This is an interesting concept, but I have two big objections to it (the same objections I actually have to other safety nets as they currently exist). First, I want to mention at the top that I'm not in favor of leaving people out in the cold. I love to help people, and I think anyone who wants help should get it. The problem I have is that money seems to be the default strategy for "help," when it often seems to be counterproductive.
The two things I really don't like about the ultimate safety net are these: First, that type of mechanism actually seems to be oppressive (based solely on my own observations, which are limited, but I'll explain below). Second, having the safety net from on high actively discourages people in a community from helping each other directly. Instead, they turn to the authority, saying that the basic wage is good enough, so why should I bother?
The observations I mentioned were over a period of about a year when I lived in a neighborhood that was almost entirely composed of people living on some form of assistance. They were not evil, bad, or leeches, and I'm not going to make that claim. However, as best I could determine, they had found a strategy that was "good enough" that they didn't feel the need to improve their standing in life. In other words, they had elected to live in near-poverty because it was effortless. I knew several of them to varying degrees, and they were intelligent, able people. The effect of the safety net on their lives was extremely negative (in my opinion), even though they would certainly say otherwise. They did not want to be in better circumstances, and given the opportunity to learn a skill that would immediately improve their lives (trade skills like welding, or gardening even), most would refuse. I don't think that is a natural state for people, and it was frustrating for me to see it (especially for the kids involved, who had subsistence living as their primary model).
The other point, about passing off responsibility for helping neighbors, is something I've seen in two flavors. First, and by far the most common, is in the world of conflict resolution. It's typical for one neighbor to call the nuisance abatement or police on another rather than actually go knock on the door to solve a problem. This is because they can offload all of the discomfort of confrontation onto an authority figure. The unfortunate consequence is that it makes the neighbor hate them, and things get worse from there. The other flavor of this problem is when people who do work and pay taxes resent seeing people who don't work but could, who are living "on the dole." The feeling of resentment looking at someone who is, even to a tiny degree, living for free on the fruits of your labors gets in the way of actually wanting to help that person. It gets people thinking in terms of "Why should I help them? They already live for free on my back, and they're not trying to make any changes."
So what would I propose? Like I said, I'm not a fan of the "survival of the fittest" approach, and while many people seem to advocate that I don't think they actually want to see others suffer either. My main objection is that I see money going to causes that I think are directly harmful to the people they're supposed to be helping. What I would like is a way to direct the resources I spend on social support to causes that I think are actually beneficial (free education, skills training, apprenticeships, etc., maybe even with stipends and whatnot). I realize that everybody likely has a different view of what "helpful" means, so what I'd like to see is decentralization of social support into various forms that cater to different people's concepts of what actually works. You can make paying into it compulsory or not, but to me the real problem is that I don't like to see my money going to what ultimately seems to be an oppressive form of "help."
> It's typical for one neighbor to call the nuisance abatement or police on another rather than actually go knock on the door to solve a problem. This is because they can offload all of the discomfort of confrontation onto an authority figure. The unfortunate consequence is that it makes the neighbor hate them, and things get worse from there.
See also: Donglegate. This reflex is thoroughly ingrained at all levels of society.
The two things I really don't like about the ultimate safety net are these: First, that type of mechanism actually seems to be oppressive (based solely on my own observations, which are limited, but I'll explain below). Second, having the safety net from on high actively discourages people in a community from helping each other directly. Instead, they turn to the authority, saying that the basic wage is good enough, so why should I bother?
The observations I mentioned were over a period of about a year when I lived in a neighborhood that was almost entirely composed of people living on some form of assistance. They were not evil, bad, or leeches, and I'm not going to make that claim. However, as best I could determine, they had found a strategy that was "good enough" that they didn't feel the need to improve their standing in life. In other words, they had elected to live in near-poverty because it was effortless. I knew several of them to varying degrees, and they were intelligent, able people. The effect of the safety net on their lives was extremely negative (in my opinion), even though they would certainly say otherwise. They did not want to be in better circumstances, and given the opportunity to learn a skill that would immediately improve their lives (trade skills like welding, or gardening even), most would refuse. I don't think that is a natural state for people, and it was frustrating for me to see it (especially for the kids involved, who had subsistence living as their primary model).
The other point, about passing off responsibility for helping neighbors, is something I've seen in two flavors. First, and by far the most common, is in the world of conflict resolution. It's typical for one neighbor to call the nuisance abatement or police on another rather than actually go knock on the door to solve a problem. This is because they can offload all of the discomfort of confrontation onto an authority figure. The unfortunate consequence is that it makes the neighbor hate them, and things get worse from there. The other flavor of this problem is when people who do work and pay taxes resent seeing people who don't work but could, who are living "on the dole." The feeling of resentment looking at someone who is, even to a tiny degree, living for free on the fruits of your labors gets in the way of actually wanting to help that person. It gets people thinking in terms of "Why should I help them? They already live for free on my back, and they're not trying to make any changes."
So what would I propose? Like I said, I'm not a fan of the "survival of the fittest" approach, and while many people seem to advocate that I don't think they actually want to see others suffer either. My main objection is that I see money going to causes that I think are directly harmful to the people they're supposed to be helping. What I would like is a way to direct the resources I spend on social support to causes that I think are actually beneficial (free education, skills training, apprenticeships, etc., maybe even with stipends and whatnot). I realize that everybody likely has a different view of what "helpful" means, so what I'd like to see is decentralization of social support into various forms that cater to different people's concepts of what actually works. You can make paying into it compulsory or not, but to me the real problem is that I don't like to see my money going to what ultimately seems to be an oppressive form of "help."