8 ms·

It is no surprise to see many Swiss vocally supporting the 'Grundeinkommen' - which is a basic income for everyone. In the age of corporate greed (move the jobs

It is no surprise to see many Swiss vocally supporting the 'Grundeinkommen' - which is a basic income for everyone. In the age of corporate greed (move the jobs to cheaper locations) and automation (bring in the robots) Switzerland, like every country, will have to ask itself 'what do humans do'. The basic income is the solution in my opinion. Let all citizens live to a basic level, but not too good a level that the incentive to innovate or do more is gone. The basic income will, in my opinion, lead to a more entrepreneurial society where risk takers are supported - and also a more socially responsible and caring society, where people can donate their time to help others.

rumcajz 10y ago
The interesting part is that in CH, unlike in other democracies, if people will vote for it, it will be implemented. In the last referendum about UBI the proposal had ~23% support. And if the automation advances, that number may raise quickly.
- folli 10y ago
  Could you really call it a democracy otherwise?
  - tallowen 10y ago
    Switzerland has a much more direct democracy than most (all?) other democracies. This means citizens often vote on things similar to ballot initiatives in the US. In the context of basic income it means such a populist policy would be have different political barriers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_democracy#Switzerland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_democracy#Switzerland
    - pif 10y ago
      > Switzerland has a much more direct democracy than most (all?) other democracies. Just for the record, that's not as wonderful as it may seem at a first look. Direct democracy has shown its limits some times during the last year. The fundamental issues being that you can only vote yes or no for a fixed text, while a law is usually supposed to be discussed in a parliament in every detail until an agreement can be found.
      - lukebuehler 10y ago
        As far as I know, a referendum can take two forms: either it's the final text or it simply is a mandate to create a law with certain parameters, the lawmakers can then decide on the exact wording.
        ahakki 10y ago
        There are two kinds: 1. An addition to the constitution. The parlament then has to implement that into law. 2. A referendum on a law that has been passed by parlament. This allows the citizens to revert a parlamentary decision. There is no way to vote on a new law directly. However you can get close by just having a very detailed constitutional change that doesn't leave a lot of options for implementation open.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - aioprisan 10y ago
    Most democracies are simply democratic republics (i.e. the US), where only a small subset of the population can actually directly voice a choice on issues (i.e. see California's frequent ballot initiatives).
- JumpCrisscross 10y ago
  The proposal likely failed because it was too ambitious. The 2,500 Swiss franc a month level would have required doubling or tripling the federal budget.
germinalphrase 10y ago
I've heard a counter argument that basic income (and gov't funded social welfare, more generally) may actually reduce the amount of time/effort/money people personally expend on volunteerism/philanthropy. The thinking is that the existence of extensive gov't social welfare programs make people feel as if they have contributed (via taxes) and this reduce their personal responsibility to work on behalf of the less fortunate. Likewise, it undermines their empathy for the less fortunate because "well, they already receive welfare - so if they remain poor it must be because they [are lazy/addicted to drugs/antisocial/etc.]". I don't know if I agree with this argument; however, the cultural ramifications of BIG are certainly an important question to wrestle with. Edit: clarification - the argument is that this belief ("I've done my part") is extended because BIG covers all sources of welfare rather than targeted toward specific populations or purposes (children, mothers, food, etc). When everyone receives social welfare payments (rather than just specific kinds of people) it more fully extends the "I've done my part" feeling to the larger population (rather than specific slices of the population) and reduces overall charitable action.
- icen 10y ago
  This is a strange argument, because all of that rhetoric is status quo - people do argue (or argue via proxy; the words are different, but the substantive claims are the same) that people already receive enough. If that's the problem with universal basic income, then the only change is that such vulnerable people end up with more money, which must be a good thing.
  - cmdrfred 10y ago
    I suspect basic income would lead to an increase in inflation in the current environment. Wouldn't many people continue to work having received their stipend in order to obtain a higher standard of living than previously possible? (I know I would) Then wouldn't it follow that inflation would then take place all but entirely removing the utility of the basic income? In my opinion the jury is still out in regards to actually increasing standards of living over decade long time frames. It is entirely possible that it harms vulnerable people more than it aids them. More data is needed.
ythn 10y ago
> Let all citizens live to a basic level, but not too good a level that the incentive to innovate or do more is gone. The basic income will, in my opinion, lead to a more entrepreneurial society where risk takers are supported - and also a more socially responsible and caring society, where people can donate their time to help others. You can never eliminate the poverty line. You can only shift it. Poverty in the 1400s meant you lived in squalor with no utilities and no sanitization and very few public services. Poverty in 2017 means (for the most part) you have a small or shared condo with running water, electricity, refrigerator, television, smartphone, access to lots of public services (libraries, parks, hospitals, etc) and more. The poor people of today have it better than kings of old, but very few people hold that perspective. Under UBI poverty will just get shifted to the new standard, but people will only be temporarily happier with their new standard of living. The next generation will be discontented with their standard of living. People will complain that UBI isn't enough to live on, etc. How is the end game not communism? Who gets to say: "stop complaining, UBI is enough for you." Won't it be more tempting for the politicians to say: "You're right, this is outrageous! The rich have oppressed you enough, we need to tax them more to raise your UBI."
- woofyman 10y ago
  I'm pretty sure the kings of old didn't go hungry. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunger_in_the_United_States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunger_in_the_United_States
  - ythn 10y ago
    Obviously there are going to be pros and cons. Sure, a percentage of the poor today are sometimes hungry. But very few are starving. Maybe I'm alone, but I would rather be a poor person in 2017 than a rich person in the 1400s. The internet itself is enough of a benefit for me.
    - cr0sh 10y ago
      > I would rather be a poor person in 2017 than a rich person in the 1400s. For myself - that would a be a tough choice. There were still things that wealthy people back then (especially the ruling class) could command that ordinary people - even wealthy ones - of today can't touch. The amount of land and property owned, and in the case of the ruling class the ability to raise and have "armies", as well as how laws and such applied...all skew toward them. Granted, there are many, many things of today that people of the 1400s could only dream about, if even that. Our technology, our medicine, our easy access to food...all of that and more would have been impossible for even the ruling class of the 1400s to access. But again - there were things they could access that only governments of today, or the extremely wealthy (billionaires - but even there are limits) can access today. Not only what I've mentioned, but also political and other circles (people, money, laws, etc) - that the ordinary person of today have no access to - they didn't then, nor now.
saiya-jin 10y ago
greed is part of mankind since ever, and it's not going anywhere, like it or not. you have your opinions, and I respectfully disagree with them. swiss voters apparently consider it a pipe dream too, based on results of referendum on UBI
wslh 10y ago
I think we should also move to something in the spirit of "basic startup funding". In a way this is an extension of the microcredits idea.
misja111 10y ago
The Swiss unemployment rate, around 3.5%, is one of the lowest in Europe. So at this point it doesn't look like too many humans are without a job after having been replaced by robots. Could it be that just like with the industrial revolution, old jobs are being replaced with new ones? In that case there is no need for a basic income.
- valuearb 10y ago
  Old jobs are always replaced by new (and usually better ones). The history of the last 200 years has been the massive slaughter of old jobs and replacement by much higher paying and safer new jobs. In US history in from the 1800s we transitioned from 95% brutally hard and dangerous farm labor to less than 5% of the population mechanically farming. Original manufacturing was all by hand, now it's constantly machine aided. Another trend is we simply don't work as much. The age of the robots may be that we start working 24 hours a week for more money (and still bitching about going back to work on mondays)
  - coldtea 10y ago
    >Old jobs are always replaced by new (and usually better ones). No, that's just what happened a few times in the past. Not some natural law. The previous times farming jobs got replaced by factory jobs (which were enough because of a huge increase in the manufactoring sector) and when those dwindled by robots and more efficient factories, they got replaced by the services industry. This time automation and software/AI depletes factory and service jobs, and we don't have much room for any other kind of jobs. Any job we'll come up with will either be able to be done by robots, or be replaced by advanced AI. The exceptions where human touch will be still (always?) needed (artistic work, prostitution, etc) are not enough to make a living even today, much less in an oversaturated future market.
- pif 10y ago
  > The Swiss unemployment rate, around 3.5%, ... Warning! Swiss unemployment statistics often consider only people who have been looking for a job for at most two years. After two years, you can apply for long-term social care and, astonishingly(?), you are not counted any more as "unemployed".
pif 10y ago
> In the age of corporate greed (move the jobs to cheaper locations) ... Is it only corporate greed? Isn't it customer greed as well (let's buy cheaper with no questions about living standards of foreign manufacturers)? A short comment of mine from some time ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13071845 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13071845
- mseebach 10y ago
  Perhaps it's not greed at all. It's intellectually lazy to assume malice as the motivation for behaviours with which we disagree.
  - bogomipz 10y ago
    But greed and malice are orthogonal concepts. Greed concerns ones selfish and personal desires and malice is intention to harm or seek revenge on others. One is concerned with the self and the other isn't. One does not necessarily imply the other. It is intellectually lazy to conflate the two.
    - mseebach 10y ago
      That's one of those things that are only really true in theory. The word 'greed' has an overwhelmingly negative connotation.
      - bogomipz 10y ago
        No its not. If I am selling widgets for x dollars and making a handsome profit and I decide to raise my prices by 150% over night I am likely motivated by greed - to make as much money as possible. That it not way means I wish to harm people which is what the definition of malice is. People get greedy in business all the time. That doesn't not mean their intent is to inflict harm other people. Just because a word has a negative connotation does mean its has the same meaning as another word with a negative connotation.
- bogomipz 10y ago
JumpCrisscross 10y ago
The next few decades promise automation that all but removes the economic and geopolitical advantages of population. At that point, population becomes a liability. There are only two endgames: quarantine and subsidy. That is, you subsidise the standard of living for some "in" group and quarantine away the implied "out" group. Ideally, everyone is "in". Realistically, no way.
- Eridrus 10y ago
  Until we have true artificial intelligence I do not think this will be true.
- lobotryas 10y ago
  Population on the whole will never become a liability. You DO want more young and middle-aged people than old so your tax base is healthy, but that's not a problem with population as a whole. Finally, you always need a reserve of able-bodied humans who can be trained to become soldiers. Remember that a lack of trained bodies is one of the reasons why a nation like Japan lost.
melling 10y ago
Why should humans work in factories doing mindless jobs? We need to prepare people to re-educate themselves as technology advances. Andrew Ng discusses "basic income" where people need to learn: https://youtu.be/21EiKfQYZXc?t=1h1m57s https://youtu.be/21EiKfQYZXc?t=1h1m57s
valuearb 10y ago
It's easier to afford the GrundeinKommen if your banks are full of capital stolen from the rest of the world. The basic income is a terrible idea that could be a great idea with a few tweaks. One of the worst economic policies is minimum wage, it attempts to help the poor but at the cost of a loss in some jobs, and some of it's benefits to upper middle class (kids and wives) that don't need it. It's inefficient, and can be counterproductive for those most in need. Those at most risk of losing jobs because of it are the ones that need it the most, unskilled, single parents, etc. An employer is biased keep jonny college kid over suzy single mom when they cut a position, because jonny might come back as a manager after finishing school. Minimum wages also can create that situation where it's so damn hard to get that first job that you need to get your next job. A minimum wage that is paid for by the government is a far better option. As long as you work, we don't care what your employer pays you, $4, $8 hour, you should get government benefits that round you up to a living wage based on your life situation. Which means more for the single parent, a little bit less for the single worker, and nothing for the high school/college kids living at home or executive wife taking a second job. And this means more jobs, and makes it much easier to find employment (and have job mobility). Also more jobs means more output, which means higher GDP.
- coldtea 10y ago
  >The basic income is a terrible idea that could be a great idea with a few tweaks. One of the worst economic policies is minimum wage, it attempts to help the poor but at the cost of a loss in some jobs Or so neoliberal economists say. It's not clear cut at all.
- eigenvalue 10y ago
  The scheme you suggest is also called a negative income tax, and was espoused by Milton Friedman.
WillPostForFood 10y ago
It is a little disingenuous to talk about the many Swiss supporting basic income without mentioning that just last year they overwhelmingly voted to reject it. Swiss voters have overwhelmingly rejected a proposal to introduce a guaranteed basic income for all. Final results from Sunday's referendum showed that nearly 77% opposed the plan, with only 23% backing it. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-36454060 http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-36454060
boona 10y ago
> In the age of corporate greed I see it as the reverse. In the age where people want a minimum wage of $15 without increasing their skills and asking other members of society to pay for it (either the employer or every productive person through taxation), the productive members are feeling the pressure to produce more and increase efficiency. Basic income will only ensure that more members of the productive class move to the dependent class which would only exacerbate the problem.

rumcajz 10y ago

The interesting part is that in CH, unlike in other democracies, if people will vote for it, it will be implemented. In the last referendum about UBI the proposal had ~23% support. And if the automation advances, that number may raise quickly.

folli 10y ago
Could you really call it a democracy otherwise?
- tallowen 10y ago
  Switzerland has a much more direct democracy than most (all?) other democracies. This means citizens often vote on things similar to ballot initiatives in the US. In the context of basic income it means such a populist policy would be have different political barriers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_democracy#Switzerland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_democracy#Switzerland
  - pif 10y ago
    > Switzerland has a much more direct democracy than most (all?) other democracies. Just for the record, that's not as wonderful as it may seem at a first look. Direct democracy has shown its limits some times during the last year. The fundamental issues being that you can only vote yes or no for a fixed text, while a law is usually supposed to be discussed in a parliament in every detail until an agreement can be found.
    - lukebuehler 10y ago
      As far as I know, a referendum can take two forms: either it's the final text or it simply is a mandate to create a law with certain parameters, the lawmakers can then decide on the exact wording.
      - ahakki 10y ago
        There are two kinds: 1. An addition to the constitution. The parlament then has to implement that into law. 2. A referendum on a law that has been passed by parlament. This allows the citizens to revert a parlamentary decision. There is no way to vote on a new law directly. However you can get close by just having a very detailed constitutional change that doesn't leave a lot of options for implementation open.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- aioprisan 10y ago
  Most democracies are simply democratic republics (i.e. the US), where only a small subset of the population can actually directly voice a choice on issues (i.e. see California's frequent ballot initiatives).
JumpCrisscross 10y ago
The proposal likely failed because it was too ambitious. The 2,500 Swiss franc a month level would have required doubling or tripling the federal budget.

germinalphrase 10y ago

I've heard a counter argument that basic income (and gov't funded social welfare, more generally) may actually reduce the amount of time/effort/money people personally expend on volunteerism/philanthropy. The thinking is that the existence of extensive gov't social welfare programs make people feel as if they have contributed (via taxes) and this reduce their personal responsibility to work on behalf of the less fortunate. Likewise, it undermines their empathy for the less fortunate because "well, they already receive welfare - so if they remain poor it must be because they [are lazy/addicted to drugs/antisocial/etc.]". I don't know if I agree with this argument; however, the cultural ramifications of BIG are certainly an important question to wrestle with. Edit: clarification - the argument is that this belief ("I've done my part") is extended because BIG covers all sources of welfare rather than targeted toward specific populations or purposes (children, mothers, food, etc). When everyone receives social welfare payments (rather than just specific kinds of people) it more fully extends the "I've done my part" feeling to the larger population (rather than specific slices of the population) and reduces overall charitable action.

icen 10y ago
This is a strange argument, because all of that rhetoric is status quo - people do argue (or argue via proxy; the words are different, but the substantive claims are the same) that people already receive enough. If that's the problem with universal basic income, then the only change is that such vulnerable people end up with more money, which must be a good thing.
- cmdrfred 10y ago
  I suspect basic income would lead to an increase in inflation in the current environment. Wouldn't many people continue to work having received their stipend in order to obtain a higher standard of living than previously possible? (I know I would) Then wouldn't it follow that inflation would then take place all but entirely removing the utility of the basic income? In my opinion the jury is still out in regards to actually increasing standards of living over decade long time frames. It is entirely possible that it harms vulnerable people more than it aids them. More data is needed.

ythn 10y ago

> Let all citizens live to a basic level, but not too good a level that the incentive to innovate or do more is gone. The basic income will, in my opinion, lead to a more entrepreneurial society where risk takers are supported - and also a more socially responsible and caring society, where people can donate their time to help others. You can never eliminate the poverty line. You can only shift it. Poverty in the 1400s meant you lived in squalor with no utilities and no sanitization and very few public services. Poverty in 2017 means (for the most part) you have a small or shared condo with running water, electricity, refrigerator, television, smartphone, access to lots of public services (libraries, parks, hospitals, etc) and more. The poor people of today have it better than kings of old, but very few people hold that perspective. Under UBI poverty will just get shifted to the new standard, but people will only be temporarily happier with their new standard of living. The next generation will be discontented with their standard of living. People will complain that UBI isn't enough to live on, etc. How is the end game not communism? Who gets to say: "stop complaining, UBI is enough for you." Won't it be more tempting for the politicians to say: "You're right, this is outrageous! The rich have oppressed you enough, we need to tax them more to raise your UBI."

woofyman 10y ago
I'm pretty sure the kings of old didn't go hungry. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunger_in_the_United_States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunger_in_the_United_States
- ythn 10y ago
  Obviously there are going to be pros and cons. Sure, a percentage of the poor today are sometimes hungry. But very few are starving. Maybe I'm alone, but I would rather be a poor person in 2017 than a rich person in the 1400s. The internet itself is enough of a benefit for me.
  - cr0sh 10y ago
    > I would rather be a poor person in 2017 than a rich person in the 1400s. For myself - that would a be a tough choice. There were still things that wealthy people back then (especially the ruling class) could command that ordinary people - even wealthy ones - of today can't touch. The amount of land and property owned, and in the case of the ruling class the ability to raise and have "armies", as well as how laws and such applied...all skew toward them. Granted, there are many, many things of today that people of the 1400s could only dream about, if even that. Our technology, our medicine, our easy access to food...all of that and more would have been impossible for even the ruling class of the 1400s to access. But again - there were things they could access that only governments of today, or the extremely wealthy (billionaires - but even there are limits) can access today. Not only what I've mentioned, but also political and other circles (people, money, laws, etc) - that the ordinary person of today have no access to - they didn't then, nor now.

saiya-jin 10y ago

greed is part of mankind since ever, and it's not going anywhere, like it or not. you have your opinions, and I respectfully disagree with them. swiss voters apparently consider it a pipe dream too, based on results of referendum on UBI

wslh 10y ago

I think we should also move to something in the spirit of "basic startup funding". In a way this is an extension of the microcredits idea.

misja111 10y ago

The Swiss unemployment rate, around 3.5%, is one of the lowest in Europe. So at this point it doesn't look like too many humans are without a job after having been replaced by robots. Could it be that just like with the industrial revolution, old jobs are being replaced with new ones? In that case there is no need for a basic income.

valuearb 10y ago
Old jobs are always replaced by new (and usually better ones). The history of the last 200 years has been the massive slaughter of old jobs and replacement by much higher paying and safer new jobs. In US history in from the 1800s we transitioned from 95% brutally hard and dangerous farm labor to less than 5% of the population mechanically farming. Original manufacturing was all by hand, now it's constantly machine aided. Another trend is we simply don't work as much. The age of the robots may be that we start working 24 hours a week for more money (and still bitching about going back to work on mondays)
- coldtea 10y ago
  >Old jobs are always replaced by new (and usually better ones). No, that's just what happened a few times in the past. Not some natural law. The previous times farming jobs got replaced by factory jobs (which were enough because of a huge increase in the manufactoring sector) and when those dwindled by robots and more efficient factories, they got replaced by the services industry. This time automation and software/AI depletes factory and service jobs, and we don't have much room for any other kind of jobs. Any job we'll come up with will either be able to be done by robots, or be replaced by advanced AI. The exceptions where human touch will be still (always?) needed (artistic work, prostitution, etc) are not enough to make a living even today, much less in an oversaturated future market.
pif 10y ago
> The Swiss unemployment rate, around 3.5%, ... Warning! Swiss unemployment statistics often consider only people who have been looking for a job for at most two years. After two years, you can apply for long-term social care and, astonishingly(?), you are not counted any more as "unemployed".

pif 10y ago

> In the age of corporate greed (move the jobs to cheaper locations) ... Is it only corporate greed? Isn't it customer greed as well (let's buy cheaper with no questions about living standards of foreign manufacturers)? A short comment of mine from some time ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13071845 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13071845

mseebach 10y ago
Perhaps it's not greed at all. It's intellectually lazy to assume malice as the motivation for behaviours with which we disagree.
- bogomipz 10y ago
  But greed and malice are orthogonal concepts. Greed concerns ones selfish and personal desires and malice is intention to harm or seek revenge on others. One is concerned with the self and the other isn't. One does not necessarily imply the other. It is intellectually lazy to conflate the two.
  - mseebach 10y ago
    That's one of those things that are only really true in theory. The word 'greed' has an overwhelmingly negative connotation.
    - bogomipz 10y ago
      No its not. If I am selling widgets for x dollars and making a handsome profit and I decide to raise my prices by 150% over night I am likely motivated by greed - to make as much money as possible. That it not way means I wish to harm people which is what the definition of malice is. People get greedy in business all the time. That doesn't not mean their intent is to inflict harm other people. Just because a word has a negative connotation does mean its has the same meaning as another word with a negative connotation.
bogomipz 10y ago

JumpCrisscross 10y ago

The next few decades promise automation that all but removes the economic and geopolitical advantages of population. At that point, population becomes a liability. There are only two endgames: quarantine and subsidy. That is, you subsidise the standard of living for some "in" group and quarantine away the implied "out" group. Ideally, everyone is "in". Realistically, no way.

Eridrus 10y ago
Until we have true artificial intelligence I do not think this will be true.
lobotryas 10y ago
Population on the whole will never become a liability. You DO want more young and middle-aged people than old so your tax base is healthy, but that's not a problem with population as a whole. Finally, you always need a reserve of able-bodied humans who can be trained to become soldiers. Remember that a lack of trained bodies is one of the reasons why a nation like Japan lost.

melling 10y ago

Why should humans work in factories doing mindless jobs? We need to prepare people to re-educate themselves as technology advances. Andrew Ng discusses "basic income" where people need to learn: https://youtu.be/21EiKfQYZXc?t=1h1m57s https://youtu.be/21EiKfQYZXc?t=1h1m57s

valuearb 10y ago

It's easier to afford the GrundeinKommen if your banks are full of capital stolen from the rest of the world. The basic income is a terrible idea that could be a great idea with a few tweaks. One of the worst economic policies is minimum wage, it attempts to help the poor but at the cost of a loss in some jobs, and some of it's benefits to upper middle class (kids and wives) that don't need it. It's inefficient, and can be counterproductive for those most in need. Those at most risk of losing jobs because of it are the ones that need it the most, unskilled, single parents, etc. An employer is biased keep jonny college kid over suzy single mom when they cut a position, because jonny might come back as a manager after finishing school. Minimum wages also can create that situation where it's so damn hard to get that first job that you need to get your next job. A minimum wage that is paid for by the government is a far better option. As long as you work, we don't care what your employer pays you, $4, $8 hour, you should get government benefits that round you up to a living wage based on your life situation. Which means more for the single parent, a little bit less for the single worker, and nothing for the high school/college kids living at home or executive wife taking a second job. And this means more jobs, and makes it much easier to find employment (and have job mobility). Also more jobs means more output, which means higher GDP.

coldtea 10y ago
>The basic income is a terrible idea that could be a great idea with a few tweaks. One of the worst economic policies is minimum wage, it attempts to help the poor but at the cost of a loss in some jobs Or so neoliberal economists say. It's not clear cut at all.
eigenvalue 10y ago
The scheme you suggest is also called a negative income tax, and was espoused by Milton Friedman.

WillPostForFood 10y ago

It is a little disingenuous to talk about the many Swiss supporting basic income without mentioning that just last year they overwhelmingly voted to reject it. Swiss voters have overwhelmingly rejected a proposal to introduce a guaranteed basic income for all. Final results from Sunday's referendum showed that nearly 77% opposed the plan, with only 23% backing it. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-36454060 http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-36454060

boona 10y ago

> In the age of corporate greed I see it as the reverse. In the age where people want a minimum wage of $15 without increasing their skills and asking other members of society to pay for it (either the employer or every productive person through taxation), the productive members are feeling the pressure to produce more and increase efficiency. Basic income will only ensure that more members of the productive class move to the dependent class which would only exacerbate the problem.