feel like I am merely pulling ideas of intellectual 'giants', but it has been fun nonetheless. I've been doing this primarily on the blockchain blogging site steemit.com. It's a great concept and I recommend supporting the platform.

My latest piece on there is titled 'The Case for Freedom - Welfare Edition'

Feel free to check it out

Cheers

Ryan

 

 

[barn]

Hi @fluxrazza

Would you like to make a case for people, why should they read it / take their time?

Maybe it's just me, I don't know what benefit would it mean for me.

Thanks in advance,

Barnsley

[fluxrazza]

Hi

Thanks for the reply. I appreciate your advice about the value of (honest) salesmanship.

I've attempted to make an objective reasoned argument as to why separating welfare and state is a good thing for a society. I've tried to do this is in a manner that goes further that calling upon the non-aggression principle as divine truth. It is an extension of a previous piece I wrote making the 'Case for Freedom' - attempting to explain why we have our inbuilt intuitions that freedom is important. There I argue through the lens of fragility and  antifragility, ideas proposed by N N Taleb. I thought this was worthwhile as I hadn't seen the concept spelled out in such terms previously. In the comments to that piece I was asked about applying the general 'freedom is good' argument to specific topics (speech was mention). I chose to start the specific explorations with the topic of welfare.

I operate under the principle that I write what I find interesting to write about. It helps me clarify my thoughts. Obviously I would love it if others were interested too - but I can accept it if they are not! 

Cheers

 

 

[barn]

1 minute ago, fluxrazza said:

Hi

Thanks for the reply. I appreciate your advice about the value of (honest) salesmanship.

I've attempted to make an objective reasoned argument as to why separating welfare and state is a good thing for a society. I've tried to do this is in a manner that goes further that calling upon the non-aggression principle as divine truth. It is an extension of a previous piece I wrote making the 'Case for Freedom' - attempting to explain why we have our inbuilt intuitions that freedom is important. There I argue through the lens of fragility and  antifragility, ideas proposed by N N Taleb. I thought this was worthwhile as I hadn't seen the concept spelled out in such terms previously. In the comments to that piece I was asked about applying the general 'freedom is good' argument to specific topics (speech was mention). I chose to start the specific explorations with the topic of welfare.

I operate under the principle that I write what I find interesting to write about. It helps me clarify my thoughts. Obviously I would love it if others were interested too - but I can accept it if they are not! 

Cheers

 

 

Thanks and that's reasonable, a good enticement. I'm gonna have a look eventually.

A quick question. Do you think welfare could exist without the state? (non-charity)

If yes, is there any way in which any sized state wouldn't become self-interested, biased against serving actual needs of individuals?

 

[fluxrazza]

Eek could go down a deep rabbit hole here. I class both charity and welfare as 'giving to the poor'. I view this as an investment on behalf of the giving individual in the future promise of the return of similar favours from others and in the future productive potential of the poor individual or family. In any rational investment the risk/reward payoff must always be considered. As I argue in the article I think outsourcing the investment decisions to a centralized government is a fragilizing mistake.

On the concept of nation states generally I think they should exist (I like flags) but have minimal necessary power. It's a tradeoff between an ordered tribe and fragilizing tyranny (and the more homogenously intelligent the tribe the less tyranny you need to enforce order). We have had periods in a our history where we showed that nations could survive with separation of welfare and state. Using the minimal necessary power idea, let's go back and try that again. 

[barn]

1 hour ago, fluxrazza said:

Eek could go down a deep rabbit hole here. I class both charity and welfare as 'giving to the poor'. I view this as an investment on behalf of the giving individual in the future promise of the return of similar favours from others and in the future productive potential of the poor individual or family. In any rational investment the risk/reward payoff must always be considered. As I argue in the article I think outsourcing the investment decisions to a centralized government is a fragilizing mistake.

On the concept of nation states generally I think they should exist (I like flags) but have minimal necessary power. It's a tradeoff between an ordered tribe and fragilizing tyranny (and the more homogenously intelligent the tribe the less tyranny you need to enforce order). We have had periods in a our history where we showed that nations could survive with separation of welfare and state. Using the minimal necessary power idea, let's go back and try that again. 

"eek" - as in, a sound made by a mouse? (lol)

Sorry, I don't see how does that answer my question. (maybe you did, I just don't see it)

The reason why I asked comes from:

The differences between,

° buying yourself something with your own money

° buying a present for someone with your money

° buying a present for someone with someone else's money

° getting more presents paid by others for buying someone something with someone else's money, regardless if they liked it or not

°... same as the previous, plus forced participation and punished for not increasing spending, while gradually shuffling/receiving less in value at the same time.

Welfare needs coercion, is against free-will regardless how small scale. If not, it's charity and a completely different 'animal'.

[barn]

2 hours ago, fluxrazza said:

I class both charity and welfare as 'giving to the poor'.

Are you sure?

Isn't that analogous to saying:

A person driving it's own vehicle can be classified the same as one who drives a company-car?

I guess, sure they're both driving...

Welfare is actually making people's life worse, on top of forcing others to pay for it. Charity doesn't. It's voluntary, the opposite of wasteful and has the highest built-in incentive for actually improving people's life, more often than anything else making them independent (the list goes on...).

[fluxrazza]

10 hours ago, barn said:

Are you sure?

Isn't that analogous to saying:

A person driving it's own vehicle can be classified the same as one who drives a company-car?

I guess, sure they're both driving...

Welfare is actually making people's life worse, on top of forcing others to pay for it. Charity doesn't. It's voluntary, the opposite of wasteful and has the highest built-in incentive for actually improving people's life, more often than anything else making them independent (the list goes on...).

Ok - I think if we define welfare as ‘enforced charity’ (seems reasonable) then everything is dandy

[RichardY]

12 hours ago, fluxrazza said:

I've attempted to make an objective reasoned argument as to why separating welfare and state is a good thing for a society. I've tried to do this is in a manner that goes further that calling upon the non-aggression principle as divine truth. It is an extension of a previous piece I wrote making the 'Case for Freedom' - attempting to explain why we have our inbuilt intuitions that freedom is important. There I argue through the lens of fragility and  antifragility, ideas proposed by N N Taleb. I thought this was worthwhile as I hadn't seen the concept spelled out in such terms previously. In the comments to that piece I was asked about applying the general 'freedom is good' argument to specific topics (speech was mention). I chose to start the specific explorations with the topic of welfare.

Was listening to Nassim Taleb's, "Skin in the Game". Yesterday morning on Scribd (approx 7 GBP per month). Heard the author mentioned when I listened to "Thinking Fast & Slow" by Daniel Kahemann a while a go. Remember Taleb referencing the Soprano's a few times. Was contrasting a reasoned approach, with an empirical "Skin in the Game" approach. Haven't finished the book yet, but references communtiy a lot, looks Aristotlian.
 

12 hours ago, fluxrazza said:

I operate under the principle that I write what I find interesting to write about. It helps me clarify my thoughts. Obviously I would love it if others were interested too - but I can accept it if they are not! 

Had a look at your article, only takes a few seconds to look through. Noticed the J Peterson photo, there's a talk in London on the 13th May (same day as my Birthday...) also one in June in Iceland.

The more posters generally the better.

Quote

This redistribution is only reasonable you might say – we (barring a few American Psycho types) all agree that we should help the vulnerable. That’s not the point here. The big question is how do we do this. Ask two people how to help your local homeless drug addict and you will get two different answers. Truly helping even one person is extraordinarily difficult.

I don't think people should help the vulnurable, because they are vulnurable. (Reminds me of the book "Notes from the Underground"). I'm Homeless btw.

[barn]

53 minutes ago, fluxrazza said:

Ok - I think if we define welfare as ‘enforced charity’ (seems reasonable) then everything is dandy

 Even if I disagree, I appreciate you updating that 'tidbit', good on you. (That's why I had used the expression "completely different animal" earlier, maybe I should have been more explicit.)

i.e. (pardon me, I'll be butchering your quote to illustrate a point...)

'Ok - I think if we define robber as ‘unexpected guest’ (seems reasonable) then everything is dandy'

I think, we must be clear on what these things really are if we hope to affect them in a meaningful way.

Perhaps you might think I'm hung up on linguistics. Instead, my only aim is to show, how mistaking appearances (superficiality, popular narrative based) coupled with lack of 'calling things by their true name' (reasoning from first principles) mostly facilitates thinking close to sophistry, one form or another. I'm not calling you that, I'd like to believe you are just as interested in the truth as I am. It's a friendly discussion.