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Not everybody on the left agrees: http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/01/the-failure-of-a-past-basic-income-guarantee-the-speenhamland-system.html http://www.n

Not everybody on the left agrees: http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/01/the-failure-of-a-past-basic-income-guarantee-the-speenhamland-system.html http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/01/the-failure-of-a-past... "The idea of a basic income guarantee is very popular with readers, more so that the notion of a job guarantee. Yet as we have mentioned in passing, this very sort of program was put in place on a large-scale basis in the past. Initially, it was very popular. However, in the long run it proved to be destructive to the recipients while tremendously beneficial to employers, who used the income support to further lower wages, thus increasing costs to the state and further reducing incentives to work. And when the system was dismantled, it was arguably the working poor, as opposed to the ones who had quit working altogether, who were hurt the most." I've yet to hear a good explanation for why basic income is superior to a job guarantee. We do not live a techno-futurist utopia where robots do all of our work. We do not want to be welfare queens; work gives us dignity. We do not even have world class infrastructure, we have infrastructure that is falling to pieces and direly needs work. The last time we were in this situation, FDR created jobs. Jobs that built stuff like schools, hospitals... the lincoln tunnel.

ZeroGravitas 11y ago
A "basic income" is not the same as a "basic income guarantee".
- JustSomeNobody 11y ago
  But surely similar things would happen? Let's say your wage is 30K per year. On Jan 1 a UBI of 12K per year is to be instated. What would happen to your wage in a year? Personally, given that most all businesses want us to be loyal to them with no loyalty returned to us, my guess would be that you are let go and someone would be hired to do your job for 20K per year.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - marcosdumay 11y ago
    Nope, both are completely different. With BI, for each extra dollar your employer pays you, you get an extra dollar. With income guarantee, for each extra dollar your employer pays you, you get nothing.
  - dragonwriter 11y ago
    > But surely similar things would happen? The difference between a UBI and an income guarantee like the Speenhamland system is that the latter is a means-tested program that eliminates the marginal benefit of additional work and requires more administration, while the former, because it is unconditional, providing a fixed benefit regardless of outside income, has less administration and preserves the marginal benefit of additional work. > Let's say your wage is 30K per year. On Jan 1 a UBI of 12K per year is to be instated. What would happen to your wage in a year? Personally, given that most all businesses want us to be loyal to them with no loyalty returned to us, my guess would be that you are let go and someone would be hired to do your job for 20K per year. If they could get someone to provide the value you do for $20K now, they would. If you think UBI makes that more possible, you have to believe that it also makes it just as much more possible that you'd be able to get someone else's former 30K job for 20K of job income, which, with a 12K UBI, gives you a 6.67% increase in total income.
SeoxyS 11y ago
A job guarantee has similar results to heavily unionized labor: inefficiency. People waste their time doing things that don't matter. Basic income is great because it provides everyone a safety net efficiently. With basic income, they don't have to worry about survival, so people take jobs because they think it's beneficial to them. It sets up the right incentive structures for a productive free market.
- crdoconnor 11y ago
  "A job guarantee has similar results to heavily unionized labor: inefficiency." Involuntary unemployment is more efficient is it?
ensignavenger 11y ago
The article you cite used a system that is most definitely not a Basic Income, and not Universal, to make its point against a Basic Income. You want a way in which the Universal Basic Income would be superior to a Job Guarantee? Administration. With a job guarantee, you will need a massive administration. While I agree wholeheartedly that meaningful work supports dignity. Creating jobs and Universal Basic Income are not opposed to each other.
- crdoconnor 11y ago
  What exactly was wrong with FDR's public works adminisration and works progress administration? They built a ton of stuff we still use today.
  - dllthomas 11y ago
    I have no objection to hiring people to build useful stuff. That prospect differs from a "job guarantee" precisely where that stuff is not sufficiently useful. In the margin there, I object to paying people to take time and effort away from places they may find more value, to do things that are of minimal value, in the name of "dignity." In fact, I think paying for useless work is destructive of precisely that dignity (along with a pile of economic value).
    - crdoconnor 11y ago
      "That prospect differs from a "job guarantee" precisely where that stuff is not sufficiently useful. In the margin there, I object to paying people to take time and effort away from places they may find more value, to do things that are of minimal value, in the name of "dignity." In fact, I think paying for useless work is destructive of precisely that dignity (along with a pile of economic value)." So you are saying, in essence, that people's art projects, poetry and one person startups and time spent watching daytime TV are, on average, more useful than projects like the lincoln tunnel, schools, hospitals and bridges and you object to resources being taken from one to build the other?
icebraining 11y ago
We do not want to be welfare queens; work gives us dignity. Bourgeois moralist crap. If working gives you dignity, by all means, work. But being forced to work to survive is not dignity, and the result is the bullshit jobs we see everywhere. If people who have free time feel the need for better infrastructure, they'll build it. "Ne travaillez jamais!"
- Frondo 11y ago
  Yeah, no kidding, ask the people working 3 minimum wage jobs how much dignity the scheduling nightmares and that 4 hours daily on the cross-town bus gives them.
  - crdoconnor 11y ago
    If the government instituted a job guarantee with a decent living wage, those 3 minimum wage jobs would magically start paying more and treating their workers better. Because if they didn't, nobody would do that work.
    - kamaal 11y ago
      That is only studying first part of the problem. Minimum wage also means, net expenses to produce things also goes up. Transferring the burden of paying the minimum wages to consumers[Who are being paid the minimum wages]. Thereby going back to square one. This or, since budgets remain same. You will employ lesser people to do same job. Because that is the all budget you have to pay people.
      - crdoconnor 11y ago
        >Minimum wage also means, net expenses to produce things also goes up. Transferring the burden of paying the minimum wages to consumers Nope. Shareholders. Minimum wage hikes eat into profits before affecting prices or employment. This is why businesses hate them with such a seething passion. To look at a more concrete example, compare the minimum wage in Australia vs. the US and the cost of big mac in both countries.

ZeroGravitas 11y ago

A "basic income" is not the same as a "basic income guarantee".

JustSomeNobody 11y ago
But surely similar things would happen? Let's say your wage is 30K per year. On Jan 1 a UBI of 12K per year is to be instated. What would happen to your wage in a year? Personally, given that most all businesses want us to be loyal to them with no loyalty returned to us, my guess would be that you are let go and someone would be hired to do your job for 20K per year.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- marcosdumay 11y ago
  Nope, both are completely different. With BI, for each extra dollar your employer pays you, you get an extra dollar. With income guarantee, for each extra dollar your employer pays you, you get nothing.
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  > But surely similar things would happen? The difference between a UBI and an income guarantee like the Speenhamland system is that the latter is a means-tested program that eliminates the marginal benefit of additional work and requires more administration, while the former, because it is unconditional, providing a fixed benefit regardless of outside income, has less administration and preserves the marginal benefit of additional work. > Let's say your wage is 30K per year. On Jan 1 a UBI of 12K per year is to be instated. What would happen to your wage in a year? Personally, given that most all businesses want us to be loyal to them with no loyalty returned to us, my guess would be that you are let go and someone would be hired to do your job for 20K per year. If they could get someone to provide the value you do for $20K now, they would. If you think UBI makes that more possible, you have to believe that it also makes it just as much more possible that you'd be able to get someone else's former 30K job for 20K of job income, which, with a 12K UBI, gives you a 6.67% increase in total income.

SeoxyS 11y ago

A job guarantee has similar results to heavily unionized labor: inefficiency. People waste their time doing things that don't matter. Basic income is great because it provides everyone a safety net efficiently. With basic income, they don't have to worry about survival, so people take jobs because they think it's beneficial to them. It sets up the right incentive structures for a productive free market.

crdoconnor 11y ago
"A job guarantee has similar results to heavily unionized labor: inefficiency." Involuntary unemployment is more efficient is it?

ensignavenger 11y ago

The article you cite used a system that is most definitely not a Basic Income, and not Universal, to make its point against a Basic Income. You want a way in which the Universal Basic Income would be superior to a Job Guarantee? Administration. With a job guarantee, you will need a massive administration. While I agree wholeheartedly that meaningful work supports dignity. Creating jobs and Universal Basic Income are not opposed to each other.

crdoconnor 11y ago
What exactly was wrong with FDR's public works adminisration and works progress administration? They built a ton of stuff we still use today.
- dllthomas 11y ago
  I have no objection to hiring people to build useful stuff. That prospect differs from a "job guarantee" precisely where that stuff is not sufficiently useful. In the margin there, I object to paying people to take time and effort away from places they may find more value, to do things that are of minimal value, in the name of "dignity." In fact, I think paying for useless work is destructive of precisely that dignity (along with a pile of economic value).
  - crdoconnor 11y ago
    "That prospect differs from a "job guarantee" precisely where that stuff is not sufficiently useful. In the margin there, I object to paying people to take time and effort away from places they may find more value, to do things that are of minimal value, in the name of "dignity." In fact, I think paying for useless work is destructive of precisely that dignity (along with a pile of economic value)." So you are saying, in essence, that people's art projects, poetry and one person startups and time spent watching daytime TV are, on average, more useful than projects like the lincoln tunnel, schools, hospitals and bridges and you object to resources being taken from one to build the other?

icebraining 11y ago

We do not want to be welfare queens; work gives us dignity. Bourgeois moralist crap. If working gives you dignity, by all means, work. But being forced to work to survive is not dignity, and the result is the bullshit jobs we see everywhere. If people who have free time feel the need for better infrastructure, they'll build it. "Ne travaillez jamais!"

Frondo 11y ago
Yeah, no kidding, ask the people working 3 minimum wage jobs how much dignity the scheduling nightmares and that 4 hours daily on the cross-town bus gives them.
- crdoconnor 11y ago
  If the government instituted a job guarantee with a decent living wage, those 3 minimum wage jobs would magically start paying more and treating their workers better. Because if they didn't, nobody would do that work.
  - kamaal 11y ago
    That is only studying first part of the problem. Minimum wage also means, net expenses to produce things also goes up. Transferring the burden of paying the minimum wages to consumers[Who are being paid the minimum wages]. Thereby going back to square one. This or, since budgets remain same. You will employ lesser people to do same job. Because that is the all budget you have to pay people.
    - crdoconnor 11y ago
      >Minimum wage also means, net expenses to produce things also goes up. Transferring the burden of paying the minimum wages to consumers Nope. Shareholders. Minimum wage hikes eat into profits before affecting prices or employment. This is why businesses hate them with such a seething passion. To look at a more concrete example, compare the minimum wage in Australia vs. the US and the cost of big mac in both countries.