Poverty has three components: food, shelter and healthcare.  Living wage theory must address these and recognize that private sector employers cannot pay living wages for all people.  They cannot because they “cannot pay more for labor than their product or service will command – be priced at – in the free market”.  They would lose profitability.

This does not mean that a living wage cannot be delivered.   Government must intercede, because, as president Abraham Lincoln said, “The legitimate object of government is to do for a community of people whatever they need to have done, but cannot do at all or so well do for themselves, in their separate and individual capacities.”

Rather than taxing income, our government can charge corporations (employers) a flat excise or sales tax on their use of human capital, paid workers.  That pool of revenue then may be equally distributed among all working age people, persons eighteen and over.  It must be sufficient in cash to pay for each such person’s food and shelter (about $750 monthly), and for universal healthcare insurance (about $300 monthly, with a University of Chicago free market mechanism that will reverse spiraling healthcare costs).

Because these dividends paid by “America Inc.” will equal what a minimal wage should be, employers no longer will be required to pay minimum wages and may pay wages according to what the market will bear.  They also will be more globally competitive, with things like textile and assembly plants having opportunities to re-open.

But in the above “hands off” on business, government also will meet Mr. Lincoln’s other criteria as regards people, “In all that people can individually do as well for themselves, the government ought not to interfere.”  This means that we pay the $750 cash dividend without any regulations or restrictions to the individual person.  This removes, as Milton Friedman called them, a “tyranny” of laws against low-income people; they may own property and become “have’s” despite the “social-welfare” dividend, which, today, generally requires liquidation of assets prior to complying for assistance.

In fact, by government paid people no longer being restricted property rights, the American Dream of owning homes (a) better may be actualized by all people.  And (b) if not hunger-relief and faith based organizations, private enterprise will beat a path to the low-income person’s neighborhood to provide affordable housing and foods.  (I.e., absentee landlords no longer may so readily neglect neighborhoods, because people will be enabled to move from such landlords…and to own homes, which people naturally tend to take care of – ownership does that).  Neighborhood blight, plight and flight can and, according to economic thought, will reverse.

A transition of such a financial magnitude will require caution, because, in the end – and in line with Mr. Lincoln’s quote of non-interference – people, not government, will be responsible for children.  Given healthcare for all and that couples, together, will have $18,000 in non-taxable income, that is sound economics from which parents may work responsibly to raise their children.  Many rules and tax penalties that now work against marriages will be eliminated.  The gradual transition to minimal government intercession in childcare must be gradual, assuring that children, as well as their education to become adults and possibly parents on their own, are not neglected. 

A great deal of analysis and debate has gone into the foregoing complex of thoughts.  On the down side, they have been described as capitalist: America Inc. paying dividends – but that is identical to firms paying their stockholders, in some cases their never needing to work a day in their lives.  Described as socialist: government involvement in paying wages, but minimally and where free enterprise fails.  And communist: providing for each according to their needs, but it is minimal sustenance, never with better incentives than for those “who work for a living” - plus, individual expenditures are of free choice and not government interference as in communist price setting or our current regulations.

On the upside, dividends are not ceilings (we lose or receive reduced benefits if we go to work) but provide individuals with a just and equal economic floor – sustenance, which is the same as delivering on the promise of an unalienable right to life – plus freedom, there from, to choose our own options in life.

Mull the “radical” thoughts over, carefully.  They are as radical – fundamental – as our Declaration of Independence.  Know that they are based on the thoughts of Nobel Laureates Milton Friedman (“negative taxes”), Merton Miller (how a firm – or government – should structure its financial relationships), and Maurice Allais (monopoly theory as it applies to monopsony, one payer systems - making a universal healthcare approach competitive).

What is the biggest surprise, within detail analysis, is that our tax and spend apportionments will net to less than our own current federal expenditures, and that even more economic gain will occur in the long run, including in our beleaguered healthcare industry.  But that the shameful face of poverty may fade in America, along with a greed image of competitive business, that is the model that all other nations, especially lesser-developed countries, may not be revolted by, but, rather, seek to emulate.

Sustainability?  That pertains to responsible growth, socio-economically who should pay for what, and its movement seems to emphasize the protection of natural resources for the future; that we should not now impoverish our land, air and water.  But in our current world, will the status quo of the “have’s”, 80% of our income earners, versus the “have-nots”, no and low income earners, women, races and cultures, systemically and unjustly impoverished, continue to be perpetuated?   Are we planning for more Wall Street investments in bigger prisons, more exploiting of lands for minerals, not public lands but Native American reservations, moving those (privately called) “red niggers” out when we discover minerals, or using their lands for chemical dumping grounds?  No, that record of impoverishment of people is not acceptable and cannot be sustainable.  Real changes are needed and called for.  Not that we self-righteously continue to “give them handouts” (how arrogant can we real takers be).  The changes must address the elements of a living wage – that unalienable right to life, an individual’s sovereignty – and structure that dividend, from our common wealth, born and built by all, to be deliverable.

If nothing else, those who would choose the living wage structure should have that right of choice and to co-exist with those who would choose the current status quo.  That is fairness.  That allows change.  And that form of sustainability, with freedoms of choice and minimized regulations and bureaucracies, would make tomorrow matter for the impoverished.

R.O.Wirengard
6234 Falkenburg Rd. N.
Tampa, FL 33610
rowireng@tampabay.rr.com
Tel. 813-245-3872
Fax 813-612-9709

In a “Brief” of the Tampa Tribune, June 11, 2000, the judge knew instantly that wrong or “tyranny” exists in our system.  It was his willingness to correct what is wrong that needs to be systemically corrected and instituted:  $250 short, Morris and Louis Swann were taken to court by their landlord…the judge abruptly left the arguments and returned with $250 in cash for the landlord.  Consider the rent paid, he said…The financially troubled couple, after being married, had only recently found out that Morris’ disability benefits would decrease from $500 a month to nothing at all.  (Multiply these incidents by millions, or that 44 million have no healthcare insurance, while we’re paying the most for it, 14% of GNP, of any nation.  And, getting a $750 monthly dividend, Morris even would be allowed to work, even part time, if he could and would choose to do so).

- Amend16!robertwirengard