6 ms·

As I said repeatedly above, the basic job guarantee is just another job. It pays primarily in-kind benefits (i.e. rooms in govt dorms, govt cafeteria food, etc)

As I said repeatedly above, the basic job guarantee is just another job. It pays primarily in-kind benefits (i.e. rooms in govt dorms, govt cafeteria food, etc) and little money, and it's available to anyone who wants it. Also welfare is eliminated the day we create the basic job (or after some phase-in period, more realistically). So basically yes, the government will pay for an army of child carers, an army of infrastructure fixers, an army of trash picker uppers, etc. It just won't pay very much and most of what it pays will be in-kind benefits rather than money (e.g. rooms in government dorms in low cost areas). It's interesting that you are suggesting people who are currently on government benefits are disproportionately unsuitable for child care. Can you expand on this? My attempts to fill in the blanks here lead me to the idea that poor people are irresponsible and morally defective (e.g., they might ignore it when children start hitting each other with rocks), but I suspect that isn't a claim you'll endorse. Could you clarify in detail what you mean?

auggierose 10y ago
Please don't put words in my mouth I didn't say. It is a matter of motivation, you need people who are motivated to do a job and skilled enough to do it. YOU brought up the public school teacher as an example, and I like it. A child carer needs to be compensated with money, just as any other professional or teacher, because money means choice and power. A child carer should not be forced into a salary race to the bottom, and it is ridiculous to assume that a child carer would want to work just for food and a roof over his/her head. This is NOT a deal any responsible adult in my opinion should take, and somebody who takes that deal is per se disqualified to take care of my children.
- yummyfajitas 10y ago
  I didn't put words in your mouth. I explicitly said that was just the only thing I could come up with to fill in the blanks, and I explicitly asked for you to clarify. So again, here's the concrete question. It's a positive question about the world, not a normative question about what you think should happen. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_statement#Positive_statements_and_normative_statements https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_statement#Positive_st... Suppose we implement my scheme and people who can't find a job wind up caring for children in return for in-kind benefits. What objectively bad things will happen to the children as a result and why will those things happen? What I'm trying to disambiguate here is moral/aesthetic preferences ("should not be forced into a salary race to the bottom" because I don't like it) and positive claims about the world ("a basic job will cause children to die of aids after former welfare recipients stab them with dirty needles").
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    A "positive question" about "objectively bad" is a oxymoron. "Bad" is inherently subjective and, always a normative rather than positive issue.
    - yummyfajitas 10y ago
      True. A better way to phrase it would have been "are there any objectively measurable things that happen to the children which are widely perceived to be bad?"
unprepare 10y ago
and for people who arent physically capable of doing these jobs? if we're dismantling welfare system then how are these people surviving? what about people who get illnesses that take them away from work for extended periods? people needed multiple surgeries, months of physical therapy, assistance of medical devices, etc. is healthcare included in this government job? if so, what isnt covered? if not, how are people expected to stay healthy enough to continue working? mental health care? how are these people expected to save for retirement? are people over the age of, say, 75 expected to work as construction workers if they didnt save enough for retirement? How and when would these workers have the time and money to become trained for better paying careers? does this job come with some tuition programs also? you mention trash pickers, why wouldnt that be automated, or is this a scheme by which we outlaw the automation of sectors of the economy in order to protect these government jobs? would these workers/companies compete on the open marketplace with others, or would this be a government monopoly? if its not a monopoly, say im hired as a child carer. what do i do when one day theres no child to take care of because people dont want the shitty government child caretakers, they want to private ones? do i get fired? do i get paid to sit in the government office and wait? can i go home? is this an economically efficient use of a persons time? if im to sit and wait in an office until the end of the day, how is that different than a UBI other than i have to sit in an office all day?
prostoalex 10y ago
> So basically yes, the government will pay for an army of child carers, an army of infrastructure fixers, an army of trash picker uppers, etc. It just won't pay very much and most of what it pays will be in-kind benefits rather than money This did not seem to work for Soviet Union (and its reluctant allies), and market realities still exposed themselves - if you wanted to hire a government plumber, repairman, electrician, dentist, etc., you were welcome to sign up for a long waiting list or miss a few appointments here and there, because hey, what exactly is the accountability here? They won't fire you. If you actually needed to get the job done, be prepared to offer a generous tip, which in absence of solid money would have to be something bartered (vodka, spare car parts and gold were among the unofficial currencies pervasive in USSR). Once such economy evolves, even the people who were trying to put in a minimal effort at their government-sponsored job just stop, because they feel they're getting the shorter end of the stick than the guy accepting generous gifts. Moreover, people at the occupations that are not typically monetized in a market economy (librarians, for example) start thinking of good ways to establish some barriers to force consumers towards such generosity (by withholding high-demand books, not providing information in a timely manner, etc.) Now a portion of a population is on an active mission to create problems in society rather than solve them, as their additional monetization efforts depend on existence of such problems. This second-order effect seems to penalize the poor (and un-connected) even harsher than before.
- yummyfajitas 10y ago
  The Soviet Union had only this system, nothing else. I'm proposing is using this kind of a system to provide government services (e.g. filling in potholes) in return for money we are already spending. In the Soviet Union, there was no private sector. I'm proposing no restrictions on the private sector - in fact, one explicit goal of this system is to make government dependence less pleasant (you need to go out into the national park and build trails rather than sitting at home playing video games) so that more people enter the private sector.
  - prostoalex 10y ago
    In this dual system what happens to the government-run pothole-filling entity (and its employees) when it's outbid by a private pothole-filling contractor on most/all jobs?

auggierose 10y ago

Please don't put words in my mouth I didn't say. It is a matter of motivation, you need people who are motivated to do a job and skilled enough to do it. YOU brought up the public school teacher as an example, and I like it. A child carer needs to be compensated with money, just as any other professional or teacher, because money means choice and power. A child carer should not be forced into a salary race to the bottom, and it is ridiculous to assume that a child carer would want to work just for food and a roof over his/her head. This is NOT a deal any responsible adult in my opinion should take, and somebody who takes that deal is per se disqualified to take care of my children.

yummyfajitas 10y ago
I didn't put words in your mouth. I explicitly said that was just the only thing I could come up with to fill in the blanks, and I explicitly asked for you to clarify. So again, here's the concrete question. It's a positive question about the world, not a normative question about what you think should happen. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_statement#Positive_statements_and_normative_statements https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_statement#Positive_st... Suppose we implement my scheme and people who can't find a job wind up caring for children in return for in-kind benefits. What objectively bad things will happen to the children as a result and why will those things happen? What I'm trying to disambiguate here is moral/aesthetic preferences ("should not be forced into a salary race to the bottom" because I don't like it) and positive claims about the world ("a basic job will cause children to die of aids after former welfare recipients stab them with dirty needles").
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  A "positive question" about "objectively bad" is a oxymoron. "Bad" is inherently subjective and, always a normative rather than positive issue.
  - yummyfajitas 10y ago
    True. A better way to phrase it would have been "are there any objectively measurable things that happen to the children which are widely perceived to be bad?"

unprepare 10y ago

and for people who arent physically capable of doing these jobs? if we're dismantling welfare system then how are these people surviving? what about people who get illnesses that take them away from work for extended periods? people needed multiple surgeries, months of physical therapy, assistance of medical devices, etc. is healthcare included in this government job? if so, what isnt covered? if not, how are people expected to stay healthy enough to continue working? mental health care? how are these people expected to save for retirement? are people over the age of, say, 75 expected to work as construction workers if they didnt save enough for retirement? How and when would these workers have the time and money to become trained for better paying careers? does this job come with some tuition programs also? you mention trash pickers, why wouldnt that be automated, or is this a scheme by which we outlaw the automation of sectors of the economy in order to protect these government jobs? would these workers/companies compete on the open marketplace with others, or would this be a government monopoly? if its not a monopoly, say im hired as a child carer. what do i do when one day theres no child to take care of because people dont want the shitty government child caretakers, they want to private ones? do i get fired? do i get paid to sit in the government office and wait? can i go home? is this an economically efficient use of a persons time? if im to sit and wait in an office until the end of the day, how is that different than a UBI other than i have to sit in an office all day?

prostoalex 10y ago

> So basically yes, the government will pay for an army of child carers, an army of infrastructure fixers, an army of trash picker uppers, etc. It just won't pay very much and most of what it pays will be in-kind benefits rather than money This did not seem to work for Soviet Union (and its reluctant allies), and market realities still exposed themselves - if you wanted to hire a government plumber, repairman, electrician, dentist, etc., you were welcome to sign up for a long waiting list or miss a few appointments here and there, because hey, what exactly is the accountability here? They won't fire you. If you actually needed to get the job done, be prepared to offer a generous tip, which in absence of solid money would have to be something bartered (vodka, spare car parts and gold were among the unofficial currencies pervasive in USSR). Once such economy evolves, even the people who were trying to put in a minimal effort at their government-sponsored job just stop, because they feel they're getting the shorter end of the stick than the guy accepting generous gifts. Moreover, people at the occupations that are not typically monetized in a market economy (librarians, for example) start thinking of good ways to establish some barriers to force consumers towards such generosity (by withholding high-demand books, not providing information in a timely manner, etc.) Now a portion of a population is on an active mission to create problems in society rather than solve them, as their additional monetization efforts depend on existence of such problems. This second-order effect seems to penalize the poor (and un-connected) even harsher than before.

yummyfajitas 10y ago
The Soviet Union had only this system, nothing else. I'm proposing is using this kind of a system to provide government services (e.g. filling in potholes) in return for money we are already spending. In the Soviet Union, there was no private sector. I'm proposing no restrictions on the private sector - in fact, one explicit goal of this system is to make government dependence less pleasant (you need to go out into the national park and build trails rather than sitting at home playing video games) so that more people enter the private sector.
- prostoalex 10y ago
  In this dual system what happens to the government-run pothole-filling entity (and its employees) when it's outbid by a private pothole-filling contractor on most/all jobs?