Critical Critical Review Review

[paulhope]

Ok, I've put this off for a while--I wonder why? The Critical Review (henceforth CR) seminar was full of smart people and was pretty much non-stop thought about important things. I expected that it would all spill over into a giant post immediately when I came back. But I guess instead I faced some burnout, or maybe just made the appropriate

Comments

[polishcyclist]

glad to hear that you enjoyed it/thought it was worthwhile. I was slightly worried when you didn't post an immediate reaction. I haven't actually read through your reactions, but I've copied them to my laptop for later reading. Seemed quite interesting and I'd encourage a part 2.

[paulhope]

I look forward to your indignant defense of postlibertarianism :)

[polishcyclist]

quick note: Living wage does not equal negative income tax, unless by living wage you mean something entirely different than some arbitrary min. wage.

[paulhope]

Yes, I realize this--where did you get the impression that I meant differently? It must have been something I said unwittingly, because somebody else who read this thought I was mixing up the two as well.

What I meant by both livable income/wage and negative income tax was direct payments by the government to people that would raise total income in all cases to be above some (alas, arbitrary) standard of good living. (The relevant passage of the Green Party was a little unclear, but I think they include this on their platform).

Minimum wage is a price floor on labor. (I realized after I wrote the above post that the Green Party also wants a higher minimum wage--which immediately gave me doubts about the coherence of their overall position. But anyway, maybe that (the Green Party wanting both) is the source of your confusion?)

Is that clearer now?

[paulhope]

Actually, the most likely source of confusion is my misuse of "livable income," which I guess is a much broader/vaguer term than I originally thought. I think in the future I'll stick to:

negative income tax/citizen's income/guarenteed income

and

minimum wage

Although there should be a catchier name for the former.

[polishcyclist]

Got it, disregard my confusion.