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My primary concern with UBI is not the concept itself, but the risk for people in power to use it against the people. Once UBI exists, people will rely on it f

My primary concern with UBI is not the concept itself, but the risk for people in power to use it against the people. Once UBI exists, people will rely on it for survival. It will be the single most influential campaign topic. Worse, if UBI were to get 'Obamacared' then we'd end up with a massive battle over implementation, followed by a much worse system than the one we had prior (worst of all worlds with numerous 'compromises'), and then followed by a repeal and whatever subsequent chaos comes out of it. I don't want to imagine what would happen to the folks who find themselves reliant on UBI if it were to go down that path.

glaive123 7y ago
God forbid people get money to take care of their lives. Because we can afford it.
- Proziam 7y ago
  I assume you misread what I wrote, or implied some opinion that hasn't been stated. I want people to have enough money to live reasonable and modern lives. What I DO NOT want is for UBI to become a political weapon and for the people who rely on it to have it taken away suddenly. That is a serious risk to that system that doesn't get enough attention. It could happen due to financial collapse or for political reasons. But no matter why it happens, the damage would be absolutely horrific.
  - Melting_Harps 7y ago
    > I want people to have enough money to live reasonable and modern lives. What I DO NOT want is for UBI to become a political weapon and for the people who rely on it to have it taken away suddenly. Personally speaking, as a proponent of UBI, I reluctantly accept that the first versions of it will have to be state-based. If only to be able to learn from its mistakes and iterate from them to refine them further. This is one of the reasons I'm such a cryptocurrency enthusiast, after the wake of the financial crisis and massive unemployment in Iceland they deployed, and subsequently failed, with aurora coin to try and experiment with UBI. Had we gotten more information from it would have helped to be able to have a decentralized version of it by now, but it was too much for such a poorly backed project to surmount. > That is a serious risk to that system that doesn't get enough attention. It could happen due to financial collapse or for political reasons. But no matter why it happens, the damage would be absolutely horrific. I think this is inevitable and not a question of if but when it will occur, UBI will not be the biggest contributing factor to the 'system' failing, either: it will have been an outcome of centuries of needless war, currency corruption and Market manipulation, ecological destruction and climate change. its just a matter of time. At least having this in place prepares us as Species for what lies ahead, the status quo cannot be maintained, this much has to be accepted. The transition is definitely terrifying, but the idea of getting this right has so much potential and worth the sacrifice when you realize just how broken the 'system' really is. I think this what most don't understand when they see the Greta Thurnberg led Gen Z revolts happening all around the World, and they're dropping out of school to protest; this system is already doomed if you cannot convince the future generation play along anymore.
  - glaive123 7y ago
    I read what you wrote. Your opposition is actually an example of a logical fallacy. I'm struggling to find the exact name of it. But it has to do with that fact that you are against the adoption of something positive that you agree with because of some hypothetical negative externality. Edit: It's called the "Perfect solution fallacy" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirvana_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirvana_fallacy The perfect solution fallacy is a related informal fallacy that occurs when an argument assumes that a solution should be rejected because some part of the problem would still exist after it were implemented.[4] This is an example of black and white thinking, in which a person fails to see the complex interplay between multiple component elements of a situation or problem, and, as a result, reduces complex problems to a pair of binary extremes.
puzzledobserver 7y ago
I think something similar has happened with minimum wages. It appears to me that the natural next step is to make the minimum wage grow with inflation. Unfortunately, this hasn't happened, so we're stuck with various government-mandated minimum wage levels that are tied to the value of money from several years before. Companies can now point to the law, and use this obsolete number as a metric by which to set their own salaries. What was intended to protect the laborer is therefore perversely being used to protect their corporate employer.
- buzzkillington 7y ago
  Make them grow with productivity.
  - logicchains 7y ago
    This destroys incentive to invest in productivity improvements, because the gains are eaten by wages. Most productivity gains in the economic sense don't come from people working smarter/harder, they come from investment in better machines and technology (capital). If you took the most productive worker today back two thousand years, their productivity would be massively reduced without access to any modern tools or equipment.
    - buzzkillington 7y ago
      That is only true if your only expense is labour, something that's true out-call prostitution and little else.
      - logicchains 7y ago
        Productivity is defined as output per unit labour. This means any profitable investment the firm makes will increase productivity (assuming the number of employees remains the same). If the minimum wage was indexed to productivity, then any such investment would increase labour costs.
pmart123 7y ago
That's a great point. After the government shutdowns and lock-ins began, I started to think about our current political trends. If we keep voting for political leaders that tend towards fascism or socialism, we could end up with severe consequences. Both camps were eager to close restaurants and stores without establishing economic fallback plans. Essentially, they indirectly removed the SMB owner/middle class. This seems like the first step towards making people solely reliant on IBU even it is promised only as a "temporary fix."
whateveracct 7y ago
M4A is similar as well. I guess all big social safety nets have this problem. UBI and M4A would encourage me (and others) to pursue less lucrative pursuits (arts, research, gamedev, entrepreneurship, etc) but it would be hard for me to quit my nice tech job salary if there's the specter of the GOP potentially killing the benefits that enable my pursuit. And that doesn't even compare to the effect that uncertainty has on the less fortunate.
- qmmmur 7y ago
  Trust me, having a safety net isn't going to kill your drive.
  - whateveracct 7y ago
    I agree. My point is a safety net doesn't feel safe when it's one election away from being neutered.
- dpbriggs 7y ago
  Eh universal healthcare would probably increase 'drive' at a macro level as it doesn't chain the overqualified or highly productive individual to crappy jobs that happen to have good insurance. Not to mention you lose the overhead of dealing with insurance, for you and your family. But yeah, I could see a class of people who would use UBI to permanently slack off whereas they would be highly productive otherwise. Edit: Note I'm from Canada and have taken healthcare for granted until I went to the US. My experience has been overwhelming positive with universal healthcare, and the only complaint is I've had to wait a few hours per emergency visit. Zero wait when serious though.
  - Dylan16807 7y ago
    > But yeah, I could see a class of people who would use UBI to permanently slack off whereas they would be highly productive otherwise. If you're highly productive, willing to live on a minimal payout, and highly prioritize time away from work, then by all rights you should already be on sabbatical eight months a year or something.
pc2g4d 7y ago
We should also have a voluntary charitable UBI. Encourage a culture where everybody contributes what they can to the fund, and then all donations are split equally among all citizens. That money won't be subject to the same political pressures; people who donate will feel good about themselves; and the bureaucracy needed to do this would be minimal.
- tonyedgecombe 7y ago
  I consider myself a fairly generous person but in a crisis like this my overwhelming concern is my close family. Charitable donations aren't on my radar right now.
- alexirobbins 7y ago
  amounts to a tax on conscience: https://youtu.be/m2q-Csk-ktc https://youtu.be/m2q-Csk-ktc
- frobozz 7y ago
  You can't rely on voluntary donations to produce a stable income. A charity doing this would have to vary the amount paid out based on receipts. In hard times, donations and payments will reduce. This will reduce the effectiveness of a UBI in smoothing out recessions. It will also suffer a death spiral because every donor will know how much every recipient gets. If I put in 500 each month and get 200, then I'm going to look for a better place to put my donation. Not because the 200 is a bad RoI for me, but because 200 seems like such a pointless sum for everyone to be getting. I'd rather have that money funding cancer research or more pertinently, I'd rather give all 500 of it to people who need it. Everyone will have their thresholds for what seems "worth it". The lower the payment gets, the fewer donors there will be, and the proportion of the income used for admin will rise.
  - SuoDuanDao 7y ago
    Well hang on, not necessarily. The donations could be to a sovereign wealth fund of some kind, so long as invested money produces a somewhat reliable income, it could be seen as an investment in the eventual utopia UBI fans envision happening once the fund's large enough. Not a terrible way to implement it privately if the state doesn't get around to it now I think of it.
GrantSolar 7y ago
This is one of the bigger leftist critiques of UBI - instead of enacting meaningful change to the system, gifting the people just enough money to keep them docile and prevent upsetting the ruling class and, like you said, weaponising for further political gain
- krapp 7y ago
  One problem is the implication behind that critique, that the poor should rather be kept poor until their anger is useful for class warfare (the political gain of the left.) I sympathize with the left far more than the right but both sides seem perfectly happy to consider the proletariat as sheep when it serves their purpose. As far as I'm concerned, UBI would be meaningful change to the system.
  - GrantSolar 7y ago
    >the implication behind that critique, that the poor should rather be kept poor until... I think it's more that UBI will result in at best a brief reprieve from poverty. It won't be a long-term or even medium-term solution as it only treats the symptom, not the cause. While I can celebrate anyone promising/implementing welfare programs such as UBI and the huge social benefits they bring, I am cautious of how these will play out politically. >both sides seem perfectly happy to consider the lower classes as sheep when it serves their purpose Just want to throw out that I disagree with this
    - krapp 7y ago
      An at least brief reprieve from poverty would be better than nothing. We can treat the symptoms and the cause under UBI, just as we could do now, with the existence of welfare (such as it is in the US) and the minimum wage. I don't think these positions are mutually opposed. Yes, UBI can be weaponized politically, and probably will be. But the current system is already weaponized. If it's turned against people hard enough, that only works in the left's favor. If not, it at least suggests that some degree of meaningful change is possible within the system. >Just want to throw out that I disagree with this Fair enough.
qqqwerty 7y ago
The 'Universal' part of UBI is the key here. The problem with our current patch work of social programs is that the constituencies for each program are fractured and disorganized. A child tax credit here, a food program there, it is easy to slowly whittle down a social program in those cases. But a Universal BI means that any changes or cuts to the program will impact everyone. It is much harder to play politics when the constituency spans both political parties. Regarding Obamacare, there were a lot of issues, but a large one was the 'keep your hands off my health care' crowd. These folks were convinced they had good health care and that the government would ruin it (ironically, many of them were on medicare). So right off the bat, the constituency was fractured. And for this same reason, I actually think Universal Health Care will be a much harder sell in the US than a UBI. Despite our health care systems very obvious issues, too many people think their current plan is good enough (and may not even be aware of their plans shortcomings) and are too worried that any sort of change could put them in a worse spot. With UBI, its a blank slate and a pretty easy sell. Gov: Hey America, here is $1000. Us: Okay!
- notahacker 7y ago
  > ...it is easy to slowly whittle down a social program in those cases. But a Universal BI means that any changes or cuts to the program will impact everyone Sure, because the effect will be permanent removal rather than slow whittling down of other programs people depended on, and the people that depended on them will have to make do with whatever lesser payment the government can afford to pay out to much larger numbers of net recipients of a UBI "Hey America, here is $1000, and $2000 in extra taxes to fund all those people that didn't need welfare before" is also a surprisingly hard sell. It's only an easy sell when you assume everyone's a net beneficiary
- spicymaki 7y ago
  Another point that opponents to universal healthcare would claim was that granting access to healthcare services to the entire US population would degrade quality forcing rationing of service. With inequality you can buy your way to good service when you wanted it. However, with universal healthcare, you have to wait in line like everyone else.
manigandham 7y ago
What would reliance look like? People need a stable minimum amount to survive? Isn't that already the case for many? Isn't that the point of so many entitlement programs? Isn't that the reason for proposing UBI?
- michaelt 7y ago
  > What would reliance look like? People adjust their spending/working patterns to account for the UBI - maybe they have a child they couldn't have afforded before, or take a long-term mortgage on a home. Then the political winds change, a politician wants to show how tough they are, and of course we shouldn't be giving UBI to people in jail/drug dealers/anti-vaxxers/millionaire executives/people without photo ID/tax dodgers... Basically, the same way the federal government can institute a national speed limit and a national drinking age, despite not having the power to do so directly, by making federal highway funds conditional on states having those limits.
JDiculous 7y ago
> but the risk for people in power to use it against the people. As opposed to what, private undemocratic unaccountable authoritarian institutions controlling peoples' lives? > nce UBI exists, people will rely on it for survival. Anybody who's dependent on their employers' paycheck is dependent on their employer for survival. How is dependence on the government any more dangerous than being dependent on a corporation? We already have UBI, but only old people can qualify for it, and the dividend amount is proportional to how much money you made in your lifetime. It's called social security. Extending this dividend to the rest of the population is the next logical extension of this.
- zeveb 7y ago
  > As opposed to what, private undemocratic unaccountable authoritarian institutions controlling peoples' lives? Which is more authoritarian: 50%+1 of the people with the legal authority to imprison or kill you, or hundreds of competing firms bidding for your business or labour? I can easily see a government abusing UBI, just like the U.S. federal government has abused highway funding e.g. to extort the states into raising the drinking age.
- DubiousPusher 7y ago
  Exactly. This is akin to the argument that we shouldn't further nationalize healthcare because "do you really want some government beaurocrat making healthcare decisions for you?" Compared to the current system where some combination of the numbers in your bank account and am insurance company beaurocrat are making the decision? Yes.
  - deleted 7y ago
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- zajio1am 7y ago
  > How is dependence on the government any more dangerous than being dependent on a corporation? Changing your employer is much simpler than changing your government.
  - 7y ago
threwr342343 7y ago
> My primary concern with UBI is not the concept itself, but the risk for people in power to use it against the people. It's not a question of 'if' but 'when'. You can learn quite a bit from India's insane "reservation" policy where more than half of all opportunities (and in some cases > 80%) are 'allocated' to certain 'backward classes'. Never mind that these 'backward classes' dominate politics of the country, and are often quite rich (the 'creamy layer' in India is about $20k, in a country with per-capita GDP of 1/10 that). The supposedly 'conspiratorial all-controlling' Brahmins are but scapegoats (like the Jews) in a propaganda story that only dates back to the British times (see Nicholas Dirks). It's depressing that the supposed 'liberal' Western media is creating a situation which very well might lead to widespread genocide and pogroms in India (this has happened before), like in Rwanda, Germany and elsewhere. The grand Hindu temples and all its wealth has already been looted by these supposed 'backward classes'; I wonder what else they'll come for next.
jonathanstrange 7y ago
I've seen realistic figures for my country on UBI and from what I've seen UBI at a realistic level does not seem to be affordable. It's insanely expensive. Moreover, without massive changes elsewhere in society, UBI would decrease social mobility and lead to a two-class society that keeps the poor even poorer than now. I'd rather see reasonable minimum wages, and higher taxes that are spent on universal health care, free education and social welfare in the usual Prioritarian way, though with very loose conditions on eligible recipients. Make it the least bureaucratic possible and the most friendly to side jobs and transitioning to self-sustenance as possible, and it will works optimally. The current systems in most countries are horrible, because they are designed to punish people who are creative and try to make money on the side - they are based on the stupid and outdated idea that you're either a successful entrepreneur, or an employee, or get social welfare. In reality, the system should allow anyone to transition between those three roles with ease, as it fits best in the current situation, and without being bogged down by existential sorrows all the time.
- pas 7y ago
  > Moreover, without massive changes elsewhere in society, UBI would decrease social mobility and lead to a two-class society that keeps the poor even poorer than now. Could you elaborate on that a bit? How and why would it do that? What's your opinion on Negative Income Tax? > The current systems in most countries are horrible, because they are designed to punish people who are creative and try to make money on the side Agreed. The number of people applying for some program while trying to hide some of their income would go down a lot if the eligibility and payout were gradual. Plus the truly heinous criminal cases would be still there to prosecute. (Eg. if someone sits on a pile of gold and lies about it on some application.)
  - jonathanstrange 7y ago
    > > Moreover, without massive changes elsewhere in society, UBI would decrease social mobility and lead to a two-class society that keeps the poor even poorer than now. > Could you elaborate on that a bit? How and why would it do that? Disclaimer: I'm not an expert on UBI myself and have merely been to a talk+discussion about it, so I'm happy to be convinced otherwise or hear opposing arguments. I see two problems. First, a realistic UBI would be at an extremely low level, barely exceeding the existence minimum. However, it would diminish employer's willingness to treat people in unqualified low-wage jobs fairly and well (in small companies they do that a lot). They would fire and hire as they see fit, because someone fired supposedly could live easily off UBI. It seems to me that a consequence of this attitude is also that wages for those jobs would sink and some of these jobs might even degrade into unpaid "internships", based on the argument that people with UBI can take those jobs to have a purpose or for personal development, but don't need them to sustain their life. In reality many of them would still depend on those jobs, though, because UBI would be too low. Second, UBI itself does not prevent massive capital accumulation and the continuously increasing divide between rich and poor, and it does not prevent the spreading of wealth by inheritance (as opposed to merits and work). There is no obvious reason (or at least I cannot see it) why UBI would change the current trend of increasing the gap. Taking these two issues together, I don't see how UBI can solve society's main problem, which is this increasing gap between rich and poor and all problems that come with it regarding eduction, health care, political power distribution, social mobility, renters vs. land-owners, gentrification, etc. I'm not an economist, but Negative Income Tax seems much better to me.

glaive123 7y ago

God forbid people get money to take care of their lives. Because we can afford it.

Proziam 7y ago
I assume you misread what I wrote, or implied some opinion that hasn't been stated. I want people to have enough money to live reasonable and modern lives. What I DO NOT want is for UBI to become a political weapon and for the people who rely on it to have it taken away suddenly. That is a serious risk to that system that doesn't get enough attention. It could happen due to financial collapse or for political reasons. But no matter why it happens, the damage would be absolutely horrific.
- Melting_Harps 7y ago
  > I want people to have enough money to live reasonable and modern lives. What I DO NOT want is for UBI to become a political weapon and for the people who rely on it to have it taken away suddenly. Personally speaking, as a proponent of UBI, I reluctantly accept that the first versions of it will have to be state-based. If only to be able to learn from its mistakes and iterate from them to refine them further. This is one of the reasons I'm such a cryptocurrency enthusiast, after the wake of the financial crisis and massive unemployment in Iceland they deployed, and subsequently failed, with aurora coin to try and experiment with UBI. Had we gotten more information from it would have helped to be able to have a decentralized version of it by now, but it was too much for such a poorly backed project to surmount. > That is a serious risk to that system that doesn't get enough attention. It could happen due to financial collapse or for political reasons. But no matter why it happens, the damage would be absolutely horrific. I think this is inevitable and not a question of if but when it will occur, UBI will not be the biggest contributing factor to the 'system' failing, either: it will have been an outcome of centuries of needless war, currency corruption and Market manipulation, ecological destruction and climate change. its just a matter of time. At least having this in place prepares us as Species for what lies ahead, the status quo cannot be maintained, this much has to be accepted. The transition is definitely terrifying, but the idea of getting this right has so much potential and worth the sacrifice when you realize just how broken the 'system' really is. I think this what most don't understand when they see the Greta Thurnberg led Gen Z revolts happening all around the World, and they're dropping out of school to protest; this system is already doomed if you cannot convince the future generation play along anymore.
- glaive123 7y ago
  I read what you wrote. Your opposition is actually an example of a logical fallacy. I'm struggling to find the exact name of it. But it has to do with that fact that you are against the adoption of something positive that you agree with because of some hypothetical negative externality. Edit: It's called the "Perfect solution fallacy" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirvana_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirvana_fallacy The perfect solution fallacy is a related informal fallacy that occurs when an argument assumes that a solution should be rejected because some part of the problem would still exist after it were implemented.[4] This is an example of black and white thinking, in which a person fails to see the complex interplay between multiple component elements of a situation or problem, and, as a result, reduces complex problems to a pair of binary extremes.

puzzledobserver 7y ago

I think something similar has happened with minimum wages. It appears to me that the natural next step is to make the minimum wage grow with inflation. Unfortunately, this hasn't happened, so we're stuck with various government-mandated minimum wage levels that are tied to the value of money from several years before. Companies can now point to the law, and use this obsolete number as a metric by which to set their own salaries. What was intended to protect the laborer is therefore perversely being used to protect their corporate employer.

buzzkillington 7y ago
Make them grow with productivity.
- logicchains 7y ago
  This destroys incentive to invest in productivity improvements, because the gains are eaten by wages. Most productivity gains in the economic sense don't come from people working smarter/harder, they come from investment in better machines and technology (capital). If you took the most productive worker today back two thousand years, their productivity would be massively reduced without access to any modern tools or equipment.
  - buzzkillington 7y ago
    That is only true if your only expense is labour, something that's true out-call prostitution and little else.
    - logicchains 7y ago
      Productivity is defined as output per unit labour. This means any profitable investment the firm makes will increase productivity (assuming the number of employees remains the same). If the minimum wage was indexed to productivity, then any such investment would increase labour costs.

pmart123 7y ago

That's a great point. After the government shutdowns and lock-ins began, I started to think about our current political trends. If we keep voting for political leaders that tend towards fascism or socialism, we could end up with severe consequences. Both camps were eager to close restaurants and stores without establishing economic fallback plans. Essentially, they indirectly removed the SMB owner/middle class. This seems like the first step towards making people solely reliant on IBU even it is promised only as a "temporary fix."

whateveracct 7y ago

M4A is similar as well. I guess all big social safety nets have this problem. UBI and M4A would encourage me (and others) to pursue less lucrative pursuits (arts, research, gamedev, entrepreneurship, etc) but it would be hard for me to quit my nice tech job salary if there's the specter of the GOP potentially killing the benefits that enable my pursuit. And that doesn't even compare to the effect that uncertainty has on the less fortunate.

qmmmur 7y ago
Trust me, having a safety net isn't going to kill your drive.
- whateveracct 7y ago
  I agree. My point is a safety net doesn't feel safe when it's one election away from being neutered.
dpbriggs 7y ago
Eh universal healthcare would probably increase 'drive' at a macro level as it doesn't chain the overqualified or highly productive individual to crappy jobs that happen to have good insurance. Not to mention you lose the overhead of dealing with insurance, for you and your family. But yeah, I could see a class of people who would use UBI to permanently slack off whereas they would be highly productive otherwise. Edit: Note I'm from Canada and have taken healthcare for granted until I went to the US. My experience has been overwhelming positive with universal healthcare, and the only complaint is I've had to wait a few hours per emergency visit. Zero wait when serious though.
- Dylan16807 7y ago
  > But yeah, I could see a class of people who would use UBI to permanently slack off whereas they would be highly productive otherwise. If you're highly productive, willing to live on a minimal payout, and highly prioritize time away from work, then by all rights you should already be on sabbatical eight months a year or something.

pc2g4d 7y ago

We should also have a voluntary charitable UBI. Encourage a culture where everybody contributes what they can to the fund, and then all donations are split equally among all citizens. That money won't be subject to the same political pressures; people who donate will feel good about themselves; and the bureaucracy needed to do this would be minimal.

tonyedgecombe 7y ago
I consider myself a fairly generous person but in a crisis like this my overwhelming concern is my close family. Charitable donations aren't on my radar right now.
alexirobbins 7y ago
amounts to a tax on conscience: https://youtu.be/m2q-Csk-ktc https://youtu.be/m2q-Csk-ktc
frobozz 7y ago
You can't rely on voluntary donations to produce a stable income. A charity doing this would have to vary the amount paid out based on receipts. In hard times, donations and payments will reduce. This will reduce the effectiveness of a UBI in smoothing out recessions. It will also suffer a death spiral because every donor will know how much every recipient gets. If I put in 500 each month and get 200, then I'm going to look for a better place to put my donation. Not because the 200 is a bad RoI for me, but because 200 seems like such a pointless sum for everyone to be getting. I'd rather have that money funding cancer research or more pertinently, I'd rather give all 500 of it to people who need it. Everyone will have their thresholds for what seems "worth it". The lower the payment gets, the fewer donors there will be, and the proportion of the income used for admin will rise.
- SuoDuanDao 7y ago
  Well hang on, not necessarily. The donations could be to a sovereign wealth fund of some kind, so long as invested money produces a somewhat reliable income, it could be seen as an investment in the eventual utopia UBI fans envision happening once the fund's large enough. Not a terrible way to implement it privately if the state doesn't get around to it now I think of it.

GrantSolar 7y ago

This is one of the bigger leftist critiques of UBI - instead of enacting meaningful change to the system, gifting the people just enough money to keep them docile and prevent upsetting the ruling class and, like you said, weaponising for further political gain

krapp 7y ago
One problem is the implication behind that critique, that the poor should rather be kept poor until their anger is useful for class warfare (the political gain of the left.) I sympathize with the left far more than the right but both sides seem perfectly happy to consider the proletariat as sheep when it serves their purpose. As far as I'm concerned, UBI would be meaningful change to the system.
- GrantSolar 7y ago
  >the implication behind that critique, that the poor should rather be kept poor until... I think it's more that UBI will result in at best a brief reprieve from poverty. It won't be a long-term or even medium-term solution as it only treats the symptom, not the cause. While I can celebrate anyone promising/implementing welfare programs such as UBI and the huge social benefits they bring, I am cautious of how these will play out politically. >both sides seem perfectly happy to consider the lower classes as sheep when it serves their purpose Just want to throw out that I disagree with this
  - krapp 7y ago
    An at least brief reprieve from poverty would be better than nothing. We can treat the symptoms and the cause under UBI, just as we could do now, with the existence of welfare (such as it is in the US) and the minimum wage. I don't think these positions are mutually opposed. Yes, UBI can be weaponized politically, and probably will be. But the current system is already weaponized. If it's turned against people hard enough, that only works in the left's favor. If not, it at least suggests that some degree of meaningful change is possible within the system. >Just want to throw out that I disagree with this Fair enough.

qqqwerty 7y ago

The 'Universal' part of UBI is the key here. The problem with our current patch work of social programs is that the constituencies for each program are fractured and disorganized. A child tax credit here, a food program there, it is easy to slowly whittle down a social program in those cases. But a Universal BI means that any changes or cuts to the program will impact everyone. It is much harder to play politics when the constituency spans both political parties. Regarding Obamacare, there were a lot of issues, but a large one was the 'keep your hands off my health care' crowd. These folks were convinced they had good health care and that the government would ruin it (ironically, many of them were on medicare). So right off the bat, the constituency was fractured. And for this same reason, I actually think Universal Health Care will be a much harder sell in the US than a UBI. Despite our health care systems very obvious issues, too many people think their current plan is good enough (and may not even be aware of their plans shortcomings) and are too worried that any sort of change could put them in a worse spot. With UBI, its a blank slate and a pretty easy sell. Gov: Hey America, here is $1000. Us: Okay!

notahacker 7y ago
> ...it is easy to slowly whittle down a social program in those cases. But a Universal BI means that any changes or cuts to the program will impact everyone Sure, because the effect will be permanent removal rather than slow whittling down of other programs people depended on, and the people that depended on them will have to make do with whatever lesser payment the government can afford to pay out to much larger numbers of net recipients of a UBI "Hey America, here is $1000, and $2000 in extra taxes to fund all those people that didn't need welfare before" is also a surprisingly hard sell. It's only an easy sell when you assume everyone's a net beneficiary
spicymaki 7y ago
Another point that opponents to universal healthcare would claim was that granting access to healthcare services to the entire US population would degrade quality forcing rationing of service. With inequality you can buy your way to good service when you wanted it. However, with universal healthcare, you have to wait in line like everyone else.

manigandham 7y ago

What would reliance look like? People need a stable minimum amount to survive? Isn't that already the case for many? Isn't that the point of so many entitlement programs? Isn't that the reason for proposing UBI?

michaelt 7y ago
> What would reliance look like? People adjust their spending/working patterns to account for the UBI - maybe they have a child they couldn't have afforded before, or take a long-term mortgage on a home. Then the political winds change, a politician wants to show how tough they are, and of course we shouldn't be giving UBI to people in jail/drug dealers/anti-vaxxers/millionaire executives/people without photo ID/tax dodgers... Basically, the same way the federal government can institute a national speed limit and a national drinking age, despite not having the power to do so directly, by making federal highway funds conditional on states having those limits.

JDiculous 7y ago

> but the risk for people in power to use it against the people. As opposed to what, private undemocratic unaccountable authoritarian institutions controlling peoples' lives? > nce UBI exists, people will rely on it for survival. Anybody who's dependent on their employers' paycheck is dependent on their employer for survival. How is dependence on the government any more dangerous than being dependent on a corporation? We already have UBI, but only old people can qualify for it, and the dividend amount is proportional to how much money you made in your lifetime. It's called social security. Extending this dividend to the rest of the population is the next logical extension of this.

zeveb 7y ago
> As opposed to what, private undemocratic unaccountable authoritarian institutions controlling peoples' lives? Which is more authoritarian: 50%+1 of the people with the legal authority to imprison or kill you, or hundreds of competing firms bidding for your business or labour? I can easily see a government abusing UBI, just like the U.S. federal government has abused highway funding e.g. to extort the states into raising the drinking age.
DubiousPusher 7y ago
Exactly. This is akin to the argument that we shouldn't further nationalize healthcare because "do you really want some government beaurocrat making healthcare decisions for you?" Compared to the current system where some combination of the numbers in your bank account and am insurance company beaurocrat are making the decision? Yes.
- deleted 7y ago
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zajio1am 7y ago
> How is dependence on the government any more dangerous than being dependent on a corporation? Changing your employer is much simpler than changing your government.
- 7y ago

threwr342343 7y ago

> My primary concern with UBI is not the concept itself, but the risk for people in power to use it against the people. It's not a question of 'if' but 'when'. You can learn quite a bit from India's insane "reservation" policy where more than half of all opportunities (and in some cases > 80%) are 'allocated' to certain 'backward classes'. Never mind that these 'backward classes' dominate politics of the country, and are often quite rich (the 'creamy layer' in India is about $20k, in a country with per-capita GDP of 1/10 that). The supposedly 'conspiratorial all-controlling' Brahmins are but scapegoats (like the Jews) in a propaganda story that only dates back to the British times (see Nicholas Dirks). It's depressing that the supposed 'liberal' Western media is creating a situation which very well might lead to widespread genocide and pogroms in India (this has happened before), like in Rwanda, Germany and elsewhere. The grand Hindu temples and all its wealth has already been looted by these supposed 'backward classes'; I wonder what else they'll come for next.

jonathanstrange 7y ago

I've seen realistic figures for my country on UBI and from what I've seen UBI at a realistic level does not seem to be affordable. It's insanely expensive. Moreover, without massive changes elsewhere in society, UBI would decrease social mobility and lead to a two-class society that keeps the poor even poorer than now. I'd rather see reasonable minimum wages, and higher taxes that are spent on universal health care, free education and social welfare in the usual Prioritarian way, though with very loose conditions on eligible recipients. Make it the least bureaucratic possible and the most friendly to side jobs and transitioning to self-sustenance as possible, and it will works optimally. The current systems in most countries are horrible, because they are designed to punish people who are creative and try to make money on the side - they are based on the stupid and outdated idea that you're either a successful entrepreneur, or an employee, or get social welfare. In reality, the system should allow anyone to transition between those three roles with ease, as it fits best in the current situation, and without being bogged down by existential sorrows all the time.

pas 7y ago
> Moreover, without massive changes elsewhere in society, UBI would decrease social mobility and lead to a two-class society that keeps the poor even poorer than now. Could you elaborate on that a bit? How and why would it do that? What's your opinion on Negative Income Tax? > The current systems in most countries are horrible, because they are designed to punish people who are creative and try to make money on the side Agreed. The number of people applying for some program while trying to hide some of their income would go down a lot if the eligibility and payout were gradual. Plus the truly heinous criminal cases would be still there to prosecute. (Eg. if someone sits on a pile of gold and lies about it on some application.)
- jonathanstrange 7y ago
  > > Moreover, without massive changes elsewhere in society, UBI would decrease social mobility and lead to a two-class society that keeps the poor even poorer than now. > Could you elaborate on that a bit? How and why would it do that? Disclaimer: I'm not an expert on UBI myself and have merely been to a talk+discussion about it, so I'm happy to be convinced otherwise or hear opposing arguments. I see two problems. First, a realistic UBI would be at an extremely low level, barely exceeding the existence minimum. However, it would diminish employer's willingness to treat people in unqualified low-wage jobs fairly and well (in small companies they do that a lot). They would fire and hire as they see fit, because someone fired supposedly could live easily off UBI. It seems to me that a consequence of this attitude is also that wages for those jobs would sink and some of these jobs might even degrade into unpaid "internships", based on the argument that people with UBI can take those jobs to have a purpose or for personal development, but don't need them to sustain their life. In reality many of them would still depend on those jobs, though, because UBI would be too low. Second, UBI itself does not prevent massive capital accumulation and the continuously increasing divide between rich and poor, and it does not prevent the spreading of wealth by inheritance (as opposed to merits and work). There is no obvious reason (or at least I cannot see it) why UBI would change the current trend of increasing the gap. Taking these two issues together, I don't see how UBI can solve society's main problem, which is this increasing gap between rich and poor and all problems that come with it regarding eduction, health care, political power distribution, social mobility, renters vs. land-owners, gentrification, etc. I'm not an economist, but Negative Income Tax seems much better to me.