8 ms·

"Because this time, incentives won't play out the way they have every time variations on this experiment have been tried throughout history" or "Let's make ea

"Because this time, incentives won't play out the way they have every time variations on this experiment have been tried throughout history" or "Let's make earning a living optional, and funded by the productive members of society, and see how that pans out". I'll grant you it'll be easier and cheaper to implement than other versions of a taxpayer funded welfare state, but I imagine the outcomes will be the same, and the (im)morality is no different.

AndrewDucker 11y ago
Yes, it should play the same way that basic income has worked in the past: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MINCOME https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MINCOME i.e. it shouldn't reduce work, except in kids staying in school longer and women taking longer time off to look after babies.
- duncan_bayne 11y ago
  Are you reading the same article as me? "The results showed an impact on labor markets"
  - AndrewDucker 11y ago
    Yes. And if you read to the end of that section, you (a) discover that the changes were minimal "working hours dropping one percent for men, three percent for married women, and five percent for unmarried women" and (b) discover that the reason was "Mothers spent more time rearing newborns, and the educational impacts are regarded as a success. Students in these families showed higher test scores and lower dropout rates. There was also an increase in adults continuing education" Which is how I described it in my comment.
    - duncan_bayne 11y ago
      It clearly did reduce work, and the article spells out how. You're just okay with the reasons for that reduction, which is quite a different thing to claiming there was no reduction.
      - ende 11y ago
        A reduction in working hours does not equate to a reduction in productivity. We should be striving to minimize time spent working while maximizing productivity as a basic goal of capitalistic society. Also this old argument about reduced work incentives is becoming increasingly invalid as an expansion in permanent structural unemployment due to automation, hyperefficiency, and globalized labor markets is spelling the end of industrial labor to begin with. Meaning that there simply are not enough jobs to go around, regardless of incentive. It's one thing to chalk unemployment up to laziness in an era of abundant opportunity, it's quite another in a post-industrial era of labor scarcity.
        VLM 11y ago
        I've never seen a better post for the old quote about the future already being here, just unevenly distributed. Web frontend devs with ivy degrees living in SV don't have much permanent structural unemployment, well at least until they get older. Its a bit more of a current issue for the other 7.3 billion people in the world.
        Natsu 11y ago
        I hope you're right. I fear you're wrong. I used to work in a job that I don't think was very amenable to automation. It was a terrible job and I don't miss it one bit. I doubt anyone would want to work it if they didn't actually need money. Sure, maybe we can live without windows or something, I just don't know how many such products there are. Money isn't everything, after all--there has to be something you can actually buy with that money. And if nobody or almost nobody is willing to make those things any more, what then? That's the part that scares me. I'm sure we can print enough money for everyone. I'm not sure how much of anything there will be to buy with it. And all the arguments for this are "it's the right thing to do" rather than "we know we can make this work because..."
        maxerickson 11y ago
        Slow down a little bit. If people can't afford windows, they don't reasonably have enough money (where money is access to the economy rather than pieces of paper). A simple thing to do to limit the unexpected economic consequences is to limit the size of the basic income. For example, give everyone $5 and you are unlikely to see any effects at all. Of course then the outcome isn't very interesting, but the basic mechanism isn't necessarily going to implode the economy.
  - abandonliberty 11y ago
    Perhaps you could reflect upon why you allowed this subject to deprive you of basic logic skills and make you rather confrontational. Andrew highlighted the areas where the policy had an effect on work. I would suggest that if you cannot dispassionately handle simple logic in a non inflammatory comment that your views may be rather clouded.
    - beat 11y ago
      That's really meta.
    - duncan_bayne 11y ago
      Leaving aside the fact that his summary was entirely at odds with the facts in the article (which he later mentioned) - yes, this topic does get my blood boiling. I think that compulsory taxation is as wrong in principle as slavery, and that socialism and the welfare state risk destroying society in the long run. They certainly have destroyed subsets of society already. It really surprises and dismays me to find so much support for such a socialist idea on HN, too, which is usually relatively supportive of capitalism. My inner cynic wonders if it's because people would like to cash in on such an idea on the way to Ramen profitability.
irremediable 11y ago
To my knowledge, what you've said is just as incorrect as what the parties you oppose said. There haven't actually been that many studies, all considered, and the studies there have been weren't conclusive. I think Finland would be better off testing the idea (e.g. in a single city, eligible population fixed at the start) before committing to it. There would doubtless be problems with the test, but it would give a better idea of what to expect.
- kiiski 11y ago
  The article didn't mention it, but my understanding is Kela is planning to do a pilot phase where they give 550 €/month to a group of people selected by lottery across the nation.
bryanlarsen 11y ago
Given that an apartment in Helsinki costs 900 Euros a month, 800 Euros a month cannot be considered a living.
- blacksmith_tb 11y ago
  What would an unemployed Finn do currently in that situation? Is their some sort of more generous housing assistance that would be replaced? It seems like the 800 Euro allotment would be enough for 2+ roommates or a couple to afford housing and minimal other expenses.
  - nordify 11y ago
    Housing assistance is up to 80% of rent, up to a maximum of 400 euros per month.
  - cobaltblue 11y ago
    It's a good time to own property in Finland. If I was a landlord there, say I have about 20% vacancy over the year. After this change, I should expect to have a larger pool of applicants because whether they work or not people now have an extra 800 Euros per month that can go directly to a nicer apartment, or at least to one with 2 roommates instead of 4. Joke's on them, though, I just raise my rent cost across the board by 800 Euros per month (probably less as everyone else will want to try and capture this, including other landlords who I'm competing against) and change it around if it's too high until I get back to my acceptable vacancy numbers but with a bigger profit.
    - bmm6o 11y ago
      Poor people having more disposable income means it's a good time to sell things that they want, like food and shelter. Joke's on them!
      - cobaltblue 11y ago
        Indeed food is another thing whose price will rise. Meaning that because the supply pipeline is relatively fixed, when the demand goes up (due to more people with disposable income) things will either sell out more quickly or the price will go up resulting in a drop in demand to match the previous levels but now more money is in the hands of the suppliers. Only if an increased demand looks very sustainable will a company increase its supply output ahead of schedule.
RobertoG 11y ago
"and the (im)morality is no different." Morality is relative, but I don't understand your views on it. If a society is rich enough to give a good life to all their members, is it immoral to do it? What about keeping a big part of the population afraid of how are they going to pay the rent tomorrow so you have cheap and available workers? is that moral? specially when we live in the richest societies of history? People that believe in the overwhelmed goodness of markets should investigate a little more history. For instance: the ten hours bill in the UK (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factories_Act_1847 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factories_Act_1847) and how the "laissez faire" crow of the time opposed to "restrict the working hours of women and young persons (13-18) in textile mills to 10 hours per day" because its immorality.
- eanzenberg 11y ago
  Which current society is rich enough to give a good life to all of their members?
  - RobertoG 11y ago
    which is not? Do we have the infrastructure (or can we build it) and the knowledge or not?
  - beat 11y ago
    Depends on your definition of "good life", but mine is making sure you don't have to worry about shelter, food, or vital medical care. And every industrialized nation can afford that, easily.
    - duncan_bayne 11y ago
      That's true. So why do we feel the need to coerce people into paying into such systems? The more I investigate it the more I think it's because of the power such systems grant the coercers. Consider the uproar over Zuckerberg having the temerity to spend his money on charity in the way he pleases, instead of the State getting to choose.
CuriousSkeptic 11y ago
Another empirical study to counter your first point http://isa-global-dialogue.net/indias-great-experiment-the-transformative-potential-of-basic-income-grants/ http://isa-global-dialogue.net/indias-great-experiment-the-t... Regarding the morality of it, there's a good argument to be had from the position that it's fair compensation for the allocation of property. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geolibertarianism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geolibertarianism
rifung 11y ago
I'll upvote you because I think you have a valid opinion, and you shouldn't be downvoted because your opinions differ from others. We need other opinions to have a healthy discussion after all. I just want to say that first of all, you can certainly be productive without generating an income. All the people who contribute to OSS projects are certainly productive despite not being paid to do so for example. Also, the idea that if you don't need to make a living, you will be lazier or less likely to work is actually incorrect, at least according to this: http://economics.mit.edu/files/10861 http://economics.mit.edu/files/10861 I'll be honest in admitting I haven't gotten around to reading it, I've only read the conclusion and intro, so please do correct me if I was wrong. Finally, and this is more personal, I really do believe that most people will do better work if they are not pressured to make a living. For example, if university professors didn't have to earn a living, I imagine they would spend all their time doing research instead of using most of their time now doing administrative tasks. I can't imagine anyone became a professor thinking they wanted to go to meetings; certainly all the people I've met who wanted to become professors did it in spite of the fact they knew they would have to deal with a lot of nonsense because they could not imagine doing anything besides research. How many PhD students in CS end up in industry because the academic environment is awful? I suppose you could argue that by joining industry they are more productive but I'd argue that both are productive, but an individual would be more productive working where their passions align. I think most people here would not be doing what their job requires but instead contribute to OSS, and honestly we probably have better software as a result.
- rm_-rf_slash 11y ago
  I am in complete agreement that people can be productive and positive to their society without working. My girlfriend and I are both STEM graduates, but if income hadn't stagnated for the last 30 years and my earnings could support the two of us, she would be a housewife in a heartbeat, and it would also greatly benefit my utility, such as gaining an extra 40 minutes a day at minimum from being dropped off at work instead of walking to and from the employee parking lot. The additional time, energy, and mental health could help boost my work performance and increase my chances of raises and promotions. We often wonder what Western society lost when the private sector discovered that feminism was profitable.

AndrewDucker 11y ago

Yes, it should play the same way that basic income has worked in the past: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MINCOME https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MINCOME i.e. it shouldn't reduce work, except in kids staying in school longer and women taking longer time off to look after babies.

duncan_bayne 11y ago
Are you reading the same article as me? "The results showed an impact on labor markets"
- AndrewDucker 11y ago
  Yes. And if you read to the end of that section, you (a) discover that the changes were minimal "working hours dropping one percent for men, three percent for married women, and five percent for unmarried women" and (b) discover that the reason was "Mothers spent more time rearing newborns, and the educational impacts are regarded as a success. Students in these families showed higher test scores and lower dropout rates. There was also an increase in adults continuing education" Which is how I described it in my comment.
  - duncan_bayne 11y ago
    It clearly did reduce work, and the article spells out how. You're just okay with the reasons for that reduction, which is quite a different thing to claiming there was no reduction.
    - ende 11y ago
      A reduction in working hours does not equate to a reduction in productivity. We should be striving to minimize time spent working while maximizing productivity as a basic goal of capitalistic society. Also this old argument about reduced work incentives is becoming increasingly invalid as an expansion in permanent structural unemployment due to automation, hyperefficiency, and globalized labor markets is spelling the end of industrial labor to begin with. Meaning that there simply are not enough jobs to go around, regardless of incentive. It's one thing to chalk unemployment up to laziness in an era of abundant opportunity, it's quite another in a post-industrial era of labor scarcity.
      - VLM 11y ago
        I've never seen a better post for the old quote about the future already being here, just unevenly distributed. Web frontend devs with ivy degrees living in SV don't have much permanent structural unemployment, well at least until they get older. Its a bit more of a current issue for the other 7.3 billion people in the world.
      - Natsu 11y ago
        I hope you're right. I fear you're wrong. I used to work in a job that I don't think was very amenable to automation. It was a terrible job and I don't miss it one bit. I doubt anyone would want to work it if they didn't actually need money. Sure, maybe we can live without windows or something, I just don't know how many such products there are. Money isn't everything, after all--there has to be something you can actually buy with that money. And if nobody or almost nobody is willing to make those things any more, what then? That's the part that scares me. I'm sure we can print enough money for everyone. I'm not sure how much of anything there will be to buy with it. And all the arguments for this are "it's the right thing to do" rather than "we know we can make this work because..."
        maxerickson 11y ago
        Slow down a little bit. If people can't afford windows, they don't reasonably have enough money (where money is access to the economy rather than pieces of paper). A simple thing to do to limit the unexpected economic consequences is to limit the size of the basic income. For example, give everyone $5 and you are unlikely to see any effects at all. Of course then the outcome isn't very interesting, but the basic mechanism isn't necessarily going to implode the economy.
- abandonliberty 11y ago
  Perhaps you could reflect upon why you allowed this subject to deprive you of basic logic skills and make you rather confrontational. Andrew highlighted the areas where the policy had an effect on work. I would suggest that if you cannot dispassionately handle simple logic in a non inflammatory comment that your views may be rather clouded.
  - beat 11y ago
    That's really meta.
  - duncan_bayne 11y ago
    Leaving aside the fact that his summary was entirely at odds with the facts in the article (which he later mentioned) - yes, this topic does get my blood boiling. I think that compulsory taxation is as wrong in principle as slavery, and that socialism and the welfare state risk destroying society in the long run. They certainly have destroyed subsets of society already. It really surprises and dismays me to find so much support for such a socialist idea on HN, too, which is usually relatively supportive of capitalism. My inner cynic wonders if it's because people would like to cash in on such an idea on the way to Ramen profitability.

irremediable 11y ago

To my knowledge, what you've said is just as incorrect as what the parties you oppose said. There haven't actually been that many studies, all considered, and the studies there have been weren't conclusive. I think Finland would be better off testing the idea (e.g. in a single city, eligible population fixed at the start) before committing to it. There would doubtless be problems with the test, but it would give a better idea of what to expect.

kiiski 11y ago
The article didn't mention it, but my understanding is Kela is planning to do a pilot phase where they give 550 €/month to a group of people selected by lottery across the nation.

bryanlarsen 11y ago

Given that an apartment in Helsinki costs 900 Euros a month, 800 Euros a month cannot be considered a living.

blacksmith_tb 11y ago
What would an unemployed Finn do currently in that situation? Is their some sort of more generous housing assistance that would be replaced? It seems like the 800 Euro allotment would be enough for 2+ roommates or a couple to afford housing and minimal other expenses.
- nordify 11y ago
  Housing assistance is up to 80% of rent, up to a maximum of 400 euros per month.
- cobaltblue 11y ago
  It's a good time to own property in Finland. If I was a landlord there, say I have about 20% vacancy over the year. After this change, I should expect to have a larger pool of applicants because whether they work or not people now have an extra 800 Euros per month that can go directly to a nicer apartment, or at least to one with 2 roommates instead of 4. Joke's on them, though, I just raise my rent cost across the board by 800 Euros per month (probably less as everyone else will want to try and capture this, including other landlords who I'm competing against) and change it around if it's too high until I get back to my acceptable vacancy numbers but with a bigger profit.
  - bmm6o 11y ago
    Poor people having more disposable income means it's a good time to sell things that they want, like food and shelter. Joke's on them!
    - cobaltblue 11y ago
      Indeed food is another thing whose price will rise. Meaning that because the supply pipeline is relatively fixed, when the demand goes up (due to more people with disposable income) things will either sell out more quickly or the price will go up resulting in a drop in demand to match the previous levels but now more money is in the hands of the suppliers. Only if an increased demand looks very sustainable will a company increase its supply output ahead of schedule.

RobertoG 11y ago

"and the (im)morality is no different." Morality is relative, but I don't understand your views on it. If a society is rich enough to give a good life to all their members, is it immoral to do it? What about keeping a big part of the population afraid of how are they going to pay the rent tomorrow so you have cheap and available workers? is that moral? specially when we live in the richest societies of history? People that believe in the overwhelmed goodness of markets should investigate a little more history. For instance: the ten hours bill in the UK (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factories_Act_1847 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factories_Act_1847) and how the "laissez faire" crow of the time opposed to "restrict the working hours of women and young persons (13-18) in textile mills to 10 hours per day" because its immorality.

eanzenberg 11y ago
Which current society is rich enough to give a good life to all of their members?
- RobertoG 11y ago
  which is not? Do we have the infrastructure (or can we build it) and the knowledge or not?
- beat 11y ago
  Depends on your definition of "good life", but mine is making sure you don't have to worry about shelter, food, or vital medical care. And every industrialized nation can afford that, easily.
  - duncan_bayne 11y ago
    That's true. So why do we feel the need to coerce people into paying into such systems? The more I investigate it the more I think it's because of the power such systems grant the coercers. Consider the uproar over Zuckerberg having the temerity to spend his money on charity in the way he pleases, instead of the State getting to choose.

CuriousSkeptic 11y ago

Another empirical study to counter your first point http://isa-global-dialogue.net/indias-great-experiment-the-transformative-potential-of-basic-income-grants/ http://isa-global-dialogue.net/indias-great-experiment-the-t... Regarding the morality of it, there's a good argument to be had from the position that it's fair compensation for the allocation of property. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geolibertarianism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geolibertarianism

rifung 11y ago

I'll upvote you because I think you have a valid opinion, and you shouldn't be downvoted because your opinions differ from others. We need other opinions to have a healthy discussion after all. I just want to say that first of all, you can certainly be productive without generating an income. All the people who contribute to OSS projects are certainly productive despite not being paid to do so for example. Also, the idea that if you don't need to make a living, you will be lazier or less likely to work is actually incorrect, at least according to this: http://economics.mit.edu/files/10861 http://economics.mit.edu/files/10861 I'll be honest in admitting I haven't gotten around to reading it, I've only read the conclusion and intro, so please do correct me if I was wrong. Finally, and this is more personal, I really do believe that most people will do better work if they are not pressured to make a living. For example, if university professors didn't have to earn a living, I imagine they would spend all their time doing research instead of using most of their time now doing administrative tasks. I can't imagine anyone became a professor thinking they wanted to go to meetings; certainly all the people I've met who wanted to become professors did it in spite of the fact they knew they would have to deal with a lot of nonsense because they could not imagine doing anything besides research. How many PhD students in CS end up in industry because the academic environment is awful? I suppose you could argue that by joining industry they are more productive but I'd argue that both are productive, but an individual would be more productive working where their passions align. I think most people here would not be doing what their job requires but instead contribute to OSS, and honestly we probably have better software as a result.

rm_-rf_slash 11y ago
I am in complete agreement that people can be productive and positive to their society without working. My girlfriend and I are both STEM graduates, but if income hadn't stagnated for the last 30 years and my earnings could support the two of us, she would be a housewife in a heartbeat, and it would also greatly benefit my utility, such as gaining an extra 40 minutes a day at minimum from being dropped off at work instead of walking to and from the employee parking lot. The additional time, energy, and mental health could help boost my work performance and increase my chances of raises and promotions. We often wonder what Western society lost when the private sector discovered that feminism was profitable.