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Universal Basic Income is 'best way to distribute equity stake in productivity’
- umadon 7y agoUBI smells like a trojan horse for privatization of what remains of social security, disability, unemployment, etc. I would much rather have a robust national pension system than "Uber, but for retirement."
- maxxxxx 7y agoI like the idea but I doubt this will be sustainable long-term. There is already a lot of pressure to reduce the social safety net and to have more tax cuts for the "job creators". Why would this be any different with UBI? The people who work full-time jobs will complain about the slackers who do nothing. Maybe once almost everything is automated there is a better chance to do this. Personally I think it would be better to reduce working hours.
- tengbretson 7y ago> The people who work full-time jobs will complain about the slackers who do nothing Shouldn't they?
- maxxxxx 7y agoNot with UBI or it can't work.
- tengbretson 7y agoIf that is the case I would be inclined to think that it cannot work then.
- maxxxxx 7y agoThat’s what I am thinking too.
- sesteel 7y agoI think many people view UBI as transformative (as you suggest), though they don't always talk about it in those terms. Increasingly, production and services will be automated leaving fewer and fewer jobs for people. In a far off dystopian future, there will be some Ubercorp that does everything, controls all production and services leaving no paid work for people. UBI is simply a means for smoothing out the transition for people to new careers or a world where fewer jobs exist. Obviously, as things become more automated, taxes on these corps will have to increase. There has to be a cash flow cycle, otherwise money will pool at the top among the shareholders of the companies that won the automation race. Thus, as long as there is cash flowing from the bottom to the top (thanks to UBI) it is sustainable. Otherwise, the economy will be broken; it already is for some now.
- maxxxxx 7y ago" Otherwise, the economy will be broken; it already is for some now." If we introduce UBI it would probably be one of the first times in history that society addresses major changes without war, revolution or other upheaval. My prediction is that inequality will grow, a lot of people will lose their jobs, but nothing will change fundamentally without a major conflict. We see that already with climate change. There clearly is no will to really address the issues. We'll have sea levels rising, millions of refugees and somehow deal with that. We will not prevent that.
- sesteel 7y agoI think you are correct. Typically, there needs to be pain before there is action that is human nature. That pain traditionally has come in the form of epidemics, famine, and war. A large part of climate change denial is driven by economic forces. The oil and transportation industries have built an economy that relies on fossil fuels. As soon as alternatives are cheaper, there will be a transition. We are seeing that in the energy sector now where solar has gotten cheaper than coal. Power companies are starting to make the transition to wind and solar. IMO, the best thing we can do to solve the climate crisis is to make the economics of non-fossil fuel energy sources impossible to compete with OR close the loop on CO and CO2 emissions (converting atmospheric carbon back into fuel).
- zackmorris 7y agoYou bring up a very good point about the time value of money and how that could be manifested by reducing working hours. When we say that we want to provide a UBI to all citizens, that could be looked at as an equivalent number of hours. Giving someone making $10/hr a $10,000 UBI would be the equivalent of 1000 hours freed of a 2000 hour work year. It would increase their quality of life by 50%. A $50/hr worker would get a 10% quality of life increase on a $10,000 UBI. So for example reducing work hours by 1 hour per day on tech workers would be comparable to a $5-10,000 UBI. Which I think is what we're really talking about here. Providing alternative subsistence so that workers can someday get off the workaday world treadmill/rat race and go invent the things that will automate our economy and improve quality of life for everyone, regardless of income. Right now we have a system where some people live extremely comfortably while half the country has no economic stability or quality of life to speak of, and what's worse is, they currently have no hope for improvement no matter how high the gross national product (GNP) grows because politics has been coopted by lobbyists and special interests.
- tomschlick 7y agoNobody can ever answer the question of "What happens when someone blows their UBI and cant afford to eat?" Will we let them starve? You'd almost have to from the government side of things. How about 5 years after when someone introduces another entitlement program to help single mothers/seniors/etc and then criticizes everyone else as heartless for not supporting it? Will we just end up where we are now with even more entitlements? >“I know Jeff Bezos is probably worth $50 million. I know for a fact that he’s not worth $150 billion. The rest of that money is mine. Yeah that says it all right there. This guy feels entitled to someone else's money.
- undersuit 7y agoWhat happens now? What about the people right now that cannot afford to eat? And I'm not talking about the panhandler on the street. There are families right now who cannot afford to feed themselves, even with federal assistance.
- tomschlick 7y agoHow so? The average family of 4 on Snap benefits receives $465/mo for food. If you can't buy groceries on that then you're doing something wrong.
- undersuit 7y agoPlease answer the question. If you can't live on $1000 a month from the federal government I think you're doing something wrong.
- tomschlick 7y agoRight now we have multiple federal programs (Welfare, SNAP, Disability, etc). Most of these UBI programs get rid of those in favor a monthly cash payment... So how are you disagreeing with me that people mismanaging money would result in them asking for more? And eventually someone would start adding those programs back costing us even more...
- Reedx 7y ago> Value, like energy, can neither be created nor destroyed, but it can change form. This is both false and unproductive. Value is unlocked and created all the time. People are much wealthier and better off than their ancestors, despite our far larger population. Hello technology! They didn't have refrigerators, microwaves, the internet, smart phones, modern medicine and so on. Today we're increasingly concerned with overeating vs starvation. As for UBI, I'm not sure if it's the best answer or not, but Andrew Yang makes the strongest case for it that I've seen: https://www.yang2020.com/what-is-ubi/ https://www.yang2020.com/what-is-ubi/ Also branding it as a Freedom Dividend is smart.
- AnimalMuppet 7y agoYeah. Chips made out of silicon are more valuable than silicon is. I mean, how disconnected from reality does your view have to be to not see that?
- insickness 7y agoUBI will never replace welfare. People are not going to agree to cut off current welfare programs. And it will not stay at a $1000. It will go up. Not long after implementation, a politician will soon say that $1000 is not a livable wage and that it needs to be $2000. The next politician will say that it needs to be $5000. Basically this opens the door to socialism where we will just be haggling on the amount of wealth redistribution. Wealth redistribution doesn't work and never has.
- maxxxxx 7y agoAll Western countries (including the US) do some kind of wealth distribution and it clearly works. Societies without any form of wealth distribution don't work. Or do you have an example? I can't think of any.
- folkhack 7y agoIt's a pretty horrible argument unless they come back through to actually explain what they mean. > Wealth redistribution doesn't work and never has. Is a HUGE sweeping generalization that has literally zero substance in a discussion - and technically it's false off-the-bat because I'm certain almost anyone can think of at least ONE example where the "redistribution of wealth" has worked to lessen human suffering. Also, don't let someone come through here and try to redefine what they meant by those words - they mean that they don't believe in wealth re-distribution plain and simple. When you see binary arguments like that it's a flag to run for the hills.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- insickness 7y agoTry responding to the logic of my argument rather than phrase 'wealth redistribution.' What's to stop this universal income from being pushed higher and higher to the point where it is a large fraction of income for most people rather than a small fraction of income? Do you really think that UBI will replace welfare?
- egusa 7y agoAndrew Yang is getting a lot of traction with UBI in the Presidential race. It'll be interesting to see if more candidates run on this platform for the Senate & Congress.
- folkhack 7y agoI absolutely love Andrew Yang's calm, "common-sense" demeanor. I got into him thanks to the Sam Harris podcast. His platform is hard to ignore for someone who's been around the block both in the bay tech communities and rural America. I really hope this is the start of a long and vibrant career in politics for him!
- zackmorris 7y agoI'm against the agism in the article but the rest of it is sound. Right now we means test shareholders on the basis of whether they have capital to invest in a company, which is discriminatory in a society like ours where wealth inequality is the highest it's been in the history of the world. If half the country has no upward mobility and an impoverished quality of life that takes everything they got just to survive, then wealth is an inherited trait just like cultural identity. I think it's time to question the rationality of people who are against UBI. Their failures in big picture thinking and long term planning, whether in basic economic principles like opportunity cost or tragedy of the commons, or in more existential philosophical matters like whether it's ok to subsist on the toil of others, shouldn't take precedence over our self-governance/determination. What I'm saying is that we're approaching a day when one person owns the entire discretionary spending of each country, and has effectively corrupted government to the point where propaganda informs our beliefs more than ethics. Are we there yet? Maybe not quite. 10 or 20 years away? Perhaps - look who's president. UBI threatens the status quo (specifically crony and vulture capitalism) more than almost any concept I can think of. So for that reason alone, I'm strongly for it.
- thatswrong0 7y ago> I think it's time to question the rationality of people who are against UBI This sounds like a thinly veiled ad hominem against skeptics.
- zackmorris 7y agoYa thanks for pointing that out. I probably should have phrased it "I think it's time to question the rationale of arguments against UBI" because personally I think most of them are straw men masking cognitive dissonant or undignified positions. In other words - at their root are things like classism/racism, fear of socialistic solutions to fundamental problems with capitalism, or flat out greed and the "I've got mine" mentality that's so prevalent in the US. That fear/uncertainty is a distraction from what we are capable of today with automation. It's a 20th century zero sum worldview where giving to someone requires taking from someone else. I don't subscribe to that, because we could largely automate basic sustenance production (food, water, energy, shelter, transportation, etc), charge very little for it, require substantially less human labor, and turn any profits from that into a stipend that we all get for being US citizens. I think that's more in line with a 21st century or Star Trek future.
- umadon 7y agoThere are some really interesting comments in this thread, but I wonder what people think: Where does value come from?
- sesteel 7y agoI might not understand what you are getting at, but all value originates from desire (demand) and scarcity (supply).
- buboard 7y agoregardless of other arguments for ubi this piece is full of flawed thinking. > Universal Basic Income means that we can create a universal ownership stake in productivity, There is already a term for that, it's called communism. > At any point that they publish evidence that they are leveraging knowledge or information from an individual, be it an employee or a consumer, they owe us a piece They owe a piece to the government and military that ensure the infrastructure safety and fairness of the economic environment they work in. They pay that (and should pay that) through taxes. It doesn't make sense to say that every time there is an economic transaction both parties should pay back to each other because they somehow "we owe us" . That's just confused logic. > am interested in raising income, so I can give people more humanity, more dignity, more piece of mind to really uncover what their callings might be, so they can be more effective and more contributive in their communities What you 're giving them is more money to gamble/spend on drugs/ be just as irresponsible as before. People dont suddenly become productive because you throw them a bone. Welfare is MUCH better at identifying peoples needs and filling the gaps rather than expecting that "they ll just figure it out themselves". UBI is more inhumane than welfare. > At no point does automation mean that jobs go away,” I mean, yes it does. by definition, and saying it doesnt doesnt magically fix it > So, whatever cool comes from that culture, they owe me and people like me hmm. i stop here. cant read further
- 40acres 7y agoUBI is not politically feasible in America, realistically I can only see it working in a very homogeneous country (religious, ethnic, language, etc.). Those who want UBI in America should redirect their focus on an expansion of the Earned Income and Child Tax Credits. I think eliminating the phase in period of EITC and increasing the benefits (by absorbing other forms of welfare) is the way to go.
- Nasrudith 7y agoI hear this suggested often - why would homogeneity make a difference? Being too stupid bigotted to benefit yourself if it might help "the other"?
- luckylion 7y ago> why would homogeneity make a difference? Two things I can think of off the top of my head. People more easily help people that are similar to themselves, simply because they can easily see themselves in their shoes. You'd have similar productivity throughout the population, i.e. you won't have some distinct part of the population do most of the work while other distinct parts of the population are primarily taking but not contributing. Having cemented net transfers where, say, protestants to all of the work and catholics sit around collecting welfare will make for unhappy protestants (and you need those to be happy, because they do the work).
- ffrancis 7y agoPerhaps this thinking on UBI isn't bulletproof, but when you recognise the distribution of wealth is so concentrated, at the very least this is a great beginning to start thinking outside of the box in terms of how we approach Human Rights.
- purplezooey 7y agoIt's just never going to happen. The Howard Jarvis crowd will never let people get something for nothing. Everybody has to suffer like them.
- jfgonzalema 7y agoI liked this phrase form JFK: "There’s nothing wrong with CEOs making more than their employees, but that there’s something wrong when the head of a failing company is making hundreds of times as much money as their employees..."
- ap3 7y agoI don’t get what UBI solves vs the existing social safety net programs >James Felton Keith, tells The Sociable that a Universal Basic Income is the best way to distribute an equity stake in productivity — thus creating an “asset holder class.” US already provides a tremendous amount of value to its residents vs the rest of the world - doesn’t that count as a stake in productivity ?
- undersuit 7y agoThe cost of administration of the social safety net programs disappears when you stop caring if the benefits are used to buy cigarettes instead of milk, validating that a Section 8 domicile is worth the payments to the owner, or verifying an individual on unemployment is actively trying to return to work. Everyone gets $X.
- ap3 7y agoI guess, but don’t you lose the safety net too?
- akvadrako 7y agoCurrent programs discourage working. If you have welfare for $500 a month and start working for $500 a month, you'll lose most of your welfare; so it's pointless - better to just stay at home or do something illegal.
- RickJWagner 7y agoJust imagine if Hacker News gave a monthly 'points' stipend to every user. You wouldn't have to earn up-votes or make popular submissions-- the upvote 'points' would be equitably distributed among all readers. What would that do to the discussions? Would it encourage more free dialogue? Would it help promote more civil discourse? Serious question. It seems like a close model to UBI. Is there a point-counting-forum that has tried this?
- akvadrako 7y agoThat's almost how slashdot works - a fixed number of upvotes per article. I also can't see the relevance to UBI.