His specialty was alfalfa, and he made a good thing out of not growing any. The government paid him well for every bushel of alfalfa he did not grow. The more alfalfa he did not grow, the more money the government gave him, and he spent every penny he didn’t earn on new land to increase the amount of alfalfa he did not produce. Major Major’s father worked without rest at not growing alfalfa. On long winter evenings he remained indoors and did not mend harness, and he sprang out of bed at the crack of noon every day just to make certain that the chores would not be done. He invested in land wisely and soon was not growing more alfalfa than any other man in the county. Neighbours sought him out for advice on all subjects, for he had made much money and was therefore wise. “As ye sow, so shall ye reap,” he counselled one and all, and everyone said “Amen.
- Joseph Heller, Catch-22
Why didn’t they just refuse to serve them?
I think this model is pretty useful for combating pernicious industries.
You work for a hospital’s billing department? How bout the government match your salary to not do that.
You mine coal? Salary for life. Find other work, or enjoy payed unemployment – whatever. You still get the cash either way.
Just giving money to a bitcoin company is pretty dumb though. Just fuckin’ outlaw them.
yeah I guess if you’re gonna go that way the key is to kill the company and pay the workers. and even then there should be some kind of dividing line between formerly necessary industries and shit people come up with just to be harmful.
Honestly though, the bureaucracy to do this on a mass scale would be better spent just making those programs universal
Yeah, on it’s own it would be pretty lackluster. Combine it with a universal healthcare system, and you sidestep a lot of semi-valid criticisms, like “What, everyone in insurance is just unemployed now?” Do it right and you can use the existing bureaucracy. Medicare’s accounts payable is now paying the workers instead of the company, sort of thing.
I’m hesitant about full on universal income though. In the US’s present economy, it just seems like a giveaway to landlords and middlemen. Maybe after some tighter market controls are implemented…
Since Bitcoin isn’t even good for buying drugs online anymore it’s truly worthless.
Wow… I never thought I’d get to use the phrase, “this is good for bitcoin”, unironically.
