5 ms·

Ask HN: Are there any alternatives to basic income?

11 points by yread 8y ago

Basic income has some nice properties but quite some disadvantages, too. Is there any research towards alternatives that would help keep the society together once the machines really kick in?

dasmoth 8y ago
Some would argue that Job Guarantees could perform a similar function. Personally find them a rather depressing idea, but you’ll find plenty of arguments for and against.
- BjoernKW 8y ago
  Guaranteeing work or rather forcing someone to do work even if it doesn't provide any value or serve any purpose while at the same time you could provide them with a basic income for no work at all seems downright cruel to me. Guaranteeing work ultimately boils down to work for work's sake and arguments like "idle hands are the devil's workshop".
  - dasmoth 8y ago
    Agree 100% (hence my “rather depressing”). The advocates are definitely out there, though.
tonyedgecombe 8y ago
In the UK we have a constrained housing supply, I'm pretty sure any basic income would just inflate property prices and end up in the pockets of landlords and the already wealthy. I'd prefer a return to the sort of social housing we created post war, where it wasn't just for the very needy but ordinary people in low paying jobs.
- mrfusion 8y ago
  Or if a lot of people stopped working and lived on basic income it might drive down the cost of housing to sell to those folks.
  - arkryal 8y ago
    No, it would be the exact opposite. If I know you have a guaranteed $200 a week in your pocket, the floor for negotiations rises to that level, because in a high-demand market, if you won't tap into that money to pay me more, someone else will.
    - mrfusion 8y ago
      Agree to disagree?
    - dllthomas 8y ago
      Except there's still competition. If renting becomes $200/wk more expensive, then sharing a room, or living with family, or move out of the area (to somewhere that still has BI but less constrained housing) becomes $200/wk more appealing and that'll make the difference for some people. Rents would probably rise, but not the full $200.
- api 8y ago
  Interesting... here in the US public/social housing has a really horrible reputation because many of those projects turned into crime-ridden slums. The term "the projects" is literally synonymous with crime infested war-zone. Did the same experience happen in Britain?
arkryal 8y ago
There have been ideas floated that use crypto-currency models. The advantage of "programmable money" enables a few things which would not be possible with conventional currency. I'm not advocating this, but I've heard of several models for a merit-based economy (which I reject as it's only really viable under authoritarianism), but it illustrates a way in which this might work. All individuals receive a fixed number of tokens daily. Everyone gets 100 for example. However, you're taxed based on merit, as defined by attributes in your wallet. If you have a bad driving record for example (comparable to receiving many traffic tickets), what costs me 20 tokens might cost you 21. You're penalized for misconduct at the point of sale. However someone who volunteers with a charity for 10 hours a week might only pay 18 for the same goods. The merchant/service provider is reimbursed the same, regardless of the cost, as all excess token taxes are pooled and the difference is allocated from that if the sale price falls under the base price. Merits and demerits are fixed to be issued at a 1:1 ratio. Another option would be to simply impose a luxury tax on non-essential goods, and use that to finance essential goods. Less Universal Income, more Universal Food Stamps... You might pay 25% more for that new car, but you can always walk into a store and pick up a bag of food staples or simple pharmaceuticals. They key here is that's it's not just for the poor or disabled, and everyone pays the luxury tax. However, naturally those with more disposable income will likely spend more and thus pay more of the tax. This works in local economies (a small town for example), but doesn't scale up with population very well because locality plays a huge role in costs. If kept local however, there's no cost advantage to centralized administration, and it could end up costing everyone significantly more to run variants of the same programs on the local level. And then you might just make your luxury purchases two towns over (or online) where their tax is lower, lol. This system has been used in the past, but global economics in place today negate the efficacy of this model. Another idea eschews the money aspect entirely and instead reduces the standard work week, freeing people up to pursue supplemental employment if they choose, start a side business, etc. This actually has more practical implications. Studies have shown in most office work, companies are effectively only getting 28 hours of work out of people in a 40 hour work week, and less in industrial jobs. Reducing the work week to 30 hours (at the same net salary) made no negative impact on productivity. Companies got the same amount of measurable work, for the same cost, but gave the employee more free time. Going from 40 hours to 30 potentially creates 25% more jobs if you need 24/7 coverage, but also increases the cost to the employer. However, with 25% more jobs available, you can get a part time job to work a full 40 hours (or more) if you want, ideally in another industry. Then if the industry you're in takes a dive, there's some resilience to layoffs. You already have other employment and skills in another field. The idea is rather than give people a basic income, less money could be used to provide tax exemptions to companies who adopted this model to offset their increased costs of hiring. You take less from the company, but that is more than offset by the value generated by the increase in employment and tax revenues generated from that productivity. The problem here is with skilled professions that are in high demand. For example, you can't do this with ER doctors, we don't have enough of them as it is. Not all professions and industries benefit equally. But this isn't without precedent, before the establishment of the 40 hour work week, most people were working 80-90 hours. It's doable and there are advantages, but it's not universal.To be implemented, it must be voluntary, not compulsory, but with changes made to the law to extend things like health benefit eligibility to people working under 40 hours. Then it can be slowly adopted naturally by those who benefit the most from it, and their experience and improvements in implementation can inform industries who may want to adopt it but will have less margin for error. Keep in mind, universal basic income is already available to everyone. They're called "dividends". You pay into an investment and receive a portion of the profits at fixed intervals for assuming a portion of the risk. This is superior to a UBI, because you have to opt-in, contribute as much or as little as you want, and you get control over how the money is managed. People get butt-hurt when you say this, and counter with the same statement: "Not everyone is an investor, many will lose the money, so it's not universal". But that's true of a UBI too. Some people would take the money and invest it to grow their wealth, some people will buy food and housing to subsist on it, and some people will piss it away on weed and video games. Those are all valid choices, but they have consequences in regard to the financial prosperity of the individual. There are plenty of good articles about unconventional economics here: https://countermarkets.com https://countermarkets.com
keiferski 8y ago
The concept of basic income seems kind of absurd to me, honestly. Infrastructure is crumbling, the educational system is slowly falling apart, urban areas in certain cities are becoming less and less maintained, etc. I see no reason why basic income would be preferable to a Public Works Administration-style program that pays people to do these tasks.
- ddingus 8y ago
  Same. I dislike Basic Income because it boils down to a payoff to prop up otherwise unbridled capitalism. I am a capitalist. Markets, innovation, and all that are beautiful. But, we take too much. There must be more investment in the mutual, public good.
  - RaceWon 8y ago
    I fall into the basic mold that you describe (a capitalist and so on), and I felt the same until I read everything Y Combinator was doing regarding basic income. It made sense to me. Here's the link if you have some time to read all the docs... https://basicincome.ycr.org/ https://basicincome.ycr.org/
    - ddingus 8y ago
      I have read that. Not sold. And to be clear, the intent is good. No problem. I do not see a positive outcome, as in a healthy, balanced society with robust and meaningful checks and balances. We need that. I do not trust the outcomes without it.
      - RaceWon 8y ago
        Ok, I'm glad you read it. For sure the jury is out on this, and your instincts may well be correct. It does seem as though YC is at least looking to see if this is truly a good idea or not based on the way the experiment is being conducted.
        8y ago
FreeWater 8y ago
Hello, my startup Free Essentials is going to solve universal income privately by paying our members to consume our already free products and services. Since our products will be free, all our revenue will come from advertising, transaction fees, and data. Initially, we are going to establish ourselves with water and then we will expand from there. Please take a look at the commercial for our first product FreeWater and you'll get the big picture. Best, Josh https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zd748KfMnLY&t=7s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zd748KfMnLY&t=7s
brador 8y ago
There's the old Jubilee system (redistribution of land): https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jubilee_(biblical) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jubilee_(biblical)
a-saleh 8y ago
In my opinion, basic-income, though a general concept, can't really be generalized. Any actual implementation will be an alternative to any other actual implementation. Social policy seems to be hard to get right. I.e. one thing I heard, that a certain level of universal-basic-income is being implemented in the US, by generous disability benefits. If you then feel that you no longer have ability to do meaningful work (especially in the rural areas), you can collude with your doctor to make yourself a diagnosis that you would qualify for and would qualify you for disability benefits. As they say, these days there are no healthy people, just insufficiently diagnosed ;) Then you can survive doing odd-jobs to supplement your now-almost-basic income. But I get that making something like this general might just cost too much. And there might be unwanted sideffects. I.e. in my country, you can apply for housing subsidy. This was supposed to help low-income households. In reality, it mostly helped people providing housing for of certain segment of almost-homeless people, where they no longer have stable address, and they barely scrape by to pay ther rent, mostly one-bed in a how income hostel. So, when the subsidies came, owners just raised the price of a bed by the ammount of subsidy. This created an interesting poverty-trap, and several cities are trying to fight back to untangle this. What doesn't help is that many of the trapped people are ethnic minorities, which then can be used by less savoury politicians in their municipal politc campaigns.
api 8y ago
One alternative would be an economy that spends surplus on large goals: infrastructure mega-projects, big science, interplanetary colonization, technological moon shots, etc. That would "soak up" a lot of employment, especially at the top, and have effects throughout the entire economy. A lot of people find that distasteful because it implies a degree of authoritarianism beyond what basic income would require.

11 points by yread 8y ago

Basic income has some nice properties but quite some disadvantages, too. Is there any research towards alternatives that would help keep the society together once the machines really kick in?

dasmoth 8y ago

Some would argue that Job Guarantees could perform a similar function. Personally find them a rather depressing idea, but you’ll find plenty of arguments for and against.

BjoernKW 8y ago
Guaranteeing work or rather forcing someone to do work even if it doesn't provide any value or serve any purpose while at the same time you could provide them with a basic income for no work at all seems downright cruel to me. Guaranteeing work ultimately boils down to work for work's sake and arguments like "idle hands are the devil's workshop".
- dasmoth 8y ago
  Agree 100% (hence my “rather depressing”). The advocates are definitely out there, though.

tonyedgecombe 8y ago

In the UK we have a constrained housing supply, I'm pretty sure any basic income would just inflate property prices and end up in the pockets of landlords and the already wealthy. I'd prefer a return to the sort of social housing we created post war, where it wasn't just for the very needy but ordinary people in low paying jobs.

mrfusion 8y ago
Or if a lot of people stopped working and lived on basic income it might drive down the cost of housing to sell to those folks.
- arkryal 8y ago
  No, it would be the exact opposite. If I know you have a guaranteed $200 a week in your pocket, the floor for negotiations rises to that level, because in a high-demand market, if you won't tap into that money to pay me more, someone else will.
  - mrfusion 8y ago
    Agree to disagree?
  - dllthomas 8y ago
    Except there's still competition. If renting becomes $200/wk more expensive, then sharing a room, or living with family, or move out of the area (to somewhere that still has BI but less constrained housing) becomes $200/wk more appealing and that'll make the difference for some people. Rents would probably rise, but not the full $200.
api 8y ago
Interesting... here in the US public/social housing has a really horrible reputation because many of those projects turned into crime-ridden slums. The term "the projects" is literally synonymous with crime infested war-zone. Did the same experience happen in Britain?

arkryal 8y ago

There have been ideas floated that use crypto-currency models. The advantage of "programmable money" enables a few things which would not be possible with conventional currency. I'm not advocating this, but I've heard of several models for a merit-based economy (which I reject as it's only really viable under authoritarianism), but it illustrates a way in which this might work. All individuals receive a fixed number of tokens daily. Everyone gets 100 for example. However, you're taxed based on merit, as defined by attributes in your wallet. If you have a bad driving record for example (comparable to receiving many traffic tickets), what costs me 20 tokens might cost you 21. You're penalized for misconduct at the point of sale. However someone who volunteers with a charity for 10 hours a week might only pay 18 for the same goods. The merchant/service provider is reimbursed the same, regardless of the cost, as all excess token taxes are pooled and the difference is allocated from that if the sale price falls under the base price. Merits and demerits are fixed to be issued at a 1:1 ratio. Another option would be to simply impose a luxury tax on non-essential goods, and use that to finance essential goods. Less Universal Income, more Universal Food Stamps... You might pay 25% more for that new car, but you can always walk into a store and pick up a bag of food staples or simple pharmaceuticals. They key here is that's it's not just for the poor or disabled, and everyone pays the luxury tax. However, naturally those with more disposable income will likely spend more and thus pay more of the tax. This works in local economies (a small town for example), but doesn't scale up with population very well because locality plays a huge role in costs. If kept local however, there's no cost advantage to centralized administration, and it could end up costing everyone significantly more to run variants of the same programs on the local level. And then you might just make your luxury purchases two towns over (or online) where their tax is lower, lol. This system has been used in the past, but global economics in place today negate the efficacy of this model. Another idea eschews the money aspect entirely and instead reduces the standard work week, freeing people up to pursue supplemental employment if they choose, start a side business, etc. This actually has more practical implications. Studies have shown in most office work, companies are effectively only getting 28 hours of work out of people in a 40 hour work week, and less in industrial jobs. Reducing the work week to 30 hours (at the same net salary) made no negative impact on productivity. Companies got the same amount of measurable work, for the same cost, but gave the employee more free time. Going from 40 hours to 30 potentially creates 25% more jobs if you need 24/7 coverage, but also increases the cost to the employer. However, with 25% more jobs available, you can get a part time job to work a full 40 hours (or more) if you want, ideally in another industry. Then if the industry you're in takes a dive, there's some resilience to layoffs. You already have other employment and skills in another field. The idea is rather than give people a basic income, less money could be used to provide tax exemptions to companies who adopted this model to offset their increased costs of hiring. You take less from the company, but that is more than offset by the value generated by the increase in employment and tax revenues generated from that productivity. The problem here is with skilled professions that are in high demand. For example, you can't do this with ER doctors, we don't have enough of them as it is. Not all professions and industries benefit equally. But this isn't without precedent, before the establishment of the 40 hour work week, most people were working 80-90 hours. It's doable and there are advantages, but it's not universal.To be implemented, it must be voluntary, not compulsory, but with changes made to the law to extend things like health benefit eligibility to people working under 40 hours. Then it can be slowly adopted naturally by those who benefit the most from it, and their experience and improvements in implementation can inform industries who may want to adopt it but will have less margin for error. Keep in mind, universal basic income is already available to everyone. They're called "dividends". You pay into an investment and receive a portion of the profits at fixed intervals for assuming a portion of the risk. This is superior to a UBI, because you have to opt-in, contribute as much or as little as you want, and you get control over how the money is managed. People get butt-hurt when you say this, and counter with the same statement: "Not everyone is an investor, many will lose the money, so it's not universal". But that's true of a UBI too. Some people would take the money and invest it to grow their wealth, some people will buy food and housing to subsist on it, and some people will piss it away on weed and video games. Those are all valid choices, but they have consequences in regard to the financial prosperity of the individual. There are plenty of good articles about unconventional economics here: https://countermarkets.com https://countermarkets.com

keiferski 8y ago

The concept of basic income seems kind of absurd to me, honestly. Infrastructure is crumbling, the educational system is slowly falling apart, urban areas in certain cities are becoming less and less maintained, etc. I see no reason why basic income would be preferable to a Public Works Administration-style program that pays people to do these tasks.

ddingus 8y ago
Same. I dislike Basic Income because it boils down to a payoff to prop up otherwise unbridled capitalism. I am a capitalist. Markets, innovation, and all that are beautiful. But, we take too much. There must be more investment in the mutual, public good.
- RaceWon 8y ago
  I fall into the basic mold that you describe (a capitalist and so on), and I felt the same until I read everything Y Combinator was doing regarding basic income. It made sense to me. Here's the link if you have some time to read all the docs... https://basicincome.ycr.org/ https://basicincome.ycr.org/
  - ddingus 8y ago
    I have read that. Not sold. And to be clear, the intent is good. No problem. I do not see a positive outcome, as in a healthy, balanced society with robust and meaningful checks and balances. We need that. I do not trust the outcomes without it.
    - RaceWon 8y ago
      Ok, I'm glad you read it. For sure the jury is out on this, and your instincts may well be correct. It does seem as though YC is at least looking to see if this is truly a good idea or not based on the way the experiment is being conducted.
      - 8y ago

FreeWater 8y ago

Hello, my startup Free Essentials is going to solve universal income privately by paying our members to consume our already free products and services. Since our products will be free, all our revenue will come from advertising, transaction fees, and data. Initially, we are going to establish ourselves with water and then we will expand from there. Please take a look at the commercial for our first product FreeWater and you'll get the big picture. Best, Josh https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zd748KfMnLY&t=7s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zd748KfMnLY&t=7s

brador 8y ago

There's the old Jubilee system (redistribution of land): https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jubilee_(biblical) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jubilee_(biblical)

a-saleh 8y ago

In my opinion, basic-income, though a general concept, can't really be generalized. Any actual implementation will be an alternative to any other actual implementation. Social policy seems to be hard to get right. I.e. one thing I heard, that a certain level of universal-basic-income is being implemented in the US, by generous disability benefits. If you then feel that you no longer have ability to do meaningful work (especially in the rural areas), you can collude with your doctor to make yourself a diagnosis that you would qualify for and would qualify you for disability benefits. As they say, these days there are no healthy people, just insufficiently diagnosed ;) Then you can survive doing odd-jobs to supplement your now-almost-basic income. But I get that making something like this general might just cost too much. And there might be unwanted sideffects. I.e. in my country, you can apply for housing subsidy. This was supposed to help low-income households. In reality, it mostly helped people providing housing for of certain segment of almost-homeless people, where they no longer have stable address, and they barely scrape by to pay ther rent, mostly one-bed in a how income hostel. So, when the subsidies came, owners just raised the price of a bed by the ammount of subsidy. This created an interesting poverty-trap, and several cities are trying to fight back to untangle this. What doesn't help is that many of the trapped people are ethnic minorities, which then can be used by less savoury politicians in their municipal politc campaigns.

api 8y ago

One alternative would be an economy that spends surplus on large goals: infrastructure mega-projects, big science, interplanetary colonization, technological moon shots, etc. That would "soak up" a lot of employment, especially at the top, and have effects throughout the entire economy. A lot of people find that distasteful because it implies a degree of authoritarianism beyond what basic income would require.