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>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, th

>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.
  - alexmat 11y ago
    We don't know what effect basic income would have on GDP, only that it would affect distribution of wealth. Income equality might rise while GDP falls in a re-distributive system. High GDP does not imply high income equality. That graph is misleading in this context.
bzbarsky 11y ago
> the market has decided that a large and growing number of people's work is worth $0 Or rather is worth less than the legal minimum wage, which is not the same thing. > Why should someone be incentivized to work when their work has no value? Very few people's work has no value, especially if they're allowed to do what they like to do. Typically the problems arise when the value is lower than the costs involved (salary, ovehead of managing them, etc). Reducing such costs should be a pretty important part of a basic income setup. > coerced labor (yes, starvation and homelessness due to unemployment are coercion) is no longer necessary The interesting question is what the end game is here. If we get to a situation where 100% effort from 100% of people is no longer necessary, but 100% effort from _some_ people is still necessary, how do you ensure that the people who still need to work keep doing so? And how will those people feel about it and what will the try to do as a result? A worst-case-ish scenario that seems all too likely is bans on emigration of "productive citizens" (defined as the ones whose 100%, or even 80%, effort is in fact still needed) who would otherwise decamp for other countries with lower taxes.
loceng 11y ago
"100% effort from 100% of people is no longer necessary" - could even be considered counter-productive to expect so much.

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.
- alexmat 11y ago
  We don't know what effect basic income would have on GDP, only that it would affect distribution of wealth. Income equality might rise while GDP falls in a re-distributive system. High GDP does not imply high income equality. That graph is misleading in this context.

bzbarsky 11y ago

> the market has decided that a large and growing number of people's work is worth $0 Or rather is worth less than the legal minimum wage, which is not the same thing. > Why should someone be incentivized to work when their work has no value? Very few people's work has no value, especially if they're allowed to do what they like to do. Typically the problems arise when the value is lower than the costs involved (salary, ovehead of managing them, etc). Reducing such costs should be a pretty important part of a basic income setup. > coerced labor (yes, starvation and homelessness due to unemployment are coercion) is no longer necessary The interesting question is what the end game is here. If we get to a situation where 100% effort from 100% of people is no longer necessary, but 100% effort from _some_ people is still necessary, how do you ensure that the people who still need to work keep doing so? And how will those people feel about it and what will the try to do as a result? A worst-case-ish scenario that seems all too likely is bans on emigration of "productive citizens" (defined as the ones whose 100%, or even 80%, effort is in fact still needed) who would otherwise decamp for other countries with lower taxes.

loceng 11y ago

"100% effort from 100% of people is no longer necessary" - could even be considered counter-productive to expect so much.