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The money for basic income will come from automation driven productivity improvements. Many of the people who are "paying for it" (ie, putting in the thousands

The money for basic income will come from automation driven productivity improvements. Many of the people who are "paying for it" (ie, putting in the thousands of man-years to create those technologies) have exactly that intent, to free people from drudgery. EDIT: pvnick, yes the consensus is measured in decades. Some think fewer, some think more, but yes and thanks.

msandford 11y ago
Right, but those don't exist in a vacuum. There are people who funded that research and think that they should own the fruits of the labor as per the contracts that they executed with the people they paid to perform the work. If you want to do away with various kinds of property rights that's a valid argument to make. But you don't get to pretend that it isn't a new, different way. Ultimately you're going to take some things from some people in order to give it to other people. Maybe that's smart, maybe it's not. But no matter how you slice it, it's not manna from heaven.
- afterburner 11y ago
  It's called taxes, and it doesn't "do away with various kinds of property rights"
  - msandford 11y ago
    The amount of taxes and the laser-like focus of said taxation required to make basic income both workable and meaningful for the population at large won't really feel like taxes. 60% of all income above $X per year versus the 40% now is a tax, sure. But the original comment was "The money for basic income will come from automation driven productivity improvements." So you're going to make a new tax of 500% on sales of automation equipment? Or 50% of the money saved per year by your installation of automation equipment? And then hire several million auditors to go inspect every facility in the country every year to ensure that people aren't installing unregistered automation equipment? There are already a bunch of tax laws on the books that should make those automation drive increases in profitability get taxed and go into the government's coffers. But companies are very adept at finding loopholes, getting new loopholes, etc. Structuring their business so as to minimize their tax burden. I think it's pretty obvious that just "raising taxes" won't accomplish enough revenue to make basic income work. So that means you've got to do something new, and something that probably won't feel like any previous tax ever levied. While you might argue that if it's a tax it's a tax (and that's probably technically true) there's a huge difference between increasing existing tax rates and generating substantially new tax law.
- cma 11y ago
  >Ultimately you're going to take some things from some people in order to give it to other people. You're already doing that with capitalism with land. Take a private beach as an example, no one created it, the state just added property rights to it and gave it out at some point. Oftentimes in the US you can trace land ownership all the way back to the original grant of a King or Queen.
pvnick 11y ago
A $10,000 basic income, perhaps the bare minimum to prevent starvation and homelessness in the most rural parts of the country, for everyone in the United States over the age of 18 involves roughly 2.5 trillion dollars in payouts per year, about 10% GDP for the country (about twice the GDP accounted for by social security). Increasing basic income to $20,000 per year doubles that to about 5 trillion, and that is still starvation wages in big cities. I am curious as to how automation pays that kind of cash. That's a big freaking number. Your suggestion about automation providing the wealth for basic income is the only argument that makes sense, because wealth redistribution from the nebulous "rich" just would not work on such a massive scale. Personally I don't think we're there yet, but maybe in a couple decades when we have strong AI and automation is more pronounced and self-improving.
- Turing_Machine 11y ago
  "A $10,000 basic income, perhaps the bare minimum to prevent starvation and homelessness in the most rural parts of the country, for everyone in the United States over the age of 18" You are assuming that every one of those people stops working and lives exclusively on the dole. That's almost certainly not going to be the case.
  - eggnet 11y ago
    If you limit basic income, that's called welfare. I thought the point of basic income is that everyone gets it. Now sure... wealthy people will pay more in taxes than they receive in basic income. But it would still be a tax credit.
    - rory096 11y ago
      > I thought the point of basic income is that everyone gets it. Yes, but that doesn't mean it needs to be enough for a "living wage." It can still be a universal basic income while being low enough that recipients generally still need to work. (Of course you'd want to supplement it with welfare programs for those who can't work, which under more generous schemes might be eliminated entirely.)
um_ya 11y ago
You don't get "money" from technology, you get utility from technology. You don't give people money for the productivity of technology... That's like having your washing machine pay you for the money it's saving you on hiring somebody to wash it by hand. The value is in the cost saved from using a technology, not the money you receive from it.
- eru 11y ago
  Exactly. But money is easy to create: we can just print it. Creating utility is real. Money is nominal.
SCAQTony 11y ago
I am not a sociologist but I do believe the strong should assist the weak but handing out cash to a set of people who may have disabilities, addictions, severe IQ deficits or otherwise may be a "fast curtain" to a "bad second act." I believe offering free food and shelter would be far less expensive and a better investment. Example: 25% of the homeless suffer from mental illness, what would they do with free money? http://www.studentsagainsthunger.org/ http://www.studentsagainsthunger.org/ 40% of the food supply in the United States is wasted and thus could be possibly reclaimed or reistributed: http://www.worldfooddayusa.org/food_waste_the_facts http://www.worldfooddayusa.org/food_waste_the_facts The Federal government has plenty of land. Micro houses would be a one time cost and shelter should be built very inexpensively. A Finnish micro house costs under $11,000 http://www.gizmag.com/finnish-micro-house/22580/ http://www.gizmag.com/finnish-micro-house/22580/
- nosuchthing 11y ago
  Investing in free mass transportation, health care, affordable/free higher education, affordable food (or food stamps), and free public housing within 30 minutes to major city centers would seem like a sensible alternative to the basic income system of 'just give people money'. Basic Income seems like it would inevitably lead to inflation especially since 'fiat money' economics are so prone to emotional speculations. (cryptocoin systems have not yet seemed to develop anything usable for large scale economies). As a nation, investing in and developing infrastructure is attainable and maintainable where as simply giving cash out is much riskier, especially at the scale for all citizens. This of course comes with the risk of shady cronyism for the contracts and vendors whom build and maintain these projects.
  - intopieces 11y ago
    > affordable food (or food stamps), and free public housing within 30 minutes to major city centers would seem like a sensible alternative to the basic income system of 'just give people money'. We give people food stamps, they sell them for less than they're worth for cash. We have public housing. It's called "The Projects" and they're generally known as the rough area of town. Both of these services cost taxpayers exorbitant amounts in administration. If we eliminated most of that and just gave people cash, we could let them spend on what they need. Because they know better than we do what they need, and their needs are much more varied and specific than one agency could ever cover. There would be inflation, yes. But inflation in itself is not a bad thing so long as wages keep pace with inflation. They haven't. A minimum income would bring people with almost-no spending power into at least the bottom. And poor people don't save their money -- they spend it, often at local businesses.
randyrand 11y ago
Automation does not create profit, it reduces prices!!!!* *In markets ones with at least some competition Also, its important to note that even the machine owners wont make profits in a competitive market.
- worik 11y ago
  "Also, its important to note that even the machine owners wont make profits in a competitive market." That is economics 101. But if you had stayed for the later classes you would have had to unlearn that. It is not true. Maybe that is because "competitive markets do not exist" as the libertarians say, but whatever, in the world in which we live the top automaters are going to make super profits. What will the world look like when the means of production belong to a small group? In a society (capitalist) where ownership implies control?
  - randyrand 11y ago
    Even the automakers don't make super profits. And GM would have gone under during the recession. http://marketrealist.com/2015/02/intense-competition-leads-low-profit-margins-automakers/ http://marketrealist.com/2015/02/intense-competition-leads-l... Yes ideal competition is just an ideal. But given the right regulatory environment you can very extremely closely mimic that ideal. Maybe even surpass it in terms of encouraging competition.
- dllthomas 11y ago
  Won't make economic profits. That doesn't preclude accounting profits, which is what we tax. Limiting ourselves to Econ 101, everyone in a competitive market makes the same accounting profit they could in the next industry over - this "opportunity cost" is the difference between the two definitions of profit.
  - randyrand 11y ago
    In an econ 101 competitive market you also will not make accounting profits. Think about about it...

msandford 11y ago

Right, but those don't exist in a vacuum. There are people who funded that research and think that they should own the fruits of the labor as per the contracts that they executed with the people they paid to perform the work. If you want to do away with various kinds of property rights that's a valid argument to make. But you don't get to pretend that it isn't a new, different way. Ultimately you're going to take some things from some people in order to give it to other people. Maybe that's smart, maybe it's not. But no matter how you slice it, it's not manna from heaven.

afterburner 11y ago
It's called taxes, and it doesn't "do away with various kinds of property rights"
- msandford 11y ago
  The amount of taxes and the laser-like focus of said taxation required to make basic income both workable and meaningful for the population at large won't really feel like taxes. 60% of all income above $X per year versus the 40% now is a tax, sure. But the original comment was "The money for basic income will come from automation driven productivity improvements." So you're going to make a new tax of 500% on sales of automation equipment? Or 50% of the money saved per year by your installation of automation equipment? And then hire several million auditors to go inspect every facility in the country every year to ensure that people aren't installing unregistered automation equipment? There are already a bunch of tax laws on the books that should make those automation drive increases in profitability get taxed and go into the government's coffers. But companies are very adept at finding loopholes, getting new loopholes, etc. Structuring their business so as to minimize their tax burden. I think it's pretty obvious that just "raising taxes" won't accomplish enough revenue to make basic income work. So that means you've got to do something new, and something that probably won't feel like any previous tax ever levied. While you might argue that if it's a tax it's a tax (and that's probably technically true) there's a huge difference between increasing existing tax rates and generating substantially new tax law.
cma 11y ago
>Ultimately you're going to take some things from some people in order to give it to other people. You're already doing that with capitalism with land. Take a private beach as an example, no one created it, the state just added property rights to it and gave it out at some point. Oftentimes in the US you can trace land ownership all the way back to the original grant of a King or Queen.

pvnick 11y ago

A $10,000 basic income, perhaps the bare minimum to prevent starvation and homelessness in the most rural parts of the country, for everyone in the United States over the age of 18 involves roughly 2.5 trillion dollars in payouts per year, about 10% GDP for the country (about twice the GDP accounted for by social security). Increasing basic income to $20,000 per year doubles that to about 5 trillion, and that is still starvation wages in big cities. I am curious as to how automation pays that kind of cash. That's a big freaking number. Your suggestion about automation providing the wealth for basic income is the only argument that makes sense, because wealth redistribution from the nebulous "rich" just would not work on such a massive scale. Personally I don't think we're there yet, but maybe in a couple decades when we have strong AI and automation is more pronounced and self-improving.

Turing_Machine 11y ago
"A $10,000 basic income, perhaps the bare minimum to prevent starvation and homelessness in the most rural parts of the country, for everyone in the United States over the age of 18" You are assuming that every one of those people stops working and lives exclusively on the dole. That's almost certainly not going to be the case.
- eggnet 11y ago
  If you limit basic income, that's called welfare. I thought the point of basic income is that everyone gets it. Now sure... wealthy people will pay more in taxes than they receive in basic income. But it would still be a tax credit.
  - rory096 11y ago
    > I thought the point of basic income is that everyone gets it. Yes, but that doesn't mean it needs to be enough for a "living wage." It can still be a universal basic income while being low enough that recipients generally still need to work. (Of course you'd want to supplement it with welfare programs for those who can't work, which under more generous schemes might be eliminated entirely.)

um_ya 11y ago

You don't get "money" from technology, you get utility from technology. You don't give people money for the productivity of technology... That's like having your washing machine pay you for the money it's saving you on hiring somebody to wash it by hand. The value is in the cost saved from using a technology, not the money you receive from it.

eru 11y ago
Exactly. But money is easy to create: we can just print it. Creating utility is real. Money is nominal.

SCAQTony 11y ago

I am not a sociologist but I do believe the strong should assist the weak but handing out cash to a set of people who may have disabilities, addictions, severe IQ deficits or otherwise may be a "fast curtain" to a "bad second act." I believe offering free food and shelter would be far less expensive and a better investment. Example: 25% of the homeless suffer from mental illness, what would they do with free money? http://www.studentsagainsthunger.org/ http://www.studentsagainsthunger.org/ 40% of the food supply in the United States is wasted and thus could be possibly reclaimed or reistributed: http://www.worldfooddayusa.org/food_waste_the_facts http://www.worldfooddayusa.org/food_waste_the_facts The Federal government has plenty of land. Micro houses would be a one time cost and shelter should be built very inexpensively. A Finnish micro house costs under $11,000 http://www.gizmag.com/finnish-micro-house/22580/ http://www.gizmag.com/finnish-micro-house/22580/

nosuchthing 11y ago
Investing in free mass transportation, health care, affordable/free higher education, affordable food (or food stamps), and free public housing within 30 minutes to major city centers would seem like a sensible alternative to the basic income system of 'just give people money'. Basic Income seems like it would inevitably lead to inflation especially since 'fiat money' economics are so prone to emotional speculations. (cryptocoin systems have not yet seemed to develop anything usable for large scale economies). As a nation, investing in and developing infrastructure is attainable and maintainable where as simply giving cash out is much riskier, especially at the scale for all citizens. This of course comes with the risk of shady cronyism for the contracts and vendors whom build and maintain these projects.
- intopieces 11y ago
  > affordable food (or food stamps), and free public housing within 30 minutes to major city centers would seem like a sensible alternative to the basic income system of 'just give people money'. We give people food stamps, they sell them for less than they're worth for cash. We have public housing. It's called "The Projects" and they're generally known as the rough area of town. Both of these services cost taxpayers exorbitant amounts in administration. If we eliminated most of that and just gave people cash, we could let them spend on what they need. Because they know better than we do what they need, and their needs are much more varied and specific than one agency could ever cover. There would be inflation, yes. But inflation in itself is not a bad thing so long as wages keep pace with inflation. They haven't. A minimum income would bring people with almost-no spending power into at least the bottom. And poor people don't save their money -- they spend it, often at local businesses.

randyrand 11y ago

Automation does not create profit, it reduces prices!!!!* *In markets ones with at least some competition Also, its important to note that even the machine owners wont make profits in a competitive market.

worik 11y ago
"Also, its important to note that even the machine owners wont make profits in a competitive market." That is economics 101. But if you had stayed for the later classes you would have had to unlearn that. It is not true. Maybe that is because "competitive markets do not exist" as the libertarians say, but whatever, in the world in which we live the top automaters are going to make super profits. What will the world look like when the means of production belong to a small group? In a society (capitalist) where ownership implies control?
- randyrand 11y ago
  Even the automakers don't make super profits. And GM would have gone under during the recession. http://marketrealist.com/2015/02/intense-competition-leads-low-profit-margins-automakers/ http://marketrealist.com/2015/02/intense-competition-leads-l... Yes ideal competition is just an ideal. But given the right regulatory environment you can very extremely closely mimic that ideal. Maybe even surpass it in terms of encouraging competition.
dllthomas 11y ago
Won't make economic profits. That doesn't preclude accounting profits, which is what we tax. Limiting ourselves to Econ 101, everyone in a competitive market makes the same accounting profit they could in the next industry over - this "opportunity cost" is the difference between the two definitions of profit.
- randyrand 11y ago
  In an econ 101 competitive market you also will not make accounting profits. Think about about it...