5 ms·

Fine, by "citizens" read "citizens and permanent residents". If you know of a better term that encapsulates who would be eligible to receive UBI, please provide

Fine, by "citizens" read "citizens and permanent residents". If you know of a better term that encapsulates who would be eligible to receive UBI, please provide it.

dragonwriter 6y ago
> Fine, by "citizens" read "citizens and permanent residents". If you know of a better term that encapsulates who would be eligible to receive UBI, please provide it. Different UBI advocates prefer different target populations. I have heard all combinations of: Age: All adults; All adults and emancipated minors, All (regardless of age); All, but with a reduced benefit for (all or only dependent) children. Citizenship/immigration status: All domestically resident citizens and nationals; All citizens and nationals; all citizens, nationals, and LPRs; All citizens, nationals, LPRs, and other resident aliens, where the last may be defined either as the IRS does for tax purposes or somewhat more expansively.
- thu2111 6y ago
  Exactly. And what happens when UBI gets combined with the "borders are human rights abuses" idea? It turns into giving the whole world resources for free. As UBI would be stratospherically expensive, the people who can receive it must be tightly limited, which means very strong border controls and under no circumstances could the economically unproductive be allowed to immigrate. Yet the sort of people who believe in UBI are the sort of people who claim it's universal because of "dignity", so, fat chance of that. I think its advocates should just man up and admit it: UBI is communism rebranded.
  - jlokier 6y ago
    I'm not sure which country you are thinking from here. But if you're thinking that open borders means people would all flood into the USA for personal wealth, you have it wrong. If many countries offered UBI, while keeping everything else the same, many people would flood out of the USA in search of better healthcare and education, for example. It is issue dependent.
    - thu2111 6y ago
      Even if every country offered UBI simultaneously, which isn't possible, they would offer very different amounts. UBI is welfare and acts as an immigration pull - it cannot be actually universal despite its name. There must always be many conditions on who receives it, hence, it still requires extensive means testing. But in practice some countries will go first. And they will become far more attractive to immigrants as a consequence, and will need to have a plan for that.
  - jlokier 6y ago
    > I think its advocates should just man up and admit it: UBI is communism rebranded. It isn't at all! Communism is a lot of central planning and giving you what you're not allowed to choose for yourself. (As a result, you have to curry favours and engage in politics and deals to get good things, which you can just buy in non-communist countries.) UBI is literally giving you flexible resources, to choose for yourself what to do with. (The entire point is to support personal freedom and self-determination. It's very much a "personal enterprise" sort of culture.) In that way they are polar opposites on the political map. And UBI is much more aligned with the ideals of USA culture.
    - thu2111 6y ago
      You're presenting communism for what it really is, but UBI for what it claims it will be. Communists used to claim that communism would be effectively like a UBI. "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs", etc. Marx never really elaborated on how this vision was meant to work in practice. It turned out the only way to get close was huge state control. UBI is, let's be clear, a form of wealth redistribution. For the vast majority of workers it would not give them anything. It would take money away. Money would come in one pocket but go straight out the other in higher taxes, it must be so, because UBI removes the incentive to work for a lot of people who are comfortable being at the base level of subsistence it allows. That means they'd stop generating taxable income, increasing the burden on everyone else. Thus for people like me, who work, UBI is not about giving me flexible resources. My work does that. UBI is about taking my resources to give them to other people. These people may feel freer or like they have more self-determination indeed, as they now have more money for less work than before. But for other people they are less free and have less self-determination, because previously they could have spent that money on themselves but now it's taken from them by the government. Now UBI is a form of central planning. It must be because it posits a single variable that yields a "universal" income. Who decides what that income is and how it moves up and down? The government does, one might say, the government plans it. And who plans how it is funded? Same answer.
      - dragonwriter 6y ago
        > UBI is, let's be clear, a form of wealth redistribution. For the vast majority of workers it would not give them anything. It would take money away. That would only be true if you adopted a monumentally stupid funding model, so I'd recommend if you adopt UBI, you don't do that. The most sensible funding models involve new high-end taxes to fund basic income (wealth or property taxes with a broad exemption that would leave out most of the lower, working, and middle classes seem a popular idea recently, though I personally prefer, to give the short form, to at least start with equalizing taxes across forms of income to remove the preference for capital and other non-labor income). > UBI removes the incentive to work for a lot of people who are comfortable being at the base level of subsistence it allows. People are more than happy to put additional effort into increasing labor income when already working considerably and earning more than a subsistence level, so I find that argument specious ab initio, moreover, UBI, to the extent it replaces existing support programs that create disincentives to additional income, would actually increase the incentive to earn outside income, and reduce barriers to doing so. > Now UBI is a form of central planning. Even if you can stretch the definition of the latter so that's a sensible statement, its certainly less central planning than traditional means- and behaviorally-tested social welfare systems by any sane standard, so if it in anyway (even by simply counting as income against those systems qualifications) displaces such systems, it reduces the role of central planning in the economy.
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > I think its advocates should just man up and admit it: UBI is communism rebranded. UBI is Negative Income Tax rebranded (literally, UBI with a progressive income tax scheme is mathematically equivalent to NIT.) Milton Friedman was a communist, who knew? > As UBI would be stratospherically expensive, the people who can receive it must be tightly limited, which means very strong border controls and under no circumstances could the economically unproductive be allowed to immigrate. UBI with any immigration qualification (even as weak as the "resident alien" standard, and a fortiori something like the LPR or in the maximal case Citizens-only standard) is an economic border control; as it makes life more expensive (and hence less attractive) for any non-qualified immigrant (while the inflationary effects are more than offset by the benefits for the recipients at the low end, they are not offset at all for non-recipients.)

Fine, by "citizens" read "citizens and permanent residents". If you know of a better term that encapsulates who would be eligible to receive UBI, please provide it.

dragonwriter 6y ago

> Fine, by "citizens" read "citizens and permanent residents". If you know of a better term that encapsulates who would be eligible to receive UBI, please provide it. Different UBI advocates prefer different target populations. I have heard all combinations of: Age: All adults; All adults and emancipated minors, All (regardless of age); All, but with a reduced benefit for (all or only dependent) children. Citizenship/immigration status: All domestically resident citizens and nationals; All citizens and nationals; all citizens, nationals, and LPRs; All citizens, nationals, LPRs, and other resident aliens, where the last may be defined either as the IRS does for tax purposes or somewhat more expansively.

thu2111 6y ago
Exactly. And what happens when UBI gets combined with the "borders are human rights abuses" idea? It turns into giving the whole world resources for free. As UBI would be stratospherically expensive, the people who can receive it must be tightly limited, which means very strong border controls and under no circumstances could the economically unproductive be allowed to immigrate. Yet the sort of people who believe in UBI are the sort of people who claim it's universal because of "dignity", so, fat chance of that. I think its advocates should just man up and admit it: UBI is communism rebranded.
- jlokier 6y ago
  I'm not sure which country you are thinking from here. But if you're thinking that open borders means people would all flood into the USA for personal wealth, you have it wrong. If many countries offered UBI, while keeping everything else the same, many people would flood out of the USA in search of better healthcare and education, for example. It is issue dependent.
  - thu2111 6y ago
    Even if every country offered UBI simultaneously, which isn't possible, they would offer very different amounts. UBI is welfare and acts as an immigration pull - it cannot be actually universal despite its name. There must always be many conditions on who receives it, hence, it still requires extensive means testing. But in practice some countries will go first. And they will become far more attractive to immigrants as a consequence, and will need to have a plan for that.
- jlokier 6y ago
  > I think its advocates should just man up and admit it: UBI is communism rebranded. It isn't at all! Communism is a lot of central planning and giving you what you're not allowed to choose for yourself. (As a result, you have to curry favours and engage in politics and deals to get good things, which you can just buy in non-communist countries.) UBI is literally giving you flexible resources, to choose for yourself what to do with. (The entire point is to support personal freedom and self-determination. It's very much a "personal enterprise" sort of culture.) In that way they are polar opposites on the political map. And UBI is much more aligned with the ideals of USA culture.
  - thu2111 6y ago
    You're presenting communism for what it really is, but UBI for what it claims it will be. Communists used to claim that communism would be effectively like a UBI. "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs", etc. Marx never really elaborated on how this vision was meant to work in practice. It turned out the only way to get close was huge state control. UBI is, let's be clear, a form of wealth redistribution. For the vast majority of workers it would not give them anything. It would take money away. Money would come in one pocket but go straight out the other in higher taxes, it must be so, because UBI removes the incentive to work for a lot of people who are comfortable being at the base level of subsistence it allows. That means they'd stop generating taxable income, increasing the burden on everyone else. Thus for people like me, who work, UBI is not about giving me flexible resources. My work does that. UBI is about taking my resources to give them to other people. These people may feel freer or like they have more self-determination indeed, as they now have more money for less work than before. But for other people they are less free and have less self-determination, because previously they could have spent that money on themselves but now it's taken from them by the government. Now UBI is a form of central planning. It must be because it posits a single variable that yields a "universal" income. Who decides what that income is and how it moves up and down? The government does, one might say, the government plans it. And who plans how it is funded? Same answer.
    - dragonwriter 6y ago
      > UBI is, let's be clear, a form of wealth redistribution. For the vast majority of workers it would not give them anything. It would take money away. That would only be true if you adopted a monumentally stupid funding model, so I'd recommend if you adopt UBI, you don't do that. The most sensible funding models involve new high-end taxes to fund basic income (wealth or property taxes with a broad exemption that would leave out most of the lower, working, and middle classes seem a popular idea recently, though I personally prefer, to give the short form, to at least start with equalizing taxes across forms of income to remove the preference for capital and other non-labor income). > UBI removes the incentive to work for a lot of people who are comfortable being at the base level of subsistence it allows. People are more than happy to put additional effort into increasing labor income when already working considerably and earning more than a subsistence level, so I find that argument specious ab initio, moreover, UBI, to the extent it replaces existing support programs that create disincentives to additional income, would actually increase the incentive to earn outside income, and reduce barriers to doing so. > Now UBI is a form of central planning. Even if you can stretch the definition of the latter so that's a sensible statement, its certainly less central planning than traditional means- and behaviorally-tested social welfare systems by any sane standard, so if it in anyway (even by simply counting as income against those systems qualifications) displaces such systems, it reduces the role of central planning in the economy.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > I think its advocates should just man up and admit it: UBI is communism rebranded. UBI is Negative Income Tax rebranded (literally, UBI with a progressive income tax scheme is mathematically equivalent to NIT.) Milton Friedman was a communist, who knew? > As UBI would be stratospherically expensive, the people who can receive it must be tightly limited, which means very strong border controls and under no circumstances could the economically unproductive be allowed to immigrate. UBI with any immigration qualification (even as weak as the "resident alien" standard, and a fortiori something like the LPR or in the maximal case Citizens-only standard) is an economic border control; as it makes life more expensive (and hence less attractive) for any non-qualified immigrant (while the inflationary effects are more than offset by the benefits for the recipients at the low end, they are not offset at all for non-recipients.)