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UBI is attempting to cloak itself in free market rhetoric, but it's bullshit. Yes it may "incentivize" some individuals to work, but only by disincentivizing o

UBI is attempting to cloak itself in free market rhetoric, but it's bullshit. Yes it may "incentivize" some individuals to work, but only by disincentivizing others. It takes money from top wealth producers, discouraging their labor, and gives it to people who aren't producing as much wealth, effectively subsidizing unproductive work. This will make everyone poorer in the long run. The struggling artist meme is an appeal to emotion. The struggling artists and entrepreneurs are struggling for a reason -- the market does not want their goods or services! They should fail as quickly as possible, not continue to drag on producing things people don't want. I'll concede that the welfare state has perverse incentives which trap people in poverty, but there are better ways to address it other than doubling down on the mother of all wealth redistribution schemes.

_delirium 10y ago
> This will make everyone poorer in the long run. I think that's unlikely, though it depends on a lot of factors (UBI is a pretty general concept, and the specific implementation and numbers matter). It may reduce aggregate GDP, but that's not the same as making everyone poorer, since distribution matters when determining that. If, to take an exaggerated example, the top 10% of earners have their income multiplied by 10x and everyone else's goes down by 5%, "everyone has gotten richer" according to some kind of aggregate metric, but in reality 90% of actual people have gotten poorer. Most economists no longer believe that these kinds of situations are automatically self-correcting through "trickle-down economics", in which just getting out of the way of wealth-creation at the top inevitably lifts all boats.
- jayjay71 10y ago
  > Most economists no longer believe that these kinds of situations are automatically self-correcting through "trickle-down economics", in which just getting out of the way of wealth-creation at the top inevitably lifts all boats. I'm not trying to be argumentative, but did many economists ever take this idea seriously? I always thought trickle-down economics was just political rhetoric.
nickthemagicman 10y ago
You're right about the wealth producers! We need a 100% inheritance tax! That way the wealth isn't going to people who didn't produce it! Then you redistribute that money to schools and training programs and small businesses to give opportunities to anyone to become a wealth producer! This improves the entire human race and not just the rich trust fund babies who haven't produced anything in their lives. I'm totally with you on this.
- pyrophane 10y ago
  Your comment makes an excellent point. If our economy really was organized around incentivizing production, there are many things we could do to that end. In addition to a 100% inheritance tax, we could also surely implement policies that discouraged most types of rent-seeking and the passive growth of wealth that has allowed the richest in our country to become even richer without having to produce anything.
  - AnthonyMouse 10y ago
    Except that an inheritance tax creates a large disincentive for people with children to create wealth, when passing that wealth on to their progeny is their motivation for creating it.
  - fleetingmoments 10y ago
    Like being an absentee landlord. If owning and renting out property you do not live at and are only collecting passive income from was made illegal, way more people would be able to afford housing and it would solve a lot of equality issues. The whole practice is literal rent-seeking and only concentrates capital in the hands of a small minority.
- vixen99 10y ago
  Presumably the 100% inheritance tax includes all assets including property. This is a recipe for violent revolution with a dystopian outcome as history tells us.
ramshorns 10y ago
What are the better ways to address the perverse incentives that trap people in poverty? Also, do you think the current distribution of incomes is proportional to how much wealth is produced? Does an executive who makes a hundred times as much as a skilled worker work a hundred times harder, or produce a hundred times as much value for people, in some measurable way?
amelius 10y ago
> the market does not want their goods or services! They should fail as quickly as possible, not continue to drag on producing things people don't want. You are forgetting about what the artist wants.
mempko 10y ago
Interesting, you are saying getting money from doing nothing disincentivizes. You mean like through any multiplicative process like investing and interest bearing processes? So you only support additive income? I'm with you! let's get rid of multiplicative income and we solve the wealth distribution problem. You can only make 14 thousand times the average man if you work 14 thousand times harder.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
lotharbot 10y ago
> "attempting to cloak itself in free market rhetoric" ... Friedman and Hayek both advocated for a UBI. http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/08/why-arent-reformicons-pushing-a-guaranteed-basic-income/375600/ http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/08/why-aren...
- protomyth 10y ago
  from the article you cited: Milton Friedman advocated a minimum guaranteed income via a “negative income tax.” Minimum guaranteed income is different than basic income.
  - lg 10y ago
    ... which also disincentivizes work more than UBI, because why work a low-wage job for that minimum income when you can get it for nothing instead? whereas with UBI it's always in addition.
    - protomyth 10y ago
      I would have to see something backing that up since unpaid internships would not be just the province of the well off and employers would have some incentive to raise wages where I don't think UBI would do that. You also assume for every $ I get from work would be deducted from my payment which isn't true for a lot of negative income tax schemes.
vessenes 10y ago
I make well above the basic income, so I presume most UBIs would be a net cost to me. However, I cannot imagine that a UBI-related tax would in any way disincentivize me from working, especially if it's applied across incomes. In fact, even for someone like me, I think the UBI would provide just a bit more emotional security -- knowledge that if a job or investment risk I took didn't pay out, there would still be food and housing for my family. In direct contravention of your story about artists, I recommend you read this article by Ann Bauer about how being rich is nearly necessary to make it as a novelist: http://www.salon.com/2015/01/25/sponsored_by_my_husband_why_its_a_problem_that_writers_never_talk_about_where_their_money_comes_from/ http://www.salon.com/2015/01/25/sponsored_by_my_husband_why_... Going from anecdotes, it is at least as easy to imagine a future in which better art and writing are created than can be created now as lifestyle security is extended to more creative people.
edblarney 10y ago
"UBI is attempting to cloak itself in free market rhetoric, but it's bullshit." I'm not a fan of UBI - but it's not 'bullshit' in the manner it's presented. UBI is really a 'negative income tax' - and it was first proposed by 'Milton Freeman' - a super-duper free market capitalist. If you take progressive taxation, then make the lower ends negative - you have UBI. The concept came from economists - not socialists. But yes - it is being promoted as 'yet another form of redistribution' - but it is in many ways more economically sensible than some other ideas.
- lgas 10y ago
  Milton *Friedman
  - edblarney 10y ago
    Whoops. Yes. Of course. 'Milton Freeman' would be 'God's Voice of Economics' :) :)
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
planck01 10y ago
I am not sure if basic income works. But I am certain that assuming everyone is lazy and won't want to work if they don't strictly need to for survival is not how people work. Market-oriented thinking seems to assume this. But I think that most people want to have a purposeful life and achieve things. I do expect it will influence the number of bullshit jobs that exist to keep people at work. And it might influence the lowest income and most mechanical types of work. Which is fine if we can automate and mechanize those. But I don't expect a lot of effect on more intellectual work.

_delirium 10y ago

> This will make everyone poorer in the long run. I think that's unlikely, though it depends on a lot of factors (UBI is a pretty general concept, and the specific implementation and numbers matter). It may reduce aggregate GDP, but that's not the same as making everyone poorer, since distribution matters when determining that. If, to take an exaggerated example, the top 10% of earners have their income multiplied by 10x and everyone else's goes down by 5%, "everyone has gotten richer" according to some kind of aggregate metric, but in reality 90% of actual people have gotten poorer. Most economists no longer believe that these kinds of situations are automatically self-correcting through "trickle-down economics", in which just getting out of the way of wealth-creation at the top inevitably lifts all boats.

jayjay71 10y ago
> Most economists no longer believe that these kinds of situations are automatically self-correcting through "trickle-down economics", in which just getting out of the way of wealth-creation at the top inevitably lifts all boats. I'm not trying to be argumentative, but did many economists ever take this idea seriously? I always thought trickle-down economics was just political rhetoric.

nickthemagicman 10y ago

You're right about the wealth producers! We need a 100% inheritance tax! That way the wealth isn't going to people who didn't produce it! Then you redistribute that money to schools and training programs and small businesses to give opportunities to anyone to become a wealth producer! This improves the entire human race and not just the rich trust fund babies who haven't produced anything in their lives. I'm totally with you on this.

pyrophane 10y ago
Your comment makes an excellent point. If our economy really was organized around incentivizing production, there are many things we could do to that end. In addition to a 100% inheritance tax, we could also surely implement policies that discouraged most types of rent-seeking and the passive growth of wealth that has allowed the richest in our country to become even richer without having to produce anything.
- AnthonyMouse 10y ago
  Except that an inheritance tax creates a large disincentive for people with children to create wealth, when passing that wealth on to their progeny is their motivation for creating it.
- fleetingmoments 10y ago
  Like being an absentee landlord. If owning and renting out property you do not live at and are only collecting passive income from was made illegal, way more people would be able to afford housing and it would solve a lot of equality issues. The whole practice is literal rent-seeking and only concentrates capital in the hands of a small minority.
vixen99 10y ago
Presumably the 100% inheritance tax includes all assets including property. This is a recipe for violent revolution with a dystopian outcome as history tells us.

ramshorns 10y ago

What are the better ways to address the perverse incentives that trap people in poverty? Also, do you think the current distribution of incomes is proportional to how much wealth is produced? Does an executive who makes a hundred times as much as a skilled worker work a hundred times harder, or produce a hundred times as much value for people, in some measurable way?

amelius 10y ago

> the market does not want their goods or services! They should fail as quickly as possible, not continue to drag on producing things people don't want. You are forgetting about what the artist wants.

mempko 10y ago

Interesting, you are saying getting money from doing nothing disincentivizes. You mean like through any multiplicative process like investing and interest bearing processes? So you only support additive income? I'm with you! let's get rid of multiplicative income and we solve the wealth distribution problem. You can only make 14 thousand times the average man if you work 14 thousand times harder.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

lotharbot 10y ago

> "attempting to cloak itself in free market rhetoric" ... Friedman and Hayek both advocated for a UBI. http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/08/why-arent-reformicons-pushing-a-guaranteed-basic-income/375600/ http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/08/why-aren...

protomyth 10y ago
from the article you cited: Milton Friedman advocated a minimum guaranteed income via a “negative income tax.” Minimum guaranteed income is different than basic income.
- lg 10y ago
  ... which also disincentivizes work more than UBI, because why work a low-wage job for that minimum income when you can get it for nothing instead? whereas with UBI it's always in addition.
  - protomyth 10y ago
    I would have to see something backing that up since unpaid internships would not be just the province of the well off and employers would have some incentive to raise wages where I don't think UBI would do that. You also assume for every $ I get from work would be deducted from my payment which isn't true for a lot of negative income tax schemes.

vessenes 10y ago

I make well above the basic income, so I presume most UBIs would be a net cost to me. However, I cannot imagine that a UBI-related tax would in any way disincentivize me from working, especially if it's applied across incomes. In fact, even for someone like me, I think the UBI would provide just a bit more emotional security -- knowledge that if a job or investment risk I took didn't pay out, there would still be food and housing for my family. In direct contravention of your story about artists, I recommend you read this article by Ann Bauer about how being rich is nearly necessary to make it as a novelist: http://www.salon.com/2015/01/25/sponsored_by_my_husband_why_its_a_problem_that_writers_never_talk_about_where_their_money_comes_from/ http://www.salon.com/2015/01/25/sponsored_by_my_husband_why_... Going from anecdotes, it is at least as easy to imagine a future in which better art and writing are created than can be created now as lifestyle security is extended to more creative people.

edblarney 10y ago

"UBI is attempting to cloak itself in free market rhetoric, but it's bullshit." I'm not a fan of UBI - but it's not 'bullshit' in the manner it's presented. UBI is really a 'negative income tax' - and it was first proposed by 'Milton Freeman' - a super-duper free market capitalist. If you take progressive taxation, then make the lower ends negative - you have UBI. The concept came from economists - not socialists. But yes - it is being promoted as 'yet another form of redistribution' - but it is in many ways more economically sensible than some other ideas.

lgas 10y ago
Milton *Friedman
- edblarney 10y ago
  Whoops. Yes. Of course. 'Milton Freeman' would be 'God's Voice of Economics' :) :)
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

planck01 10y ago

I am not sure if basic income works. But I am certain that assuming everyone is lazy and won't want to work if they don't strictly need to for survival is not how people work. Market-oriented thinking seems to assume this. But I think that most people want to have a purposeful life and achieve things. I do expect it will influence the number of bullshit jobs that exist to keep people at work. And it might influence the lowest income and most mechanical types of work. Which is fine if we can automate and mechanize those. But I don't expect a lot of effect on more intellectual work.