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>>>Basic income guarantees you a monthly starting salary above the poverty line for the rest of your life If the poverty line stayed constant, basic income is
by omilu 10y ago
>>>Basic income guarantees you a monthly starting salary above the poverty line for the rest of your life
If the poverty line stayed constant, basic income is a no-brainer. But basic income makes the cost of goods rise. Demand for goods increases, but supply diminishes. Nobody will do the crap jobs without higher pay, raising the price of everything. Basic income is impossible.
- Tepix 10y agoWhat about machines doing most of the jobs so there are only a few jobs left? The value the machines generate would be enough to generate the basic income. Why is it impossible?
- omilu 10y agoIf machines could be doing most of the jobs, they would be doing them regardless of basic income.
- thephyber 10y agoMachines cost money to develop and buy. They will only replace a class of worker/task once the value exists. It's very expensive to develop a machine that can replace sewing workers (DARPA is working on one because the US military has a need for it). It hasn't yet created any value because fabric is ridiculously complicated for robots but comparatively very easy for humans to manipulate). So far, the sewing robot is neither very useful nor very valuable (since it is still orders of magnitudes more expensive than fabric workers). If low-paying work is less desirable than it is now, companies will have to deal with the game theory reactions of how consumers react to there being a shortage of fast food workers, bus boys, valets, etc. There is a certain amount of slack that consumers will absorb, either in resources (time, money, effort) expended. IKEA makes you bus your own tables like a cafeteria. I imagine if bus boys and fast food workers suddenly became more rare / expensive, companies would ask their customers to inconvenience themselves to maintain their profit margins / economic viability.
- lisivka 10y agoSo, I, programmer, will be forced to work 12 hours per day to keep robots firmware up to date, while everybody else will enjoy free ride? Sorry, it will not work: I will chose free ride too. Why not just decrease number of working hours to say 2 per day, but for everybody, instead?
- Dolores12 10y agoIf basic income is good enough for you, you may stop working. Some people need more than basic income.
- aianus 10y ago> Sorry, it will not work: I will chose free ride too. Maybe you would, but I think most people would rather have a job and be fabulously wealthy relative to those surviving on UBI alone. See: all the people who work 60h a week in SF making $200k instead of chilling at a bank working 35h for $80k.
- lisivka 10y agoPolitics will tell people that they will raise basic income to win election. To raise income, they will raise taxes, so I will work 80h for $20K instead of $200K. It's not a joke: post-USSR countries already have exactly this problem.
- aianus 10y agoI don't think any countries have successfully automated most of their economies yet so it's apples and oranges.
- snarf21 10y agoI think that is what they meant. When machines make all things so that they are basically free, then it might work. Until then, doing UBI would cause supply shortages and higher prices.
- cocoa19 10y agoIt's difficult with a free market. If income goes up for everyone, people can spend more on basic necessities. Robot owners will make prices higher to maximize profit. A few solutions: 1)Have the government set prices for basic necessities. 2)The government owns companies that produce basic necessities. 3)Replace capitalism. All the solutions above have its drawbacks.
- ragebol 10y agoBut those increasing prices for robot labor are (partially) fed into the basic income, so UBI receivers will have more to spend. There is a cycle and how quickly it cycles will be determined by how quick the various parts move. Not all robot owners will increase their prices just as fast and people will not buy from the overtly expensive sellers. Similar to the economic cycle we already have. I certainly don't have an economics degree though.
- maxerickson 10y agoIf we are literally at 100% robot labor, a basic income could be a resource dividend. Basically, the argument for really strong property rights is that it encourages utilization of resources (and thus makes them broadly available to the economy). With 100% robot labor, utilization of a resource is purely a political decision. The idea that we should give outsize rewards to historical incumbents for their historical incumbency becomes sort of silly.
- nickthemagicman 10y agoCapitalism is going away, no matter what, once we have massive unemployment due to automation. You think people are just going to accept starvation? Shit will get real, real fast. And most people aren't as articulate or reasonable as the people on this site. There will be massive violence. A better way to look at UBI is that it's not about giving poor people money. Its about keeping the fabric of society together and preventing revolutions once automation hits fully.
- tomp 10y agoWhen robots can produce most of the necessary life goods (food, energy, clothing and other manufacturing, medicine), one of the following will happen: (1) robots will be more expensive than humans, and nothing will change (unlikely), (2) there will be a monopoly on robot labour, resulting in an increase of inequality and eventually war (semi-likely), (3) there will be a competition on robot labour, resulting in a sharp fall of prices for basic goods (likely), (4) governments buying (some) robot labour and offering the goods to citizens for free (likely).
- ramshorns 10y ago(3) and (4) would be nice, but (2) can happen with an oligopoly as well as with a monopoly. Working machines are already owned or controlled by a small number of companies.
- jganetsk 10y agoClaims are misleading, wrong, and unsupported. > Demand for goods increases. Citation needed. Demand for some goods will possibly decrease: like payday loans or bankruptcy law. Demand for luxury goods won't change at all: yachts, private jets. But even the demand for Big Macs probably won't change all that much. Apply the same exercise to a bunch of other sundry cases: buying a house, life-saving medication, buying a smartphone. You will quickly realize that you cannot categorically state that "demand for goods increases". And more precisely, it is almost impossible to demonstrate that demand will increase the same amount for all kinds of goods. You really need to investigate how much demand will increase for each particular kind of good. > Supply diminishes. Citation needed. One thing for which supply will likely diminish: consumer debt assets. Since presumably the introduction of basic income will lead to a decrease in consumer debt. But "goods" in general? What basis do you have for saying this? > Nobody will do the crap jobs without higher pay, raising the price of everything. Citation needed. Business owners are very interested in replacing crap jobs with automation. Also, in general, the crappiest jobs today are done by illegal immigrants, who presumably wouldn't be receiving basic income in the future.
- DougN7 10y agoMore people buying stuff increases demand - econ 101. If more people aren't buying stuff, why bother giving them the money? Of course prices will rise. The only way this isn't equivalent to the government printing money is the money comes out some rich people/company's savings accounts where it wasn't being spent anyway.
- jbmorgado 10y agoWe are taking about "basic" needs here. All your argument then must imply that UBI or NOT UBI, "basic needs" must be denied to part of the population or else they get too expensive. And as almost all will agree, that's not only logically wrong, it's also morally wrong.
- srssays 10y agoEverybody understands that UBI is a solution to meeting "basic" needs, the contentious part is the "universal". I don't need basic income. If I received free money that I don't need, I might decide to double my cheese consumption. If many people like me do this, then the price of cheese will go up, hurting poor people.
- Qantourisc 10y agoMany civilized countries have some form of basic income, but not directly. As soon as we are supporting people, rent, food, we are providing some sort of basic income. An income that is probably to low, which they can get away with because it's not expressed in €.