What is Reddit's opinion of In Our Hands : A Plan To Replace The Welfare State?

From 3.5 billion Reddit comments

Again, from memory. I never thought I would actually find the book: https://www.amazon.com/Our-Hands-Replace-Welfare-State/dp/0844742236#productDescription_secondary_view_div_1488352241623

Author claims it's $10k annually for those citizens 21 and older. This is over 10 years old so I'm sure the sum has increased.

I don't know much about Charles Murray, except that he also wrote a book advocating basic income. Just sayin'.

(I do know enough about Jeb Bush to know I don't want him anywhere near the presidency.)

>It's been awhile since I read it, but I thought they openly acknowledged in it that if IQ is largely genetic that actually strengthens the case for wealth redistribution.

If that was the case, why hasn't Murray advocated for more wealth redistribution for the last 30 years? Why would he write a book where the byline is literally "A Plan to Replace the Welfare State?" Why has been a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute which is a conservative free market think tank that pushes for smaller government?

>I don't remember there being much, if anything, in it about eliminating the welfare state, although I could be wrong.

They specifically call for removing welfare benefits that encourage poorer, low-IQ women to produce offspring. This is not verbatum because I'm going off the top off my head, but there is a paragraph that explicitly says this - they don't go about in a roundabout way.

> Murray's previous book, Losing Ground, was explicitly about the welfare state.

Yes and that book's thesis was?

>What kind of work do you consider studying IQ in humans that analyzing data on IQ doesn't count?

I didn't say it "doesn't count" I pointed out that there is a difference between a policymaker and an actual scientist. Just like there is a difference between someone who goes to Med School and somebody who gets a Masters in Public Health. You don't confer them with the doctor title or go to them for doctor-specific knowledge. Murray didn't use any methods nor is he a practitioner.

>Why would having only one throwaway chapter on recommendations for raising IQ be evidence that the book is primarily about making a case for a policy?

The book is primarily about making a case for a policy because it literally is making a case for policy. Did you think Murray and Hernstein just presented data for the sake of presenting it, and left it open with "hey, draw your own conclusions"?

>The thesis of the book was about how society has sorted based on cognitive ability and the bulk of its content was presenting data for that case.

And the purpose of presenting the data was? That is your thesis. The evidence and data are never your thesis.

Of course it's redistribution of wealth, and that's not against libertarian principles. Charles Murray wrote a whole book about it. The Cato Institute has thoroughly discussed the idea in mostly glowing terms. It's far from universally supported among libertarians, but it has solid traction.

> Then send me (and him) one or two of those links. Neither of us are asking for something that applies to every UBI proposal. We just want a rough idea of what it'd cost for something close to "average". It doesn't really matter if it's 10k a year or 20k a year -- I could extrapolate from either.

If you want answers to your questions, and this goes for OP as well, then it starts with you understanding how to ask questions. This is OP's fundamental flaw and why he isn't going to get any meaningful results. He refuses to acknowledge he's asking a bad question. He just continues to repeat himself in frustration. And when you point out that his question is nonsensical, he acts like a toddler.

I'm happy to provide reading information but not to folks who exhibit willful ignorance, refuse to be taught, and are salty through the entire conversation. This is my free time and no one is entitled to it.

I am not interested in your criticism of how I choose to engage with strangers. If you are willing to talk UBI then I'm happy to continue to talking about it. However, if you'd like to continue opining about how you dislike the fact that I won't tolerate OP's nonsense then you should go and have the day of your choosing.

In terms of reading materials:

This book lays out a proposal. Murray suggests eliminating all welfare transfer programs at the federal, state, and local levels and substituting an annual $10,000 cash grant to everyone age twenty-one or older.

Basic Income Studies (BIS) is the first peer-reviewed journal devoted to basic income and related issues of poverty relief and universal welfare.

Alaska has had its own basic income for years.

A very rough proposal for using a LVT to fund a basic income.

You are now getting closer to the real argument, I applaud you.

Getting rid of Medicare seems like a bad idea. In fact, society as a whole would likely be better off if everyone had healthcare (cost per person goes down, less health-induced poverty related crimes, etc) - but getting to that point is hard in a nice libertarian fashion. Charles Murray's idea to have a UBI coupled with a requirement to spend some on healthcare might be better than our status quo, but probably has some externalities that make it undesirable.

As for the other issues, I think many UBI advocates would handle the Social Security problem as an issue that will eventually phase out. You take anyone getting SS >1000/month and you give them their 1000/month in UBI plus the difference in SS. 1000 from UBI, 400 from SS. All people retiring after some cutoff don't get any SS top-up. Eventually phases out as an issue. Yes, if UBI stays at 1000/month and costs increase, this can be bad for the elderly. But it is also bad for the elderly to have an entire youth generation living in poverty, unable to get training. How do people retire? By purchasing the labor of the young with assets they acquired while young. One can't retire by hoarding assets unless there are people willing to do work to get those assets. Unless fully robotic retirement facilities pop up.

As for the gross price tag still being large, there are many arguments to be made on how to handle that issue, but I won't make them here as they typically require increased taxes of some kind and such discussions don't go far in this subreddit.

I would bring up the issue with treating money as a scarce resource. I like to look at money as valuable tool that helps facilitate market operations and allows a measuring of the value of a thing to a person. It measures a slice of goods owned to the holder. What does giving every adult 12k/year really mean? It means we think everyone deserves at least a small piece of the total goods produced; a base minimum before any productivity. No longer does anyone deserve 0%, even if they produce nothing. The real question is whether we want to move that direction as a society - and not whether X trillions of dollars is too costly.

Can society as a whole produce enough food, housing, and healthcare for all? Definitely. Many non-essential goods while doing it? Sure. We have a distribution problem, not a production problem.

>Can you cite that? I would love to see a prominent Right wings face say this, it'll give me faith in humanity once more.

I think Charles Murray is a good example.

>There are the people who published the study you linked.

OMG you're right, wow, I've made a big mistake there. I have actually posted this similar information a few times, and all those times contain the same glaring error.

I guess at the very least, the point about labor economists still hold, but thanks for pointing this mistake out to me.