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If I recall correctly, it has been shown that Basic Income Guarantees[1] (free cash without means testing besides citizenship) works incredibly well for both de

• mc-lovin 13y ago
  You are making very big claims without adequate references. The study shows the effects of a one-off payment, to a highly selective group (note that I'm not implying their randomization was bad, but that both treatment and control groups were very special relative to the whole population), an a particular developing country. You may personally believe that this is part of a general phenomenon that applies to highly developed countries, to all groups of people in that country, and in the long term not just the short term, but you have presented little evidence for the claims in your first paragraph (I read all the links). You seem to view BIG as somehow unique, when in fact it is functionally equivalent to progressive taxation plus welfare, when welfare is only conditional on income. It is also hard to argue against because it treats redistribution, which is a sliding scale, as something absolute: it suggests an (imaginary) bar for "basic" income. I personally believe systems where welfare is primarily conditional in income, but weakly conditional on searching for work or getting training (such as Australia's) are optimal for developed countries. The government can be far more generous when it adds some strings to welfare, than when it is simply giving out money. The only issue is whether countries with different governmental frameworks can copy Australia's model. In short, you seem to be overlooking what I consider the real interest of this study, which is its specific relevance to developing nations. >Please, anyone, show me some research that shows BIG doesn't work well. Cheers That's a very asymmetric way to think about the evidence for and against a particular policy. edit: The specific problem with your evidence, is that on a such a broad topic, I would expect to see an academic review of the literature. What you provided was [1] wikipedia, [2] an interesting example with no control, and [3] something that wasn't an actual academic study, but a description of a program and it's alleged benefits without any peer-reviewed study demonstrating these benefits.
  • Cushman 13y ago
    > I would expect to see an academic review of the literature. What you provided was [1] wikipedia I expect this is why you're seeing downvotes.
    • mc-lovin 13y ago
      If you look at that article, you will find it does not provide evidence for any of the claims in the post. That's not the fault of Wikipedia, as I explained, this is an extremely broad and complex issue, and most academics won't directly cover it because "basic income" is too vague a concept for them. But that was the point I was making in the first place: you cannot cite three sources and then claim to have the evidence on your side, when these three sources don't provide the evidence that would be needed.
      • Cushman 13y ago
        Personally, I assumed that whatever followed "If I recall correctly" would likely not be expertly sourced. I did look at that Wikipedia article-- it has 102 references, many of them offline. So hell if I know if there's evidence in there, but I'm certainly not complaining that I don't know where to read more for myself. But like the GP-- It's something I want to believe, it's very well-credentialed, and I've seen some encouraging but inconclusive evidence. So naturally as a skeptic the main thing I'm looking for now is the strongly negative evidence, if such a thing can exist. Do you have any leads?
        • mc-lovin 13y ago
          I don't want to get too bogged down in the details of this thread, so I'll just tell you straight up why I don't support the idea of a basic income guarantee. Hopefully doing so will indirectly address the issue of evidence that we were discussing. The main problem is that the BIG is an unnecessary and unhelpful concept. I believe the sociology is that people like to believe in causes, rather than fine grained facts or principals, and so BIG is attractive as a cause in spite of not being a useful concept. First, BIG confuses the issues around redistribution. Assuming welfare is only conditional on income, the sum total of taxation, welfare, BIG and others, can be thought of as a negative taxation system. BIG obscures this because it implies there is something special about redistribution through a "guaranteed" income. E.g. economists are very concerned about the incentive effects of welfare, because every dollar you earn results in less welfare. BIG obscures this by focusing on the flat portion (the guaranteed income) and drawing attention away from the more progressive income taxes that would be needed to pay for it. Second, BIG is different from many current welfare systems because it is unconditional on being part of a special group (e.g. a parent, farmer, elderly) or certain actions (e.g. education, training, looking for work in good faith). I consider this to be a bad thing, in that it is too extreme in the direction of being unconditional, at least for the developed world. Both in terms of ethical fairness, political feasibility, and economic incentives, giving away money for nothing has strong limits on it. Adding a few conditions, like ensuring people are really looking for work, strikes a much better balance. So again, BIG takes a sliding scale decision (how much should welfare be conditional on certain actions, and should it be conditional on things other than income) and makes it seem like a binary decision by only providing one extreme as an alternative to the status quo. btw, below I give a well argued article which claims BIG is a useful concept. www.usbig.net/pdf/manyfacesofubi.pdf