5 ms·

While I agree that wrapping it in social stigma would help w/the numbers, it'd set a very bad precedent for the idea of basic income in general.

yummyfajitas 10y ago
Why? It seems like a great way to discourage people from consuming it unnecessarily while making sure no one actually suffers in dire poverty unnecessarily. In fact, this might be a good idea in general - sumptuary laws based on net payments to the government. Contributors to society would gain visible social status while those who are a net drain lose status but do not materially suffer. Of course, I doubt you could implement this in India. I'm pretty sure everyone will shamelessly take the money.
- clock_tower 10y ago
  That's an interesting idea, but sumptuary laws have a history of being widely evaded and hard to enforce; I'd refer you to Fernand Braudel's Structures of Everyday Life, dealing with European life in the 1500s-1700s.
  - yummyfajitas 10y ago
    You are probably right about enforceability. As a thought experiment one could imagine other enforceable variations, however - displaying on Facebook/Twitter/Tinder/etc whether you are a social benefactor or parasite, for example.
    - clock_tower 10y ago
      I'm sorry I'm being so relentlessly negative, but I'm skeptical of this approach too. There's the obvious Orwellian angle -- it sounds like you might be legally required to have an online presence tied to your real name and identity -- and if you stigmatize basic-income recipients as parasites, you'd risk generating the political will to repeal basic income entirely. (See also Bill Clinton, in a memorable only-China-can-go-to-Nixon moment, promising to "end welfare as we know it" in the 1990s.) I think it's better to just push through with the idea and accept the inefficiencies of everyone getting it -- once a given country has the tax base to pull it off.
- AnthonyMouse 10y ago
  > Why? It seems like a great way to discourage people from consuming it unnecessarily while making sure no one actually suffers in dire poverty unnecessarily. The problem is the entire principle only works because it's universal. Having lower or middle income people opt out of it would defeat the entire purpose of having it, and having upper income people opt out of it wouldn't save you very much money because they're not a large enough percentage of the population to make any real difference.
  - yummyfajitas 10y ago
    What does "work" mean to you? By "work", I mean that we solve poverty at a cost as low as possible. Having the BI consumed by non-poor people doesn't help that goal. Also, India is a low inequality country - Gini is comparable to France since everyone is equally poor. So preventing the middle class from consuming a BI would significantly reduce the cost.
    - AnthonyMouse 10y ago
      By "work" I mean you take some money from upper income people, give it to lower income people and by and large leave the middle class alone. Having the middle class pay $100 in tax and then receive $100 in UBI works perfectly well for that. Changing that so the middle class pays $75 in tax but receives no UBI is exactly how you bring about the sort of hollowing out of the middle class we've seen recently in the US. It makes the middle class pay for the subsidies to the poor so that wealthier people can pay lower taxes. And phasing out the UBI for middle class people so they don't have to pay the tax would imply having a UBI phase out rate that just substitutes for the equivalent tax rate, which is mathematically the same as having the higher tax rate and giving them the UBI, but is less transparent about what is actually happening.
      - yummyfajitas 10y ago
        Ok, I guess I don't really care about redistribution for it's own sake - I only care about fixing poverty. I guess that's why we disagree. Incidentally, your scheme wouldn't work so well in India. In India there are far fewer rich people (proportionately) than in the US. Europe needs to tax the middle class for much the same reason. If you want to have massive wealth redistribution that skips the middle class, the only way to make that viable is to increase inequality.

yummyfajitas 10y ago

Why? It seems like a great way to discourage people from consuming it unnecessarily while making sure no one actually suffers in dire poverty unnecessarily. In fact, this might be a good idea in general - sumptuary laws based on net payments to the government. Contributors to society would gain visible social status while those who are a net drain lose status but do not materially suffer. Of course, I doubt you could implement this in India. I'm pretty sure everyone will shamelessly take the money.

clock_tower 10y ago
That's an interesting idea, but sumptuary laws have a history of being widely evaded and hard to enforce; I'd refer you to Fernand Braudel's Structures of Everyday Life, dealing with European life in the 1500s-1700s.
- yummyfajitas 10y ago
  You are probably right about enforceability. As a thought experiment one could imagine other enforceable variations, however - displaying on Facebook/Twitter/Tinder/etc whether you are a social benefactor or parasite, for example.
  - clock_tower 10y ago
    I'm sorry I'm being so relentlessly negative, but I'm skeptical of this approach too. There's the obvious Orwellian angle -- it sounds like you might be legally required to have an online presence tied to your real name and identity -- and if you stigmatize basic-income recipients as parasites, you'd risk generating the political will to repeal basic income entirely. (See also Bill Clinton, in a memorable only-China-can-go-to-Nixon moment, promising to "end welfare as we know it" in the 1990s.) I think it's better to just push through with the idea and accept the inefficiencies of everyone getting it -- once a given country has the tax base to pull it off.
AnthonyMouse 10y ago
> Why? It seems like a great way to discourage people from consuming it unnecessarily while making sure no one actually suffers in dire poverty unnecessarily. The problem is the entire principle only works because it's universal. Having lower or middle income people opt out of it would defeat the entire purpose of having it, and having upper income people opt out of it wouldn't save you very much money because they're not a large enough percentage of the population to make any real difference.
- yummyfajitas 10y ago
  What does "work" mean to you? By "work", I mean that we solve poverty at a cost as low as possible. Having the BI consumed by non-poor people doesn't help that goal. Also, India is a low inequality country - Gini is comparable to France since everyone is equally poor. So preventing the middle class from consuming a BI would significantly reduce the cost.
  - AnthonyMouse 10y ago
    By "work" I mean you take some money from upper income people, give it to lower income people and by and large leave the middle class alone. Having the middle class pay $100 in tax and then receive $100 in UBI works perfectly well for that. Changing that so the middle class pays $75 in tax but receives no UBI is exactly how you bring about the sort of hollowing out of the middle class we've seen recently in the US. It makes the middle class pay for the subsidies to the poor so that wealthier people can pay lower taxes. And phasing out the UBI for middle class people so they don't have to pay the tax would imply having a UBI phase out rate that just substitutes for the equivalent tax rate, which is mathematically the same as having the higher tax rate and giving them the UBI, but is less transparent about what is actually happening.
    - yummyfajitas 10y ago
      Ok, I guess I don't really care about redistribution for it's own sake - I only care about fixing poverty. I guess that's why we disagree. Incidentally, your scheme wouldn't work so well in India. In India there are far fewer rich people (proportionately) than in the US. Europe needs to tax the middle class for much the same reason. If you want to have massive wealth redistribution that skips the middle class, the only way to make that viable is to increase inequality.