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> Make people as a whole less motivated to work is the antithesis of economic prosperity. People don't stop working if you give them basic income. They do sto

> Make people as a whole less motivated to work is the antithesis of economic prosperity. People don't stop working if you give them basic income. They do stop working two or three jobs to make ends meet. This is good, because it kills people. They do stop doing the shitty underpaid jobs that no-one wants to do if they can possibly avoid it. This is good. Those jobs need to be redesigned because they're shitty. There are many happy garbage removalists out there, or cleaners, or retail clerks. It's not necessarily the nature of the work that makes a job shitty, it's often the incidental bullshit around it that makes it shitty. Making employers as a whole less motivated to keep their employees happy is the antithesis of basic human respect, and needs to be changed. We have to get out of this bullshit Protestant Work Ethic mindset that work is about suffering and that we get paid a salary to compensate for that suffering. Work is what gives our lives meaning. For some of us, that meaning is found in climbing the corporate ladder, others enjoy serving food, others have a sense of satisfaction from their cleaning gig. If the only reason you work is because you're paid to do it, find another line of work. No-one deserves that kind of misery.

neilwilson 5y ago
"People don't stop working if you give them basic income." They do, or we wouldn't have any retired people. "Basic income" is just another way of saying "receive a state pension at 18". The alternative is obvious - ensure that everybody can always sell their labour hours at a fixed rate. If you have to give up your hours to earn money, then that is the same as everybody else. There is no longer a differential between the "unemployed rate" and the "employed rate" which eliminates the rate per hour 'dead zone' required to attract people from "doing nothing" to "doing something".
- marcus_holmes 5y ago
  > They do, or we wouldn't have any retired people. A lot of retired people still work, despite not needing the income. > the rate per hour 'dead zone' required to attract people from "doing nothing" to "doing something". There's this myth again. People don't need to be attracted from "doing nothing". The default state of people isn't sitting around on their porch drinking beer. I mean, don't get me wrong, that's fun for a while, but it's not a long-term occupation. The default state of people is doing useful work that gives their lives meaning. We don't need to be "attracted" to that. That's the default.
  - mantas 5y ago
    And a lot of retired people do not work. Can society sustain a big portion of people of any age leaving the job market? Who will put together funds to pay UBI?
    - Stranger43 5y ago
      The answer is actually yes. But only if you drop the current crop of disproved morality based economic models that make up the bulk of the curriculum at most schools of business. The reality is that any modern economy based on fiat-money have unlimited cash and tend to benefit enough from weakening the bargaining power of the entrenched elites though inflation funded welfare, that you can set the bar for how poor the poor are allowed to become without necessarily impacting the real world industrial/agricultural output, but because of dogmatic policies designed to facility wealth hording we pretend that we cannot really end poverty. Another problem is that we measure societal success based on how well the 20% richest lives rather then on how well the 20% poorest live. which again support wealth hording policies that will eventually clash with the ideal that democracy, freedom and equally, should be available to everyone not just an small elite as was the case in ancient Rome or Greece(and to some extend The American south until ca 1970).
      - mantas 5y ago
        That doesn't explain at all what would happen if 50% workforce walked out the door tomorrow and expected the rest of workforce to provide them. Stopping money printing is an interesting idea though.
        wizzwizz4 5y ago
        > Stopping money printing is an interesting idea though. If I'm reading it right, that's the opposite of what the person you replied to was suggesting: > The reality is that any modern economy based on fiat-money have unlimited cash and tend to benefit enough from weakening the bargaining power of the entrenched elites though inflation funded welfare, that you can set the bar for how poor the poor are allowed to become
- JoeAltmaier 5y ago
  That's just wrong. A Basic Income is nothing like a retirement pension. The 'B' stands for 'Basic'. Most of us already work to get better things. That won't change. Its a strawman that won't die - that the Basic Income is going to make people well-off for no work.
  - wizzwizz4 5y ago
    I try to assume good faith with these people – that it's not a straw argument –, but in doing so, I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place: • I can assume they're just wrong, and don't understand the implications of what they're saying, ignoring other people because they're profoundly confused • or I can assume, instead, that they believe the basic entitlement of all people is less than the staying alive threshold – i.e., that human life doesn't have inherent value. I hope this is a false dichotomy.
    - someguy321 5y ago
      I can try to provide a perspective. From what moral authority do positive rights originate? (a right that requires someone to provide you with a good or service) From what moral authority do negative rights originate? (a right that prevents somebody from interfering with you or harming you) Over the course of hundreds or perhaps thousands of years, negative rights have been developed successfully in legal systems around the world. We've seen demonstrable evidence that enforcing protections of negative rights results in a happier and more productive population. Different countries have also, generally more recently, brought forth positive rights by various means- welfare programs, socialism, full communism, or otherwise. People that tend to care more about negative rights than positive rights tend toward right-libertarianism. Positive rights, in a sense, require those who can provide to forfeit some of their freedom, in order to help those who require it. There is a non-zero risk that a well-meaning welfare or socialist policy fails in its mission despite good intentions. Many of the communist states with the most heartfelt populist movements have seen the deepest failures. So in the right-libertarian mindset, there is a risk of a two-fold (or perhaps threefold) failure: -It promised to provide (positive rights) prosperity to all, and it didn't -It had to trample on the negative rights of the wealthy to try to redistribute their wealth -(more vague)It eroded many individuals' notion of self-determination in the process, and in doing so left them less likely to work towards their own values. Separately, there's the important notion of what the "staying alive threshold" is. Almost nobody in G7 countries dies of hunger or thirst, and those who do were likely in a crisis not determined by lack of access. Statistically, life expectancy increases with income up to and past $100,000/yr. The spectrum in between is fraught.
- username90 5y ago
  > They do, or we wouldn't have any retired people. Most software engineers or equivalent workers could retire right now or within a few years with their savings if they kept their expenses at what basic income would give. Yet basically none of them do it, why?
  - foogazi 5y ago
    Because there is no guarantee that future expenses (medical, food, housing) will be fixed in cost
    - username90 5y ago
      There you go, there is no guarantee of future UBI either.
foolinaround 5y ago
> They do stop doing the shitty underpaid jobs that no-one wants to do if they can possibly avoid it. This is good. Those jobs need to be redesigned because they're shitty. Re-designing jobs to be less shitty is one way, of course, but the reason they were not already done is not because the owners are evil per-se, but because it is too expensive, etc See real world UBI examples in middle-east, where citizens get money, most of the world is done by imported labor, 2nd class citizens that are treated terribly, but their govt. and citizens are ok with the status quo. So, here, we will have the worst of both worlds... - No money to pay for it ( No, the Fed printing press is not the equivalent of oil ) - More people to take care of. -- > get out of this bullshit Protestant Work Ethic mindset that work is about suffering Well, you created the strawman. It is more about the values of diligence and discipline, no different from anything you want to achieve, like excelling in sports, arts, etc
- sgift 5y ago
  > Re-designing jobs to be less shitty is one way, of course, but the reason they were not already done is not because the owners are evil per-se, but because it is too expensive, etc Or simply because they don't have to. Too expensive is very often code for "Sure, I could change the job, but that would cost ME something and I still get enough workers without doing it, so ..."
  - foolinaround 5y ago
    sure, we are witnessing mini-experiments like the raise in minimum wages in various areas across the country, and we get to witness the 2nd order effects - some beneficial, and some not ( some even unexpected ) An impartial observer will hopefully make predictions (driven by his biases, of course) but in a few years, use the hindsight to learn lessons.
josephcsible 5y ago
> If the only reason you work is because you're paid to do it, find another line of work. Find another line of work, sure. Quit your job without getting a new one and expect me to pay all of your expenses the rest of your life, not so much.
RhodoGSA 5y ago
whats 300m * $1,000 a month? This is my biggest argument against UBI cause even 1,000 a month won't cut it in most us cities.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > This is my biggest argument against UBI cause even 1,000 a month won't cut it in most us cities. What cities exist where you get more than $1,000/person-month in means-tested welfare? Any benefit beyond the current means-tested welfare maximums from UBI is gravy; the main point is to replace means-tested welfare with a system that removes administative costs produced by duplication of function and perverse incentives created by fubding cliffs.
- marcus_holmes 5y ago
  That's $1.2 trillion per year. The USA spends $1.03 trillion per year on benefits at the moment, [0]. Most of that will be replaced. That's only federal benefits - more is spent by states. I don't think this covers the administration costs of policing the benefits system (but I'm not sure). There's also the veteran's pay and benefits which isn't technically part of this, but would be less necessary with UBI. It's roughly equal to what the whole benefits system costs now. [0] https://www.budget.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/CRS%20Report%20-%20Welfare%20Spending%20The%20Largest%20Item%20In%20The%20Federal%20Budget.pdf https://www.budget.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/CRS%20Report%20-...

neilwilson 5y ago

"People don't stop working if you give them basic income." They do, or we wouldn't have any retired people. "Basic income" is just another way of saying "receive a state pension at 18". The alternative is obvious - ensure that everybody can always sell their labour hours at a fixed rate. If you have to give up your hours to earn money, then that is the same as everybody else. There is no longer a differential between the "unemployed rate" and the "employed rate" which eliminates the rate per hour 'dead zone' required to attract people from "doing nothing" to "doing something".

marcus_holmes 5y ago
> They do, or we wouldn't have any retired people. A lot of retired people still work, despite not needing the income. > the rate per hour 'dead zone' required to attract people from "doing nothing" to "doing something". There's this myth again. People don't need to be attracted from "doing nothing". The default state of people isn't sitting around on their porch drinking beer. I mean, don't get me wrong, that's fun for a while, but it's not a long-term occupation. The default state of people is doing useful work that gives their lives meaning. We don't need to be "attracted" to that. That's the default.
- mantas 5y ago
  And a lot of retired people do not work. Can society sustain a big portion of people of any age leaving the job market? Who will put together funds to pay UBI?
  - Stranger43 5y ago
    The answer is actually yes. But only if you drop the current crop of disproved morality based economic models that make up the bulk of the curriculum at most schools of business. The reality is that any modern economy based on fiat-money have unlimited cash and tend to benefit enough from weakening the bargaining power of the entrenched elites though inflation funded welfare, that you can set the bar for how poor the poor are allowed to become without necessarily impacting the real world industrial/agricultural output, but because of dogmatic policies designed to facility wealth hording we pretend that we cannot really end poverty. Another problem is that we measure societal success based on how well the 20% richest lives rather then on how well the 20% poorest live. which again support wealth hording policies that will eventually clash with the ideal that democracy, freedom and equally, should be available to everyone not just an small elite as was the case in ancient Rome or Greece(and to some extend The American south until ca 1970).
    - mantas 5y ago
      That doesn't explain at all what would happen if 50% workforce walked out the door tomorrow and expected the rest of workforce to provide them. Stopping money printing is an interesting idea though.
      - wizzwizz4 5y ago
        > Stopping money printing is an interesting idea though. If I'm reading it right, that's the opposite of what the person you replied to was suggesting: > The reality is that any modern economy based on fiat-money have unlimited cash and tend to benefit enough from weakening the bargaining power of the entrenched elites though inflation funded welfare, that you can set the bar for how poor the poor are allowed to become
JoeAltmaier 5y ago
That's just wrong. A Basic Income is nothing like a retirement pension. The 'B' stands for 'Basic'. Most of us already work to get better things. That won't change. Its a strawman that won't die - that the Basic Income is going to make people well-off for no work.
- wizzwizz4 5y ago
  I try to assume good faith with these people – that it's not a straw argument –, but in doing so, I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place: • I can assume they're just wrong, and don't understand the implications of what they're saying, ignoring other people because they're profoundly confused • or I can assume, instead, that they believe the basic entitlement of all people is less than the staying alive threshold – i.e., that human life doesn't have inherent value. I hope this is a false dichotomy.
  - someguy321 5y ago
    I can try to provide a perspective. From what moral authority do positive rights originate? (a right that requires someone to provide you with a good or service) From what moral authority do negative rights originate? (a right that prevents somebody from interfering with you or harming you) Over the course of hundreds or perhaps thousands of years, negative rights have been developed successfully in legal systems around the world. We've seen demonstrable evidence that enforcing protections of negative rights results in a happier and more productive population. Different countries have also, generally more recently, brought forth positive rights by various means- welfare programs, socialism, full communism, or otherwise. People that tend to care more about negative rights than positive rights tend toward right-libertarianism. Positive rights, in a sense, require those who can provide to forfeit some of their freedom, in order to help those who require it. There is a non-zero risk that a well-meaning welfare or socialist policy fails in its mission despite good intentions. Many of the communist states with the most heartfelt populist movements have seen the deepest failures. So in the right-libertarian mindset, there is a risk of a two-fold (or perhaps threefold) failure: -It promised to provide (positive rights) prosperity to all, and it didn't -It had to trample on the negative rights of the wealthy to try to redistribute their wealth -(more vague)It eroded many individuals' notion of self-determination in the process, and in doing so left them less likely to work towards their own values. Separately, there's the important notion of what the "staying alive threshold" is. Almost nobody in G7 countries dies of hunger or thirst, and those who do were likely in a crisis not determined by lack of access. Statistically, life expectancy increases with income up to and past $100,000/yr. The spectrum in between is fraught.
username90 5y ago
> They do, or we wouldn't have any retired people. Most software engineers or equivalent workers could retire right now or within a few years with their savings if they kept their expenses at what basic income would give. Yet basically none of them do it, why?
- foogazi 5y ago
  Because there is no guarantee that future expenses (medical, food, housing) will be fixed in cost
  - username90 5y ago
    There you go, there is no guarantee of future UBI either.

foolinaround 5y ago

> They do stop doing the shitty underpaid jobs that no-one wants to do if they can possibly avoid it. This is good. Those jobs need to be redesigned because they're shitty. Re-designing jobs to be less shitty is one way, of course, but the reason they were not already done is not because the owners are evil per-se, but because it is too expensive, etc See real world UBI examples in middle-east, where citizens get money, most of the world is done by imported labor, 2nd class citizens that are treated terribly, but their govt. and citizens are ok with the status quo. So, here, we will have the worst of both worlds... - No money to pay for it ( No, the Fed printing press is not the equivalent of oil ) - More people to take care of. -- > get out of this bullshit Protestant Work Ethic mindset that work is about suffering Well, you created the strawman. It is more about the values of diligence and discipline, no different from anything you want to achieve, like excelling in sports, arts, etc

sgift 5y ago
> Re-designing jobs to be less shitty is one way, of course, but the reason they were not already done is not because the owners are evil per-se, but because it is too expensive, etc Or simply because they don't have to. Too expensive is very often code for "Sure, I could change the job, but that would cost ME something and I still get enough workers without doing it, so ..."
- foolinaround 5y ago
  sure, we are witnessing mini-experiments like the raise in minimum wages in various areas across the country, and we get to witness the 2nd order effects - some beneficial, and some not ( some even unexpected ) An impartial observer will hopefully make predictions (driven by his biases, of course) but in a few years, use the hindsight to learn lessons.

josephcsible 5y ago

> If the only reason you work is because you're paid to do it, find another line of work. Find another line of work, sure. Quit your job without getting a new one and expect me to pay all of your expenses the rest of your life, not so much.

RhodoGSA 5y ago

whats 300m * $1,000 a month? This is my biggest argument against UBI cause even 1,000 a month won't cut it in most us cities.

dragonwriter 5y ago
> This is my biggest argument against UBI cause even 1,000 a month won't cut it in most us cities. What cities exist where you get more than $1,000/person-month in means-tested welfare? Any benefit beyond the current means-tested welfare maximums from UBI is gravy; the main point is to replace means-tested welfare with a system that removes administative costs produced by duplication of function and perverse incentives created by fubding cliffs.
marcus_holmes 5y ago
That's $1.2 trillion per year. The USA spends $1.03 trillion per year on benefits at the moment, [0]. Most of that will be replaced. That's only federal benefits - more is spent by states. I don't think this covers the administration costs of policing the benefits system (but I'm not sure). There's also the veteran's pay and benefits which isn't technically part of this, but would be less necessary with UBI. It's roughly equal to what the whole benefits system costs now. [0] https://www.budget.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/CRS%20Report%20-%20Welfare%20Spending%20The%20Largest%20Item%20In%20The%20Federal%20Budget.pdf https://www.budget.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/CRS%20Report%20-...