6 ms·
Ironically, Murray wrote a book in 06 called "In Our Hands" where he advocates replacing the welfare state with a universal income of $10k/year per person for e
by rndmize 13y ago
Ironically, Murray wrote a book in 06 called "In Our Hands" where he advocates replacing the welfare state with a universal income of $10k/year per person for every citizen 21 and over. He opens the book by saying his preference would be to have no welfare of any kind, but that as most people would never accept that, a universal income program would be the next best thing. In an America of increasing stratification and decreasing wealth and power on the lower and middle sides of the scale, I find myself liking the idea more and more. I don't think we really need so much of the population in the workforce as we move towards better automation/software processes.
- tokenizer 13y agoYup. My country, Canada actually experimented with this idea. Sources: [1] http://www.dominionpaper.ca/articles/4100 http://www.dominionpaper.ca/articles/4100 [2] http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/story/2010/03/25/mb-poverty-experiment.html http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/story/2010/03/25/mb-p...
- jwillgoesfast 13y agoHmm, this is really interesting. Have any other communities experimented with this?
- lettergram 13y agoNorway and Sweden both give you a check for having kids and I believe Norway gives you part of the oil money.
- justincormack 13y agoYou don't get given the oil money, the whole idea is to invest it for when the oil runs out.
- jswinghammer 13y agoMeaning they give you your own money back to you for doing something they like. How generous.
- nness 13y agoIs there a problem with that? Taxes are there to benefit the society, not the individual. In Norway's case, it definitely seems to be a benefit for society.
- grecy 13y agoAustralia currently pays unemployed people $492.60 every two weeks ($12,800 yearly) and up to another $121 every two weeks ($3,146 yearly) to help with rent. Everyone qualifies, forever. [1] http://www.crikey.com.au/2013/01/16/dole-around-the-world-how-does-australia-stack-up http://www.crikey.com.au/2013/01/16/dole-around-the-world-ho...
- podperson 13y agoNice link. The same article points out that greater benefits are available in some parts of the US (Massachusetts being cited). The thing in the US isn't so much the lack of such benefits, but the difficulty in obtaining them.
- ccera 13y agoThe unemployment benefits available in the US aren't comparable. The most significant difference is that in the US unemployment benefits are generally limited to a maximum of 26 weeks, while in Australia you can collect benefits for decades. The "greater benefits" available in some states (e.g., Massachusetts) are only available to people who have been recently working in a high-income job. Your unemployment benefit in MA = 50% of the bi-weekly pay rate you had when you were working, up to a certain maximum. And, again, you can only draw unemployment for a maximum of 26 weeks.
- podperson 13y agoYou're referring to unemployment insurance, which is not the only equivalent to the Australian "dole". There's also "welfare" which (as of "welfare reform") is limited to 5y in a lifetime. (Getting welfare, as far as I can tell, is a major pain in the ass; so is collecting unemployment insurance -- getting unemployment benefits in Australia is -- or was when I did it -- by comparison, trivial.) I don't know how the Australian laws have changed, but you can't just collect unemployment benefits forever without doing anything, but it is pretty close. I'd guess that the amount of crap the Australian system puts you through in a lifetime is probably about with the US puts you through in a year.
- 13y ago
- podperson 13y agoThe idea of a fixed income replacing welfare has been around a long while (I posited it in my role-playing setting -- ForeScene: The Flawed Utopia back in 1986 after reading somewhere that it would be cheaper to simply pay everyone a salary than run the welfare system). Today, I think it only really makes sense if there are controls on reproduction and immigration (my setting had controls on both).
- yummyfajitas 13y agoAnother thing one could try is to give everyone a guaranteed low wage job. This has fewer perverse incentives. It would also help government budgets - for example, BART trains could be cleaned by some unemployed individual making $10k/year rather than some unionized worker making $75k + benefits (or whatever the exact numbers are).
- johnchristopher 13y agoUniversal revenue of $10K allows individual to train for better jobs but a guaranteed low wage and physically demanding job make it harder to train or to get an education.
- dasmoth 13y agoDoesn't that make it very hard for the private sector to recruit low-end employees?
- yummyfajitas 13y agoNo, it makes it easier. All the private sector has to do is offer $11k. With a guaranteed income, $11k would likely be insufficient - why work for $11k when you can enjoy a life of leisure for $10k?
- dasmoth 13y agoI thought the discussion here was basic/universal income. Isn't the idea that the person paid $11k ends up receiving $10k + $11k - %tax. Otherwise you end up with 100% marginal tax rates, like in traditional benefit regimes.
- potatolicious 13y agoDo you seriously believe that anyone living in the US on $10K/year is "enjoying a life of leisure"? This is the same category of lunacy as the "the homeless are just too lazy to work" argument. Anyone who has even seen the reality on the ground for people in these situations would know not to make them.
- llamataboot 13y agoUS Basic Income Guarantee Network http://www.usbig.net/index.php http://www.usbig.net/index.php
- 300bps 13y ago>a universal income of $10k/year per person for every citizen 21 and over...I find myself liking the idea more and more The $10,000 would increase demand by $10,000. What mechanism would then increase supply? How much would that mechanism increase supply? I fail to see any such supply-increasing mechanism. If I'm right about that, then that $10,000 would be eaten by inflation literally instantly. Money is a store of productivity. It cannot be a universal policy of an economy to give out money for no productivity exchange without consequences.
- Daniel_Newby 13y ago> What mechanism would then increase supply? Robotics. In my lifetime, most basic productivity will be fully automated. Robotic factories will make self-driving tractors that cultivate fields of genetically engineered crops. Labor is already obsolete. The majority of Americans of traditional working age (13+) already live on handouts. This trend will accelerate in the next 20 years. It is a huge question of how to handle the below average people who are both unnecessary and not well suited to the life of ibtellectual pursuits. In Peter F. Hamilton's sci-fi novels, he posits that each person will receive an EMA, an energy-mass allocation to use or trade as they see fit. With the boundless resources of the universe brought to your doorstep, we need a better method of resource allocation than the minimum wage.
- munin 13y ago> handle the below average people who are both unnecessary and not well suited to the life of ibtellectual pursuits. indeed
- bvk 13y agoIf we assume that $10,000 for every person would instantly cause exactly that much inflation (which I don't think is a settled question), then the net effect would be a transfer of wealth from people with more than the average amount of money to those with less than the average amount of money. I don't think we can dismiss that out of hand. It seems like a pretty bog-standard social welfare program.
- 13y ago