4 ms·

I agree that it's tough to measure "success," but at least it would be presumably easy to measure failure. If we see exactly what opponents claim will happen, i

I agree that it's tough to measure "success," but at least it would be presumably easy to measure failure. If we see exactly what opponents claim will happen, it would suggest a more strict implementation might be worse. My concern is that with this we're likely looking at an even worse version of the problems seen with sending shoes to Africa [1]. Over the duration of this experiment, it's quite possible you'll create a society that abandons skills / equipment / expertise necessary to sustain an economy. That won't be a problem until the experiment ends, and then you've left people in a place far less than where you found them. [1] http://www.djiboutijones.com/2014/02/dont-send-your-used-shoes-to-africa-or-maybe-do-send-them/ http://www.djiboutijones.com/2014/02/dont-send-your-used-sho...

skybrian 9y ago
If you're sending money then people will spend it (such as on shoes) and increased spending and investment will tend to help local businesses much more than sending goods that compete with them. So I'm not seeing why you think skills will atrophy? It seems like there's more danger of that when people are poorer? (For one thing, education becomes less affordable.)
- moduspol 9y ago
  The shoes don't have to come from Bomet County. Nor does the food, or the electricity, or much of anything else. The poverty rate is just under 50%, per Wikipedia at least. If all the money is coming from the county (presumably it is), then it's going to be coming from the other 50%, and at a rate higher than neighboring (non-UBI) counties. It will be in the rational self-interest of that non-impoverished 50% to leave. Labor will be more expensive as fewer people want to do less-desirable work due to no strong need. I don't know how freely workers can move between counties, but obviously I imagine some people in neighboring counties will want to move in for the free paycheck. Over time, you've chased out the productive people and bolstered the less productive ones, and you're drawing from a smaller and smaller pool to pay for a larger and larger group of people. I've always felt like UBI is unsustainable, but at least worth debating. I haven't yet seen even proposed what should be done if UBI fails this way, though.
  - skybrian 9y ago
    Interesting theory, but they already started a pilot study in one village, and the results were nothing like that, so far. There seems to to be lots of local small business investment. I also don't see anything about people moving in or out. https://givedirectly.org/blog-post?id=1423924916713458127 https://givedirectly.org/blog-post?id=1423924916713458127
    - supermdguy 9y ago
      Thanks for the link.
    - moduspol 9y ago
      That link says they started "last October" and is dated February 2017. It covers 95 people. That's a very short period of time, quite sparse on details, and a small group of people in an isolated environment. They're also not taking money from people in the community to redistribute. Put plainly: It's not surprising at all that one can take a lot of voluntarily-given money and distribute it to an impoverished village in Africa, resulting in them being happy and saying they're seeking work (in the short term). Normally, though, that's called "charity" rather than a UBI experiment, and even UBI opponents will acknowledge the likelihood of that happening.
  - virgil_disgr4ce 9y ago
    > rational self-interest Isn't assuming this the basic failing of economics as a science? Not trying to be provocative, sincerely asking.
    - moduspol 9y ago
      Well, the honest answer is "sometimes." People obviously don't simply pack up and move when the taxes are 0.1% lower on the other side of the country even if it is rational. But that doesn't justify ignoring common sense when crafting economic policy. When the federal government started subsidizing higher ed loans, it is not some unimaginable outcome that higher ed prices will increase. Banks, colleges, students, and parents are all operating in their own self-interest, but by artificially making more money available to consumers, they are naturally willing to spend more. It's just a sign of really bad policy when nobody is cheating the system and everyone is following the rules, but it results in really bad outcomes. And it's even worse when that happens and blame is passed to those rational actors (banks, colleges, etc.) because that further justifies bad policy.
shkkmo 9y ago
This is the exact opposite of that. When you send free goods into an economy, you inhibit demand which in turn inhibits economic growth. When you send money into an economy, in increase demand and it will have the opposite effect.
- sulam 9y ago
  To be clear the demand is the same — the price is the issue. UBI and inflation may well be tied tightly together.
- moduspol 9y ago
  UBI doesn't send money in, it redistributes it. And if solving economic problems were as simple as "just take more money from the rich people and give it to the poor people," this problem would have been solved centuries ago.
  - munk-a 9y ago
    Clearly. And is this statement based on the well known fact that rich people have always been happy to have their money taken away and given to poor people without trying to undermine any genuine efforts at wealth redistribution for economic growth? That's why we don't have any rich people any more and wealth inequality is at it's lowest point in decades, right?
  - shkkmo 9y ago
    The post I was responding to wasn't citicizing UBI, but rather criticizing this specific type of program which DOES inject money into the local economy from outside doners. > And if solving economic problems were as simple as "just take more money from the rich people and give it to the poor people," this problem would have been solved centuries ago. When in history have we tried anything like UBI? How can we know if it works if we have never tried it?
    - moduspol 9y ago
      We've provided subsidies and guarantees to try to help poor people and manipulated markets with predictable results countless times. In the US, higher education loans and urban housing are modern day examples of this. UBI isn't inherently different. It's trying to pretend you can manipulate a market with no detrimental side effects, but it's been tried many, many times.
jerf 9y ago
"Over the duration of this experiment, it's quite possible you'll create a society that abandons skills / equipment / expertise necessary to sustain an economy. That won't be a problem until the experiment ends, and then you've left people in a place far less than where you found them." That would be a valid result of the experiment though, in light of the fact it is completely impossible to implement UBI everywhere at once. UBI isn't useful if there isn't a path from here to there. We have no lack of wonderful utopias whose only problem is that there is no path from here to there. If UBI can't prove itself out on a smaller scale it can on no account be tried on a larger scale. If the worst some bad social engineering idea does is leave a single county worse off, then it will be doing very well as bad social engineering ideas go. It appears from reading this post that tracking the skills of the community is already part of the plan. There are certainly predictions about this from both sides. (I'm a skeptic, yes, but I promise to treat the results from this experiment fairly. However, bear in mind that even total success at this level still wouldn't prove to me that we should immediately adopt it at a national level; I'll need to see a larger one. But I will admit that I was at least wrong about this experiment, because I don't expect this to prove out very well either. I also expect a lot of spinning of the results to make them look as good as possible, so I reserve the right to unspin the results. As a token of such good faith, I offer that while I remain a cryptocurrency skeptic, and a BitCoin skeptic in particular, I expected BitCoin to be totally dead by now, and it is not. I say this to demonstrate that I can indeed eat crow.)
- shkkmo 9y ago
  > I'm a skeptic, yes, but I promise to treat the results from this experiment fairly There have been lots of previous experiments with stuff sort of similar with UBI. While there are many problems with those studies preventing their use as any sort of conclusive proof, they have been predominantly neutral or positive. Yet I don't see that accounted for in the predictions of doom and gloom any of the UBI skeptics. If this experiment goes well, you need to do more than just admit you were wrong about the experiment, you and other skeptics need to lower your confidence in your overall skepticism of UBI. > while I remain a cryptocurrency skeptic, and a BitCoin skeptic in particular, I expected BitCoin to be totally dead by now, and it is not. I say this to demonstrate that I can indeed eat crow.) It sounds to me like you have not eaten any crow. If you had you would say: based on my understanding of the forces at play, I thought BitCoin would be dead. BitCoin has thrived instead so my understanding of the forces at play is less than I had estimated. Based on that, I am now less skeptical (or less confident of my skepticism) of the future crypto currencies. (I share your skepticism of the future of BitCoin, but I am far less certain of that skepticism than I used to be for these exact reasons)

skybrian 9y ago

If you're sending money then people will spend it (such as on shoes) and increased spending and investment will tend to help local businesses much more than sending goods that compete with them. So I'm not seeing why you think skills will atrophy? It seems like there's more danger of that when people are poorer? (For one thing, education becomes less affordable.)

moduspol 9y ago
The shoes don't have to come from Bomet County. Nor does the food, or the electricity, or much of anything else. The poverty rate is just under 50%, per Wikipedia at least. If all the money is coming from the county (presumably it is), then it's going to be coming from the other 50%, and at a rate higher than neighboring (non-UBI) counties. It will be in the rational self-interest of that non-impoverished 50% to leave. Labor will be more expensive as fewer people want to do less-desirable work due to no strong need. I don't know how freely workers can move between counties, but obviously I imagine some people in neighboring counties will want to move in for the free paycheck. Over time, you've chased out the productive people and bolstered the less productive ones, and you're drawing from a smaller and smaller pool to pay for a larger and larger group of people. I've always felt like UBI is unsustainable, but at least worth debating. I haven't yet seen even proposed what should be done if UBI fails this way, though.
- skybrian 9y ago
  Interesting theory, but they already started a pilot study in one village, and the results were nothing like that, so far. There seems to to be lots of local small business investment. I also don't see anything about people moving in or out. https://givedirectly.org/blog-post?id=1423924916713458127 https://givedirectly.org/blog-post?id=1423924916713458127
  - supermdguy 9y ago
    Thanks for the link.
  - moduspol 9y ago
    That link says they started "last October" and is dated February 2017. It covers 95 people. That's a very short period of time, quite sparse on details, and a small group of people in an isolated environment. They're also not taking money from people in the community to redistribute. Put plainly: It's not surprising at all that one can take a lot of voluntarily-given money and distribute it to an impoverished village in Africa, resulting in them being happy and saying they're seeking work (in the short term). Normally, though, that's called "charity" rather than a UBI experiment, and even UBI opponents will acknowledge the likelihood of that happening.
- virgil_disgr4ce 9y ago
  > rational self-interest Isn't assuming this the basic failing of economics as a science? Not trying to be provocative, sincerely asking.
  - moduspol 9y ago
    Well, the honest answer is "sometimes." People obviously don't simply pack up and move when the taxes are 0.1% lower on the other side of the country even if it is rational. But that doesn't justify ignoring common sense when crafting economic policy. When the federal government started subsidizing higher ed loans, it is not some unimaginable outcome that higher ed prices will increase. Banks, colleges, students, and parents are all operating in their own self-interest, but by artificially making more money available to consumers, they are naturally willing to spend more. It's just a sign of really bad policy when nobody is cheating the system and everyone is following the rules, but it results in really bad outcomes. And it's even worse when that happens and blame is passed to those rational actors (banks, colleges, etc.) because that further justifies bad policy.

shkkmo 9y ago

This is the exact opposite of that. When you send free goods into an economy, you inhibit demand which in turn inhibits economic growth. When you send money into an economy, in increase demand and it will have the opposite effect.

sulam 9y ago
To be clear the demand is the same — the price is the issue. UBI and inflation may well be tied tightly together.
moduspol 9y ago
UBI doesn't send money in, it redistributes it. And if solving economic problems were as simple as "just take more money from the rich people and give it to the poor people," this problem would have been solved centuries ago.
- munk-a 9y ago
  Clearly. And is this statement based on the well known fact that rich people have always been happy to have their money taken away and given to poor people without trying to undermine any genuine efforts at wealth redistribution for economic growth? That's why we don't have any rich people any more and wealth inequality is at it's lowest point in decades, right?
- shkkmo 9y ago
  The post I was responding to wasn't citicizing UBI, but rather criticizing this specific type of program which DOES inject money into the local economy from outside doners. > And if solving economic problems were as simple as "just take more money from the rich people and give it to the poor people," this problem would have been solved centuries ago. When in history have we tried anything like UBI? How can we know if it works if we have never tried it?
  - moduspol 9y ago
    We've provided subsidies and guarantees to try to help poor people and manipulated markets with predictable results countless times. In the US, higher education loans and urban housing are modern day examples of this. UBI isn't inherently different. It's trying to pretend you can manipulate a market with no detrimental side effects, but it's been tried many, many times.

jerf 9y ago

"Over the duration of this experiment, it's quite possible you'll create a society that abandons skills / equipment / expertise necessary to sustain an economy. That won't be a problem until the experiment ends, and then you've left people in a place far less than where you found them." That would be a valid result of the experiment though, in light of the fact it is completely impossible to implement UBI everywhere at once. UBI isn't useful if there isn't a path from here to there. We have no lack of wonderful utopias whose only problem is that there is no path from here to there. If UBI can't prove itself out on a smaller scale it can on no account be tried on a larger scale. If the worst some bad social engineering idea does is leave a single county worse off, then it will be doing very well as bad social engineering ideas go. It appears from reading this post that tracking the skills of the community is already part of the plan. There are certainly predictions about this from both sides. (I'm a skeptic, yes, but I promise to treat the results from this experiment fairly. However, bear in mind that even total success at this level still wouldn't prove to me that we should immediately adopt it at a national level; I'll need to see a larger one. But I will admit that I was at least wrong about this experiment, because I don't expect this to prove out very well either. I also expect a lot of spinning of the results to make them look as good as possible, so I reserve the right to unspin the results. As a token of such good faith, I offer that while I remain a cryptocurrency skeptic, and a BitCoin skeptic in particular, I expected BitCoin to be totally dead by now, and it is not. I say this to demonstrate that I can indeed eat crow.)

shkkmo 9y ago
> I'm a skeptic, yes, but I promise to treat the results from this experiment fairly There have been lots of previous experiments with stuff sort of similar with UBI. While there are many problems with those studies preventing their use as any sort of conclusive proof, they have been predominantly neutral or positive. Yet I don't see that accounted for in the predictions of doom and gloom any of the UBI skeptics. If this experiment goes well, you need to do more than just admit you were wrong about the experiment, you and other skeptics need to lower your confidence in your overall skepticism of UBI. > while I remain a cryptocurrency skeptic, and a BitCoin skeptic in particular, I expected BitCoin to be totally dead by now, and it is not. I say this to demonstrate that I can indeed eat crow.) It sounds to me like you have not eaten any crow. If you had you would say: based on my understanding of the forces at play, I thought BitCoin would be dead. BitCoin has thrived instead so my understanding of the forces at play is less than I had estimated. Based on that, I am now less skeptical (or less confident of my skepticism) of the future crypto currencies. (I share your skepticism of the future of BitCoin, but I am far less certain of that skepticism than I used to be for these exact reasons)