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Friedman also defended a negative income tax which essentially was a form of UBI.

by sprafa 7y ago

defertoreptar 7y ago
Within that context, negative income tax was sought to replace welfare, social security, Medicaid, etc. Is that the case with UBI?
- gojomo 7y ago
  Many UBI supporters still view one of its main benefits the simplification & unified replacement of all such programs. Now, those programs are complicated, involve a lot of overhead, often underutilized, and create unintentional disincentives to work when the "marginal tax rate" (in taxes or lost benefits) sometimes goes over 100%. Offering a simple & big-enough UBI instead can fix all that. (A UBI can also replace minimum-wage laws and most if not all unemployment insurance. And perhaps, many workplace regulations, because a citizenry where everyone can say "this job sucks, I'm outta here" can be a better check on abuses than the current system of compliance-surveillance, regulatory-fines, and court-cases.)
  - umadon 7y ago
    UBI can also be inflated away to nothing. It's a neoliberal scam.
    - gojomo 7y ago
      So can all the other forms of welfare.
      - umadon 7y ago
        No, not all. For example not a positive right to healthcare. UBI is transparently an attempt to redistribute tax income to private companies such that no opportunity for profit stays with or is limited by government. UBI would mean no more Medicare stipulations, no more existing conditions protections. Just your ten grand a year or whatever and a bunch of private companies who have what you need, at whatever price they set.
        gojomo 7y ago
        Good point; after posting I wished I'd said "...cash welfare", because of course in-kind transfers of goods and services would be immune to any amount of inflation. Indexing the UBI amount to some basket-of-subsistence-consumption could likely address this concern. (The handling of existing-conditions is a regulatory issue orthogonal from UBI. I'd prefer a UBI replace all "income-supporting" programs – including things like food stamps and housing vouchers – and also obviate many rules premised on the idea that the threat-of-privation captures people in bad jobs/relationships. But "structure-of-market" or "acceptable offerings" or "required minimum standards" regulations are a separate matter.)
Proven 7y ago
For different reasons that American socialists do today. He thought that the savings from a much smaller federal bureaucracy (if all other redistributionist programs were terminated) would be significant. In fact that was the main prerequisite - that all other gov redistribution be terminated and the bureaucrats who run them sent home.

Friedman also defended a negative income tax which essentially was a form of UBI.

by sprafa 7y ago

Friedman also defended a negative income tax which essentially was a form of UBI.

Within that context, negative income tax was sought to replace welfare, social security, Medicaid, etc. Is that the case with UBI?

gojomo 7y ago
Many UBI supporters still view one of its main benefits the simplification & unified replacement of all such programs. Now, those programs are complicated, involve a lot of overhead, often underutilized, and create unintentional disincentives to work when the "marginal tax rate" (in taxes or lost benefits) sometimes goes over 100%. Offering a simple & big-enough UBI instead can fix all that. (A UBI can also replace minimum-wage laws and most if not all unemployment insurance. And perhaps, many workplace regulations, because a citizenry where everyone can say "this job sucks, I'm outta here" can be a better check on abuses than the current system of compliance-surveillance, regulatory-fines, and court-cases.)
- umadon 7y ago
  UBI can also be inflated away to nothing. It's a neoliberal scam.
  - gojomo 7y ago
    So can all the other forms of welfare.
    - umadon 7y ago
      No, not all. For example not a positive right to healthcare. UBI is transparently an attempt to redistribute tax income to private companies such that no opportunity for profit stays with or is limited by government. UBI would mean no more Medicare stipulations, no more existing conditions protections. Just your ten grand a year or whatever and a bunch of private companies who have what you need, at whatever price they set.
      - gojomo 7y ago
        Good point; after posting I wished I'd said "...cash welfare", because of course in-kind transfers of goods and services would be immune to any amount of inflation. Indexing the UBI amount to some basket-of-subsistence-consumption could likely address this concern. (The handling of existing-conditions is a regulatory issue orthogonal from UBI. I'd prefer a UBI replace all "income-supporting" programs – including things like food stamps and housing vouchers – and also obviate many rules premised on the idea that the threat-of-privation captures people in bad jobs/relationships. But "structure-of-market" or "acceptable offerings" or "required minimum standards" regulations are a separate matter.)

Proven 7y ago

For different reasons that American socialists do today. He thought that the savings from a much smaller federal bureaucracy (if all other redistributionist programs were terminated) would be significant. In fact that was the main prerequisite - that all other gov redistribution be terminated and the bureaucrats who run them sent home.