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When I talk with people about basic income, my gut reaction and primary argument is that it contrasts with that fundamental human nature that's been show time a

When I talk with people about basic income, my gut reaction and primary argument is that it contrasts with that fundamental human nature that's been show time and again throughout humanity - given a guaranteed, fixed reward no matter how much or how little you work for it, disincentivizes work. It follows along the same lines as why government instituted communism fails. Or why the first version of the mayflower compact failed - whatever was produced was put into a common warehouse and all the land, buildings and end product were communally owned. I just think that socialism and communism (which basic income basically is - it's paid for by the working class) ultimately leads to the destruction of the economy.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
ZainRiz 11y ago
I would think that it depends on what you consider "basic income". If it's just enough money to scrape by (tiny living quarters, food and a tiny amount for clothes/toilitries, etc) then people won't be worried about survival, but they'll still want to get more money for things like having a house, cell phone, vacations, etc
- samstave 11y ago
  I just had a weird thought about cell phones; I think that going forward, communications are a basic need. There was a startup in ~2008 that was attempting to provide "free" cellular service to its users who agreed to watch ads on their phones. If they interacted with the ads, they would get more service time... The Facebook phone was an utter flop - however, if they wanted to surveil the population, they may have done better by creating a cell service company and allow people to be spied on in exchange for a free phone.... That damages my DNA saying that -- but it would be a workable model for the long tail of poor people that love facebook.
natrius 11y ago
A basic income doesn't remove variable rewards for work. It just sets a minimum. Very few people reading this could continue their current lifestyle on a basic income, so how is this going to make people stop working?
jeremysmyth 11y ago
...given a guaranteed, fixed reward no matter how much or how little you work for it, disincentivizes work...I just think that socialism and communism (which basic income basically is...) Wrong. Basic income lifts the floor. It does not concern itself with the ceiling. Calling it communism is utterly wrong and completely missing the point.
- mozumder 11y ago
  This is key. No one has ever said "I'm going to stop making money because I have $1."
  - alexmat 11y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marginal_utility https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marginal_utility At $1 the second dollar is useful, at $50,000, I'm good for the year and will not pursue additional dollars. Replace $50,000 with whatever amount you need to feel content.
    - livingparadox 11y ago
      See rich people as a counterpoint to your argument
      - alexmat 11y ago
        It's not a counterpoint. For a rich person, each additional dollar is worth less than it is for a poor person.
        soperj 11y ago
        and yet Warren Buffett continues to work?
        alexmat 11y ago
        There is a high social status associated with his job. If he were a janitor with the same wealth, I doubt he'd be rushing in to scrub toilets all day.
digikata 11y ago
There's a false equivalence between basic income and communism in your reasoning. Under failing communistic systems, that fixed income was generally the only allowed income, whereas basic income is guaranteed at a minimum level with other income allowed. The capitalistic harnessing of greed still applies in the basic income situation - i.e. the motivation of going to work to get more income is still in effect.
duaneb 11y ago
I don't think this is a great argument without the data to back it up. People are operating at the gut level and, well, that's not the right level to disabuse powerful economic ideas.
BinaryIdiot 11y ago
> I just think that socialism and communism (which basic income basically is - it's paid for by the working class) ultimately leads to the destruction of the economy. Trouble is, isn't some form of socialism inevitable? As automation continues to progress, more and more no-to-little-skill types are eliminated which then requires people to gain further education and experience to continue to qualify for some type of job. At some point we're going to automate so much that you'll essentially have to be an expert in a field to be employable. At least that's how it looks like to me. Today socialism doesn't work (at least to a degree; some socialism-like services I could see working today like health care) but in the future where every job but the ones with the highest skill requirements are automated, what do you do?
mbesto 11y ago
A negative income tax would solve that: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10982391 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10982391
bargl 11y ago
I think one of the main arguments I've heard for basic income is that welfare is a pit of failure. Where you can make more on welfare then you can at a minimum wage job. However, if you have a basic income that "replaces" welfare then no matter what job you get you always make more money. So it's better to have the basic income and work then to just have the basic income. Of course the problem is MUCH more complex than that, and that is also dependent on replacing welfare not adding basic on top of welfare. Hence the research but this is the basic idea I grab onto to think of how a basic income could be better then welfare.
xixi77 11y ago
My gut feeling is actually similar, but I'm not sure it's quite correct. One big difference from what you are describing is that it while reward is guaranteed, it is not fixed -- any earnings are on top of that. I can see how it might actually result in people being more productive -- or it might not, that's why an experiment like this is a nice thing to do. Also it doesn't imply communal ownership. It does not even imply communal consumption decisions -- unlike, for example, government-provided services: people themselves decide what to pay for and how much.
superuser2 11y ago
>disincentivizes work Why is this a problem? The market allocates work, the market has decided that a large and growing number of people's work is worth $0, the market is still producing enough to keep everyone happy and fed. Why should someone be incentivized to work when their work has no value? Put another way, we have made an amazing collective achievement: 100% effort from 100% of people is no longer necessary or even desirable to maintain/improve standards of living. Life has collectively gotten much easier, and coerced labor (yes, starvation and homelessness due to unemployment are coercion) is no longer necessary.
- alexmat 11y ago
  > Why is this a problem? It incentivizes breeding. The more resources are freely available the more our population will grow until we reach equilibrium. Although we usually overshoot and end up with a Malthusian outcome. "Yet in all societies, even those that are most vicious, the tendency to a virtuous attachment is so strong, that there is a constant effort towards an increase of population. This constant effort as constantly tends to subject the lower classes of the society to distress and to prevent any great permanent amelioration of their condition". — Malthus T.R. 1798. An Essay on the Principle of Population. Chapter II. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Essay_on_the_Principle_of_Population https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Essay_on_the_Principle_of_P...
  - unimpressive 11y ago
    >It incentivizes breeding. It's usually considered bad form to point this out, but there is no divine mandate that makes human breeding a process beyond the control of human societies.
  - taurath 11y ago
    Here is a graph that says thats wrong: http://www.udel.edu/johnmack/apec324/excel_lab1/xy_plot1.png http://www.udel.edu/johnmack/apec324/excel_lab1/xy_plot1.png As people get more resources, they tend to have FEWER children than those with little resources.
    - 11y ago
GordonS 11y ago
It could be argued that there are many other aspects of human nature that would drive many (but certainly not all) people to work and earn increase their income - such as altruism, ambition, personal goals, greed, vanity, wanderlust, nest-building (e.g. wanting a bigger house), etc
dibujante 11y ago
I don't think this is equivalent to socialism and communism _at all_. Socialism and communism propose an alternate _structure_ for the economy - one of state-directed planning. This has been demonstrated to fail pretty spectacularly. Basic income is an extension of the welfare state, which is itself a capitalist construct. It does not presuppose a state-planned economy or really threaten capital ownership or free exchange at all. Yes, many communist countries have attempted some kind of unconditional income. Was this what sapped people's desire to work? Not really. What sapped their desire was a complete lack of a reward structure. A universal income doesn't destroy the reward structure; it destroys the penalty structure. The big question is whether or not the economy survives that. On top of that, though, most communist economies imploded because decoupling production from market forces also destroyed incentives towards efficiency, innovation, and satisfying demand. Those are the biggest failures of the state economy and those are not related to universal income at all.
rmc 11y ago
What about the very rich people today? They have practically enough money to live on. Why do they continue to work? Quick! Let's tax them at 100% so that they have an inventive to work!
- punee 11y ago
  Why would they need an incentive when they already continue to work on their own?
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
WaxProlix 11y ago
Aside from all the other stuff that people are pointing out, the 'human nature' and motivation argument is a bit stale at this point. We existed in communal hunter-gatherer societies for millennia before our current system emerged, and tons of research has shown that money is a cosnsitently bad motivator for creative productivity. People like pretty pictures so here's an old RSA animate on the issue: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc There are shortcomings with ideas like basic income, but I don't think the ones you've mentioned are particularly valid.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

ZainRiz 11y ago

I would think that it depends on what you consider "basic income". If it's just enough money to scrape by (tiny living quarters, food and a tiny amount for clothes/toilitries, etc) then people won't be worried about survival, but they'll still want to get more money for things like having a house, cell phone, vacations, etc

samstave 11y ago
I just had a weird thought about cell phones; I think that going forward, communications are a basic need. There was a startup in ~2008 that was attempting to provide "free" cellular service to its users who agreed to watch ads on their phones. If they interacted with the ads, they would get more service time... The Facebook phone was an utter flop - however, if they wanted to surveil the population, they may have done better by creating a cell service company and allow people to be spied on in exchange for a free phone.... That damages my DNA saying that -- but it would be a workable model for the long tail of poor people that love facebook.

natrius 11y ago

A basic income doesn't remove variable rewards for work. It just sets a minimum. Very few people reading this could continue their current lifestyle on a basic income, so how is this going to make people stop working?

jeremysmyth 11y ago

...given a guaranteed, fixed reward no matter how much or how little you work for it, disincentivizes work...I just think that socialism and communism (which basic income basically is...) Wrong. Basic income lifts the floor. It does not concern itself with the ceiling. Calling it communism is utterly wrong and completely missing the point.

mozumder 11y ago
This is key. No one has ever said "I'm going to stop making money because I have $1."
- alexmat 11y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marginal_utility https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marginal_utility At $1 the second dollar is useful, at $50,000, I'm good for the year and will not pursue additional dollars. Replace $50,000 with whatever amount you need to feel content.
  - livingparadox 11y ago
    See rich people as a counterpoint to your argument
    - alexmat 11y ago
      It's not a counterpoint. For a rich person, each additional dollar is worth less than it is for a poor person.
      - soperj 11y ago
        and yet Warren Buffett continues to work?
        alexmat 11y ago
        There is a high social status associated with his job. If he were a janitor with the same wealth, I doubt he'd be rushing in to scrub toilets all day.

digikata 11y ago

There's a false equivalence between basic income and communism in your reasoning. Under failing communistic systems, that fixed income was generally the only allowed income, whereas basic income is guaranteed at a minimum level with other income allowed. The capitalistic harnessing of greed still applies in the basic income situation - i.e. the motivation of going to work to get more income is still in effect.

duaneb 11y ago

I don't think this is a great argument without the data to back it up. People are operating at the gut level and, well, that's not the right level to disabuse powerful economic ideas.

BinaryIdiot 11y ago

> I just think that socialism and communism (which basic income basically is - it's paid for by the working class) ultimately leads to the destruction of the economy. Trouble is, isn't some form of socialism inevitable? As automation continues to progress, more and more no-to-little-skill types are eliminated which then requires people to gain further education and experience to continue to qualify for some type of job. At some point we're going to automate so much that you'll essentially have to be an expert in a field to be employable. At least that's how it looks like to me. Today socialism doesn't work (at least to a degree; some socialism-like services I could see working today like health care) but in the future where every job but the ones with the highest skill requirements are automated, what do you do?

mbesto 11y ago

A negative income tax would solve that: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10982391 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10982391

bargl 11y ago

I think one of the main arguments I've heard for basic income is that welfare is a pit of failure. Where you can make more on welfare then you can at a minimum wage job. However, if you have a basic income that "replaces" welfare then no matter what job you get you always make more money. So it's better to have the basic income and work then to just have the basic income. Of course the problem is MUCH more complex than that, and that is also dependent on replacing welfare not adding basic on top of welfare. Hence the research but this is the basic idea I grab onto to think of how a basic income could be better then welfare.

xixi77 11y ago

My gut feeling is actually similar, but I'm not sure it's quite correct. One big difference from what you are describing is that it while reward is guaranteed, it is not fixed -- any earnings are on top of that. I can see how it might actually result in people being more productive -- or it might not, that's why an experiment like this is a nice thing to do. Also it doesn't imply communal ownership. It does not even imply communal consumption decisions -- unlike, for example, government-provided services: people themselves decide what to pay for and how much.

superuser2 11y ago

>disincentivizes work Why is this a problem? The market allocates work, the market has decided that a large and growing number of people's work is worth $0, the market is still producing enough to keep everyone happy and fed. Why should someone be incentivized to work when their work has no value? Put another way, we have made an amazing collective achievement: 100% effort from 100% of people is no longer necessary or even desirable to maintain/improve standards of living. Life has collectively gotten much easier, and coerced labor (yes, starvation and homelessness due to unemployment are coercion) is no longer necessary.

alexmat 11y ago
> Why is this a problem? It incentivizes breeding. The more resources are freely available the more our population will grow until we reach equilibrium. Although we usually overshoot and end up with a Malthusian outcome. "Yet in all societies, even those that are most vicious, the tendency to a virtuous attachment is so strong, that there is a constant effort towards an increase of population. This constant effort as constantly tends to subject the lower classes of the society to distress and to prevent any great permanent amelioration of their condition". — Malthus T.R. 1798. An Essay on the Principle of Population. Chapter II. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Essay_on_the_Principle_of_Population https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Essay_on_the_Principle_of_P...
- unimpressive 11y ago
  >It incentivizes breeding. It's usually considered bad form to point this out, but there is no divine mandate that makes human breeding a process beyond the control of human societies.
- taurath 11y ago
  Here is a graph that says thats wrong: http://www.udel.edu/johnmack/apec324/excel_lab1/xy_plot1.png http://www.udel.edu/johnmack/apec324/excel_lab1/xy_plot1.png As people get more resources, they tend to have FEWER children than those with little resources.
  - 11y ago

GordonS 11y ago

It could be argued that there are many other aspects of human nature that would drive many (but certainly not all) people to work and earn increase their income - such as altruism, ambition, personal goals, greed, vanity, wanderlust, nest-building (e.g. wanting a bigger house), etc

dibujante 11y ago

I don't think this is equivalent to socialism and communism _at all_. Socialism and communism propose an alternate _structure_ for the economy - one of state-directed planning. This has been demonstrated to fail pretty spectacularly. Basic income is an extension of the welfare state, which is itself a capitalist construct. It does not presuppose a state-planned economy or really threaten capital ownership or free exchange at all. Yes, many communist countries have attempted some kind of unconditional income. Was this what sapped people's desire to work? Not really. What sapped their desire was a complete lack of a reward structure. A universal income doesn't destroy the reward structure; it destroys the penalty structure. The big question is whether or not the economy survives that. On top of that, though, most communist economies imploded because decoupling production from market forces also destroyed incentives towards efficiency, innovation, and satisfying demand. Those are the biggest failures of the state economy and those are not related to universal income at all.

rmc 11y ago

What about the very rich people today? They have practically enough money to live on. Why do they continue to work? Quick! Let's tax them at 100% so that they have an inventive to work!

punee 11y ago
Why would they need an incentive when they already continue to work on their own?
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]

WaxProlix 11y ago

Aside from all the other stuff that people are pointing out, the 'human nature' and motivation argument is a bit stale at this point. We existed in communal hunter-gatherer societies for millennia before our current system emerged, and tons of research has shown that money is a cosnsitently bad motivator for creative productivity. People like pretty pictures so here's an old RSA animate on the issue: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc There are shortcomings with ideas like basic income, but I don't think the ones you've mentioned are particularly valid.