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> Any economic system has at least some people who generally do not produce things -- babies and the elderly. In capitalism, you also have the unemployed. Ther

> Any economic system has at least some people who generally do not produce things -- babies and the elderly. In capitalism, you also have the unemployed. There is a big difference between people who are incapable of producing things (perhaps because of circumstances beyond their control) and people who choose to not produce things. This is one weakness of the UBI concept that I haven't seen addressed in a forthright way.

cyphar 6y ago
I first want to point out that neither you nor I know how widespread that behaviour would be. You might argue that a large portion of people would prefer to not work, while I might argue that generally people want to do something fulfilling with their lives and work fills that role for them. Until we see long-term examples of UBI systems, discussions of this question will almost always just be pure conjecture. However, there are two points to be made: * Most UBI progrms are designed to fulfill the base requirements to live in society (food and shelter), so if you want to have a better quality of life than the bare minimum you'll need to get a job as you do today. Most people want to improve their life in some way, but being in poverty robs you of opportunities to do so. So the same incentives to work would exist under UBI, it's just that the bottom of the income ladder isn't marked "$0". * Not fearing unemployment may enable more people in lower-end jobs to leave their jobs to become better-educated and perhaps find better work in the future (perhaps even starting their own businesses). Again, being poor robs you of the freedom to pursue activities which require an up-front time (and thus money) commitment like higher education or other forms of skill development. These apply to people who would "choose" to not work, there are other arguments for those who cannot work (but I guess we're in agreement on why that would be a good idea). I want to point out that I'm not really a proponent of UBI. There are many possible ways to solve existing problems of wealth inequality, and UBI is possibly the most "obvious" one, but I personally think job guarantee programs are a better solution. They solve the same issues of unemployment and wealth, but they also (if implemented correctly) can act as trade schools and as national infrastructure programs (they are also a better application of MMT, because you are actually purchasing resources -- physical labour and materials). But you'd still need a strong safety net for people who cannot work.
neetle 6y ago
The issue I see with that argument specifically is that the underlying system will always have people not in jobs. From my reading, economists consider a 100% employment rate bad as it means there's no elasticity in the labour supply. If there's no elasticity in the labour supply, wages go up and the rich can't effectively extract surplus value. We will always have the unemployed, as it's a feature of the economic system we participate in. If you want to fix the "problem" you need to abandon capitalism. I'm not sure anyone here wants to do that, myself included.

cyphar 6y ago

I first want to point out that neither you nor I know how widespread that behaviour would be. You might argue that a large portion of people would prefer to not work, while I might argue that generally people want to do something fulfilling with their lives and work fills that role for them. Until we see long-term examples of UBI systems, discussions of this question will almost always just be pure conjecture. However, there are two points to be made: * Most UBI progrms are designed to fulfill the base requirements to live in society (food and shelter), so if you want to have a better quality of life than the bare minimum you'll need to get a job as you do today. Most people want to improve their life in some way, but being in poverty robs you of opportunities to do so. So the same incentives to work would exist under UBI, it's just that the bottom of the income ladder isn't marked "$0". * Not fearing unemployment may enable more people in lower-end jobs to leave their jobs to become better-educated and perhaps find better work in the future (perhaps even starting their own businesses). Again, being poor robs you of the freedom to pursue activities which require an up-front time (and thus money) commitment like higher education or other forms of skill development. These apply to people who would "choose" to not work, there are other arguments for those who cannot work (but I guess we're in agreement on why that would be a good idea). I want to point out that I'm not really a proponent of UBI. There are many possible ways to solve existing problems of wealth inequality, and UBI is possibly the most "obvious" one, but I personally think job guarantee programs are a better solution. They solve the same issues of unemployment and wealth, but they also (if implemented correctly) can act as trade schools and as national infrastructure programs (they are also a better application of MMT, because you are actually purchasing resources -- physical labour and materials). But you'd still need a strong safety net for people who cannot work.

neetle 6y ago

The issue I see with that argument specifically is that the underlying system will always have people not in jobs. From my reading, economists consider a 100% employment rate bad as it means there's no elasticity in the labour supply. If there's no elasticity in the labour supply, wages go up and the rich can't effectively extract surplus value. We will always have the unemployed, as it's a feature of the economic system we participate in. If you want to fix the "problem" you need to abandon capitalism. I'm not sure anyone here wants to do that, myself included.