4 ms·
The final piece of course is the cultural reform required for UBI. What will you spend your UBI on if the goods and services are not being produced, because no
by gaius 9y ago
The final piece of course is the cultural reform required for UBI.
What will you spend your UBI on if the goods and services are not being produced, because no one is being paid to do them?
- TuringTest 9y agoWhy do you assume that not being paid means that no goods and services will be produced?
- gaius 9y agoBecause many things that are pleasurable or satisfying to do for yourself are not so much when you scale them. That’s why people get paid to do them now.
- TuringTest 9y agoThat's a reason for ''some'' services not being done, not all services not being done.
- gaius 9y agoSure, I’ll grant that, but what of jobs that aren’t automatable, but are essential? If this is a serious proposition then we can’t handwave it away.
- TuringTest 9y agoYour original question contained the assumptions that, with an UBI, no services will be created, and no one will be paid for services. None of these are a necessary consequence of people receiving an unconditional amount of money regularly. People can still may want to work for luxuries, or I might want to pay others to sway their personal projects in the direction I prefer. Plus, maybe some services may be "essential" only under the current working scene, but might become less so if everybody adjusted their way of life to a slower rate of consumerism (buying more virtual goods rather than physical, traveling less, working from home, buying local, etc). A lower income level could be sustainable under those conditions, if some percentage of it is guaranteed.
- lmm 9y agoEither there's a market-clearing price for the goods and services you want or there isn't. If you want something that someone would have to put themselves out to produce, then either you make it worthwhile for them to put themselves out by that much (perhaps by paying them money, perhaps by producing your own goods and services in the categories that are inconvenient or tedious to produce) or you decide the thing is not worth that much to you. The belief is that this category of goods and services would be rare - that most things are not so inconvenient or tedious to produce, that most demand could be covered without making people put themselves out a lot. Of course it's possible this is wrong.
- gumby 9y agoLet’s the robots do them. If I want a person to play me music i can find someone who’ll do it at mynclearinprice, or play the music myself. Or be happy with the robot produced music (which can hardly be worse than the focus group produced pop music of today)