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There's a lot of skepticism about basic income, especially when it comes to how does it save money? The top comment as of this writing is questioning it: > But

There's a lot of skepticism about basic income, especially when it comes to how does it save money? The top comment as of this writing is questioning it: > But riddle me this: what do you do when someone on BI has a financial emergency or, as will happen with some regularity, just flat-out blows all their money and now can't afford rent and/or food? Do you tell them "tough shit, you've exhausted all your social safety nets" or are there safety nets below BI, essentially recreating the welfare programs previously destroyed? If so, how do you prevent fraud without a department following up on Joe's twelfth "my car broke down" case of the year? Allow me to digress for a moment, I've recently been reading "The Expanse" series, and they have a throwaway snippet in the second book (i.e., not a spoiler) where a Martian Marine is walking the streets of a city on Earth. There's a girl who sells her a hot dog. The girl says that she's doing it for work credits. After she accumulates one year worth of work credits, she can attend university and get a real job and make money. Otherwise, she'd have to be "on basic." Like I said, it's a throwaway scene, so there's not a lot of detail, and even in the later books when they talk about being "on basic", it's not a detailed description. But the girl in the story distinctly mentions "money" after "getting a job" which came after "university." That implies to me that, on some level, money doesn't exist for those "on basic." (And to be clear, in this not-terribly-futuristic Earth, everyone's on basic.) In other words, the term "on basic" implied to me that you get food, shelter, clothing, access to public transportation, K-12 education, healthcare, and basic internet automatically. But if that's the case, why would anyone want money? Well, the implication here is that the food is minimal: ramen noodles and vegetables and beef. Shelter are studio apartments. Clothing are Wal-mart quality. Basic internet is more like 56K than broadband. In the Expanse Earth, if you want more than that minimum (and most of us would), then you have to spend a year working to prove your willingness to contribute to society, and then you can go to university for free, then get a job and make money. That money can buy you things like a house with a yard, a car, surf and turf, and vacations to the moon. If we were to somehow (and that's a big if) go with the definition of "basic" from The Expanse, it's almost impossible to squander it. You aren't handing Joe $500 and saying "This is your money for the month. Don't blow it." The food and clothing are free. (Presumably with demonstrable need, but in a post-scarcity society, perhaps T-shirts cost virtually nothing compared to the previous welfare systems and you might as well just hand them out on demand). I'm not an economist, and I don't know the ins and outs of basic income, but that one throwaway page in The Expanse made me think a lot about what I think basic income should look like... and I don't think it should look like a monthly check.

solotronics 10y ago
Post scarcity doesn't exist. Someone has to make the T-shirts. If you think people would be better off if everyone had the same tshirt instead of a variety of choices that is the system we already have. The government making T-shirts at cost and distributing them is communism and it has not worked in the past.
- Jemaclus 10y ago
  Sure, the someone who makes the T-shirts is the someone who wants to earn money, as opposed to sitting "on basic." I'm not sure how you missed that part. It's in the 7th paragraph. The point being that it doesn't take 7 billion people to provide for 7 billion people. It might take only 1 billion people, or 500 million people, or even 100 million people, to provide enough resources to cover everyone else. Part of the reason we're not in a true post-scarcity society is that we as a society have decided that in order to get stuff, you have to have money, and in order to get money, you have to earn it, and in order to earn it, you have to have a job. So we have all of these unnecessary jobs out there that exist solely so people can make money without necessarily contributing to society. And so the dream, such as it is, is two-fold: The first part is that we provide a basic floor of services to everyone. That 100, 500, or 800 million people that are needed to provide resources will do so in return for money and will therefore have more stuff. The rest can work if they want, or subsist on the basic floor. That's not communism. The second is that by providing that basic floor, we can eliminate the notion that you have to work and contribute to survive, That's true today, but it doesn't have to be. We could eliminate the busy-work that almost all of us are doing. We can get rid of paper-pushers and ditch diggers. We don't need them all. The laws of supply and demand would push people into more productive roles, rather than simply working for the sake of a paycheck. Like I said, I'm not an economist, nor am I an expert on any of these things. I read a sci-fi book, and it made me think about it. That's it. :)
  - draugadrotten 10y ago
    > The point being that it doesn't take 7 billion people to provide for 7 billion people. It might take only 1 billion people, or 500 million people, or even 100 million people, to provide enough resources to cover everyone else. There's plenty of empiric evidence from wellfare states like Norway, Denmark and Sweden that "enough" is not enough for the receivers. The people who receive always wants to receive more. We are not talking about giving people food and shelter anymore -- the level of welfare includes TV and internet subscriptions, smartphones, brand name sneakers and junk food. Just to name a few of the "Basics". Due to human nature, the level of welfare demanded by the receivers will always be higher than the available welfore.

solotronics 10y ago

Post scarcity doesn't exist. Someone has to make the T-shirts. If you think people would be better off if everyone had the same tshirt instead of a variety of choices that is the system we already have. The government making T-shirts at cost and distributing them is communism and it has not worked in the past.

Jemaclus 10y ago
Sure, the someone who makes the T-shirts is the someone who wants to earn money, as opposed to sitting "on basic." I'm not sure how you missed that part. It's in the 7th paragraph. The point being that it doesn't take 7 billion people to provide for 7 billion people. It might take only 1 billion people, or 500 million people, or even 100 million people, to provide enough resources to cover everyone else. Part of the reason we're not in a true post-scarcity society is that we as a society have decided that in order to get stuff, you have to have money, and in order to get money, you have to earn it, and in order to earn it, you have to have a job. So we have all of these unnecessary jobs out there that exist solely so people can make money without necessarily contributing to society. And so the dream, such as it is, is two-fold: The first part is that we provide a basic floor of services to everyone. That 100, 500, or 800 million people that are needed to provide resources will do so in return for money and will therefore have more stuff. The rest can work if they want, or subsist on the basic floor. That's not communism. The second is that by providing that basic floor, we can eliminate the notion that you have to work and contribute to survive, That's true today, but it doesn't have to be. We could eliminate the busy-work that almost all of us are doing. We can get rid of paper-pushers and ditch diggers. We don't need them all. The laws of supply and demand would push people into more productive roles, rather than simply working for the sake of a paycheck. Like I said, I'm not an economist, nor am I an expert on any of these things. I read a sci-fi book, and it made me think about it. That's it. :)
- draugadrotten 10y ago
  > The point being that it doesn't take 7 billion people to provide for 7 billion people. It might take only 1 billion people, or 500 million people, or even 100 million people, to provide enough resources to cover everyone else. There's plenty of empiric evidence from wellfare states like Norway, Denmark and Sweden that "enough" is not enough for the receivers. The people who receive always wants to receive more. We are not talking about giving people food and shelter anymore -- the level of welfare includes TV and internet subscriptions, smartphones, brand name sneakers and junk food. Just to name a few of the "Basics". Due to human nature, the level of welfare demanded by the receivers will always be higher than the available welfore.