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Not even proponents of UBI pretend that it’s the end of human labor. The original idea is that you replace all welfare programmes with one payment. If you remo

by hyko 6y ago

Not even proponents of UBI pretend that it’s the end of human labor. The original idea is that you replace all welfare programmes with one payment. If you remove human labor from the economy, you’re facing a 50-60% fall in GDP overnight, undermining UBI and ever other human activity. Every person has inherent worth, but that doesn’t mean that everyone can live without being productive in the near future.

partingshots 6y ago
I think you might have misread what I’m trying to say. Human labor is becoming increasingly unnecessary, with the key point here being increasingly. The pool of available work will never completely disappear, but as the job pool decreases in size due to being replaced by some combination of machine/computer, providing stimulus through the intermediary of businesses begins to fail as it no longer reaches people efficiently.
- mntmoss 6y ago
  Yes, this argument is one shared with some arguments for minimum wage. When a sector of the economy can set wage freely, it often races to the bottom on price competitiveness, neglecting automation and training improvements; businesses that attempt to raise their quality get pummelled by the higher costs and risks relative to competition. A rising minimum wage standard therefore encourages modernization of the work environment. With UBI a similar effect is had on the demand side: If you assume a higher base of income, then consumer credit, payday loans, friends-and-family-favors, etc. become less of a necessity for low-income workers. Higher-income workers with long-term debts like mortgages and student loans become free of their debt more quickly, and face fewer consequences if their income takes a hit. The workforce is therefore disentangled from a set of predatory financial interests that chain them to needing their current job and to stay in the good graces of their financial backers. Even a very small amount of UBI will create a substantial reduction in poverty traps, domestic abuse, and labor mistreatment.
  - TazeTSchnitzel 6y ago
    For similar reasons I have recently been entertaining the idea of government as employer-of-last-resort. Essentially, have the government spend lots of money on creating businesses designed to employ the unemployed, with good working conditions and pay, and don't immediately focus on making the operation profitable. This would, I hope, create positive pressure on wages and conditions in low-skilled jobs: no stream of desparate people they could rely on, and an alternative employer raising the bar. I wasn't thinking of COVID-19 when I contemplated it though. It's not a new idea of course.
- hyko 6y ago
  Sorry, perhaps I have misunderstood. What I thought you meant was that it would be more efficient to create a UBI for everyone now, rather than pay people via the payrolls of shuttered companies. I’m assuming you meant financially efficient. I was disagreeing with that because it seems like a suboptimal time to attempt something like UBI (both in historic terms and in the midst of a major pandemic), and because we’re going to need a ready made workforce when the pandemic ends. “The pool of available work will never completely disappear” - I would say there’s no evidence the pool of available work for humans will even _decrease_ in a highly automated economy. It’s possible to have a 99% automated economy with human labor many times its present level. Disappointingly–despite all of our best efforts–new work always seems to arise in this universe. My contention about the long term prospects for UBI is that before we spend the proceeds of our massively automated economy, we should first try to create it. The challenge is awesome, and the economics uncertain. Of course, I too would like free money when available :)
  - Reelin 6y ago
    > there’s no evidence the pool of available work for humans will even _decrease_ in a highly automated economy That depends on how you define "available work". Historically automation has replaced the jobs requiring the least skill with fewer jobs that required more skill. As the skill cutoff rises, the eligible labor pool shrinks. Assuming the trend continues (in fact it appears to be accelerating) at some point the vast majority of humans won't be capable of any work that might still be available.
    - hyko 6y ago
      “Historically automation has replaced the jobs requiring the least skill with fewer jobs that required more skill” This is a compelling narrative, but it’s not true. Technological unemployment has not historically accompanied increased levels of automation. There are some economists who project that this will change, but that would be a break with the past. Probably worth remembering that the current wave of automation struggles to replace jobs we consider “low skilled”, because they actually require high skill (they are impossible to automate with current tech) and are performed for little money (so the capital investment in automation is uneconomic).
- bequanna 6y ago
  > Human labor is becoming increasingly unnecessary, with the key point here being increasingly. How can you justify this statement given the relatively low unemployment numbers pre-Covid? This sounds like the same refrain heard at least since the early 1900's: Productivity and automation will set us free! Redistribute capital and income! On the more pessimistic end, some people have always roiled against labor-saving technology. In either case, both are predicting some future where humans are less necessary. Funny how this never seems to happen. There will always be short term pain from displaced workers, but in the long term we will always have a need for humans to work. Technology is a multiplier and supports human effort.
  - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
    Headline unemployment numbers measure the fraction of workers who are trying to find jobs but can't. The fraction of Americans who have jobs peaked in 2000 (https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/EMRATIO https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/EMRATIO), and there's reason to believe that the downtrend started earlier (https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS12300001 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS12300001) but was masked by the removal of structural barriers against women entering the workforce.
  - lawrenceyan 6y ago
    Automation is not a bad thing. We should endeavor to make things as efficient and labor-saving as possible. Without a mechanism like UBI, however, wealth will get trapped into increasingly concentrated funnels and effectively stagnate. This is bad not only for the people that get left behind, but also bad in general for the economy as a whole as an economy sustains itself on the constant flow of back and forth between buyers and sellers and consumers and suppliers. As more and more people get replaced through automation, the available pool of money from consumers decreases. If it gets to a point where this becomes too low, the economy effectively comes to a standstill as the products and services companies can offer, even as they become increasingly cheaper to produce due to the productivity gains from automating away human labor costs, stop getting bought due to insufficient funds from consumers.
Pfhreak 6y ago
UBI, by the way, is not necessarily a replacement for all social welfare programs. I don't believe that's the original or modern idea outside of right of center circles. I've seen plenty of folks who advocate for it alongside food stamps, rent control, universal healthcare, social housing, etc.
- hyko 6y ago
  That’s a fair point, I was conflating it with a negative income tax when I said that. You’re right, there are advocates for UBI that would maintain all social programs too.

by hyko 6y ago

partingshots 6y ago

I think you might have misread what I’m trying to say. Human labor is becoming increasingly unnecessary, with the key point here being increasingly. The pool of available work will never completely disappear, but as the job pool decreases in size due to being replaced by some combination of machine/computer, providing stimulus through the intermediary of businesses begins to fail as it no longer reaches people efficiently.

mntmoss 6y ago
Yes, this argument is one shared with some arguments for minimum wage. When a sector of the economy can set wage freely, it often races to the bottom on price competitiveness, neglecting automation and training improvements; businesses that attempt to raise their quality get pummelled by the higher costs and risks relative to competition. A rising minimum wage standard therefore encourages modernization of the work environment. With UBI a similar effect is had on the demand side: If you assume a higher base of income, then consumer credit, payday loans, friends-and-family-favors, etc. become less of a necessity for low-income workers. Higher-income workers with long-term debts like mortgages and student loans become free of their debt more quickly, and face fewer consequences if their income takes a hit. The workforce is therefore disentangled from a set of predatory financial interests that chain them to needing their current job and to stay in the good graces of their financial backers. Even a very small amount of UBI will create a substantial reduction in poverty traps, domestic abuse, and labor mistreatment.
- TazeTSchnitzel 6y ago
  For similar reasons I have recently been entertaining the idea of government as employer-of-last-resort. Essentially, have the government spend lots of money on creating businesses designed to employ the unemployed, with good working conditions and pay, and don't immediately focus on making the operation profitable. This would, I hope, create positive pressure on wages and conditions in low-skilled jobs: no stream of desparate people they could rely on, and an alternative employer raising the bar. I wasn't thinking of COVID-19 when I contemplated it though. It's not a new idea of course.
hyko 6y ago
Sorry, perhaps I have misunderstood. What I thought you meant was that it would be more efficient to create a UBI for everyone now, rather than pay people via the payrolls of shuttered companies. I’m assuming you meant financially efficient. I was disagreeing with that because it seems like a suboptimal time to attempt something like UBI (both in historic terms and in the midst of a major pandemic), and because we’re going to need a ready made workforce when the pandemic ends. “The pool of available work will never completely disappear” - I would say there’s no evidence the pool of available work for humans will even _decrease_ in a highly automated economy. It’s possible to have a 99% automated economy with human labor many times its present level. Disappointingly–despite all of our best efforts–new work always seems to arise in this universe. My contention about the long term prospects for UBI is that before we spend the proceeds of our massively automated economy, we should first try to create it. The challenge is awesome, and the economics uncertain. Of course, I too would like free money when available :)
- Reelin 6y ago
  > there’s no evidence the pool of available work for humans will even _decrease_ in a highly automated economy That depends on how you define "available work". Historically automation has replaced the jobs requiring the least skill with fewer jobs that required more skill. As the skill cutoff rises, the eligible labor pool shrinks. Assuming the trend continues (in fact it appears to be accelerating) at some point the vast majority of humans won't be capable of any work that might still be available.
  - hyko 6y ago
    “Historically automation has replaced the jobs requiring the least skill with fewer jobs that required more skill” This is a compelling narrative, but it’s not true. Technological unemployment has not historically accompanied increased levels of automation. There are some economists who project that this will change, but that would be a break with the past. Probably worth remembering that the current wave of automation struggles to replace jobs we consider “low skilled”, because they actually require high skill (they are impossible to automate with current tech) and are performed for little money (so the capital investment in automation is uneconomic).
bequanna 6y ago
> Human labor is becoming increasingly unnecessary, with the key point here being increasingly. How can you justify this statement given the relatively low unemployment numbers pre-Covid? This sounds like the same refrain heard at least since the early 1900's: Productivity and automation will set us free! Redistribute capital and income! On the more pessimistic end, some people have always roiled against labor-saving technology. In either case, both are predicting some future where humans are less necessary. Funny how this never seems to happen. There will always be short term pain from displaced workers, but in the long term we will always have a need for humans to work. Technology is a multiplier and supports human effort.
- SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
  Headline unemployment numbers measure the fraction of workers who are trying to find jobs but can't. The fraction of Americans who have jobs peaked in 2000 (https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/EMRATIO https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/EMRATIO), and there's reason to believe that the downtrend started earlier (https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS12300001 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS12300001) but was masked by the removal of structural barriers against women entering the workforce.
- lawrenceyan 6y ago
  Automation is not a bad thing. We should endeavor to make things as efficient and labor-saving as possible. Without a mechanism like UBI, however, wealth will get trapped into increasingly concentrated funnels and effectively stagnate. This is bad not only for the people that get left behind, but also bad in general for the economy as a whole as an economy sustains itself on the constant flow of back and forth between buyers and sellers and consumers and suppliers. As more and more people get replaced through automation, the available pool of money from consumers decreases. If it gets to a point where this becomes too low, the economy effectively comes to a standstill as the products and services companies can offer, even as they become increasingly cheaper to produce due to the productivity gains from automating away human labor costs, stop getting bought due to insufficient funds from consumers.

Pfhreak 6y ago

UBI, by the way, is not necessarily a replacement for all social welfare programs. I don't believe that's the original or modern idea outside of right of center circles. I've seen plenty of folks who advocate for it alongside food stamps, rent control, universal healthcare, social housing, etc.

hyko 6y ago
That’s a fair point, I was conflating it with a negative income tax when I said that. You’re right, there are advocates for UBI that would maintain all social programs too.