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I don't believe social conservatives will ever accept genuine universal income, even in the face of major economic disruption caused by automation. Firstly, bec

I don't believe social conservatives will ever accept genuine universal income, even in the face of major economic disruption caused by automation. Firstly, because it is too contrary to their instinctive ideas of fairness, secondly because it is too tempting to use it as method of social control, and thirdly because there will always be a minority that misspend their assured income, which will require an additional welfare system to help them out. I think it's more likely we'll see a large expansion of existing welfare and food-stamp systems into a system of universal basic rationing. Probably they'll be some kind of parallel, digital pseudo-currency, in the form of spendable credits. They'll be limited to certain categories of goods, and luxury brands and most entertainment products will be banned. I think you'll also see a requirement to do some form of "work", even artificial and meaningless tasks, in order to qualify. This is already how the system works in the UK, for example. In order to access the UK's welfare system, you are basically required to seek work, any work, no matter how menial or pointless. There is a "workfare" system whereby you work, unpaid, for commercial companies, doing things like stacking shelves for low-quality retailers, in order to get access to your welfare payments.

mattmanser 9y ago
And there's a backlash forming about this: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5168192/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5168192/ I signed on once as I was between contracts and it seemed like it'd be stupid not to. Soul destroying and utterly ridiculous bureaucracy that's feels like it's meant to humiliate you rather than get you a job. And that was like 8 years ago, it's got worse. Ultimately, as automation drives more people out of work, the voting base for a radical change for wealth distribution will grow and the social conservative base will shrink.
DoofusOfDeath 9y ago
I'm socially conservative, and I agree with parts of your statement, at least regarding myself. "Fairness" will be a sticking point. It's not reasonable that some people should have to work, so that others may voluntarily sit idle. But my other reasons for opposing universal income are different than what you listed: (1) I suspect universal income makes inaccurate assumptions about human nature. I think that without a need to work, a large fraction of people will choose not to. I doubt universal income could sustain that. (2) Our population keeps on growing, but our planet stays the same size. Unless this changes, we'll see increasing competition for food and living space. The fraction of the economy spent on UBI would continue to increase due to inflation of those costs. If I turn out to be mistaken about (1) and (2), then I'd be more open to UBI.
- majewsky 9y ago
  > It's not reasonable that some people should have to work, so that others may voluntarily sit idle. But it is, under the right circumstances. If you have a mostly automated society, where only 1% of today's human work is required to design, build and service the robots that do the actual work. Now you could have each person working half an hour per week, but that would mean that you would have to pay to educate every person out there in robot design, construction or maintenance. In this scenario, it's wildly more efficient to just educate 1% of the potential workforce and have them work 40 hours per week (or maybe 2% at 20 hours). You get the same work done, but spend way less on education (and also on auxiliary costs like payroll and shift planning). Note that I'm explicitly only arguing with economic concerns, not social ones. If you define "reasonable" in social rather than economic terms, my argument need not apply. > I think that without a need to work, a large fraction of people will choose not to. Why is it then, that most people who are rich enough to sustain themselves indefinitely without having to work, still choose to work? > The fraction of the economy spent on UBI would continue to increase due to inflation of those costs. That's a problem, but UBI doesn't change it AFAICS. You can just reword this as "The fraction of the economy spent on food and living space would continue to increase due to inflation of these costs", and it would hold true regardless of whether there's UBI or not.
  - michaelt 9y ago
    If 99% of people are unemployed, it's not like there will be social sanctions, shame or other negative repercussions for being part of the 99%. Ideas like "the protestant work ethic" and "the nobility of work" will all be consigned to the past, right? What would motivate the 1% to work 40 hours a week when they could spend their time on things they enjoy instead?
    - majewsky 9y ago
      An expensive hobby?
- boomboomsubban 9y ago
  > It's not reasonable that some people should have to work, so that others may voluntarily sit idle When has this not been true? The only thing that changes are the amount of people that can be idle and that the people able to get education will be more pressed to work. >I suspect universal income makes inaccurate assumptions about human nature. I think that without a need to work, a large fraction of people will choose not to. I doubt universal income could sustain that. What percentage of the labor force do you think are motivated purely by survival now? It's basically the unskilled laborers, anyone else has other motivations. >Our population keeps on growing, but our planet stays the same size. Unless this changes, we'll see increasing competition for food and living space. The fraction of the economy spent on UBI would continue to increase due to inflation of those costs Drove through 500 miles of basically nothing today. We're fine on living space for quite some time, and a combination of better food production and waste limiting would handle food availability for quite some time.
majewsky 9y ago
> there will always be a minority that misspend their assured income, which will require an additional welfare system to help them out Does it? I mean, I cannot imagine any desirable way in which welfare could be administered that cannot be misspent. If you give starving people money, they can technically buy something other than food. If you give them food stamps or actual food instead, they can trade that for money to spend on useless junk. The only alternatives are to admit them to closed therapy, if the cause of their misspending is an addiction or other mental illness, or to force-feed them, which I would not want because it defies my concept of human dignity.

mattmanser 9y ago

And there's a backlash forming about this: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5168192/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5168192/ I signed on once as I was between contracts and it seemed like it'd be stupid not to. Soul destroying and utterly ridiculous bureaucracy that's feels like it's meant to humiliate you rather than get you a job. And that was like 8 years ago, it's got worse. Ultimately, as automation drives more people out of work, the voting base for a radical change for wealth distribution will grow and the social conservative base will shrink.

DoofusOfDeath 9y ago

I'm socially conservative, and I agree with parts of your statement, at least regarding myself. "Fairness" will be a sticking point. It's not reasonable that some people should have to work, so that others may voluntarily sit idle. But my other reasons for opposing universal income are different than what you listed: (1) I suspect universal income makes inaccurate assumptions about human nature. I think that without a need to work, a large fraction of people will choose not to. I doubt universal income could sustain that. (2) Our population keeps on growing, but our planet stays the same size. Unless this changes, we'll see increasing competition for food and living space. The fraction of the economy spent on UBI would continue to increase due to inflation of those costs. If I turn out to be mistaken about (1) and (2), then I'd be more open to UBI.

majewsky 9y ago
> It's not reasonable that some people should have to work, so that others may voluntarily sit idle. But it is, under the right circumstances. If you have a mostly automated society, where only 1% of today's human work is required to design, build and service the robots that do the actual work. Now you could have each person working half an hour per week, but that would mean that you would have to pay to educate every person out there in robot design, construction or maintenance. In this scenario, it's wildly more efficient to just educate 1% of the potential workforce and have them work 40 hours per week (or maybe 2% at 20 hours). You get the same work done, but spend way less on education (and also on auxiliary costs like payroll and shift planning). Note that I'm explicitly only arguing with economic concerns, not social ones. If you define "reasonable" in social rather than economic terms, my argument need not apply. > I think that without a need to work, a large fraction of people will choose not to. Why is it then, that most people who are rich enough to sustain themselves indefinitely without having to work, still choose to work? > The fraction of the economy spent on UBI would continue to increase due to inflation of those costs. That's a problem, but UBI doesn't change it AFAICS. You can just reword this as "The fraction of the economy spent on food and living space would continue to increase due to inflation of these costs", and it would hold true regardless of whether there's UBI or not.
- michaelt 9y ago
  If 99% of people are unemployed, it's not like there will be social sanctions, shame or other negative repercussions for being part of the 99%. Ideas like "the protestant work ethic" and "the nobility of work" will all be consigned to the past, right? What would motivate the 1% to work 40 hours a week when they could spend their time on things they enjoy instead?
  - majewsky 9y ago
    An expensive hobby?
boomboomsubban 9y ago
> It's not reasonable that some people should have to work, so that others may voluntarily sit idle When has this not been true? The only thing that changes are the amount of people that can be idle and that the people able to get education will be more pressed to work. >I suspect universal income makes inaccurate assumptions about human nature. I think that without a need to work, a large fraction of people will choose not to. I doubt universal income could sustain that. What percentage of the labor force do you think are motivated purely by survival now? It's basically the unskilled laborers, anyone else has other motivations. >Our population keeps on growing, but our planet stays the same size. Unless this changes, we'll see increasing competition for food and living space. The fraction of the economy spent on UBI would continue to increase due to inflation of those costs Drove through 500 miles of basically nothing today. We're fine on living space for quite some time, and a combination of better food production and waste limiting would handle food availability for quite some time.

majewsky 9y ago

> there will always be a minority that misspend their assured income, which will require an additional welfare system to help them out Does it? I mean, I cannot imagine any desirable way in which welfare could be administered that cannot be misspent. If you give starving people money, they can technically buy something other than food. If you give them food stamps or actual food instead, they can trade that for money to spend on useless junk. The only alternatives are to admit them to closed therapy, if the cause of their misspending is an addiction or other mental illness, or to force-feed them, which I would not want because it defies my concept of human dignity.