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Internally the US has free movement of both labor and capital, so any single state trying broad social programs without federal support will run into free rider

Internally the US has free movement of both labor and capital, so any single state trying broad social programs without federal support will run into free rider and arbitrage problems pretty quickly. Since the US can control its border and currency, it’s less likely to be a problem if it’s a national program.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> any single state trying broad social programs without federal support will run into free rider and arbitrage problems pretty quickly Internationally, capital and labour are also mobile. If the argument for UBI is basically North Korea, I’m not seeing it. Put simply, if a UBI scheme doesn’t work at the state level, it won’t federally in the long run.
- dmoy 2y ago
  > Isn’t the argument UBI will promote growth? Some types of growth, yea that's the theory. But I don't think there's any theory of UBI with freedom of movement between borders where UBI isn't present. If every single person who doesn't want to work shows up to your state, you won't be able to keep UBI running. > Internationally, capital and labour are also mobile. Capital yes. Labor ... not really? Even historically immigrating to the US is kinda difficult. Immigrating into any developed country is hard. > If the argument for UBI is basically North Korea, I’m not seeing it. No it's not even NK. It's socialism but no central planning. NK (and really any prior long running example of socialism in US history) doesn't do free market do decide e.g. who picks up the trash. So it could well be that UBI works, but a lot of grunge jobs just don't get done. Maybe people are happier and have more free time, but there's fewer janitors so things are dirtier, and a much higher percentage of money goes towards paying people to farm so good is way more expensive. Things definitely wouldn't be the same as they are now, even if it did hypothetically work. > Put simply, if a UBI scheme doesn’t work at the state level, it won’t federally in the long run. There could easily be things that break it at the state level (especially, freedom of movement of people), that don't apply federally. It might also fail at a federal level, but you can't claim there aren't major differences between a single state UBI and a federal UBI
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > don't think there's any theory of UBI with freedom of movement between borders where UBI isn't present Then you need to define categories of good and bad people. And explain why the former will stay (or continue to immigrate). In the long run, borders are porous. If it doesn’t work at the state level, and it doesn’t cause inflation, I’m deeply sceptical about the claim that it doesn’t require categorising by productivity.
    - dmoy 2y ago
      It's definitely more porous going out. So yeah, UBI needs to be not so bad that people can do better elsewhere that's easy enough to immigrate into. The same is true of basically any policy though, that's not really a unique thing to UBI.
moduspol 2y ago
That's true, although there's a pretty strong overlap of UBI proponents and supporters of pro-immigration policies. If you want to say, "Of course UBI can't work if we allow whoever wants it to move here and receive it," I agree, but that's often not a qualifier made by proponents.
- _DeadFred_ 2y ago
  Libertarians (the biggest pure open borders as their actual platform people) are pro UBI now?

JumpCrisscross 2y ago

> any single state trying broad social programs without federal support will run into free rider and arbitrage problems pretty quickly Internationally, capital and labour are also mobile. If the argument for UBI is basically North Korea, I’m not seeing it. Put simply, if a UBI scheme doesn’t work at the state level, it won’t federally in the long run.

dmoy 2y ago
> Isn’t the argument UBI will promote growth? Some types of growth, yea that's the theory. But I don't think there's any theory of UBI with freedom of movement between borders where UBI isn't present. If every single person who doesn't want to work shows up to your state, you won't be able to keep UBI running. > Internationally, capital and labour are also mobile. Capital yes. Labor ... not really? Even historically immigrating to the US is kinda difficult. Immigrating into any developed country is hard. > If the argument for UBI is basically North Korea, I’m not seeing it. No it's not even NK. It's socialism but no central planning. NK (and really any prior long running example of socialism in US history) doesn't do free market do decide e.g. who picks up the trash. So it could well be that UBI works, but a lot of grunge jobs just don't get done. Maybe people are happier and have more free time, but there's fewer janitors so things are dirtier, and a much higher percentage of money goes towards paying people to farm so good is way more expensive. Things definitely wouldn't be the same as they are now, even if it did hypothetically work. > Put simply, if a UBI scheme doesn’t work at the state level, it won’t federally in the long run. There could easily be things that break it at the state level (especially, freedom of movement of people), that don't apply federally. It might also fail at a federal level, but you can't claim there aren't major differences between a single state UBI and a federal UBI
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > don't think there's any theory of UBI with freedom of movement between borders where UBI isn't present Then you need to define categories of good and bad people. And explain why the former will stay (or continue to immigrate). In the long run, borders are porous. If it doesn’t work at the state level, and it doesn’t cause inflation, I’m deeply sceptical about the claim that it doesn’t require categorising by productivity.
  - dmoy 2y ago
    It's definitely more porous going out. So yeah, UBI needs to be not so bad that people can do better elsewhere that's easy enough to immigrate into. The same is true of basically any policy though, that's not really a unique thing to UBI.

moduspol 2y ago

That's true, although there's a pretty strong overlap of UBI proponents and supporters of pro-immigration policies. If you want to say, "Of course UBI can't work if we allow whoever wants it to move here and receive it," I agree, but that's often not a qualifier made by proponents.

_DeadFred_ 2y ago
Libertarians (the biggest pure open borders as their actual platform people) are pro UBI now?