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If the worker now gets to stay at home and pursue a hobby they enjoy, while the economy is still producing the same amount of goods, isn't that a net win? The
by d4nt 10y ago
If the worker now gets to stay at home and pursue a hobby they enjoy, while the economy is still producing the same amount of goods, isn't that a net win?
The problem is (a) people feel bad about being on welfare, and (b) we stop paying welfare again the moment that worker makes any money, creating a disincentive to engage in any form of small scale productive activity.
- sverige 10y agoPeople feel bad about being on welfare because they want to work. They want to be productive. They want to have a purpose.
- eli_gottlieb 10y agobeep beep I. am. a. person. I want... proooductive. I want... puurpose. I will. Take the orders. From a capital-supplier. To proooduce economic vallll-ue. I. am. Totally. Not. a robot. beep beep /s Seriously, though? People want to be exploited because they need a wage-paying employer to give them purpose? Then where are all the people who don't work for someone else getting this much-vaunted "purpose", eh? Whatever happened to all that individualism stuff, about people being ends rather than means?
- sverige 10y agoWork is exploitive only when you're not compensated adequately for it, or if you cannot leave that job voluntarily. And I assume that by "people who don't work for someone else," you are referring to people who still work rather than, say, landowners who collect rents whose main work is to go to the bank to make a deposit. People can be both ends and means and be quite content. Personally, I think there is too much emphasis on people being ends unto themselves in the current culture. Madonna is a great example of this. She ceased to be entertaining more than 30 years ago, yet I still come across news snippets about her. Why?
- Drakim 10y ago> People can be both ends and means and be quite content. Personally, I think there is too much emphasis on people being ends unto themselves in the current culture. That's because society is really nothing but a lot of people working together in an alliance. If we didn't make people themselves the end they would have no reason to participate in society.
- Drakim 10y agoDoes humans have any value outside of what they can offer to corporations? Would there even be any point to keeping humans around?
- eli_gottlieb 10y agoIt works the other way around: do corporations have any value outside what they can offer to humans? Is there any point to keeping corporations around?
- Drakim 10y agoI guess I should have added a sarcasm tag ;)
- varjag 10y agoSo, do people laid off with outsourcing to Asia enjoy their model trains and gardening now? If history is any predictor, any gain in productivity from automation is going to be absorbed by corporate structures instead of going towards welfare.
- Broken_Hippo 10y agoI do believe it is a win all around. It isn't just that folks will stay home, but it makes it easier to have a better educated population, easier to work fewer hours if you decide to work, easier to exercise and eat well and be healthy. All around, I think society will improve. Some of the pro-basic income folks (and myself) believe that a basic income helps with both of these points. There isn't much stigma to getting welfare that everyone gets, though possibly the extra that those that need it get. And since it doesn't stop, there isn't that sort of disincentive towards going to work as work simply enhances it - folks might actually be more inclined to work, albeit fewer total hours. Even with current welfare systems, there are ways to minimize these things. Creating a tapering system so that folks are Always better off working, more trust in the welfare system itself, and not treating recipients like criminals or second-class citizens.