The Law Against Social Parasites

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Riggerjack
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The Law Against Social Parasites

Post by Riggerjack »

http://uk.mobile.reuters.com/article/idUKKBN15W1XY

This just seems like a natural extension of socialist thought. Unproductive serfs should be punished.

Dragline
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Re: The Law Against Social Parasites

Post by Dragline »

Heck, nobody says you have to be productive. Just show up somewhere and claim to be working. ;-)

Gilberto de Piento
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Re: The Law Against Social Parasites

Post by Gilberto de Piento »

You could also be self employed to avoid the tax/fine.
This just seems like a natural extension of socialist thought. Unproductive serfs should be punished.
How is this an extension of socialist thought? It seems like socialism would be ok with unemployed people getting services without paying taxes. It sounds like they are trying to get people to register as unemployed and provide the required community service:
In Belarus, those who are officially registered as unemployed are exempt from the law but those not registered, and also freelancers, housewives or husbands, and those working abroad all have to pay the annual tax to the government.

Those who officially register as unemployed must do community service for $10 per month, so most people do not.
It does seem wrong to tax/fine someone who is recently unemployed but it doesn't seem so bad to tax someone who is early retired or a stay at home parent or similar. Since I don't know anything about the Belarussian tax and unemployment systems it's hard to say for sure.

IlliniDave
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Re: The Law Against Social Parasites

Post by IlliniDave »

Gilberto de Piento wrote: How is this an extension of socialist thought? It seems like socialism would be ok with unemployed people getting services without paying taxes. It sounds like they are trying to get people to register as unemployed and provide the required community service:
Socialism is not okay with people not paying income taxes, which requires people have income to be taxed. So punish FI people by fining them for having too little income.

The fine for failing to have insurance under ACA is the same idea. Pay into the system, or else ...

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C40
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Re: The Law Against Social Parasites

Post by C40 »

Are their income tax rates really low? If so, I think it would be reasonable to expect unemployed people to either pay taxes or do some community service (assuming the taxes or hours required are fairly low)

I'd consider that more Libertarian than Socialist.

Riggerjack
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Re: The Law Against Social Parasites

Post by Riggerjack »

Belarus is as close to the old Soviet model as we have today. No changes in leadership, command economy, and all the goodness that implies.

Real wages have increased faster than productivity, with command loan programs. The whole thing has been circling the drain for a decade.

http://fxtop.com/en/historical-exchange ... tnOK=Go%21

In the last 2 decades, the Belorussian ruble has gone from 10 to 1 USD, to 20000 to 1.

The economic policy is what you would expect, if you were familiar with the old Soviet model. Outlawing unemployment, as a solution. Now, fining the unemployed. Defining housewives as Social Parasites...

If your idea of a worker's paradise is Rosie the Riviter, and you don't make planes anymore, there are going to be problems...

Riggerjack
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Re: The Law Against Social Parasites

Post by Riggerjack »

This just seems like a natural extension of socialist thought. Unproductive serfs should be punished.



How is this an extension of socialist thought? It seems like socialism would be ok with unemployed people getting services without paying taxes.
Not really. That is how socialism is advertised, but in every real world application, it led to everyone being subject to the will of the state. As defined by a committee of your equals. All citizens are equal, but some are more equal than others.

In a command economy, everyone needs to carry the weight assigned. Shockingly, over time, some people will go to great lengths to move from the weight carrying class of equals, to the weight assigning class of equals.

This massive overhead is what brought down the USSR in 1990, but Belarus has carried it forward another 3 decades.

BRUTE
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Re: The Law Against Social Parasites

Post by BRUTE »

C40 wrote:it would be reasonable to expect unemployed people to either pay taxes..

I'd consider that [..] Libertarian
taxes. libertarian. o_O

Riggerjack
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Re: The Law Against Social Parasites

Post by Riggerjack »

There is nothing libertarian in Belarus from what I can tell.

The government has pushed bad investment loans and a real wage increases beyond productivity. This has lead to currency crisis after currency crisis. If you look at the exchange chart I posted above, you will see a stair step appearance. The currency was at first tied to Russian ruble, then under other controls. I'm sure the black market rate was more gradual. As differences develop, there is pressure to correct, and you can clearly see when those steep corrections were made.

For those interested in more detail, there is an IMF report out. Google Belarus, a game of anchors.

I just thought the law was silly, so I posted it here.

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C40
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Re: The Law Against Social Parasites

Post by C40 »

BRUTE wrote: taxes. libertarian. o_O

AFAIK, libertarians generally all believe in paying/trading in exchange for things they receive, and that includes paying taxes for government services. They just want way less government services than most.

BRUTE
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Re: The Law Against Social Parasites

Post by BRUTE »

all libertarians brute has met hate taxes.

BeyondtheWrap
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Re: The Law Against Social Parasites

Post by BeyondtheWrap »

Gilberto de Piento wrote:
This just seems like a natural extension of socialist thought. Unproductive serfs should be punished.
How is this an extension of socialist thought? It seems like socialism would be ok with unemployed people getting services without paying taxes.
It's an extension of socialist thought because of "From each according to his ability."

Riggerjack
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Re: The Law Against Social Parasites

Post by Riggerjack »

While socialism is advertised as equality and sharing the load, in reality, it criminalizes any form of nonparticipation. Being one of the lazy people among the group of lazy people is fine. Being independent is not. Thus criminalizing unemployment in a failing economy. Or housewives. Clearly, since there are no planes to rivit, Rosie should take her children with her to toil in the fields. A worker's paradise requires workers, far more than paradise.

Riggerjack
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Re: The Law Against Social Parasites

Post by Riggerjack »

"all libertarians brute has met hate taxes."

True, but then the libertarian ideal of national defense is usually modelled on the Swiss. Who still need to pay taxes for national defense. Just not so damned much.

Anarcholibertarians tend towards no national defense, but this is just ignoring all of human history and human nature.

Even if everyone is equally strong, a coalition is stronger than the individual, and there will always be those who prefer to bully as part of a group to production as an individual. One group necessitates the formation of others, and soon you are back to warring nation/states.

BRUTE
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Re: The Law Against Social Parasites

Post by BRUTE »

does the small "defense" spending of the swiss have anything to do with them pretty much never being involved in any wars? which way does the causation go?

ducknalddon
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Re: The Law Against Social Parasites

Post by ducknalddon »

BRUTE wrote:does the small "defense" spending of the swiss have anything to do with them pretty much never being involved in any wars? which way does the causation go?
I always thought it was down to their geography making them difficult to invade.

BRUTE
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Re: The Law Against Social Parasites

Post by BRUTE »

prior to industrialization, sure. but plenty of mountain country has since been bombed.

Riggerjack
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Re: The Law Against Social Parasites

Post by Riggerjack »

The Swiss require a 2 year civic commitment of their young citizens. For men, this is usually military service. Then, on getting out, they are issued their assault rifle. Once per year, they go down and qualify with the rifle. So most homes have an assault rifle and ammo. The military is small enough that soldiers have to compete to stay in, rather than the modified welfare program we call a military.

So costs are low because the active military is small, reserves are enormous and cheap, and they keep their military at home.

Riggerjack
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Re: The Law Against Social Parasites

Post by Riggerjack »

When I looked into the Swiss reserves, it was a bit different than described by the gun lobby/libertarians. The assault rifle ammo the reserves are issued is inventoried, so civilians need to buy their own ammo for recreational shooting. They have to buy their rifle on getting out, at a good price. It isn't issued. The majority of the military is there to train the regular run of recruits. Then, those who made the cut to stay in and train other soldiers, have to compete to do any of the other military work, so the are no raw recruits on tanks or planes.

Also, back in the day, the Swiss upped their spending making thousands of camouflaged forts like this:https://schwingeninswitzerland.wordpres ... f-furigen/

There are lots of variants to this story:
"Shortly before World War I, the German Kaiser was the guest of the
Swiss government to observe military maneuvers. The Kaiser asked a
Swiss militiaman: 'You are 500,000 and you shoot well, but if we
attack with 1,000,000 men what will you do?' The soldier replied: 'We
will shoot twice and go home.'"
And it does a nice job of explaining the basis of Swiss military thinking. When most of your men are trained and armed, that is a tough nut to crack, and what's worth keeping, if you do win?

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Re: The Law Against Social Parasites

Post by jacob »

The Swiss defense spending is not small. The GDP fraction is low, but considering how much higher GDP per capita is, the absolute expenditure per capita is similar to other European nations. Ammo is not stored at home anymore(+) but they really do go practice with their guns [in the local area] and are expected to be able to mobilize at some known assembly address once they get the bat signal or some such. I recall hearing automatic small arms fire from time to time on evenings and I lived practically in the center of Basel. In US terms, it would be as if almost everybody in Selective Service were drafted(*) for the National Guard.

(+) That seemed to be a trend in European militias during the 2000s. I do recall some shootings involving issued rifles and maybe that had something to do with it or maybe not. Probably also just easier to maintain ammo at a local armory and dispense it there.

(*) Another think I liked about the system was that the same thing was the case for the fire department. You were literally required to participate in the fire fighting services of the city. If you don't you can pay a tax to get exempted, which almost everybody does. IIRC it was about 25-50CHF per year. If you didn't pay, you'd get drafted to serve at the fire station.

The main strategy was (still is?) to make the country too costly to invade (think "first world Afghanistan") and generally not engage in offensive adventures unlike pretty much every other military in the world these days. You can of course invade any country given enough resources (except Russia) but Switzerland has bunkers everywhere (in the mountains)---more along the lines of NORAD/base sized than little pillboxes. It used to be (and maybe still is) that any building over a certain size must have a bunker in the basement. The dorm I lived in in Basel had one complete with two blast doors. Power plants are also hardened and bridges/tunnels were (or are?) rigged to explode remotely. Look up Fortress Switzerland. Enemies are better off just surrounding it---which is pretty much what happened during WWII.

Switzerland also have significant taxes/restrictions on imported food. I was once stopped in customs and questioned as to whether I was bringing in any milk! Not sure if this is related or they just like to subsidize the purple cows.

Maybe Jean can comment further?

Edit: Riggerjack beat me to it.

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