10 ms·

The principled and pragmatic case for a Universal Basic Income (2015)

39 points by drawnalong 10y ago

jsprogrammer 10y ago
The byline appears to have a redundancy, or a contradiction: >There is an increasing global conversation about the idea of a ‘Universal Basic Income’ – a universal weekly payment to all eligible citizens. Wouldn't everyone be eligible for a universal basic income? Are all persons eligible citizens? Is the article actually talking about an ‘Eligible Citizens' Basic Income’?
- hermannj314 10y ago
  I'm guessing criminals (current and former), drug addicts, and the willfully unemployed wouldn't be eligible. These are the vulnerable, marginalized and (sometimes) disenfranchised groups that America loves to shit on when it comes to social programs and basic rights.
  - josscrowcroft 10y ago
    > "I'm guessing criminals (current and former), drug addicts, and the willfully unemployed wouldn't be eligible." I believe "criminals (current and former), drug addicts, and the willfully unemployed" are all eligible under most proposed schemes, although the income level may differ for current prisoners. Edit: according to the RSA blog introducing their proposal: "Prisoners would not receive it." https://www.thersa.org/discover/publications-and-articles/rsa-blogs/2015/12/in-support-of-a-universal-basic-income--introducing-the-rsa-basic-income-model/ https://www.thersa.org/discover/publications-and-articles/rs... > "These are the vulnerable, marginalized and (sometimes) disenfranchised groups that America loves to shit on when it comes to social programs and basic rights." The RSA (publisher of this report) is British.
    - hermannj314 10y ago
      I know. I have no doubt the British have a sensible system that treats human beings with dignity. I was speaking about US hypothetically. I would think when the state acts as ward to an individual, the agency would receive the BI on their behalf. I've always felt basic income would greatly simplify many funding / administrative questions. Perhaps my view is too simplistic.
      - c22 10y ago
        > I would think when the state acts as ward to an individual, the agency would receive the BI on their behalf. Probably not a good idea if we want to see our prison population lessen in the future.
  - delecti 10y ago
    If anything, currently imprisoned criminals should definitely keep receiving at least some of their UBI, so they can land on their feet when they're released rather than just resorting to crime again. I see no reason why we should exclude drug addicts. What level of drug do you start to count against a person? More people die from alcohol than marijuana, and I barely know anybody who isn't on some level addicted to caffeine. Prescription opiates are entirely legal, but lots of people are addicted to those. The willfully unemployed are more or less the entire point of UBI. The theory is that as society increasingly moves towards automation, there will be fewer and fewer jobs, making the willfully unemployed a rapidly growing segment of the population, and that's a good thing as it will allow people to do with their time what they will.
- drcube 10y ago
  My guess is they're just hedging their bets with regard to wording. Presumably, there will be some crimes that entail losing your basic income, and it's probably up in the air whether the basic income will apply in whole or in part to children. So "eligible citizens" in this case probably means "almost everybody, minus a few exceptions the legislature will certainly come up with".
- notahacker 10y ago
  If you make literally everyone eligible for a basic income, you run into the small problem of the world's GDP per capita being around $13k in US purchasing power: around the levels generally proposed for a BI in a developed country. It's obviously not feasible to promise everyone that indefinitely with no strings attached so long as they turn up in your country and ask for it. Simplest solution is to make it passport based. This particular proposal appears to insist that young people prove they deserve it too...
sctb 10y ago
We updated the URL from https://www.thersa.org/discover/publications-and-articles/reports/basic-income https://www.thersa.org/discover/publications-and-articles/re..., which points to this.
jupiterrising 10y ago
[deleted]
- mjevans 10y ago
  In a lot of cultures, realized or not, having tons of children is a form of retirement insurance. Having basic income eliminates this uncertainty. I'll reply to the implied point in a second post.
- beat 10y ago
  "Breeding for welfare" is a myth. Children are a major economic burden, even with welfare subsidies. That said, there's no reason offhand to provide basic income to minors. Parents can choose to have as many children as they want, at their own expense. One of the key advantages of basic income is getting rid of the complexities and irregularities of the current welfare model. Subsidies for children are one of those complexities.
  - jupiterrising 10y ago
    [deleted]
    - beat 10y ago
      "Simply stating something does not make it a fact." Indeed.
      - VincentEvans 10y ago
        Oh how clever you are. And also most likely wrong. So it's good that you chose to be clever rather than trying to defend your assertion. A foster care system is, in my opinion and at least in poor areas of large metros - is a good (and pretty depressing) example of what many people are willing to do for money. To some extend - childcare subsidies demonstrate the same.
    - obviouslynot33 10y ago
      > The idea of basic income is commendable, but do we really want a system that incentivizes large families? > Simply stating something does not make it a fact. Your first quote makes it sound as if it was the inevitable outcome. SOME people. Not all. It's a slippery slope fallacy. What if the same type of people that try to manipulate the system do it because it seems like the only reasonable way to stay afloat? It could be possible then that some of them would not have more kids to get more money.
ThomPete 10y ago
What most of these cases get wrong is that they confuse UBI as yet another way to deal with unemployment as the market corrects itself and new jobs are created. I.e. it's seen as this temporary state that we might or might not be in for a limited amount of time. The truth is that UBI is meant to deal with the fact that we will more or less all be unemployed and have no jobs and thus no income. It's not meant to solve an isolated problem with the labour market, it's meant to solve the realization that there wont be any.
- beat 10y ago
  It's not so much that there won't be a labor market, but rather than radical changes to the labor market are accelerating. Two centuries ago, well over 90% of income earners were farmers. Today, it's like 2% and dropping. But unemployment didn't become a more massive problem than it was then. Labor became available for other purposes, enabling the industrial revolution.
  - ThomPete 10y ago
    Yeah but it's accelerating at such a rate that it's important to look at the endgame which IMO is no labour market. I agree that even before we reach that level the issue is thre and so it will serve as a help for those who are "left behind".
    - nightski 10y ago
      If that ever happens (which I highly doubt, there is little to no evidence) it is a very long ways off. Hundreds of years at a minimum.
      - ThomPete 10y ago
        There is a lot of evidence that this is how things are moving. What most people get wrong about a job is that they confuse the human doing them with the job they human is doing. Most if not all jobs only require you to be a subset of a human to actually be useful. And so there is a general misconception that computers would need a general intelligence to take over a job when in fact most of the jobs we do require only a fraction of our abilities as humans and normally can be broken down in smaller subsets.
golemotron 10y ago
UBI seems like a good idea but it is important to recognize that the problem it seeks to solve has a cultural component too. Some people will use free money to build enriching lives. Others will fall into various addictions because they haven't found meaning. I'd like to see a UBI conversation that discusses is this point because it is significant and the history of welfare shows that it is real.
- cmrx64 10y ago
  > Others will fall into various addictions because they haven't found meaning. Is that such a bad thing? I'm not even sure if the effect would be significantly different than today's situation, in which you can fall into any addiction you want if you have resources.
  - golemotron 10y ago
    I don't think it would be too much different either. The problem would be if there were negative externalities. That's likely if people try to shoot for meaning rather than addiction and find it in ways that hurt others. We've seen that throughout history with the young: gangs, terrorism, and revolution.
- gshulegaard 10y ago
  For me, I don't see this as being a problem. First, I am a believer in economic momentum and money multiplier dynamics (perhaps irrationally so). But with this belief more money being spent (consumption) makes for a stronger economy, for everyone, including those of us who are not in need of welfare. Our current welfare system places too much restriction and I feel leaves too many welfare recipients with non-optimal purchasing decision...not to mention there is an overhead to our (America's) current welfare system as far as administration and what-else. Another thing is that there have been studies done which show that giving cash to the poor has better outcomes than expected: http://www.economist.com/news/international/21588385-giving-money-directly-poor-people-works-surprisingly-well-it-cannot-deal http://www.economist.com/news/international/21588385-giving-... There are also deeper things we can theorize about regarding poor behavior, but at the end of the day I can't help but feel like a UBI would be a more efficient welfare distribution (more money spent actually issued as monetary welfare benefits) which would have a stronger economic impact than our current welfare system. Disclaimer: The above is just my opinion, not claiming it to be right or wrong.

39 points by drawnalong 10y ago

The byline appears to have a redundancy, or a contradiction: >There is an increasing global conversation about the idea of a ‘Universal Basic Income’ – a universal weekly payment to all eligible citizens. Wouldn't everyone be eligible for a universal basic income? Are all persons eligible citizens? Is the article actually talking about an ‘Eligible Citizens' Basic Income’?

hermannj314 10y ago
I'm guessing criminals (current and former), drug addicts, and the willfully unemployed wouldn't be eligible. These are the vulnerable, marginalized and (sometimes) disenfranchised groups that America loves to shit on when it comes to social programs and basic rights.
- josscrowcroft 10y ago
  > "I'm guessing criminals (current and former), drug addicts, and the willfully unemployed wouldn't be eligible." I believe "criminals (current and former), drug addicts, and the willfully unemployed" are all eligible under most proposed schemes, although the income level may differ for current prisoners. Edit: according to the RSA blog introducing their proposal: "Prisoners would not receive it." https://www.thersa.org/discover/publications-and-articles/rsa-blogs/2015/12/in-support-of-a-universal-basic-income--introducing-the-rsa-basic-income-model/ https://www.thersa.org/discover/publications-and-articles/rs... > "These are the vulnerable, marginalized and (sometimes) disenfranchised groups that America loves to shit on when it comes to social programs and basic rights." The RSA (publisher of this report) is British.
  - hermannj314 10y ago
    I know. I have no doubt the British have a sensible system that treats human beings with dignity. I was speaking about US hypothetically. I would think when the state acts as ward to an individual, the agency would receive the BI on their behalf. I've always felt basic income would greatly simplify many funding / administrative questions. Perhaps my view is too simplistic.
    - c22 10y ago
      > I would think when the state acts as ward to an individual, the agency would receive the BI on their behalf. Probably not a good idea if we want to see our prison population lessen in the future.
- delecti 10y ago
  If anything, currently imprisoned criminals should definitely keep receiving at least some of their UBI, so they can land on their feet when they're released rather than just resorting to crime again. I see no reason why we should exclude drug addicts. What level of drug do you start to count against a person? More people die from alcohol than marijuana, and I barely know anybody who isn't on some level addicted to caffeine. Prescription opiates are entirely legal, but lots of people are addicted to those. The willfully unemployed are more or less the entire point of UBI. The theory is that as society increasingly moves towards automation, there will be fewer and fewer jobs, making the willfully unemployed a rapidly growing segment of the population, and that's a good thing as it will allow people to do with their time what they will.
drcube 10y ago
My guess is they're just hedging their bets with regard to wording. Presumably, there will be some crimes that entail losing your basic income, and it's probably up in the air whether the basic income will apply in whole or in part to children. So "eligible citizens" in this case probably means "almost everybody, minus a few exceptions the legislature will certainly come up with".
notahacker 10y ago
If you make literally everyone eligible for a basic income, you run into the small problem of the world's GDP per capita being around $13k in US purchasing power: around the levels generally proposed for a BI in a developed country. It's obviously not feasible to promise everyone that indefinitely with no strings attached so long as they turn up in your country and ask for it. Simplest solution is to make it passport based. This particular proposal appears to insist that young people prove they deserve it too...

sctb 10y ago

We updated the URL from https://www.thersa.org/discover/publications-and-articles/reports/basic-income https://www.thersa.org/discover/publications-and-articles/re..., which points to this.

jupiterrising 10y ago

[deleted]

mjevans 10y ago
In a lot of cultures, realized or not, having tons of children is a form of retirement insurance. Having basic income eliminates this uncertainty. I'll reply to the implied point in a second post.
beat 10y ago
"Breeding for welfare" is a myth. Children are a major economic burden, even with welfare subsidies. That said, there's no reason offhand to provide basic income to minors. Parents can choose to have as many children as they want, at their own expense. One of the key advantages of basic income is getting rid of the complexities and irregularities of the current welfare model. Subsidies for children are one of those complexities.
- jupiterrising 10y ago
  [deleted]
  - beat 10y ago
    "Simply stating something does not make it a fact." Indeed.
    - VincentEvans 10y ago
      Oh how clever you are. And also most likely wrong. So it's good that you chose to be clever rather than trying to defend your assertion. A foster care system is, in my opinion and at least in poor areas of large metros - is a good (and pretty depressing) example of what many people are willing to do for money. To some extend - childcare subsidies demonstrate the same.
  - obviouslynot33 10y ago
    > The idea of basic income is commendable, but do we really want a system that incentivizes large families? > Simply stating something does not make it a fact. Your first quote makes it sound as if it was the inevitable outcome. SOME people. Not all. It's a slippery slope fallacy. What if the same type of people that try to manipulate the system do it because it seems like the only reasonable way to stay afloat? It could be possible then that some of them would not have more kids to get more money.

ThomPete 10y ago

What most of these cases get wrong is that they confuse UBI as yet another way to deal with unemployment as the market corrects itself and new jobs are created. I.e. it's seen as this temporary state that we might or might not be in for a limited amount of time. The truth is that UBI is meant to deal with the fact that we will more or less all be unemployed and have no jobs and thus no income. It's not meant to solve an isolated problem with the labour market, it's meant to solve the realization that there wont be any.

beat 10y ago
It's not so much that there won't be a labor market, but rather than radical changes to the labor market are accelerating. Two centuries ago, well over 90% of income earners were farmers. Today, it's like 2% and dropping. But unemployment didn't become a more massive problem than it was then. Labor became available for other purposes, enabling the industrial revolution.
- ThomPete 10y ago
  Yeah but it's accelerating at such a rate that it's important to look at the endgame which IMO is no labour market. I agree that even before we reach that level the issue is thre and so it will serve as a help for those who are "left behind".
  - nightski 10y ago
    If that ever happens (which I highly doubt, there is little to no evidence) it is a very long ways off. Hundreds of years at a minimum.
    - ThomPete 10y ago
      There is a lot of evidence that this is how things are moving. What most people get wrong about a job is that they confuse the human doing them with the job they human is doing. Most if not all jobs only require you to be a subset of a human to actually be useful. And so there is a general misconception that computers would need a general intelligence to take over a job when in fact most of the jobs we do require only a fraction of our abilities as humans and normally can be broken down in smaller subsets.

golemotron 10y ago

UBI seems like a good idea but it is important to recognize that the problem it seeks to solve has a cultural component too. Some people will use free money to build enriching lives. Others will fall into various addictions because they haven't found meaning. I'd like to see a UBI conversation that discusses is this point because it is significant and the history of welfare shows that it is real.

cmrx64 10y ago
> Others will fall into various addictions because they haven't found meaning. Is that such a bad thing? I'm not even sure if the effect would be significantly different than today's situation, in which you can fall into any addiction you want if you have resources.
- golemotron 10y ago
  I don't think it would be too much different either. The problem would be if there were negative externalities. That's likely if people try to shoot for meaning rather than addiction and find it in ways that hurt others. We've seen that throughout history with the young: gangs, terrorism, and revolution.
gshulegaard 10y ago
For me, I don't see this as being a problem. First, I am a believer in economic momentum and money multiplier dynamics (perhaps irrationally so). But with this belief more money being spent (consumption) makes for a stronger economy, for everyone, including those of us who are not in need of welfare. Our current welfare system places too much restriction and I feel leaves too many welfare recipients with non-optimal purchasing decision...not to mention there is an overhead to our (America's) current welfare system as far as administration and what-else. Another thing is that there have been studies done which show that giving cash to the poor has better outcomes than expected: http://www.economist.com/news/international/21588385-giving-money-directly-poor-people-works-surprisingly-well-it-cannot-deal http://www.economist.com/news/international/21588385-giving-... There are also deeper things we can theorize about regarding poor behavior, but at the end of the day I can't help but feel like a UBI would be a more efficient welfare distribution (more money spent actually issued as monetary welfare benefits) which would have a stronger economic impact than our current welfare system. Disclaimer: The above is just my opinion, not claiming it to be right or wrong.