5 ms·

You hit on exactly one of the biggest problems with the piece. It is the inability of anyone to say no to shitty paying jobs that requires the existence of mini

by 2noame 11y ago

You hit on exactly one of the biggest problems with the piece. It is the inability of anyone to say no to shitty paying jobs that requires the existence of minimum wage laws in the first place. As long as people can't say no, because they need the income to survive, they will say yes to shitty wages, hours, benefits, etc. This author should ask himself, if he earned $1k/money for breathing, would he accept a shitty job for $7/hr? If not, how much would it need to pay before he would accept? Then the next question is what the effective wage of automation would be. If because people have basic income, no one will work that job for less than $15/hr and a machine can do it for $10/hr, then it now makes more sense to automate that job out of existence. And that is the direction we should aim for as a civilization - full unemployment, not full employment. Humans should hand as many jobs to machines as we can, to free us up to do the work we each feel is most valuable, paid or unpaid. Enough with this pro-toil mentality that sees value in everyone being employed, even if for only 4 hrs a week in order to employ 100% of the population. As if that is even possible anyway. Like what, we're going to have 10 doctors share the work load of one doctor so that everyone can be employed? And what of all the work that goes unpaid? We should just keep not recognizing that? And what of all the jobs that don't need to exist? We should keep those around so that people can fill them to prove their right to live? Full employment in the 21st century is a bullshit goal. We as a species are better than that. Our goal should be to free ourselves to pursue what we each wish to pursue. And anyone who thinks people's ability to organize will be in any way diminished instead of monumentally expanded with basic income, isn't giving their fellow man enough credit. People will use basic income to give themselves greater voice. I guarantee it.

SixSigma 11y ago
One of my personal slogans has been : Full employment is a threat, not a promise.
- eru 11y ago
  Involuntary unemployment is a scourge, though.
aninhumer 11y ago
>This author should ask himself, if he earned $1k/money for breathing, would he accept a shitty job for $7/hr? If not, how much would it need to pay before he would accept? I think it's better to compare inclusively here, because as much as people would be much more likely to reject shitty working conditions, they'd also be more likely to accept lower wages when their total income is still pretty good.
- eru 11y ago
  Sure, but lower wages for nicer jobs.
danbruc 11y ago
Increasing the costs artificially from $5 to $15 to make automation for $10 worthwhile is not a good thing on its own. Before you spent $5 in labor and resources to make that product, now you are spending $10 to do it in an automated way which just means you halved the efficiency to produce that product. If there is no externalized gain worth $5 this is a bad thing.
- Peaker 11y ago
  It may mean some products will cost more, because there is no one to exploit to build them for cheap. And that's a good thing.
sooheon 11y ago
I like the way you see the future. What is your response to the argument that UBI will need to be paid for by inordinate taxes on the few actually productive firms/individuals, in which case those firms/individuals will be incentivised to leave, leading to a deadened, unproductive country subsidising laziness?
- pharrington 11y ago
  The whole point is that a UBI is a realization of the wealth that is being automatically generated. Calculate it from the GDP. It doesn't require a tax. Prices continue adjusting accordingly.
  - dllthomas 11y ago
    You mean just printing new money to pay a UBI?
- lostcolony 11y ago
  I can answer that one. It's pretty simple. Imagine you have a 100 person company right now. Everyone is averaging $50k (some are higher, some are lower, but that's the average), plus benefits. Now, imagine everyone's job is automated away, except for the owner, and someone kept around to fix the robots. Has the work being produced lowered any? No. Has the profit being generated lowered any? No. So you have exactly the same financials you had before, now with 98 fewer people. You also probably have some additional material costs for parts, but it's likely cheaper repairing/replacing robots than costs you had to cover for a human work force even aside from salary and benefits (workman's comp and various insurances, equipment, training costs as people left, hiring costs, etc), but let's just say it's comparable (even if you want to say it's not, we can reduce the payout to those people to take into effect the reduced rate of sickness and thus doc payments they'd have since they're not sharing office space, the less driving they're doing and thus reduced gas and wear and tear costs, etc. And that in turn means less payout to the government as less infrastructure investment to get people to their jobs at rush hour, etc, so taxes could also be lowered. Etc etc). What about that ($50k times 98 = $4900k) that you were paying people before? It's still being earned. Just now by robots. Who don't need to be paid. You lost 98 people, you still have all the money to pay 98 people, without dipping into the profits you'd have pre-robots, and without dipping into your and your employee's salaries. So let's assume that $4900k is split evenly amongst all involved. That means in this situation, everyone could be making $49k. The 98 you let go are being paid that. The one staying on is being paid that, even before his ~real~ salary kicks in. Same as you, the owner. So everyone is being paid $49k as a basic living income, except for the worker and you, who are being paid that UBI of $49k plus whatever you were making before automation happened. You're living high on the hog, but you're also working; you have made the decision to trade your time for the extra money. The people let go, now, can choose to spend their time however they want, including -creating new businesses-, improving GDP, and their own ability to spend, while doing what they enjoy. There is incentive still to hold jobs, because while those making $49k can certainly live reasonably, those making more (let's say $99k, since the average before was $50k) have a lot more discretionary spending. And that was managed by taxing -only- what would have been paid to those workers who were replaced; no 'new' expenses to the business (though with some assumptions, that the cost savings of using robots fully benefited the business). And that holds true regardless of whatever the market does; you only need to be paying the cost of what employing those people would have been. Getting from where we are, to there, is not as simple, because obviously we couldn't replace one person at a time and pay out a UBI from that to everyone (since the first person let go in the above scenario would mean everyone was making $500, which is not enough for the let go person to live on), but how it could actually work is quite easy to see.
fixpublicpolicy 11y ago
People will do whatever they want regardless of the pay. I already do that. Low wage entry level work today seems like arbitrary roles that communities come up with because they seem like activities people should be doing to earn money. A "business opportunity" is just a way to encourage people to be lazy so that money flows around more and we consume more natural resources. If you like the service industry, fine, create a great business that provides an awesome service. Otherwise, let people flip their own burgers and wash their own dishes. If I felt a low wage entry level job would be a good use of my time, I would gladly "get a job" as most people say. I don't want to pursue a traditional career bcuz I find 99% of that to be even more B.S. than the low wage work available. If the only way to secure a decent sized income cuz is through status within some bureaucratic corporate structure, or through a longshot entrepreneurial crapshoot, what does that say about our society? I don't really care about career, income, status or any of that. If I can eat and clean myself everyday and have a space where I am not persecuted I am happy. So much of what we do seems to not even connect with those 3 things I care about. They are the only 3 reasons why I would even consider doing activities for the sole purpose of securing income. Income should've been irrelevant to the work people decide to do for a long time now, like since the first great depression. I don't get why people don't get it.

by 2noame 11y ago

SixSigma 11y ago

One of my personal slogans has been : Full employment is a threat, not a promise.

eru 11y ago
Involuntary unemployment is a scourge, though.

aninhumer 11y ago

>This author should ask himself, if he earned $1k/money for breathing, would he accept a shitty job for $7/hr? If not, how much would it need to pay before he would accept? I think it's better to compare inclusively here, because as much as people would be much more likely to reject shitty working conditions, they'd also be more likely to accept lower wages when their total income is still pretty good.

eru 11y ago
Sure, but lower wages for nicer jobs.

danbruc 11y ago

Increasing the costs artificially from $5 to $15 to make automation for $10 worthwhile is not a good thing on its own. Before you spent $5 in labor and resources to make that product, now you are spending $10 to do it in an automated way which just means you halved the efficiency to produce that product. If there is no externalized gain worth $5 this is a bad thing.

Peaker 11y ago
It may mean some products will cost more, because there is no one to exploit to build them for cheap. And that's a good thing.

sooheon 11y ago

I like the way you see the future. What is your response to the argument that UBI will need to be paid for by inordinate taxes on the few actually productive firms/individuals, in which case those firms/individuals will be incentivised to leave, leading to a deadened, unproductive country subsidising laziness?

pharrington 11y ago
The whole point is that a UBI is a realization of the wealth that is being automatically generated. Calculate it from the GDP. It doesn't require a tax. Prices continue adjusting accordingly.
- dllthomas 11y ago
  You mean just printing new money to pay a UBI?
lostcolony 11y ago
I can answer that one. It's pretty simple. Imagine you have a 100 person company right now. Everyone is averaging $50k (some are higher, some are lower, but that's the average), plus benefits. Now, imagine everyone's job is automated away, except for the owner, and someone kept around to fix the robots. Has the work being produced lowered any? No. Has the profit being generated lowered any? No. So you have exactly the same financials you had before, now with 98 fewer people. You also probably have some additional material costs for parts, but it's likely cheaper repairing/replacing robots than costs you had to cover for a human work force even aside from salary and benefits (workman's comp and various insurances, equipment, training costs as people left, hiring costs, etc), but let's just say it's comparable (even if you want to say it's not, we can reduce the payout to those people to take into effect the reduced rate of sickness and thus doc payments they'd have since they're not sharing office space, the less driving they're doing and thus reduced gas and wear and tear costs, etc. And that in turn means less payout to the government as less infrastructure investment to get people to their jobs at rush hour, etc, so taxes could also be lowered. Etc etc). What about that ($50k times 98 = $4900k) that you were paying people before? It's still being earned. Just now by robots. Who don't need to be paid. You lost 98 people, you still have all the money to pay 98 people, without dipping into the profits you'd have pre-robots, and without dipping into your and your employee's salaries. So let's assume that $4900k is split evenly amongst all involved. That means in this situation, everyone could be making $49k. The 98 you let go are being paid that. The one staying on is being paid that, even before his ~real~ salary kicks in. Same as you, the owner. So everyone is being paid $49k as a basic living income, except for the worker and you, who are being paid that UBI of $49k plus whatever you were making before automation happened. You're living high on the hog, but you're also working; you have made the decision to trade your time for the extra money. The people let go, now, can choose to spend their time however they want, including -creating new businesses-, improving GDP, and their own ability to spend, while doing what they enjoy. There is incentive still to hold jobs, because while those making $49k can certainly live reasonably, those making more (let's say $99k, since the average before was $50k) have a lot more discretionary spending. And that was managed by taxing -only- what would have been paid to those workers who were replaced; no 'new' expenses to the business (though with some assumptions, that the cost savings of using robots fully benefited the business). And that holds true regardless of whatever the market does; you only need to be paying the cost of what employing those people would have been. Getting from where we are, to there, is not as simple, because obviously we couldn't replace one person at a time and pay out a UBI from that to everyone (since the first person let go in the above scenario would mean everyone was making $500, which is not enough for the let go person to live on), but how it could actually work is quite easy to see.

fixpublicpolicy 11y ago

People will do whatever they want regardless of the pay. I already do that. Low wage entry level work today seems like arbitrary roles that communities come up with because they seem like activities people should be doing to earn money. A "business opportunity" is just a way to encourage people to be lazy so that money flows around more and we consume more natural resources. If you like the service industry, fine, create a great business that provides an awesome service. Otherwise, let people flip their own burgers and wash their own dishes. If I felt a low wage entry level job would be a good use of my time, I would gladly "get a job" as most people say. I don't want to pursue a traditional career bcuz I find 99% of that to be even more B.S. than the low wage work available. If the only way to secure a decent sized income cuz is through status within some bureaucratic corporate structure, or through a longshot entrepreneurial crapshoot, what does that say about our society? I don't really care about career, income, status or any of that. If I can eat and clean myself everyday and have a space where I am not persecuted I am happy. So much of what we do seems to not even connect with those 3 things I care about. They are the only 3 reasons why I would even consider doing activities for the sole purpose of securing income. Income should've been irrelevant to the work people decide to do for a long time now, like since the first great depression. I don't get why people don't get it.