The economics of Gay marriage and Polygammy

This is actually about basic income, but it is an economic lesson on choice and freedom.

Civil unions fundamentally equivalent to marriage
The differences are that marriage has a more expensive party.  Any gap in laws that treat civil unions and marriage differently, tend to be oversights, and have no basis not to be normalized.

Permitting gay marriage will cause more gay unions
Of course it will.  While this is often used as an argument by opponents of gay marriage, there is no reason that this is automatically good or bad.  In fact:

For men:

• More choice on who they can bond with without cultural/legal punishment is more choice and freedom for them.
• If other men choose to bond with men, then that leaves more women available to bond with you, and enhances your competitive position to complete heterosexual relationships.
• Forcing other men to marry women reduces the supply of women available for you to marry.

For women:

• The same freedom and competitive advantages apply to you.
• But, if there is more cultural stigma for male homosexuality, then oppressing men into being forced to marry women, is coercive market power forcing demand bias towards you.

Permitting gay marriage will lead to permitting polygamy

It should.  Economically again,  assuming there would be more one man to several women unions.

For men:

• If they can support many wives and children, then it enhances their choices and freedom to do so.
• Restricting the freedom of polygamy, can force women to bond with only the most desirable unattached male, and so enhance the "market value" of those without the financial power to support many wives and children.

For women:

• Substantial increase in market value if attached men are available men.  The choice and freedom to join a polygamous union.
• Restricting polygamy can coerce and limit your existing husband's choices.

The morality of coercion vs freedom

Through prohibition and coercion some people can get what they want (coercive happiness) at the cost of making other people less happy.  But the total number of happy vs unhappy people is likely at least as high, with freedom, without having any evil (coercive) sources of happiness.

The specific failure of coercive marriage policies

Prohibiting certain types of civil unions does not affect the choice to terminate marriages and make other bonding choices.  Outlawing polygamy, does not prevent a husband from leaving you and marrying someone else.  Forcing the choice of them or you, is of no inherent advantage to you.  The additional option of a 3 person marriage is something that can make the 3 of you have increased total happiness.

Similarly coercing men to choose women does not stop your husband from waking up one day and choosing something else.  You would prefer that the man who chooses to marry you does so for reasons that you are capable of fullfilling.  A man marrying  a women would similarly prefer that she does so without hoping that better options come along later.

The relationship to basic income

UBI (unconditional basic income) is providing an equal cash dividend to all adult citizens ($15k/year from federal sources for Canada) where the amount is at least sufficient to ensure the survival of every recipient.

The common fear-based criticism of UBI is that it will cause an increase of people who refuse to work.  The next section is the typical argument that this supposition is mostly false, but the much more important argument is that this fear is a non-issue even if it were true.

People will still choose to work, if UBI is implemented

• Unlike welfare, you keep all of the earnings that you earn.
• More money is better than less money
• You may take a month long vacation, but the drive to self-actualize is stronger if your basic needs are met, and there is no loss in benefits to self-actualize.
• Any job offer with sufficiently high pay and work conditions will find someone to fill/accept it.  So all needed social and economic functions will be completed.

Work as an analogy to gay marriage

Consider work to be equivalent to the proposition of men (labour force) searching for bonding with women (employers), or choosing homosexuality (remaining unemployed).

It is a tremendous advantage to every person seeking employment if as many people as possible reject employment.  It furthermore enhances the salary/conditions negotiation position of those with jobs the fewer people want to replace them.  That employees are happy enough with their employment so as to not seek a reason to be terminated or are simply waiting for a better offer directly means better productivity and value from that employee.

UBI creates a non coercive labour market where the refusal to participate enhances the fair bargaining power of all sides in the market.  The desperate need for permission to survive is no longer the driving force for accepting employment, and so employment becomes a fair mutually beneficial non-coercive negotiated agreement between parties.  With the removal of minimum wage laws, obtaining employment is as easy as you want it to be based on your ability to bid any wage knowing that your survival is ensured independently.  If you want an internship, a low pay internship can replace forced no pay internships.

Opposition to UBI is morally equivalent to pro-slavery

This statement will get its own article at one point, but this intro to understand the link is a good start.  The systemic fostering of desperation for free servant/slave class to find a kind benevolent master to satisfy their desperate need to survive is a strong systemic bias empowering the master class to coerce minions into accepting their rule.

Our modern democracies all have regulated slave labour markets.  Welfare, minimum wage, and labour regulations exist only because without them, the resulting master-servant relationships would be more nakedly-equivalent/similar to slavery.  But those regulations are always either too biased towards employers or employees.  Either employers are deprived of the ability to divorce from employees and create genuinely mutually beneficial employment agreements, or the regulations are an unenforced sham of pretense-of-non-bias that favours the master class's oppressive bargaining power in having servants systemically compete aggressively among themselves for the "privilege" of serving.

Regulation is always out of balance because it is slow response to squeaky wheels and obstruction-based response to master class political control meant to make apparent reforms as meaningless as possible.  

The response to automation

Under the regulated slave model of labour markets, all responses to automation are terrible.  Outlawing workforce displacement is terrible because it deprives society of always beneficial efficiencies.  We want every automated efficiency for the same reason we want machines/pipes to deliver our water and heating fuel.  It would be exhausting to spend 6 hours per day obtaining these manually.

No regulatory bias adjustment is equally bad to any regulatory adjustment.  The more workforce displacement, the stronger the competition among the servant class and the greater desperation becomes as a motivator to beg masters for minimal survival at ever increasing rates of effort.

UBI as the perfect solution

If UBI leads to increased wages, that also leads to increased desire for automation freeing more people from necessary social work functions.  The profits from the work of the machines goes towards paying taxes and the displaced's UBI, which is then paid to the machine owners that offer wanted goods and services.  UBI solves the problem of companies needing to sell their goods to employees of other companies, under the spiral of massive society wide worker displacement.  Companies just need consumers to have money (not employment) and the power to trade with them in order to prosper.

The more machines can do for us, the more we can all have, and the more we can all have the greater the relative and absolute wealth of workers and machine owners obtain in providing it for us.

Inflation fears as the other non-argument

That there may be inflation as a result of UBI is also a non issue.  Believing that such inflation is a concern is also morally equivalent to pro-slavery.  An economically prospering society will have inflation.  More demand for goods and services means more demand for servants to help collect money from all those people who can buy.

Treating such inflation as a negative economic impact is wanting more oppressive poverty, and more culling of the poor through policing, emprisonment and execution of the poor to enhance their desperation while channeling it only towards servitude.  We can keep inflation low by keeping an underperforming economy that makes life harder for the portions of the servant class unable to obtain servitude contracts.

The tie back to marriage regulation

Opposition to UBI is pro-slavery for the same reason that forcing people to get married (with narrow gender parameters) to someone, would be systemic oppressive coercion decidedly purposed to ensure a power bias with whatever side (known at time of oppressive law) is less numerous.

As a man, lowered stigma for homosexuality, gives every man more choices that advantages every other man.  Ideological coercion for gender relations or for work, detracts from every person's morally selfish interests, and so necessarily, collective interests as well.