DIGGER?
“We will need to adopt the concept of an absolute constitutional right
to an income. This would guarantee to every citizen of the United States,
and to every person who has resided within the United States for a period
of five consecutive years, the right to an income from the federal govern-
ment sufficient to enable him to live with dignity. No government agency,
judicial body, or other organization whatsoever should have the power to
spend or limit any payments assured by these guarantees.”
from **The Guaranteed Income** by
Robert Theobald Anchor Book A519
“I believe it is important to add to the idea of a guaranteed income
another one, which ought to be studied: the concept of FREE consumption of
certain commodities. One example would be that of bread, then milk, and vegeta-
bles. Let us assume, for a moment, that everyone could go into any bakery and
take as much bread as he liked (the state would pay the bakery for all bread
produced). As already mentioned, the greedy would at first take more than they
could use, but after a short time this ‘greed-consumption would,’
even itself out and people would take only what they really needed. Such free
consumption would, in my opinion, create a new dimension in human life (unless
we look at it as the repetition on a much higher level of the consumption pattern
in certain primitive societies). Man would feel freed from the principle "he
who does not work shall not eat." * Even this beginning of free consumption
might constitute a very novel experience of freedom. It is obvious even to the
non-economist that the provision of free bread for all could be easily paid for
by the state, which would cover this disbursement by a corresponding tax.**
However, we can go a step further. Assuming that not only all minimal needs
for food were obtained free—bread, milk, vegetables, fruit—but the minimal needs
for clothing (by some system everybody could obtain, without paying, say one suit,
three shirts, six pairs of socks, etc., per year); that transportation was free,
requiring, of course, vastly improved systems of public transportation, while
private cars would become more expensive. Eventually one could imagine that housing
could be solved in the same way, by big housing projects with sleeping halls for
the young, one small room for older, or married couples, to be used without cost
by anybody who chose. This leads me to the suggestion that another way of
solving the guaranteed-income problem would be by free minimal consumption
of all necessities, instead of or through cash payments. The production of these
minimum necessities, together with highly improved public services, would keep
production going, just as guaranteed-income payments would.”
**The Psychological Aspects of the**
**Guaranteed Income** by **Erich Fromm**
appearing in **The Guaranteed Income** (above)
* One might argue that Man is not trying to free himself from the principle
"he who does not work shall not eat" but rather that Man is trying to free
himself from the principle of work being defined as "job".
** 2/3rds of federal taxes now goes for war.
[handwritten:]
**Sock it to us,
Erich!**
[hand-drawn whale]
[handwritten caption:]
CAPTAIN AHAB’S HOMECOMING PARTY
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