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> "Idle hands are the Devil's workshop." I was almost having a mental countdown until this exact expression popped up. What you wrote is true, but that unempl

by 77pt77 10y ago

> "Idle hands are the Devil's workshop." I was almost having a mental countdown until this exact expression popped up. What you wrote is true, but that unemployed population didn't have any money or their needs met. What would happen if living was really easy and work either unneeded or just downright impossible to get?

ryandrake 10y ago
> "Idle hands are the Devil's workshop." This puritanical belief makes the idea of Basic Income politically un-doable through most of the world, along with the belief that a living is something that must be earned through productive work.
- mixedCase 10y ago
  > This puritanical belief That's one way to ignore human nature as a force driving human society. > Basic Income That's another.
  - jospoortvliet 10y ago
    Human nature isn't anywhere near as simplistic as economists tend to believe. That is why half the theories doesn't work in reality, people are far from the rational actors they're made out to be.
- AnthonyMouse 10y ago
  > This puritanical belief makes the idea of Basic Income politically un-doable through most of the world, along with the belief that a living is something that must be earned through productive work. It's just a framing problem. For example, the Earned Income Tax Credit in the US is a small de facto UBI. If you eliminated all US welfare programs and used all the money to increase the amount of the EITC you will have effectively solved the problem. In theory the EITC requires you to earn money, but if you eliminated the loss of welfare benefits that currently occurs if you report earning any amount of money, suddenly you'll discover that everybody everywhere has "income" from doing odd jobs for their friends and so on, most of which they've been doing the whole time in exchange for in-kind services but (illegally!) not reporting it as income because reporting it previously caused a net loss rather than a net gain.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]

by 77pt77 10y ago

ryandrake 10y ago

> "Idle hands are the Devil's workshop." This puritanical belief makes the idea of Basic Income politically un-doable through most of the world, along with the belief that a living is something that must be earned through productive work.

mixedCase 10y ago
> This puritanical belief That's one way to ignore human nature as a force driving human society. > Basic Income That's another.
- jospoortvliet 10y ago
  Human nature isn't anywhere near as simplistic as economists tend to believe. That is why half the theories doesn't work in reality, people are far from the rational actors they're made out to be.
AnthonyMouse 10y ago
> This puritanical belief makes the idea of Basic Income politically un-doable through most of the world, along with the belief that a living is something that must be earned through productive work. It's just a framing problem. For example, the Earned Income Tax Credit in the US is a small de facto UBI. If you eliminated all US welfare programs and used all the money to increase the amount of the EITC you will have effectively solved the problem. In theory the EITC requires you to earn money, but if you eliminated the loss of welfare benefits that currently occurs if you report earning any amount of money, suddenly you'll discover that everybody everywhere has "income" from doing odd jobs for their friends and so on, most of which they've been doing the whole time in exchange for in-kind services but (illegally!) not reporting it as income because reporting it previously caused a net loss rather than a net gain.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]