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I don't think redefining full time to be so few hours would work in this country, nor actually solve the problem, it'd just make most people broke and forced to

I don't think redefining full time to be so few hours would work in this country, nor actually solve the problem, it'd just make most people broke and forced to seek out multiple jobs to survive. Yes, money distribution can affect particular markets where the redistribution increases spending but that's not inflation, inflation is a general rise is all prices, not a rise in a particular sector and BI is a far better longer term solution to the real issue, that life doesn't need to be and long term cannot be dependent on the selling of labor in an age of automation. We need to move beyond the puritan work ethic to something more appropriate for the world that's coming.

mindslight 10y ago
> it'd just make most people broke and forced to seek out multiple jobs to survive So then change the full time number to be summed over all jobs. It's a cooperation problem where it is in nobody's individual interest to work less (since the marginal utility of surplus over your peer group is extreme), but yet everybody competing for this results in all the surplus thrown onto the bonfire of financialization. And yes as I said, 15 hours is a drastic change from 40. Because the point is that this should have been happening gradually the whole time. I personally would have preferred it to happen through sane monetary policy rather than government diktat, but either way we should all be working much less. > We need to move beyond the puritan work ethic to something more appropriate for the world that's coming. I wholeheartedly agree on this point. But the implementation we're looking for is not BI. The idea of BI deprecates the idea of having an economy (ie p2p transactions), and replaces it with widespread monthly funding from the government. This will necessarily come with strings attached, inevitably becoming a highly politicized way of dictating individuals' life choices. We already have something quite similar to BI, called welfare/medicaid, which brings no end to hassling its recipients. I believe that BI proponents would say that the aim of BI is to simplify these systems, but this is not a stable state. It is trying to reverse up the gradient of why politicians generate complexity (finding divisive bikeshed issues so people can be led).
- gnaritas 10y ago
  You're missing something, it doesn't matter how you split the remaining work, the gains from the productivity increases of automation aren't going to the workers regardless of how you muck with their hours; those gains go to the business owners. Splitting up the remaining work to make sure everyone has work only makes sure everyone is poor, they still don't get to keep wealth created by the automation so it's a pointless thing to try and spread the work around. The goal is not to keep everyone working, the goal is to share the benefits of automation with everyone, not just the capitalist class. BI does this, your solution does not. Unless you tax automation heavily and redistribute it, workers lose no matter how you slice and dice the hours. It's not enough to work less, you have to work less while not making less and that's simply not in the cards. > The idea of BI deprecates the idea of having an economy (ie p2p transactions), and replaces it with widespread monthly funding from the government. Simply not remotely true. Spending money you get from the government is still spending money. Redistributing money from the top to the bottom via BI in no way deprecates the idea of having an economy, it simply depreciates the idea the the economy is based entirely on wage slavery. > This will necessarily come with strings attached, inevitably becoming a highly politicized way of dictating individuals' life choices. Also not true, anything with strings isn't BI; the whole point of BI is that everyone gets it without restriction in order to eliminate bureaucracy and thus strings. If it has strings, it isn't BI. > We already have something quite similar to BI, called welfare/medicaid Neither of those are remotely similar to BI. > which brings no end to hassling its recipients Precisely because they aren't remotely similar to BI and force people to qualify for them; they're exactly what BI is intended to fix, all the hassles and stigma that come with those programs and the shit you have to go through to get them. Frankly, you leave me thinking you really don't know what BI is, or don't understand it.
  - mindslight 10y ago
    I'm not missing this, and in fact it ties right in to my core point. Wages are due to an equilibrium. The supply side of that equilibrium is dependent on how much the workers need the money. Any individual has a rough idea of how long they can comfortably go without income ("runway"). While this is modulated with how in-demand their industry is (especially apparent today in our hollowed-out hand-to-mouth society), the core of their power is how much of a buffer they have saved. If a person has no runway, they are forced to be constantly worried about losing their current job, whereas if they have a large enough runway they have the ability to quit on the spot and worry about their next job later. This power relation effects every single negotiation, from salary to benefits to day-to-day working conditions. Thus my assertion is that the real problem is that people have no savings. This gives them no economic power, and thus terrible negotiating power. This is due to an economic policy that prevents savings by the lower classes, especially liquid savings, and turns their life's accounting into one of debt and monthly rents. This further destroys their negotiating power (they don't have $0 to their name, but actually -$10k), and channels any of their surplus upwards to the parasitic banking industry through monetary rent. > it simply depreciates the idea the the economy is based entirely on wage slavery. Sure it gets rid of that specific slavery, but it does not get rid of the wage nor the reliance on it. The real mass frustration is due to a lack of opportunity and self-determination, for which signing up for low-paperwork welfare will increase. Reliance on the continued existence of a government program is going to make many people (rightfully) uneasy, because... > If it has strings, it isn't BI. This is like saying that we've never achieved true capitalism or true communism. In the real world, individuals have their own incentives. The incentives of politicians and "news" media is to play on people's prejudices to divide them into groups so they can be led, creating power for the leaders. Even if we were to start off with a perfect BI program on day 0, it is only a matter of time until some group demands preferential treatment for themselves, or protests what they see as preferential treatment for others. The subject of having kids is fertile ground for this - if BI is truly uniform, this means that having a kid gets you immediately double the BI, and if it only starts at 18 that means you now have more to support. Either way (or even with a "ramp" compromise), this is but one of the clear contention points that will be endlessly politicized.

mindslight 10y ago

> it'd just make most people broke and forced to seek out multiple jobs to survive So then change the full time number to be summed over all jobs. It's a cooperation problem where it is in nobody's individual interest to work less (since the marginal utility of surplus over your peer group is extreme), but yet everybody competing for this results in all the surplus thrown onto the bonfire of financialization. And yes as I said, 15 hours is a drastic change from 40. Because the point is that this should have been happening gradually the whole time. I personally would have preferred it to happen through sane monetary policy rather than government diktat, but either way we should all be working much less. > We need to move beyond the puritan work ethic to something more appropriate for the world that's coming. I wholeheartedly agree on this point. But the implementation we're looking for is not BI. The idea of BI deprecates the idea of having an economy (ie p2p transactions), and replaces it with widespread monthly funding from the government. This will necessarily come with strings attached, inevitably becoming a highly politicized way of dictating individuals' life choices. We already have something quite similar to BI, called welfare/medicaid, which brings no end to hassling its recipients. I believe that BI proponents would say that the aim of BI is to simplify these systems, but this is not a stable state. It is trying to reverse up the gradient of why politicians generate complexity (finding divisive bikeshed issues so people can be led).

gnaritas 10y ago
You're missing something, it doesn't matter how you split the remaining work, the gains from the productivity increases of automation aren't going to the workers regardless of how you muck with their hours; those gains go to the business owners. Splitting up the remaining work to make sure everyone has work only makes sure everyone is poor, they still don't get to keep wealth created by the automation so it's a pointless thing to try and spread the work around. The goal is not to keep everyone working, the goal is to share the benefits of automation with everyone, not just the capitalist class. BI does this, your solution does not. Unless you tax automation heavily and redistribute it, workers lose no matter how you slice and dice the hours. It's not enough to work less, you have to work less while not making less and that's simply not in the cards. > The idea of BI deprecates the idea of having an economy (ie p2p transactions), and replaces it with widespread monthly funding from the government. Simply not remotely true. Spending money you get from the government is still spending money. Redistributing money from the top to the bottom via BI in no way deprecates the idea of having an economy, it simply depreciates the idea the the economy is based entirely on wage slavery. > This will necessarily come with strings attached, inevitably becoming a highly politicized way of dictating individuals' life choices. Also not true, anything with strings isn't BI; the whole point of BI is that everyone gets it without restriction in order to eliminate bureaucracy and thus strings. If it has strings, it isn't BI. > We already have something quite similar to BI, called welfare/medicaid Neither of those are remotely similar to BI. > which brings no end to hassling its recipients Precisely because they aren't remotely similar to BI and force people to qualify for them; they're exactly what BI is intended to fix, all the hassles and stigma that come with those programs and the shit you have to go through to get them. Frankly, you leave me thinking you really don't know what BI is, or don't understand it.
- mindslight 10y ago
  I'm not missing this, and in fact it ties right in to my core point. Wages are due to an equilibrium. The supply side of that equilibrium is dependent on how much the workers need the money. Any individual has a rough idea of how long they can comfortably go without income ("runway"). While this is modulated with how in-demand their industry is (especially apparent today in our hollowed-out hand-to-mouth society), the core of their power is how much of a buffer they have saved. If a person has no runway, they are forced to be constantly worried about losing their current job, whereas if they have a large enough runway they have the ability to quit on the spot and worry about their next job later. This power relation effects every single negotiation, from salary to benefits to day-to-day working conditions. Thus my assertion is that the real problem is that people have no savings. This gives them no economic power, and thus terrible negotiating power. This is due to an economic policy that prevents savings by the lower classes, especially liquid savings, and turns their life's accounting into one of debt and monthly rents. This further destroys their negotiating power (they don't have $0 to their name, but actually -$10k), and channels any of their surplus upwards to the parasitic banking industry through monetary rent. > it simply depreciates the idea the the economy is based entirely on wage slavery. Sure it gets rid of that specific slavery, but it does not get rid of the wage nor the reliance on it. The real mass frustration is due to a lack of opportunity and self-determination, for which signing up for low-paperwork welfare will increase. Reliance on the continued existence of a government program is going to make many people (rightfully) uneasy, because... > If it has strings, it isn't BI. This is like saying that we've never achieved true capitalism or true communism. In the real world, individuals have their own incentives. The incentives of politicians and "news" media is to play on people's prejudices to divide them into groups so they can be led, creating power for the leaders. Even if we were to start off with a perfect BI program on day 0, it is only a matter of time until some group demands preferential treatment for themselves, or protests what they see as preferential treatment for others. The subject of having kids is fertile ground for this - if BI is truly uniform, this means that having a kid gets you immediately double the BI, and if it only starts at 18 that means you now have more to support. Either way (or even with a "ramp" compromise), this is but one of the clear contention points that will be endlessly politicized.