5 ms·

This are the idea I have been struggling with: 1) how do you get people to accept the existence of basic income without perceiving the beneficiaries as moocher

by nico_h 10y ago

This are the idea I have been struggling with: 1) how do you get people to accept the existence of basic income without perceiving the beneficiaries as moochers. 2) what do people on basic do? Right now your example of people visiting the elderly is in some place paid work but can also be performed by volunteer. However volunteers should be vetted. My guess is that when everybody is on basic, you can earn "social credits" for volunteering. But should that grant you access to more resources, or should that be like "Achievements" in video games? And how do you avoid turning that into the Black Mirror episode "15 millions Merits". But even "social credit" cannot prevent the paid workers to look down on the moochers on basic. How do we get to the star trek society utopia...?

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
nhaehnle 10y ago
Well, we already have a form of "social credits". It's called money. We're just not used to thinking of it that way, but that's really what money is. So replace "social credits" in your line of thinking by money, and you've basically arrived at the idea of a Job Guarantee. And somebody who works for their money is no longer a moocher, so...
- nico_h 10y ago
  The flaw in this analogy is that the current top earners (CEO, traders, White collar) net contribution to society has no correlation with the money they extract from the system. Does a CEO improving his company market value by firing people have the same contribution to society as a paramedic saving a life, a nanny taking care of a baby so the parents can work or a teacher educating kids? These are highly valuable services provided to society that are not rewarded in either status or the current social credits.
  - Pyxl101 10y ago
    > Does a CEO improving his company market value by firing people have the same contribution to society as a paramedic saving a life, a nanny taking care of a baby so the parents can work or a teacher educating kids? According to society's value system, as reflected by market pricing, I believe the answer is generally yes, the CEO is valued more. The CEO is valued more because their work affects the company they lead as a whole and the work of many other people at the company - such as by determining what to work on, what initiatives to invest in strategically, or by obtaining funding for the company from investors. Poor decisions by the CEO can cause the entire company to fail; good decisions can create 100x as many jobs at the company, and increase its value by 100x. It is more difficult for people to grasp the value of CEOs because their effect is spread out over a lot of people and abstract concepts like company success. It is easier to grasp the value of a nanny who spends time with your kids. But the fact that the nanny's work is much more concrete and obvious does not mean that it's more valuable. Consider: how much will you personally spend on a nanny? Would you spend 30-50% of your income on a fantastic nanny (the way that many people will spend that amount buying a house?) Most people don't value a nanny that much. For a comparison, think about the effect that a good or bad president will have on the entire US. They can make a tremendous difference to the lives of hundreds of millions of people. A good CEO can do the same for their company, and all of their workers and investors. A bad CEO can do the opposite, and run the company into the ground. Nannys and CEOs operate at entirely different scales. A CEO can destroy billions in value, or create billions in value. This is why companies and their boards and investors value good CEOs highly and pay them well. They want the best possible person for the job, and the best people demand high compensation. There are also factors of supply and demand to consider. Most adult humans are intrinsically equipped to be nannies - to care for children. We're evolved to do it. No specific qualifications are necessary beyond not being a shitty or unreliable person. By comparison, not many people are equipped to be an effective CEO of a large, medium, or even small company. Thus, nannies earn less because there is a large supply of people who can act as nannies (almost the entire adult population), and a substantially smaller supply of effective CEOs. They need intelligence, drive, education, charisma, leadership capability, experience, vision, and other qualities. Regarding your specific point about CEOs cutting jobs, sometimes that needs to happen. Lines of business don't always remain profitable. Sometimes a company needs to shut down unprofitable business units entirely, and exit the business. Sometimes a company needs to lay off workers and find a different approach to remain profitable. Sometimes a job that was done by humans before will be automated tomorrow. For example, the company Hostess that makes Twinkies used to employ 22,000 workers. The company went bankrupt, and people bought its ashes and restarted it. The new hostess now heavily takes advantage of automation and employs only 1,170 people. (1) A lot of people got laid off in that transition. The layoffs were also necessary for the company to continue at all; otherwise it would have gone under for good. They had a non-viable economic model for producing their baked goods. The leaders in charge of the transition took the only reasonable action (in hindsight) to prevent the company from cratering. (1) CEOs are the people in charge of making the best decision for their stakeholders in really tough circumstances. Sometimes layoffs are the best possible outcome among many worse outcomes. No CEO would prefer to lay off their people - it's a horrible thing to have to do - but when the company is in dire financial straights, sometimes there is no better alternative. (1) https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/business/wp/2016/07/05/what-it-took-to-save-the-twinkie/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/business/wp/2016/07/05/w...
  - Klockan 10y ago
    > Does a CEO improving his company market value by firing people have the same contribution to society as a paramedic saving a life, a nanny taking care of a baby so the parents can work or a teacher educating kids? Yes, by firing people who don't provide much value at this company they can go on and provide more value at other companies. It will make their lives tougher for a while, but redistributing labor can provide immense value. For example, lets say that a CEO over many hospitals cleaned up bureaucracy in them. This lead to increased efficiency, and now many people are just doing busywork and aren't really needed. The CEO then fires thousands of healthcare workers who can go on and work at other hospitals. This will drive down costs and help more people get the healthcare they need. His work is surely more important than the work of an individual healthcare worker.
  - nhaehnle 10y ago
    That is absolutely a flaw, but I don't think it kills the analogy. If you look at other attempts at building some kind of social credits system, e.g. karma or points on sites like Reddit, you'll notice that people often benefit from a similar kind of feedback loop and get outsize rewards. The point is that rather than trying to follow NIH syndrome and building a new system from scratch, repeating all the same mistakes, perhaps one could try to fix the existing system? Otherwise, the parallel social credits system will most likely either remain a parallel system with social stigma attached to it, or it will end up having the same problems as the already existing social credits system (i.e. money).
- rdtsc 10y ago
  I think it would be interesting if it is divorced from money and they'd be (ideally) impossibly to buy it with money. Maybe social credit could be used to run for office. Or it can be used to weight votes -- those with more social credit can cast 5 votes in elections. Think of a high ranking CEO and how maybe some airlines would invite them to fly for free just to get free advertising. Or might get invited to White House dinners and such. Maybe nurses, firefighters or teachers who achieved higher social credits would be treated the same way.
- kazagistar 10y ago
  Money interacts with rent, starts unfairly allocated, and largely maintains is imbalanced allocation due to how it discourages helping those with little in favor of those with plenty. The evidence is in social mobility rates. An allocated credit (for example), that could only be transferred once before going into artificial sinks, would function very differently, and encourage activities that help a much broader population.
rdtsc 10y ago
> But even "social credit" cannot prevent the paid workers to look down on the moochers on basic. That I believe is going to be a very divisive subject. Wasn't the 80's the years of the "welfare queen boogeyman" (or I guess "boogeywoman..."). It started around Reagan's times where they tried to paint welfare recipients as opportunists, lazy, downright criminal and how they were responsible for all possible waste and other evils. That will stratify the society into those who work and those who don't. I believe people will always have this competitive streak and will want things to be "fair". If they see someone not working and getting by and they are the ones working, they might antagonize them. > or should that be like "Achievements" in video games? And how do you avoid turning that into the Black Mirror episode "15 millions Merits". Ah interesting. Heh, it would be like karma here on HN or Reddit. Can't do much with it, but get access to more places perhaps. Can't buy food with it, but can influence the public discourse with it (can upvote, downvote more...). Yeah I like this idea (but I'd also have to watch Black Mirror).
JDiculous 10y ago
> how do you get people to accept the existence of basic income without perceiving the beneficiaries as moochers. Land value tax and Pigovian taxes. UBI would then be compensation for allowing others to monopolize our society's collective resources (eg. land). Every citizen is a shareholder, and UBI is a dividend.

by nico_h 10y ago

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

nhaehnle 10y ago

Well, we already have a form of "social credits". It's called money. We're just not used to thinking of it that way, but that's really what money is. So replace "social credits" in your line of thinking by money, and you've basically arrived at the idea of a Job Guarantee. And somebody who works for their money is no longer a moocher, so...

nico_h 10y ago
The flaw in this analogy is that the current top earners (CEO, traders, White collar) net contribution to society has no correlation with the money they extract from the system. Does a CEO improving his company market value by firing people have the same contribution to society as a paramedic saving a life, a nanny taking care of a baby so the parents can work or a teacher educating kids? These are highly valuable services provided to society that are not rewarded in either status or the current social credits.
- Pyxl101 10y ago
  > Does a CEO improving his company market value by firing people have the same contribution to society as a paramedic saving a life, a nanny taking care of a baby so the parents can work or a teacher educating kids? According to society's value system, as reflected by market pricing, I believe the answer is generally yes, the CEO is valued more. The CEO is valued more because their work affects the company they lead as a whole and the work of many other people at the company - such as by determining what to work on, what initiatives to invest in strategically, or by obtaining funding for the company from investors. Poor decisions by the CEO can cause the entire company to fail; good decisions can create 100x as many jobs at the company, and increase its value by 100x. It is more difficult for people to grasp the value of CEOs because their effect is spread out over a lot of people and abstract concepts like company success. It is easier to grasp the value of a nanny who spends time with your kids. But the fact that the nanny's work is much more concrete and obvious does not mean that it's more valuable. Consider: how much will you personally spend on a nanny? Would you spend 30-50% of your income on a fantastic nanny (the way that many people will spend that amount buying a house?) Most people don't value a nanny that much. For a comparison, think about the effect that a good or bad president will have on the entire US. They can make a tremendous difference to the lives of hundreds of millions of people. A good CEO can do the same for their company, and all of their workers and investors. A bad CEO can do the opposite, and run the company into the ground. Nannys and CEOs operate at entirely different scales. A CEO can destroy billions in value, or create billions in value. This is why companies and their boards and investors value good CEOs highly and pay them well. They want the best possible person for the job, and the best people demand high compensation. There are also factors of supply and demand to consider. Most adult humans are intrinsically equipped to be nannies - to care for children. We're evolved to do it. No specific qualifications are necessary beyond not being a shitty or unreliable person. By comparison, not many people are equipped to be an effective CEO of a large, medium, or even small company. Thus, nannies earn less because there is a large supply of people who can act as nannies (almost the entire adult population), and a substantially smaller supply of effective CEOs. They need intelligence, drive, education, charisma, leadership capability, experience, vision, and other qualities. Regarding your specific point about CEOs cutting jobs, sometimes that needs to happen. Lines of business don't always remain profitable. Sometimes a company needs to shut down unprofitable business units entirely, and exit the business. Sometimes a company needs to lay off workers and find a different approach to remain profitable. Sometimes a job that was done by humans before will be automated tomorrow. For example, the company Hostess that makes Twinkies used to employ 22,000 workers. The company went bankrupt, and people bought its ashes and restarted it. The new hostess now heavily takes advantage of automation and employs only 1,170 people. (1) A lot of people got laid off in that transition. The layoffs were also necessary for the company to continue at all; otherwise it would have gone under for good. They had a non-viable economic model for producing their baked goods. The leaders in charge of the transition took the only reasonable action (in hindsight) to prevent the company from cratering. (1) CEOs are the people in charge of making the best decision for their stakeholders in really tough circumstances. Sometimes layoffs are the best possible outcome among many worse outcomes. No CEO would prefer to lay off their people - it's a horrible thing to have to do - but when the company is in dire financial straights, sometimes there is no better alternative. (1) https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/business/wp/2016/07/05/what-it-took-to-save-the-twinkie/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/business/wp/2016/07/05/w...
- Klockan 10y ago
  > Does a CEO improving his company market value by firing people have the same contribution to society as a paramedic saving a life, a nanny taking care of a baby so the parents can work or a teacher educating kids? Yes, by firing people who don't provide much value at this company they can go on and provide more value at other companies. It will make their lives tougher for a while, but redistributing labor can provide immense value. For example, lets say that a CEO over many hospitals cleaned up bureaucracy in them. This lead to increased efficiency, and now many people are just doing busywork and aren't really needed. The CEO then fires thousands of healthcare workers who can go on and work at other hospitals. This will drive down costs and help more people get the healthcare they need. His work is surely more important than the work of an individual healthcare worker.
- nhaehnle 10y ago
  That is absolutely a flaw, but I don't think it kills the analogy. If you look at other attempts at building some kind of social credits system, e.g. karma or points on sites like Reddit, you'll notice that people often benefit from a similar kind of feedback loop and get outsize rewards. The point is that rather than trying to follow NIH syndrome and building a new system from scratch, repeating all the same mistakes, perhaps one could try to fix the existing system? Otherwise, the parallel social credits system will most likely either remain a parallel system with social stigma attached to it, or it will end up having the same problems as the already existing social credits system (i.e. money).
rdtsc 10y ago
I think it would be interesting if it is divorced from money and they'd be (ideally) impossibly to buy it with money. Maybe social credit could be used to run for office. Or it can be used to weight votes -- those with more social credit can cast 5 votes in elections. Think of a high ranking CEO and how maybe some airlines would invite them to fly for free just to get free advertising. Or might get invited to White House dinners and such. Maybe nurses, firefighters or teachers who achieved higher social credits would be treated the same way.
kazagistar 10y ago
Money interacts with rent, starts unfairly allocated, and largely maintains is imbalanced allocation due to how it discourages helping those with little in favor of those with plenty. The evidence is in social mobility rates. An allocated credit (for example), that could only be transferred once before going into artificial sinks, would function very differently, and encourage activities that help a much broader population.

rdtsc 10y ago

> But even "social credit" cannot prevent the paid workers to look down on the moochers on basic. That I believe is going to be a very divisive subject. Wasn't the 80's the years of the "welfare queen boogeyman" (or I guess "boogeywoman..."). It started around Reagan's times where they tried to paint welfare recipients as opportunists, lazy, downright criminal and how they were responsible for all possible waste and other evils. That will stratify the society into those who work and those who don't. I believe people will always have this competitive streak and will want things to be "fair". If they see someone not working and getting by and they are the ones working, they might antagonize them. > or should that be like "Achievements" in video games? And how do you avoid turning that into the Black Mirror episode "15 millions Merits". Ah interesting. Heh, it would be like karma here on HN or Reddit. Can't do much with it, but get access to more places perhaps. Can't buy food with it, but can influence the public discourse with it (can upvote, downvote more...). Yeah I like this idea (but I'd also have to watch Black Mirror).

JDiculous 10y ago

> how do you get people to accept the existence of basic income without perceiving the beneficiaries as moochers. Land value tax and Pigovian taxes. UBI would then be compensation for allowing others to monopolize our society's collective resources (eg. land). Every citizen is a shareholder, and UBI is a dividend.