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The colossal problem with universal basic income [video]

39 points by jatsign 8y ago

wafflesraccoon 8y ago
Isn't Big Think funded by the Kock family[0]? I'd take this information with a grain of salt, they typically lean hard on conservative perspective. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Think https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Think
- alehul 8y ago
  Pretty much all of this research is funded by one side or another— we should always be as scrupulous as possible in examining an argument, and assume there's money behind it. Also, pedantic here but it's Koch, pronounced like "Coke", rather than Kock. :)
  - kadendogthing 8y ago
    >and assume there's money behind it. I mean there is always going to be money behind anything. It's largely how our society works. You instead should ask yourself what end goal the money is being spent for.
  - dingaling 8y ago
    > but it's Koch, pronounced like "Coke" Doubly pedantic but in the original German it is pronounced Kawcchh
- jatsign 8y ago
  Kind of an ad hominem argument. I'm a liberal and I think we probably will need a UBI at some point, but I do see the point he's making, where a lot of big tech proponents seem to side-step the problems they're helping to create (loss of jobs) by calling for universal basic income.
  - lallysingh 8y ago
    Is it side-stepping if UBI actually happens?
    - jerf 8y ago
      He gives an argument that the answer is still "yes". If UBI happens and Uber et al still ends up with all the money, then the argument still holds. Using a non-existent UBI as an argument for how they behave today is another level of problem.
  - simonh 8y ago
    Plenty of western countries, including the US and UK have record high employment, and plenty of un-filled open positions. The unemployment we do have is a skill shortage, not a jobs shortage. Meanwhile China has employed hundreds of millions of people and salaries there have boomed. None of this shows any real sign of a squeeze on overall employment. I know there’s a lot of talk about AI putting people out of work, but it doesn’t actually seem to be happening yet. Automation has been putting people out of work for hundreds of years now, yet there are more jobs than ever. Ultimately maybe we’ll all live in a Star Trek future when ‘work’ is synonymous with ‘slavery’. We’re a very long way from anything like that, yet people talk a lot as though it’s already happening when it really isn’t.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- Alex3917 8y ago
  I mean Douglas is right that that UBI doesn't solve every social or economic problem, but this does seem a little out-of-character for him.
- Reedx 8y ago
  Their most popular content shows another story: https://www.youtube.com/user/bigthink/videos?view=0&sort=p&flow=grid https://www.youtube.com/user/bigthink/videos?view=0&sort=p&f...
- closetohome 8y ago
  It's funny how often conservative propaganda is posted here, and how quick people are to make excuses for it when it's pointed out. And how quick they are to downvote anyone who calls them on it.
- uxp100 8y ago
  UBI is a libertarianish policy, and Big Think has published pro-UBI articles in the past. OTOH, Rushkoff's objections are from a left perspective, and leftists in general seem to be coming out against it. In the past some less-radical leftists have been for it (and one or two very atypical communists), but now that it is officially coded "tech-bro" I see leftists reiterating conservative arguments against minimum wage, except against UBI. It's odd.
  - cbHXBY1D 8y ago
    As someone on the left and someone who has actively participated in multiple socialist parties in the US for years, the opposition to UBI from the left (DemSocs, Marxist-Leninists, various flavors of anarchists) is because we see it as a way for the ruling class to gut social programs instead of supplement them. The idea of "guaranteed income" argued for by people like MLK was a way to abolish poverty forever. Here's some MLK quotes on it from his book Where Do We Go From Here: https://medium.com/basic-income/mlk-on-guaranteed-income-bfd060fd5314 https://medium.com/basic-income/mlk-on-guaranteed-income-bfd...
    - burfog 8y ago
      Well, that's part of the deal if UBI is ever to get off the ground. Normally UBI is considered to be sort of a truce between the left and the right. The left wants the UBI, and the right wants to get rid of government bureaucrats. The left gives up on the government bureaucrats ("gut social programs") and the right gives up on tossing out all forms of welfare. Of course, both sides are motivated to break the truce. You just admitted that in fact, wanting to not "gut social programs". Enforcing the truce doesn't seem possible.
      - cazum 8y ago
        Well, one obvious solution there is to simply accept no compromise and vote the right and corporations completely out of power.
        8y ago
- DennisP 8y ago
  He complains that UBI would funnel more money to the people producing goods. At the end he advocates "universal basic assets," distributing ownership of productive assets instead of just income. If anything it's more left-wing than UBI.
  - frenchy 8y ago
    > distributing ownership of productive assets instead of just income Yeah, that's pretty much standard communism ("collective ownership of the means of production"). The million dollar question, is "how do we go about doing this without setting up a fascist state?"
    - cazum 8y ago
      I think you mean authoritarian state. Fascism is a specific right wing thing.
      - burfog 8y ago
        No, and until a decade ago there wasn't anybody trying to push that falsehood. Fascism involves heavy government control of everything. "All within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state." -- Benito Mussolini That is anything but right wing.
        dragonwriter 8y ago
        It's absolutely right-wing. It's not libertarian, but libertarian isn't equal to right-wing; you can have right-libertarians, but even the most extreme of those is more moderately right (and within the wide classical liberal tradition) than fascists, who are essentially—while certainly there was some novelty involved in Mussolini's time—a conscious throwback further right to classical conservatism.
        burfog 8y ago
        Libertarian isn't equal to right-wing, but neither is nationalism or racism or anything else that you may see in fascism. Fundamentally, the left is about collectivism and the right is about individualism. The difference is whether you think the state is a provider or a parasite. It's about wanting the government to take care of you or get out of your way. It's about wanting the government to make everybody have equal stuff or an equal opportunity.
- jerf 8y ago
  Actually, the idea that the Koch brothers fund only "conservative stuff" is not terribly accurate. They fund things all over the map. "Conservatives" don't particularly trust them either. If you really get down to what they fund, instead of reading people's screeds about them and scapegoating, it's rather hard to characterize. (I've also seen them called "libertarian", but they have rather more left-wing and big-government stuff than you would expect with that.)
  - solidsnack9000 8y ago
    Care to provide some examples of non-conservative stuff that they fund?
    - jerf 8y ago
      Well, this video and universal basic income in general, for one: https://www.thenation.com/article/a-basic-income-would-upend-americas-work-ethic-and-thats-a-good-thing/ https://www.thenation.com/article/a-basic-income-would-upend... It is true that you can find conservative thinkers who have been in favor of UBI, but it is not a generally-conservative idea right now. The general conservative idea remains to try to "get government out of the way" of the economy and let the free market provide people with jobs. I don't see conservative sites talking about UBI in positive ways; I see it as a generally liberal idea where one of the arguments the liberals are using is that some conservative leaders have written about it positively in the past. (Which is a valid enough argument.) "Nobody" "knew" that certain conservative thinkers had written positively about UBI until it was picked up as a liberal, left-wing idea and somebody found those arguments. (Note I am merely mentioning certain arguments, not making them.) The Koch foundation has also been fairly vigorously anti-Trump: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/koch-brothers-donald-trump-clash-resistance-conservative-billionaires-network-us-president-charles-a7560706.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/koch-broth... , including opposition to the immigration restrictions from certain mainly-Muslim contries, a relatively liberal perspective. Whether or not you consider some of the other mentioned positions "conservative" starts getting down into some weeds. (i.e. "Is Trump conservative, and is opposing Trump therefore anti-conservative?" is something you could write a lengthy essay on that would largely come down to "it depends on which definition of conservative you're using", and would really be more a springboard for examining the relevant definitions and how they differ.) I'm not saying they aren't often in the position of opposing liberalism (which I think may be more accurate than "being conservative"... there are more than two sides to the world), but it's not 100%, either. It's more complicated. Nor am I particularly defending them here, either. I'm not a huge fan either, just for different reasons than most people here. Again, going back to "there's more than two sides in the world".
- swayvil 8y ago
  Ok. That makes sense. I think that Douglas's argument addresses a strawman : UBI fails to fight the evils of capitalism. Which is totally not the point of UBI. The point of UBI is to increase the efficiency of our economy and to improve the living conditions of our population, which results in all kinds of other improvements. And I think that this is obvious. So ya, I gotta raise my eyebrow at Douglas.
ImADemocRat 8y ago
Lol
yarrel 8y ago
Read "Inventing The Future" by Srnicek & Williams. Please.
- orthecreedence 8y ago
  Can you give a quick synopsis so we know why we should read it? What did you get out of it that you liked, and how does it relate to UBI?
TheChaplain 8y ago
UBI seems like a interesting idea but I don't think it's more than a small part of a bigger solution. It could possibly help people from having 3-4 part time jobs just to make ends meet, but other problematic areas still exist. Affordable housing, get people off the street / living in their cars. Public medical care that doesn't require insurance or bankrupt you. Higher education system that doesn't leave you with a life long debt.
- ibm5100 8y ago
  Some of us aren't as skilled as the computer scientists that make up the bulk of HN readership. At $50k a year living in NYC, $1000 in supplemental monthly income would radically improve my life unlike any other social safety net approach generally discussed.
nvahalik 8y ago
To me, part of the problem is that nobody can simply "live" anymore. While there are homesteaders who can effectively "live off the land", people can no longer actually do that. Instead of UBI, why not create a system where people can actually "live" without needing to create a whole system where the government ends up requiring people to pay into the system? From the video: "We can't just give these people houses because they don't have jobs". Yeah, because they don't just get "the house" they also have to pay property taxes, and for the utilities, and for everything else that is required, you know, actually live in the house. Maybe this is overly simplistic, but it seems like you can do one of two things: prop "the system" up by continuing to require things like property taxes and the like, or find a way for people to be able to actually, you know, OWN their property and do whatever they want with it so that they could be completely self-sufficient. EDIT: Actually, that seems to be something along the lines of what he is saying: "UBI perputates people as consumers but not as owners" (my paraphrase)
- petermcneeley 8y ago
  Very few people would want to live this "self-sufficient" lifestyle. I dont think people are opposed to efficiencies of scale or the advancements that can come from multinational corporations. I think that its not just simplistic reasoning is completely wrongheaded.
  - WalterSear 8y ago
    Even fewer comprehend the difficulties and sacrifice it would entail.
- simonh 8y ago
  I'm not a fan of UBI, but income is a valuable and liberating thing. It gives people choice by providing them with a resource they control and can spend as they want. Living in the modern works necessarily involves the consumption of valuable resources. Space, power, water, food, goods, services. Providing those at no costs will lead to horrible inefficiencies and excessive use. You need to charge for them so that people can make rational choices and trade-offs between them and take responsibility for their decisions and preferences.
tim333 8y ago
A talk by the Throwing Rocks as the Google Bus author. A little muddled but I think his argument is the problem UBI is "it's just a way of perpetuating our roles as consumers at the bottom of the pyramid not as owners" while I guess the 0.1% still own everything. Which I guess could be an issue although as we don't have UBI who knows how it'd play out.
- devoply 8y ago
  That's obviously how it would play out. The way it works right now is that corporations for the work that you do for them give you money which you use to buy goods from them. UBI makes it so that the government taxes corporations and gives money to consumers to buy things from them. How much money is entirely political but you can be assured that there will always be more need for growth and that consumers will always be told to tighten their belts. You will also never have enough money left over to invest or save a nest egg. So over time more income share will go to the top.
  - tim333 8y ago
    The other main way for it to play out would be to vote in some left wing style wealth redistribution. That kind of thing does happen. Maybe not just now but if Google and Amazon's AGI robots were taking over everything I could see a vote in that direction.
    - tim333 8y ago
      Looking that up I don't think redistributive tax has to be left wing. Top income tax rates were 90%+ under Winston Churchill (Cons) and Eisenhower (Rep).
- PeterisP 8y ago
  I'd think of it not as a way for "perpetuating our roles as consumers at the bottom of the pyramid not as owners" but as acknowledging that the large picture is changing from a loop where nearly everyone is both a consumer a producer to an environment where large portion of people will inevitably be only consumers, because the economy won't need their labor anymore. And it's reasonable to assume that these people - who have little economic power now, and will have less and less of it - won't magically become the owners of the world. They might seize ownership with force in a revolution or they may get handed that ownership as a handout, but they can not trade for it or work for it or bargain for it, they don't have and won't have anything to offer to those who currently own the world's resources and means of production. It's not a way of perpetuating the current roles, it's a way of treating the consequences of current roles so that the consequences are more humane. Of course, one may argue that keeping the consequences horrific is more likely to motivate radical change, which is true, but IMHO not a good way to proceed.
ibm5100 8y ago
How about "The collosal problem with a $1 trillion dollar Pentagon budget when I can barely pay my rent".
derekp7 8y ago
I had a thought, wondering if it could work. For anyone who has the means, you can set up a basic income for your children by contributing about 350/month from the time they are born, then assuming 7% growth there will be over 250K sitting in the trust fund. This is enough for $10,000 per year (4% drawdown rate), which will provide them a basic income just as they are getting out of college, and trying to find their way in the world. The major problems I see with this, is inflation (adjust the monthly contributions to keep up with inflation), and for multiple kids $350/month will not be achievable for people of lower income.
- robhunter 8y ago
  I think the whole point of basic income is to help people that can't afford what you are proposing.
- nathanaldensr 8y ago
  > assuming 7% growth That's a big assumption, and doesn't take into account the reduced spending power (cost inflation) during that time.
  - ahelwer 8y ago
    7% is in line with historical growth rate (below it, actually) Cost inflation is assumed to be 3%, which is why the withdrawal rate is 4% (4% + 3% = 7%) Anyway a 4% withdrawal rate is fine for 30 years (the duration of the trinity study) but a lower withdrawal rate (say, 3.25%) is needed for longer timespans like the 65-ish years of life expected of someone just graduating college, see this: https://earlyretirementnow.com/2016/12/07/the-ultimate-guide-to-safe-withdrawal-rates-part-1-intro/ https://earlyretirementnow.com/2016/12/07/the-ultimate-guide...
stcredzero 8y ago
UBI fails to take into account human nature. 1) Crime and social unrest is directly correlated to perception of relative wealth inequality. Past a certain point, relative wealth has a dominant effect on life expectancy! [b] 2) Given the above point, the solution would seem to be a progressive tax on the wealthy. Unfortunately, this is very hard to make workable, as the wealthy have control of most of the wealth and power, and failing that, are the most mobile. http://www.sfindicatorproject.org/indicators/view/146 http://www.sfindicatorproject.org/indicators/view/146 ([b] Ichiro Kawachi, 2000. Income Inequality and Health. In Social Epidemiology. Eds. Lisa Berkman and Ichiro Kawachi. New York: Oxford University Press. Pp. 76-94.)
- devoply 8y ago
  > The French Revolution was a period of far-reaching social and political upheaval in France and its colonies beginning in 1789. The Revolution overthrew the monarchy, established a republic, catalyzed violent periods of political turmoil, and finally culminated in a dictatorship under Napoleon who brought many of its principles to areas he conquered in Western Europe and beyond. Inspired by liberal and radical ideas, the Revolution profoundly altered the course of modern history, triggering the global decline of absolute monarchies while replacing them with republics and liberal democracies. Similarly you could wrestle control out of the hands of the wealthy if you wanted to... it's just a question of what will replace that and not make it worse, i.e. Venezuela.
  - stcredzero 8y ago
    it's just a question of what will replace that and not make it worse Periods of widespread terror and destruction should be remembered forever. No one should want that as a price for anything.
    - devoply 8y ago
      For whom? For instance there has been massive periods of terror and destruction in the Middle East. Americans in general agree it as a price for freedom from Saddam and the Taliban -- followed by the Islamic State. This was at the behest in many ways of the American wealthy who want more wealth by rebuilding those countries and seizing their oil deposit for international corporations. So terror and destruction are not remembered at all by those who perpetuate them and many humans use it as a common place tool for politically enriching themselves.
chris_va 8y ago
There are so many issues with this video, I don't even know where to begin. I like this one line: "The US Department of Agriculture burns food every week in order to keep the prices of that food high, even though there's people who are starving and people who need homes." ... OK, let's ignore the fact that the world produces far more food than it needs and people still starve. Obviously the problem is with the USDA, if only they didn't do that everything would be fine /s. Every line in here reads like it's pandering to a specific viewpoint in an attempt to legitimize the UBI message. "I think people shouldn't starve, therefore this person must be right". To me, "the" colossal big problem with UBI (if there is only one) is the probable hyperinflation and crash that happens as a result of redistributing many trillions of dollars without the creation of commensurate economic value. Guaranteed employment (where at least some economic value is getting created) is a less risky approach to accomplishing the same goal.
athrowaway3z 8y ago
2:45 : "we faked lower employment through ... unsustainable business practices" What sustainability is can be up for debate. But i've never seen of a version that would put more people back in jobs than automation will take away. 3:55 : 'We will get the government to print more money, to give it to workers'. Either this is some very small thinking for 'Big Think' or you they are skipping over a lot of assumptions that should be stated explicitly. --- One 'Universal Basic Asset' idea i like is giving every person a yearly carbon credit that companies have to buy, instead of gifting it to the largest polluters.
pontifier 8y ago
I don't see UBI in this way at all. Nothing would stop a UBI recipient from investing a portion of that income. In my mind a UBI allows increased economic freedom. It especially benefits the people currently most in need of it. That's not a bad thing.
simonh 8y ago
I think it’s useful to look at the basic social contract here. Voters already have a degree of ownership over the state. They are shareholders that get to elect a board to run the state on their behalf. In that sense maybe a dividend is reasonable. Looking at it another way, the relationship between citizen and stats is one of responsibilities on both sides. Citizens are responsible for the defence of the state, in the most extreme case through conscription into the armed forces, which puts an obligation on the state to protect them. This and the realisation by the government that many citizens were not fit for such service, was one of the impetuses behind the consensus on the creation of the National health Service in the UK. Partly it was quid-pro-quo for the sacrifices ordinary people made, but partly it was just good national security policy to ensure the nation had a healthy labour and fighting force. This isn’t socialism, it’s just good governance. So while I see a clear justification for a social dividend for citizens, I don’t necessarily see a UBI as a sensible form in which to express it. The form that dividend takes should take into account the form of the obligations of citizens to state and vice-versa. For me health care is an obvious one. The state has a clear interest in a healthy population, ready for work and capable of defending it. I plain don’t comprehend how US conservatism doesn’t see this, it’s been plainly obvious to European conservatives since WW2 or earlier, perhaps because we faced a more existential threat than the US did. Pensions and Medicare or it’s equivalent are also just good policy, who wants thousands of destitute old people dying on the streets. Unemployment benefit and UBI are more arguable. Both are a form of social dividend, but could disincentivize work. I’m not an absolutist about this, I think it’s certainly true that people from time to time can find themselves unable to work or find a job and need a helping hand and I think that’s fine and reasonable, however people able to work have an obligation to do so. I worry that a lot of discussion about UBI leans towards freeing people from the need to work. I’m sorry, but someone needs to do those jobs. We’re a very long way from a Star Trek utopia where AI does all the hard labour. Employment rates and open positions in the west are both pretty high. The global economy has gobbled up hundreds of thousands of Chinese workers without breaking step and wages in China have until recently been soaring. The current economic risks have nothing to do with AI taking our jobs. It may happen, but it isn’t really now and I don’t think it’s likely to for many decades to come. Automation has been stealing jobs for hundreds of years, yet somehow there’s more work than ever.
- 8y ago
swayvil 8y ago
Douglas appears to be saying that UBI is bad because it supports and perpetuates all of the bad stuff about capitalism (wrecking the environment and concentrating wealth in the hands of the wealthy) It does this because UBI means giving people money, and then they buy the usual crap from the usual wealthy guys. Have I got that right? But the alternative, "give everybody a job", does the exact same thing. So the "colossal problem" with UBI is that it does nothing to cure the evils of capitalism? Ok. Well it does cure some other big evils. I think Douglas's point is just hot air. Sorry.
robenkleene 8y ago
I've never heard UBI discussed in terms of its benefits to innovation, which is its most important characteristic. There is exactly one reliable way to innovate: Be able to spend a huge amount of time doing unpaid work. Right now there are essentially three groups that can afford to innovate: Students, the wealthy, and the people the wealthy give money to (via VC money). (Note that I'm using "wealthy" broadly here, if you can not have income for 1-5 years, you're wealthy by these standards). UBI is basically having faith in human race is natural innovators, funding for the creativity of the entire human race, instead of just a tiny subset of the population. To address the straw man upfront: Capitalism of course incentivizes innovation as well, and just as important as UBI. These approaches can, and must co-exist, and in fact form the two sides of the innovation coin: Incentivize (capitalism) and enabled (UBI). The counterarguments to this model are ridiculous, because they assume you have to throw out capitalism to get UBI. Where are you going to get that goop for the 3D printer? You pay people to mine it! Why in the world would you think that wouldn't work? If you give every human $100,000 a year (for example), you think no one is going to be willing to work to earn more money? Which human race have you been watching when you formed those beliefs? All those rich people who earned their first million and then stopped?
- sauwan 8y ago
  I agree with that entirely. In fact, you can take it one step further and say that it is essential for freedom. One of the huge hurdles for many people leaving their jobs is health insurance. The other is money. If people don't need to worry about their health, and have enough for food and shelter, now companies need to directly compete on job quality, because workers don't feel compelled to work SOMEWHERE. And while I see his point that it's funneling more money to the top, I think that's also missing the point that someone needs to pay for all this universal basic income...and that's probably the people at the top...
orthecreedence 8y ago
I used to be a big proponent of UBI. After doing a lot of reading and research, I'm not. I think people should be paid for the work they do, whether directly or indirectly. I'm now much more in favor of things like social dividends: taxing profits of businesses and distributing it equally amongst the population, taxing estates at 90+% and distributing it equally amongst the population, etc. Another idea I like is the social fund: it buys controlling shares in publicly-traded companies, forces them to issue dividends, then sends 10-20% of the dividends to the citizens, and spends the other 80-90% on buying more shares in other companies, with the net effect of socializing the profits of large companies. Yes, most of these ideas would fall under some loose definition of "socialism." That said, it ties passive income to overall productivity, something that UBI doesn't do.
jacknews 8y ago
"Universal Basic Assets" I agree with this.
methodiosmel 8y ago
Any good liberterian/conservative could/should have seen this coming a mile away. Human beings are not inherently good and any solution that doesn't take human nature into consideration is fundamentally flawed. That's why Socialism never works: it fails to take into account the fact that the power to redistribute wealth in the hands of a human being is breeds corruption. And I know we're all so smug to think that if only WE had the power, we could do better... But we won't because no one ever has.

39 points by jatsign 8y ago

Isn't Big Think funded by the Kock family[0]? I'd take this information with a grain of salt, they typically lean hard on conservative perspective. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Think https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Think

alehul 8y ago
Pretty much all of this research is funded by one side or another— we should always be as scrupulous as possible in examining an argument, and assume there's money behind it. Also, pedantic here but it's Koch, pronounced like "Coke", rather than Kock. :)
- kadendogthing 8y ago
  >and assume there's money behind it. I mean there is always going to be money behind anything. It's largely how our society works. You instead should ask yourself what end goal the money is being spent for.
- dingaling 8y ago
  > but it's Koch, pronounced like "Coke" Doubly pedantic but in the original German it is pronounced Kawcchh
jatsign 8y ago
Kind of an ad hominem argument. I'm a liberal and I think we probably will need a UBI at some point, but I do see the point he's making, where a lot of big tech proponents seem to side-step the problems they're helping to create (loss of jobs) by calling for universal basic income.
- lallysingh 8y ago
  Is it side-stepping if UBI actually happens?
  - jerf 8y ago
    He gives an argument that the answer is still "yes". If UBI happens and Uber et al still ends up with all the money, then the argument still holds. Using a non-existent UBI as an argument for how they behave today is another level of problem.
- simonh 8y ago
  Plenty of western countries, including the US and UK have record high employment, and plenty of un-filled open positions. The unemployment we do have is a skill shortage, not a jobs shortage. Meanwhile China has employed hundreds of millions of people and salaries there have boomed. None of this shows any real sign of a squeeze on overall employment. I know there’s a lot of talk about AI putting people out of work, but it doesn’t actually seem to be happening yet. Automation has been putting people out of work for hundreds of years now, yet there are more jobs than ever. Ultimately maybe we’ll all live in a Star Trek future when ‘work’ is synonymous with ‘slavery’. We’re a very long way from anything like that, yet people talk a lot as though it’s already happening when it really isn’t.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
Alex3917 8y ago
I mean Douglas is right that that UBI doesn't solve every social or economic problem, but this does seem a little out-of-character for him.
Reedx 8y ago
Their most popular content shows another story: https://www.youtube.com/user/bigthink/videos?view=0&sort=p&flow=grid https://www.youtube.com/user/bigthink/videos?view=0&sort=p&f...
closetohome 8y ago
It's funny how often conservative propaganda is posted here, and how quick people are to make excuses for it when it's pointed out. And how quick they are to downvote anyone who calls them on it.
uxp100 8y ago
UBI is a libertarianish policy, and Big Think has published pro-UBI articles in the past. OTOH, Rushkoff's objections are from a left perspective, and leftists in general seem to be coming out against it. In the past some less-radical leftists have been for it (and one or two very atypical communists), but now that it is officially coded "tech-bro" I see leftists reiterating conservative arguments against minimum wage, except against UBI. It's odd.
- cbHXBY1D 8y ago
  As someone on the left and someone who has actively participated in multiple socialist parties in the US for years, the opposition to UBI from the left (DemSocs, Marxist-Leninists, various flavors of anarchists) is because we see it as a way for the ruling class to gut social programs instead of supplement them. The idea of "guaranteed income" argued for by people like MLK was a way to abolish poverty forever. Here's some MLK quotes on it from his book Where Do We Go From Here: https://medium.com/basic-income/mlk-on-guaranteed-income-bfd060fd5314 https://medium.com/basic-income/mlk-on-guaranteed-income-bfd...
  - burfog 8y ago
    Well, that's part of the deal if UBI is ever to get off the ground. Normally UBI is considered to be sort of a truce between the left and the right. The left wants the UBI, and the right wants to get rid of government bureaucrats. The left gives up on the government bureaucrats ("gut social programs") and the right gives up on tossing out all forms of welfare. Of course, both sides are motivated to break the truce. You just admitted that in fact, wanting to not "gut social programs". Enforcing the truce doesn't seem possible.
    - cazum 8y ago
      Well, one obvious solution there is to simply accept no compromise and vote the right and corporations completely out of power.
      - 8y ago
DennisP 8y ago
He complains that UBI would funnel more money to the people producing goods. At the end he advocates "universal basic assets," distributing ownership of productive assets instead of just income. If anything it's more left-wing than UBI.
- frenchy 8y ago
  > distributing ownership of productive assets instead of just income Yeah, that's pretty much standard communism ("collective ownership of the means of production"). The million dollar question, is "how do we go about doing this without setting up a fascist state?"
  - cazum 8y ago
    I think you mean authoritarian state. Fascism is a specific right wing thing.
    - burfog 8y ago
      No, and until a decade ago there wasn't anybody trying to push that falsehood. Fascism involves heavy government control of everything. "All within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state." -- Benito Mussolini That is anything but right wing.
      - dragonwriter 8y ago
        It's absolutely right-wing. It's not libertarian, but libertarian isn't equal to right-wing; you can have right-libertarians, but even the most extreme of those is more moderately right (and within the wide classical liberal tradition) than fascists, who are essentially—while certainly there was some novelty involved in Mussolini's time—a conscious throwback further right to classical conservatism.
        burfog 8y ago
        Libertarian isn't equal to right-wing, but neither is nationalism or racism or anything else that you may see in fascism. Fundamentally, the left is about collectivism and the right is about individualism. The difference is whether you think the state is a provider or a parasite. It's about wanting the government to take care of you or get out of your way. It's about wanting the government to make everybody have equal stuff or an equal opportunity.
jerf 8y ago
Actually, the idea that the Koch brothers fund only "conservative stuff" is not terribly accurate. They fund things all over the map. "Conservatives" don't particularly trust them either. If you really get down to what they fund, instead of reading people's screeds about them and scapegoating, it's rather hard to characterize. (I've also seen them called "libertarian", but they have rather more left-wing and big-government stuff than you would expect with that.)
- solidsnack9000 8y ago
  Care to provide some examples of non-conservative stuff that they fund?
  - jerf 8y ago
    Well, this video and universal basic income in general, for one: https://www.thenation.com/article/a-basic-income-would-upend-americas-work-ethic-and-thats-a-good-thing/ https://www.thenation.com/article/a-basic-income-would-upend... It is true that you can find conservative thinkers who have been in favor of UBI, but it is not a generally-conservative idea right now. The general conservative idea remains to try to "get government out of the way" of the economy and let the free market provide people with jobs. I don't see conservative sites talking about UBI in positive ways; I see it as a generally liberal idea where one of the arguments the liberals are using is that some conservative leaders have written about it positively in the past. (Which is a valid enough argument.) "Nobody" "knew" that certain conservative thinkers had written positively about UBI until it was picked up as a liberal, left-wing idea and somebody found those arguments. (Note I am merely mentioning certain arguments, not making them.) The Koch foundation has also been fairly vigorously anti-Trump: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/koch-brothers-donald-trump-clash-resistance-conservative-billionaires-network-us-president-charles-a7560706.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/koch-broth... , including opposition to the immigration restrictions from certain mainly-Muslim contries, a relatively liberal perspective. Whether or not you consider some of the other mentioned positions "conservative" starts getting down into some weeds. (i.e. "Is Trump conservative, and is opposing Trump therefore anti-conservative?" is something you could write a lengthy essay on that would largely come down to "it depends on which definition of conservative you're using", and would really be more a springboard for examining the relevant definitions and how they differ.) I'm not saying they aren't often in the position of opposing liberalism (which I think may be more accurate than "being conservative"... there are more than two sides to the world), but it's not 100%, either. It's more complicated. Nor am I particularly defending them here, either. I'm not a huge fan either, just for different reasons than most people here. Again, going back to "there's more than two sides in the world".
swayvil 8y ago
Ok. That makes sense. I think that Douglas's argument addresses a strawman : UBI fails to fight the evils of capitalism. Which is totally not the point of UBI. The point of UBI is to increase the efficiency of our economy and to improve the living conditions of our population, which results in all kinds of other improvements. And I think that this is obvious. So ya, I gotta raise my eyebrow at Douglas.

ImADemocRat 8y ago

Lol

yarrel 8y ago

Read "Inventing The Future" by Srnicek & Williams. Please.

orthecreedence 8y ago
Can you give a quick synopsis so we know why we should read it? What did you get out of it that you liked, and how does it relate to UBI?

TheChaplain 8y ago

UBI seems like a interesting idea but I don't think it's more than a small part of a bigger solution. It could possibly help people from having 3-4 part time jobs just to make ends meet, but other problematic areas still exist. Affordable housing, get people off the street / living in their cars. Public medical care that doesn't require insurance or bankrupt you. Higher education system that doesn't leave you with a life long debt.

ibm5100 8y ago
Some of us aren't as skilled as the computer scientists that make up the bulk of HN readership. At $50k a year living in NYC, $1000 in supplemental monthly income would radically improve my life unlike any other social safety net approach generally discussed.

nvahalik 8y ago

To me, part of the problem is that nobody can simply "live" anymore. While there are homesteaders who can effectively "live off the land", people can no longer actually do that. Instead of UBI, why not create a system where people can actually "live" without needing to create a whole system where the government ends up requiring people to pay into the system? From the video: "We can't just give these people houses because they don't have jobs". Yeah, because they don't just get "the house" they also have to pay property taxes, and for the utilities, and for everything else that is required, you know, actually live in the house. Maybe this is overly simplistic, but it seems like you can do one of two things: prop "the system" up by continuing to require things like property taxes and the like, or find a way for people to be able to actually, you know, OWN their property and do whatever they want with it so that they could be completely self-sufficient. EDIT: Actually, that seems to be something along the lines of what he is saying: "UBI perputates people as consumers but not as owners" (my paraphrase)

petermcneeley 8y ago
Very few people would want to live this "self-sufficient" lifestyle. I dont think people are opposed to efficiencies of scale or the advancements that can come from multinational corporations. I think that its not just simplistic reasoning is completely wrongheaded.
- WalterSear 8y ago
  Even fewer comprehend the difficulties and sacrifice it would entail.
simonh 8y ago
I'm not a fan of UBI, but income is a valuable and liberating thing. It gives people choice by providing them with a resource they control and can spend as they want. Living in the modern works necessarily involves the consumption of valuable resources. Space, power, water, food, goods, services. Providing those at no costs will lead to horrible inefficiencies and excessive use. You need to charge for them so that people can make rational choices and trade-offs between them and take responsibility for their decisions and preferences.

tim333 8y ago

A talk by the Throwing Rocks as the Google Bus author. A little muddled but I think his argument is the problem UBI is "it's just a way of perpetuating our roles as consumers at the bottom of the pyramid not as owners" while I guess the 0.1% still own everything. Which I guess could be an issue although as we don't have UBI who knows how it'd play out.

devoply 8y ago
That's obviously how it would play out. The way it works right now is that corporations for the work that you do for them give you money which you use to buy goods from them. UBI makes it so that the government taxes corporations and gives money to consumers to buy things from them. How much money is entirely political but you can be assured that there will always be more need for growth and that consumers will always be told to tighten their belts. You will also never have enough money left over to invest or save a nest egg. So over time more income share will go to the top.
- tim333 8y ago
  The other main way for it to play out would be to vote in some left wing style wealth redistribution. That kind of thing does happen. Maybe not just now but if Google and Amazon's AGI robots were taking over everything I could see a vote in that direction.
  - tim333 8y ago
    Looking that up I don't think redistributive tax has to be left wing. Top income tax rates were 90%+ under Winston Churchill (Cons) and Eisenhower (Rep).
PeterisP 8y ago
I'd think of it not as a way for "perpetuating our roles as consumers at the bottom of the pyramid not as owners" but as acknowledging that the large picture is changing from a loop where nearly everyone is both a consumer a producer to an environment where large portion of people will inevitably be only consumers, because the economy won't need their labor anymore. And it's reasonable to assume that these people - who have little economic power now, and will have less and less of it - won't magically become the owners of the world. They might seize ownership with force in a revolution or they may get handed that ownership as a handout, but they can not trade for it or work for it or bargain for it, they don't have and won't have anything to offer to those who currently own the world's resources and means of production. It's not a way of perpetuating the current roles, it's a way of treating the consequences of current roles so that the consequences are more humane. Of course, one may argue that keeping the consequences horrific is more likely to motivate radical change, which is true, but IMHO not a good way to proceed.

ibm5100 8y ago

How about "The collosal problem with a $1 trillion dollar Pentagon budget when I can barely pay my rent".

derekp7 8y ago

I had a thought, wondering if it could work. For anyone who has the means, you can set up a basic income for your children by contributing about 350/month from the time they are born, then assuming 7% growth there will be over 250K sitting in the trust fund. This is enough for $10,000 per year (4% drawdown rate), which will provide them a basic income just as they are getting out of college, and trying to find their way in the world. The major problems I see with this, is inflation (adjust the monthly contributions to keep up with inflation), and for multiple kids $350/month will not be achievable for people of lower income.

robhunter 8y ago
I think the whole point of basic income is to help people that can't afford what you are proposing.
nathanaldensr 8y ago
> assuming 7% growth That's a big assumption, and doesn't take into account the reduced spending power (cost inflation) during that time.
- ahelwer 8y ago
  7% is in line with historical growth rate (below it, actually) Cost inflation is assumed to be 3%, which is why the withdrawal rate is 4% (4% + 3% = 7%) Anyway a 4% withdrawal rate is fine for 30 years (the duration of the trinity study) but a lower withdrawal rate (say, 3.25%) is needed for longer timespans like the 65-ish years of life expected of someone just graduating college, see this: https://earlyretirementnow.com/2016/12/07/the-ultimate-guide-to-safe-withdrawal-rates-part-1-intro/ https://earlyretirementnow.com/2016/12/07/the-ultimate-guide...

stcredzero 8y ago

UBI fails to take into account human nature. 1) Crime and social unrest is directly correlated to perception of relative wealth inequality. Past a certain point, relative wealth has a dominant effect on life expectancy! [b] 2) Given the above point, the solution would seem to be a progressive tax on the wealthy. Unfortunately, this is very hard to make workable, as the wealthy have control of most of the wealth and power, and failing that, are the most mobile. http://www.sfindicatorproject.org/indicators/view/146 http://www.sfindicatorproject.org/indicators/view/146 ([b] Ichiro Kawachi, 2000. Income Inequality and Health. In Social Epidemiology. Eds. Lisa Berkman and Ichiro Kawachi. New York: Oxford University Press. Pp. 76-94.)

devoply 8y ago
> The French Revolution was a period of far-reaching social and political upheaval in France and its colonies beginning in 1789. The Revolution overthrew the monarchy, established a republic, catalyzed violent periods of political turmoil, and finally culminated in a dictatorship under Napoleon who brought many of its principles to areas he conquered in Western Europe and beyond. Inspired by liberal and radical ideas, the Revolution profoundly altered the course of modern history, triggering the global decline of absolute monarchies while replacing them with republics and liberal democracies. Similarly you could wrestle control out of the hands of the wealthy if you wanted to... it's just a question of what will replace that and not make it worse, i.e. Venezuela.
- stcredzero 8y ago
  it's just a question of what will replace that and not make it worse Periods of widespread terror and destruction should be remembered forever. No one should want that as a price for anything.
  - devoply 8y ago
    For whom? For instance there has been massive periods of terror and destruction in the Middle East. Americans in general agree it as a price for freedom from Saddam and the Taliban -- followed by the Islamic State. This was at the behest in many ways of the American wealthy who want more wealth by rebuilding those countries and seizing their oil deposit for international corporations. So terror and destruction are not remembered at all by those who perpetuate them and many humans use it as a common place tool for politically enriching themselves.

chris_va 8y ago

There are so many issues with this video, I don't even know where to begin. I like this one line: "The US Department of Agriculture burns food every week in order to keep the prices of that food high, even though there's people who are starving and people who need homes." ... OK, let's ignore the fact that the world produces far more food than it needs and people still starve. Obviously the problem is with the USDA, if only they didn't do that everything would be fine /s. Every line in here reads like it's pandering to a specific viewpoint in an attempt to legitimize the UBI message. "I think people shouldn't starve, therefore this person must be right". To me, "the" colossal big problem with UBI (if there is only one) is the probable hyperinflation and crash that happens as a result of redistributing many trillions of dollars without the creation of commensurate economic value. Guaranteed employment (where at least some economic value is getting created) is a less risky approach to accomplishing the same goal.

athrowaway3z 8y ago

2:45 : "we faked lower employment through ... unsustainable business practices" What sustainability is can be up for debate. But i've never seen of a version that would put more people back in jobs than automation will take away. 3:55 : 'We will get the government to print more money, to give it to workers'. Either this is some very small thinking for 'Big Think' or you they are skipping over a lot of assumptions that should be stated explicitly. --- One 'Universal Basic Asset' idea i like is giving every person a yearly carbon credit that companies have to buy, instead of gifting it to the largest polluters.

pontifier 8y ago

I don't see UBI in this way at all. Nothing would stop a UBI recipient from investing a portion of that income. In my mind a UBI allows increased economic freedom. It especially benefits the people currently most in need of it. That's not a bad thing.

simonh 8y ago

I think it’s useful to look at the basic social contract here. Voters already have a degree of ownership over the state. They are shareholders that get to elect a board to run the state on their behalf. In that sense maybe a dividend is reasonable. Looking at it another way, the relationship between citizen and stats is one of responsibilities on both sides. Citizens are responsible for the defence of the state, in the most extreme case through conscription into the armed forces, which puts an obligation on the state to protect them. This and the realisation by the government that many citizens were not fit for such service, was one of the impetuses behind the consensus on the creation of the National health Service in the UK. Partly it was quid-pro-quo for the sacrifices ordinary people made, but partly it was just good national security policy to ensure the nation had a healthy labour and fighting force. This isn’t socialism, it’s just good governance. So while I see a clear justification for a social dividend for citizens, I don’t necessarily see a UBI as a sensible form in which to express it. The form that dividend takes should take into account the form of the obligations of citizens to state and vice-versa. For me health care is an obvious one. The state has a clear interest in a healthy population, ready for work and capable of defending it. I plain don’t comprehend how US conservatism doesn’t see this, it’s been plainly obvious to European conservatives since WW2 or earlier, perhaps because we faced a more existential threat than the US did. Pensions and Medicare or it’s equivalent are also just good policy, who wants thousands of destitute old people dying on the streets. Unemployment benefit and UBI are more arguable. Both are a form of social dividend, but could disincentivize work. I’m not an absolutist about this, I think it’s certainly true that people from time to time can find themselves unable to work or find a job and need a helping hand and I think that’s fine and reasonable, however people able to work have an obligation to do so. I worry that a lot of discussion about UBI leans towards freeing people from the need to work. I’m sorry, but someone needs to do those jobs. We’re a very long way from a Star Trek utopia where AI does all the hard labour. Employment rates and open positions in the west are both pretty high. The global economy has gobbled up hundreds of thousands of Chinese workers without breaking step and wages in China have until recently been soaring. The current economic risks have nothing to do with AI taking our jobs. It may happen, but it isn’t really now and I don’t think it’s likely to for many decades to come. Automation has been stealing jobs for hundreds of years, yet somehow there’s more work than ever.

8y ago

swayvil 8y ago

Douglas appears to be saying that UBI is bad because it supports and perpetuates all of the bad stuff about capitalism (wrecking the environment and concentrating wealth in the hands of the wealthy) It does this because UBI means giving people money, and then they buy the usual crap from the usual wealthy guys. Have I got that right? But the alternative, "give everybody a job", does the exact same thing. So the "colossal problem" with UBI is that it does nothing to cure the evils of capitalism? Ok. Well it does cure some other big evils. I think Douglas's point is just hot air. Sorry.

robenkleene 8y ago

I've never heard UBI discussed in terms of its benefits to innovation, which is its most important characteristic. There is exactly one reliable way to innovate: Be able to spend a huge amount of time doing unpaid work. Right now there are essentially three groups that can afford to innovate: Students, the wealthy, and the people the wealthy give money to (via VC money). (Note that I'm using "wealthy" broadly here, if you can not have income for 1-5 years, you're wealthy by these standards). UBI is basically having faith in human race is natural innovators, funding for the creativity of the entire human race, instead of just a tiny subset of the population. To address the straw man upfront: Capitalism of course incentivizes innovation as well, and just as important as UBI. These approaches can, and must co-exist, and in fact form the two sides of the innovation coin: Incentivize (capitalism) and enabled (UBI). The counterarguments to this model are ridiculous, because they assume you have to throw out capitalism to get UBI. Where are you going to get that goop for the 3D printer? You pay people to mine it! Why in the world would you think that wouldn't work? If you give every human $100,000 a year (for example), you think no one is going to be willing to work to earn more money? Which human race have you been watching when you formed those beliefs? All those rich people who earned their first million and then stopped?

sauwan 8y ago
I agree with that entirely. In fact, you can take it one step further and say that it is essential for freedom. One of the huge hurdles for many people leaving their jobs is health insurance. The other is money. If people don't need to worry about their health, and have enough for food and shelter, now companies need to directly compete on job quality, because workers don't feel compelled to work SOMEWHERE. And while I see his point that it's funneling more money to the top, I think that's also missing the point that someone needs to pay for all this universal basic income...and that's probably the people at the top...

orthecreedence 8y ago

I used to be a big proponent of UBI. After doing a lot of reading and research, I'm not. I think people should be paid for the work they do, whether directly or indirectly. I'm now much more in favor of things like social dividends: taxing profits of businesses and distributing it equally amongst the population, taxing estates at 90+% and distributing it equally amongst the population, etc. Another idea I like is the social fund: it buys controlling shares in publicly-traded companies, forces them to issue dividends, then sends 10-20% of the dividends to the citizens, and spends the other 80-90% on buying more shares in other companies, with the net effect of socializing the profits of large companies. Yes, most of these ideas would fall under some loose definition of "socialism." That said, it ties passive income to overall productivity, something that UBI doesn't do.

jacknews 8y ago

"Universal Basic Assets" I agree with this.

methodiosmel 8y ago

Any good liberterian/conservative could/should have seen this coming a mile away. Human beings are not inherently good and any solution that doesn't take human nature into consideration is fundamentally flawed. That's why Socialism never works: it fails to take into account the fact that the power to redistribute wealth in the hands of a human being is breeds corruption. And I know we're all so smug to think that if only WE had the power, we could do better... But we won't because no one ever has.