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That is an argument from society's point of view. When people don't work or contribute to the general welfare of society in any way (and they are able to, not t

That is an argument from society's point of view. When people don't work or contribute to the general welfare of society in any way (and they are able to, not talking about people unable to do things,) and they take from the general pool provided by the rest of the social group, they are taking away resources that could be used for other things, things that may further benefit the individuals providing resources for society. There are arguments to be made about decreasing crime, but most of the most convincing moral imperative arguments are related to religion. The more convincing Keynesian argument is about money going into the economy and driving growth because none of the people dependent on UBI will save anything at all. So from a purely utilitarian point of view, individual financial interest does come into play.

WorldMaker 9y ago
I want people to have an option not to work, because I want an option not to work. Maybe I'd like to use that time to drink myself into a stupor and write a terrible novella and pretend I'm Ernest Hemingway in a house full of alley cats. Maybe I'd like to use that time to consider a startup idea that wouldn't be big enough to pay for everything I need like healthcare and retirement, but would be otherwise an interesting project if it didn't have to meet those financial goals out of the gate in its business plan. Maybe I would like to use that time to teach young kids how to program, not as a trade, but as a means to entertainment. You want to ascribe morality to those options, but I find the freedom to choose more interesting. It's not my job to judge which is more "productive". Maybe that novella in the end turns out to comment deeply on the human spirit, maybe those kids never use those skills "productively", maybe that startup goes bust and I return to the next plan. The moral imperative is that I should have the freedom to choose outside of the strictures of what the current job market finds productive or what government can legislate to be considered productive. If that means there are a lot more people following the first idea and drinking themselves to a stupor, then that is a market failure. Surely the labor market can stretch to entice people to such "productive" labor if it actually has to compete for their time and energy? We use a "productive morality" to prop up a market that has never had to truly compete in the entirety of its existence. (Which is to say that labor has never been a free market.) I find it funny, too, that you bring up religion as providing the most convincing moral imperative arguments for UBI, when in my mind it also religion, the Puritanical Zeal, that so colors the debate against UBI. The Puritans believed that men must work to appease God, that Productivity was an end to itself, a way to measure yourself before God. Why does everyone need to work so? You claim it is "society" that demands productivity and wishes to keep score, but many societies have never kept score, and have no need to keep score. It seems to me that the scars of Puritanical Zeal have simply replaced "God" with an uncaring "society" in a lot of the arguments. (From a purely utilitarian point of view, the more people with an option not to labor under someone else's mandate, and truly choose their own path in life, presumably the greater the well being of those individuals and the overall more well being across the spectrum of that society. Individual financial self-interest is never utilitarian, you can't maximize others' happiness thinking only of your own.)
- the-dude 9y ago
  Fine and dandy. And I want to have the choice not to pay for it.
- ameister14 9y ago
  You currently already have the option not to work. The problem is that since we are not post-scarcity by any definition, there is a negative impact of your choice on other people. That is the case even with UBI. The question for me is if that negative impact is outweighed by the positive impact of UBI, most of which I think has nothing to do with choosing not to work but instead is about propping up an economy based on labor when we're shifting away from the labor coming from people. I wasn't ascribing morality to your freedom to choose to be entirely dependent on society, I was saying that the moral argument that people are important and that socially we should care about, feed and clothe the needy is mostly grounded in religion. Your use case, where a person intellectually chooses to be dependent on UBI because they don't really like working very much, is very different from the one I envision: robots take your job and you have nothing and so are forced into dependency. The problems this will cause a consumer driven economy are fantastic, and the easy way to prop up said economy is to simply give people money to spend - not too much, or they’d save it. Just enough so that they spend everything you give them, sustaining the cycle. That's the convincing Keynesian argument.
  - WorldMaker 9y ago
    > Your use case, where a person intellectually chooses to be dependent on UBI because they don't really like working very much, is very different from the one I envision: robots take your job and you have nothing and so are forced into dependency. I think that happened already 20 years ago, though not just robots but also centaurs (in the chess sense of people using computers/working in tandem with machines) have taken most of the jobs, even accounting for globalization. I think the reason we aren't talking about it, in that way, is that it's still too easy to sweep the problems under the rug. It's still too easy to blame the people that are out of work rather than the labor market that doesn't need people. A society is people. People being dependent on their society is somewhere between an oxymoron and baseline assumption. Everyone is dependent on the day to day cooperation of their society, in one way or another, even if it is "just" roads, and breathable air, and a political reality in which they can live their day-to-day. I think we are far too stuck on "someone not working is taking away from me", because we see it as some zero-sum game, but robots and centaurs have changed the equations. The labor market is unfair and neither free nor liquid, and yet we are letting it ascribe morals to people, looking down on people working multiple jobs to make ends meet (because the labor market has no incentive to offer a fair price) or who can't find work because there isn't enough work to go around. I think it is far past time to stop judging our neighbors by their position in the labor market. For me, a part of that is realizing that a global and broad option to leave the labor market is important, that we should celebrate that as a right. If capitalism needs more hands on deck, it can pay for them. It's time to stop assuming everyone should work, and let the market tell us why we should work (and how much it is willing to pay to let that work get done). We don't really have an option not to work so long as our basic subsistence is tied to how we spend our labor. But companies don't have to do right by us, because they aren't our societies, they don't need us, they don't depend on us. The basic problem is that we are post-scarcity in the labor market, and companies have a "free lunch" by this "morality" that basic subsidence should be tied to some nominal value of productivity that they decide based on a quarter-to-quarter bottom line. Why should society continue to give capitalism this free lunch? I think society should invest more directly in its people. I think this zero-sum mentality that to invest in a person who chooses not to work has some "negative impact on other people" hurts us as people, and is a bad excuse for society in general. The fact that there may be some people who decide to spend that investment solely on shortening their life with as much alcohol as they may acquire doesn't mean that a society investing in people has a net negative impact on everyone else.
jfsid 9y ago
I'm able to do some types of work, even though all my attempts so far have been torturous for me and subpar for the employers. And I'm certainly able to work according to society, in particular the doctors who have found me mentally and physically healthy. And yet instead of working, I'm taking resources away from others while contributing nothing. I consider this a better ethical outcome than making my life even more intolerable in the name of fairness. I would vote for a feasible basic income in a heartbeat. I'd also vote for legalising suicide as an arguably more moral alternative to both leeching off of society and living lives not worth living. Anyone outraged by the prospect of paying for others' laziness has yet to agree with me that forcing people to contribute to society while depriving them of legal access to safe and comfortable means of exiting society is unfair, too.

WorldMaker 9y ago

I want people to have an option not to work, because I want an option not to work. Maybe I'd like to use that time to drink myself into a stupor and write a terrible novella and pretend I'm Ernest Hemingway in a house full of alley cats. Maybe I'd like to use that time to consider a startup idea that wouldn't be big enough to pay for everything I need like healthcare and retirement, but would be otherwise an interesting project if it didn't have to meet those financial goals out of the gate in its business plan. Maybe I would like to use that time to teach young kids how to program, not as a trade, but as a means to entertainment. You want to ascribe morality to those options, but I find the freedom to choose more interesting. It's not my job to judge which is more "productive". Maybe that novella in the end turns out to comment deeply on the human spirit, maybe those kids never use those skills "productively", maybe that startup goes bust and I return to the next plan. The moral imperative is that I should have the freedom to choose outside of the strictures of what the current job market finds productive or what government can legislate to be considered productive. If that means there are a lot more people following the first idea and drinking themselves to a stupor, then that is a market failure. Surely the labor market can stretch to entice people to such "productive" labor if it actually has to compete for their time and energy? We use a "productive morality" to prop up a market that has never had to truly compete in the entirety of its existence. (Which is to say that labor has never been a free market.) I find it funny, too, that you bring up religion as providing the most convincing moral imperative arguments for UBI, when in my mind it also religion, the Puritanical Zeal, that so colors the debate against UBI. The Puritans believed that men must work to appease God, that Productivity was an end to itself, a way to measure yourself before God. Why does everyone need to work so? You claim it is "society" that demands productivity and wishes to keep score, but many societies have never kept score, and have no need to keep score. It seems to me that the scars of Puritanical Zeal have simply replaced "God" with an uncaring "society" in a lot of the arguments. (From a purely utilitarian point of view, the more people with an option not to labor under someone else's mandate, and truly choose their own path in life, presumably the greater the well being of those individuals and the overall more well being across the spectrum of that society. Individual financial self-interest is never utilitarian, you can't maximize others' happiness thinking only of your own.)

the-dude 9y ago
Fine and dandy. And I want to have the choice not to pay for it.
ameister14 9y ago
You currently already have the option not to work. The problem is that since we are not post-scarcity by any definition, there is a negative impact of your choice on other people. That is the case even with UBI. The question for me is if that negative impact is outweighed by the positive impact of UBI, most of which I think has nothing to do with choosing not to work but instead is about propping up an economy based on labor when we're shifting away from the labor coming from people. I wasn't ascribing morality to your freedom to choose to be entirely dependent on society, I was saying that the moral argument that people are important and that socially we should care about, feed and clothe the needy is mostly grounded in religion. Your use case, where a person intellectually chooses to be dependent on UBI because they don't really like working very much, is very different from the one I envision: robots take your job and you have nothing and so are forced into dependency. The problems this will cause a consumer driven economy are fantastic, and the easy way to prop up said economy is to simply give people money to spend - not too much, or they’d save it. Just enough so that they spend everything you give them, sustaining the cycle. That's the convincing Keynesian argument.
- WorldMaker 9y ago
  > Your use case, where a person intellectually chooses to be dependent on UBI because they don't really like working very much, is very different from the one I envision: robots take your job and you have nothing and so are forced into dependency. I think that happened already 20 years ago, though not just robots but also centaurs (in the chess sense of people using computers/working in tandem with machines) have taken most of the jobs, even accounting for globalization. I think the reason we aren't talking about it, in that way, is that it's still too easy to sweep the problems under the rug. It's still too easy to blame the people that are out of work rather than the labor market that doesn't need people. A society is people. People being dependent on their society is somewhere between an oxymoron and baseline assumption. Everyone is dependent on the day to day cooperation of their society, in one way or another, even if it is "just" roads, and breathable air, and a political reality in which they can live their day-to-day. I think we are far too stuck on "someone not working is taking away from me", because we see it as some zero-sum game, but robots and centaurs have changed the equations. The labor market is unfair and neither free nor liquid, and yet we are letting it ascribe morals to people, looking down on people working multiple jobs to make ends meet (because the labor market has no incentive to offer a fair price) or who can't find work because there isn't enough work to go around. I think it is far past time to stop judging our neighbors by their position in the labor market. For me, a part of that is realizing that a global and broad option to leave the labor market is important, that we should celebrate that as a right. If capitalism needs more hands on deck, it can pay for them. It's time to stop assuming everyone should work, and let the market tell us why we should work (and how much it is willing to pay to let that work get done). We don't really have an option not to work so long as our basic subsistence is tied to how we spend our labor. But companies don't have to do right by us, because they aren't our societies, they don't need us, they don't depend on us. The basic problem is that we are post-scarcity in the labor market, and companies have a "free lunch" by this "morality" that basic subsidence should be tied to some nominal value of productivity that they decide based on a quarter-to-quarter bottom line. Why should society continue to give capitalism this free lunch? I think society should invest more directly in its people. I think this zero-sum mentality that to invest in a person who chooses not to work has some "negative impact on other people" hurts us as people, and is a bad excuse for society in general. The fact that there may be some people who decide to spend that investment solely on shortening their life with as much alcohol as they may acquire doesn't mean that a society investing in people has a net negative impact on everyone else.

jfsid 9y ago

I'm able to do some types of work, even though all my attempts so far have been torturous for me and subpar for the employers. And I'm certainly able to work according to society, in particular the doctors who have found me mentally and physically healthy. And yet instead of working, I'm taking resources away from others while contributing nothing. I consider this a better ethical outcome than making my life even more intolerable in the name of fairness. I would vote for a feasible basic income in a heartbeat. I'd also vote for legalising suicide as an arguably more moral alternative to both leeching off of society and living lives not worth living. Anyone outraged by the prospect of paying for others' laziness has yet to agree with me that forcing people to contribute to society while depriving them of legal access to safe and comfortable means of exiting society is unfair, too.