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Every time basic income comes up people seem to missunderstand the key points: 1) It's basic income, like, enough for beans and rice and a small apartment. No
by krupan 10y ago
Every time basic income comes up people seem to missunderstand the key points:
1) It's basic income, like, enough for beans and rice and a small apartment. Nobody who is willing to work at least a part time job is going to just sit back and live off of basic income alone for their whole life.
2) It's a huge reduction and simplification of government, replacing several huge bureaucratic entities with one that effectively just mails out checks to everyone periodically.
- jackcosgrove 10y ago> Nobody who is willing to work at least a part time job is going to just sit back and live off of basic income alone for their whole life. That's a glib statement that ignores the experience of welfare pre-reform, and SSDI currently. Of course some people will do just that, and the relative difficulty of earning a wage compared to the relative generosity of a basic income would determine the proportion of people who live like this.
- epistasis 10y agoI'm not sure if there's agreement on either of those points, honestly. A good number of people who talk about basic income are talking about giving less than is enough for subsistence living. And many talk about keeping additional programs in place, such as disability (somebody with special medical needs will not be able to live on the same income as somebody that can care for themselves and does not need additional medical care). It's important to come up with concrete proposals. I don't think that there's going to be much overhead savings from your point number (2), and I'm not sure if we're ready for the tax levels that (1) would bring.
- krupan 10y agoI agree that there are lots of variations on the themes of points 1 and 2 and that's a huge problem in trying to discuss this intelligently and dispassionately. On a personal note, I'm less interested in savings from point 2 than I am in a reduction in power and corruption (or at least corruptibility).
- mordocai 10y agoAs far as special medical needs, if we'd go ahead and switch to single payer/otherwise socialized healthcare while we're at it then the job of making sure that the disabled have enough would not be basic income, but the healthcare system.
- VLM 10y agoThat would seem to assume we're not already funding (1) already for everyone who isn't too mentally ill to participate in existing more expensive to administrate programs. A classic example would be something like working poor on food stamps. We've decided as a nation to provide corporate welfare by allowing corporations to under pay employees and taxpayers will pick up the tab by providing food stamps to the employees. A lot of pointless administrative money is spent to make sure yes indeed they work at Walmart and Walmart doesn't pay a living wage. An interesting side effect is many jobs are going to have massive wage deflation down to minimum wage. Sort of a communist system where everyone gets the same pay.
- kamaal 10y ago>>It's basic income, like, enough for beans and rice and a small apartment. Pretty soon some will guilt shame a rich guy for driving around an BMW while some 'poor' are getting by on with 'rice', 'beans' and 'small apartment'. And ask for basic luxury.