11 ms·

I see no one in this active discussion has mentioned yet Charles Murray's book In Our Hands: A Plan to Replace the Welfare State, http://www.amazon.com/books/d

I see no one in this active discussion has mentioned yet Charles Murray's book In Our Hands: A Plan to Replace the Welfare State, http://www.amazon.com/books/dp/0844742236 http://www.amazon.com/books/dp/0844742236 in which Murray goes into detail about how much a program of guaranteed income for everyone would cost in the United States, and some probable effects that would have on everyone's everyday behavior. I read the book a year or two after it was published. Murray's own summary of his argument http://www.irp.wisc.edu/publications/focus/pdfs/foc242a.pdf http://www.irp.wisc.edu/publications/focus/pdfs/foc242a.pdf and reviews of his book http://www.aei.org/article/society-and-culture/poverty/in-our-hands-a-plan-to-replace-the-welfare-state-article/ http://www.aei.org/article/society-and-culture/poverty/in-ou... http://www.conallboyle.com/BasicIncomeNewEcon/MurrayReview.pdf http://www.conallboyle.com/BasicIncomeNewEcon/MurrayReview.p... http://www.richmondfed.org/publications/research/region_focus/2006/fall/pdf/book_review.pdf http://www.richmondfed.org/publications/research/region_focu... http://mises.org/misesreview_detail.aspx?control=296 http://mises.org/misesreview_detail.aspx?control=296 may inform the discussion here. Big public policy proposals are not easy to discuss, but the big public policy proposal of a guaranteed basic income for all is a response to existing policy of supposedly targeted social welfare programs that are just about equally expensive, but more costly to administer.

btilly 13y ago
The other problem with "targeted social welfare programs" is that it is very easy to dislike programs that someone else (particularly someone that you don't like) benefits from. A program that you yourself benefit from tends to be less likely to get eroded by future politicians. Compare welfare and social security for a classic example of the difference.
- beachstartup 13y ago
  see welfare vs. disability
  - 127001brewer 13y ago
    As I have just posted elsewhere in this thread, disability seems to be a type of "basic income". [1] [1] http://apps.npr.org/unfit-for-work/ http://apps.npr.org/unfit-for-work/ Edited for clarity.
    - pille 13y ago
      One of the biggest problems with disability pay is the barrier it creates to joining the workforce. Losing payments when you get employed is a huge disincentive to looking for employment. That's the opposite of what UBI is trying to do.
- antitrust 13y ago
  > A program that you yourself benefit from tends to be less likely to get eroded by future politicians. This could be bad. Very popular programs never get reconsidered, even if they have bad effects.
  - abstractbill 13y ago
    Just to help me better understand what you're saying, can you give an example of a program that's very popular, and which has bad effects?
    - arebop 13y ago
      home mortgage interest deduction?
    - anonymoushn 13y ago
      For instance, Detroit has created pension obligations that it cannot possibly make good on, and is having some difficulty dealing with those as it is bankrupt. Many other local governments have similar programs, but are not yet bankrupt.
    - el_zorro 13y ago
      Surely Social Security wasn't meant to be the biggest item on the Federal Budget. I suppose you can argue about its popularity, but it has become enormous.
      - mncolinlee 13y ago
        Would you mind mentioning any one thing which federal government does which should be more costly than providing a livable income to everyone over the age of 65? Our Federal Government is not responsible for most of the major functions of governance because our states cover most functions. Also, we aren't at war with a major foreign power.
    - Zaytes 13y ago
      Prop 13 in California
- tomjen3 13y ago
  Ah, but that is a feature, not a bug.
  - ahoy 13y ago
    I don't follow, do you care to elaborate? Are you suggesting that welfare programs are designed to be unpopular/to be stigmatizing?
    - TeMPOraL 13y ago
      In current job-valuing society, yes.
- jerf 13y ago
  This is my biggest concern with the idea, which I don't see being addressed (checked the entire conversation on this post to date). I don't think having the vote and having the basic income is compatible with each other. Why aren't people going to vote themselves larger basic incomes every year? How can you both have the (modern conception of the) vote, and a basic income at the same time? Attempts to answer this question also need to deal with human beings as they are, not as they could be if we were all just really good and pure and all motivated by selfless interest only in the good of humanity as a whole or something, because presumably this is being proposed as a real policy for real people and not some fantasyland. (Also, I do not consider "well we already have some programs like that today" to be a defense... I'm not entirely convinced that's just going to turn out peachy keen in the end either. I'm personally pretty convinced we've already passed a threshold at which a significant chunk of our government is actively pursuing government dependency as a conscious policy, and that's not going to end well either, as the same mechanics take sway... there is always a reason to grow benefits, it's always evil to cut them, and there's no feasible way to bound the growth of promised benefits to real growth, other than the really, really hard one of simply running out of resources.) While this is a criticism of mine, and I am not trying to hide my general skepticism as seen in my second paragraph, I am posting this also in a genuine spirit of inquiry about what answers to this question may have been developed. I acknowledge the problems the BI idea is trying to solve, and I acknowledge that I have no answers (including, alas, BI, unless someone can convince me here).
  - dgreensp 13y ago
    Having the vote hasn't given us any unholy powers to control the government's spending so far, so why would it? It's not even clear if any form of basic income would be voted for. We're just talking about changing from structure A to structure B in terms of how the government provides for people.
  - agilebyte 13y ago
    Agree with you. How does one enforce people hopping borders from places that have no universal income policy? How do we deal with sovereign states that are allowed to set their own tax policy and thus legally become an offshore tax haven?
recusancy 13y ago
From the author of the overtly racist Bell Curve.
- speeder 13y ago
  Care to explain?
  - sliverstorm 13y ago
    The book: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bell_Curve http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bell_Curve Reading the summary at the top of the Wiki entry, it's already not surprising the book has been labeled racist. Any book that discusses race, inheritance, and socioeconomic class always gets called racist.
    - speeder 13y ago
      Actually this book sounds fascinating, must be a interesting read, agreeing with it or not.
      - rlanday 13y ago
        I’m reading it now; it is fascinating, because the idea that it’s possible to measure intelligence and used it to predict probabilities for individual and group outcomes is one of the most useful, strongest-supported ideas in all of the social sciences, yet many people either misunderstand the state of scientific consensus (“IQ doesn’t really measure anything, intelligence tests are largely bogus”) or actively try to deny that this is possible for political purposes (“many people are disadvantaged because of low socioeconomic status, but we can equalize everything with more government spending“). Understanding something other people don’t should allow you to gain an economic advantage somehow; there should be sort of arbitrage opportunities to profit from the knowledge differential. For example, many people think having a four-year college degree adds x amount of value because the average college graduate earns y more dollars over their lifetime than the average non-college graduate, and this means that everyone should go to college. But if you understand that a large part of x actually comes from the inherent value in being intelligent, and a large part of the reason students of top universities make better workers is that they were really smart even in high school, not necessarily because a university education is worth what students are paying, perhaps instead of hiring only from top universities, you can hire students straight out of high school based on their SAT scores (yes, the SAT measures intelligence) and train them yourself? Universities use a multitude of signals when deciding who to admit (test scores, essays, reference letters, extracurriculars), so in addition to trying to determine intelligence, they’re also trying to determine other character traits, but The Bell Curve (at least I think this is where I read it) presents some data related to job hiring that shows intelligence is the trait that’s most measurable and provides the most predictive power.
lifeisstillgood 13y ago
Nor has anyone mentioned Ancient Rome. There an elite few controlled all the money, and the middle classes simply had no economic room to exist. The result was patronage, on a scale equivalent to a welfare system, with ordinary Romans queuing each day to recieve a daily "wage" in return for loyalty / obligations / it's complicated - http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patronage_in_ancient_Rome http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patronage_in_ancient_Rome I mention it simply because Rome also could afford to pay all its citizens a living wage, but instead choose to keep the money in the hands of the powerful and use it for political purposes Trends do not make a destiny.
- dredmorbius 13y ago
  Interesting. That's not altogether unlike how many non-profits operate today -- by way of largesse from major patrons. "It's complicated" indeed.
medell 13y ago
Great links. Curious, how does the book address the issues of cost of living across regions? As $10k in SF is very different than $10k in St. Louis.
- lifeisstillgood 13y ago
  It won't be so different once everyone in both places is paid 10k pa.
- svachalek 13y ago
  Haven't read it but I'd suggest it shouldn't. Some areas will be more desirable than others and you shouldn't compensate people more because they happen to live somewhere everyone else wants to.
- jvm 13y ago
  If you freely choose where to live, that means you get (at least) $3000 of value renting a $3000/month apartment no matter where you rent it. If it's more expensive for the same size of unit in one place or another, that means you're paying for amenities, or a short commute, or access to a particular job market. So giving people more money to live in SF would be subsidizing the consumption of the amenities that SF provides, or to put it less delicately, you're rewarding San Francisco residents just for living there. One could potentially argue that the subsidy is warranted, but generally I am skeptical that such a subsidy would be welfare enhancing. My suspicion is it would just cause people to overconsume San Francisco real estate relative to their latent preferences.
  - dllthomas 13y ago
    "My suspicion is it would just cause people to overconsume San Francisco real estate relative to their latent preferences." Which seems like it would make the situation worse, long term. We can increase density further, but there's a limited amount of SF to go around, so driving overconsumption would raise prices, and then we'd need to raise the subsidy we give SF further.
Schwolop 13y ago
One key to thinking about how the Plan [improves quality of life] is the universality of the grant. What matters is not just that a lone individual has $10,000 a year, but that everyone has $10,000 a year and everyone knows that everyone else has that resource. - Charles Murray This is the most important part of any UBI scheme. It's the "U" part - universality. Life is so much less stressful when the need for competition is removed from those who don't desire to compete. Case in point, you'll be much less likely to be shot and killed for the contents of your wallet when both you and the mugger start from an equal footing. It's the mismatch between the mugger's means and his expectation of yours that motivates his malicious intent. When everyone gets a UBI, you straighten the Lorenz curve, and everyone gets closer to equality.

btilly 13y ago

The other problem with "targeted social welfare programs" is that it is very easy to dislike programs that someone else (particularly someone that you don't like) benefits from. A program that you yourself benefit from tends to be less likely to get eroded by future politicians. Compare welfare and social security for a classic example of the difference.

beachstartup 13y ago
see welfare vs. disability
- 127001brewer 13y ago
  As I have just posted elsewhere in this thread, disability seems to be a type of "basic income". [1] [1] http://apps.npr.org/unfit-for-work/ http://apps.npr.org/unfit-for-work/ Edited for clarity.
  - pille 13y ago
    One of the biggest problems with disability pay is the barrier it creates to joining the workforce. Losing payments when you get employed is a huge disincentive to looking for employment. That's the opposite of what UBI is trying to do.
antitrust 13y ago
> A program that you yourself benefit from tends to be less likely to get eroded by future politicians. This could be bad. Very popular programs never get reconsidered, even if they have bad effects.
- abstractbill 13y ago
  Just to help me better understand what you're saying, can you give an example of a program that's very popular, and which has bad effects?
  - arebop 13y ago
    home mortgage interest deduction?
  - anonymoushn 13y ago
    For instance, Detroit has created pension obligations that it cannot possibly make good on, and is having some difficulty dealing with those as it is bankrupt. Many other local governments have similar programs, but are not yet bankrupt.
  - el_zorro 13y ago
    Surely Social Security wasn't meant to be the biggest item on the Federal Budget. I suppose you can argue about its popularity, but it has become enormous.
    - mncolinlee 13y ago
      Would you mind mentioning any one thing which federal government does which should be more costly than providing a livable income to everyone over the age of 65? Our Federal Government is not responsible for most of the major functions of governance because our states cover most functions. Also, we aren't at war with a major foreign power.
  - Zaytes 13y ago
    Prop 13 in California
tomjen3 13y ago
Ah, but that is a feature, not a bug.
- ahoy 13y ago
  I don't follow, do you care to elaborate? Are you suggesting that welfare programs are designed to be unpopular/to be stigmatizing?
  - TeMPOraL 13y ago
    In current job-valuing society, yes.
jerf 13y ago
This is my biggest concern with the idea, which I don't see being addressed (checked the entire conversation on this post to date). I don't think having the vote and having the basic income is compatible with each other. Why aren't people going to vote themselves larger basic incomes every year? How can you both have the (modern conception of the) vote, and a basic income at the same time? Attempts to answer this question also need to deal with human beings as they are, not as they could be if we were all just really good and pure and all motivated by selfless interest only in the good of humanity as a whole or something, because presumably this is being proposed as a real policy for real people and not some fantasyland. (Also, I do not consider "well we already have some programs like that today" to be a defense... I'm not entirely convinced that's just going to turn out peachy keen in the end either. I'm personally pretty convinced we've already passed a threshold at which a significant chunk of our government is actively pursuing government dependency as a conscious policy, and that's not going to end well either, as the same mechanics take sway... there is always a reason to grow benefits, it's always evil to cut them, and there's no feasible way to bound the growth of promised benefits to real growth, other than the really, really hard one of simply running out of resources.) While this is a criticism of mine, and I am not trying to hide my general skepticism as seen in my second paragraph, I am posting this also in a genuine spirit of inquiry about what answers to this question may have been developed. I acknowledge the problems the BI idea is trying to solve, and I acknowledge that I have no answers (including, alas, BI, unless someone can convince me here).
- dgreensp 13y ago
  Having the vote hasn't given us any unholy powers to control the government's spending so far, so why would it? It's not even clear if any form of basic income would be voted for. We're just talking about changing from structure A to structure B in terms of how the government provides for people.
- agilebyte 13y ago
  Agree with you. How does one enforce people hopping borders from places that have no universal income policy? How do we deal with sovereign states that are allowed to set their own tax policy and thus legally become an offshore tax haven?

recusancy 13y ago

From the author of the overtly racist Bell Curve.

speeder 13y ago
Care to explain?
- sliverstorm 13y ago
  The book: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bell_Curve http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bell_Curve Reading the summary at the top of the Wiki entry, it's already not surprising the book has been labeled racist. Any book that discusses race, inheritance, and socioeconomic class always gets called racist.
  - speeder 13y ago
    Actually this book sounds fascinating, must be a interesting read, agreeing with it or not.
    - rlanday 13y ago
      I’m reading it now; it is fascinating, because the idea that it’s possible to measure intelligence and used it to predict probabilities for individual and group outcomes is one of the most useful, strongest-supported ideas in all of the social sciences, yet many people either misunderstand the state of scientific consensus (“IQ doesn’t really measure anything, intelligence tests are largely bogus”) or actively try to deny that this is possible for political purposes (“many people are disadvantaged because of low socioeconomic status, but we can equalize everything with more government spending“). Understanding something other people don’t should allow you to gain an economic advantage somehow; there should be sort of arbitrage opportunities to profit from the knowledge differential. For example, many people think having a four-year college degree adds x amount of value because the average college graduate earns y more dollars over their lifetime than the average non-college graduate, and this means that everyone should go to college. But if you understand that a large part of x actually comes from the inherent value in being intelligent, and a large part of the reason students of top universities make better workers is that they were really smart even in high school, not necessarily because a university education is worth what students are paying, perhaps instead of hiring only from top universities, you can hire students straight out of high school based on their SAT scores (yes, the SAT measures intelligence) and train them yourself? Universities use a multitude of signals when deciding who to admit (test scores, essays, reference letters, extracurriculars), so in addition to trying to determine intelligence, they’re also trying to determine other character traits, but The Bell Curve (at least I think this is where I read it) presents some data related to job hiring that shows intelligence is the trait that’s most measurable and provides the most predictive power.

lifeisstillgood 13y ago

Nor has anyone mentioned Ancient Rome. There an elite few controlled all the money, and the middle classes simply had no economic room to exist. The result was patronage, on a scale equivalent to a welfare system, with ordinary Romans queuing each day to recieve a daily "wage" in return for loyalty / obligations / it's complicated - http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patronage_in_ancient_Rome http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patronage_in_ancient_Rome I mention it simply because Rome also could afford to pay all its citizens a living wage, but instead choose to keep the money in the hands of the powerful and use it for political purposes Trends do not make a destiny.

dredmorbius 13y ago
Interesting. That's not altogether unlike how many non-profits operate today -- by way of largesse from major patrons. "It's complicated" indeed.

medell 13y ago

Great links. Curious, how does the book address the issues of cost of living across regions? As $10k in SF is very different than $10k in St. Louis.

lifeisstillgood 13y ago
It won't be so different once everyone in both places is paid 10k pa.
svachalek 13y ago
Haven't read it but I'd suggest it shouldn't. Some areas will be more desirable than others and you shouldn't compensate people more because they happen to live somewhere everyone else wants to.
jvm 13y ago
If you freely choose where to live, that means you get (at least) $3000 of value renting a $3000/month apartment no matter where you rent it. If it's more expensive for the same size of unit in one place or another, that means you're paying for amenities, or a short commute, or access to a particular job market. So giving people more money to live in SF would be subsidizing the consumption of the amenities that SF provides, or to put it less delicately, you're rewarding San Francisco residents just for living there. One could potentially argue that the subsidy is warranted, but generally I am skeptical that such a subsidy would be welfare enhancing. My suspicion is it would just cause people to overconsume San Francisco real estate relative to their latent preferences.
- dllthomas 13y ago
  "My suspicion is it would just cause people to overconsume San Francisco real estate relative to their latent preferences." Which seems like it would make the situation worse, long term. We can increase density further, but there's a limited amount of SF to go around, so driving overconsumption would raise prices, and then we'd need to raise the subsidy we give SF further.

Schwolop 13y ago

One key to thinking about how the Plan [improves quality of life] is the universality of the grant. What matters is not just that a lone individual has $10,000 a year, but that everyone has $10,000 a year and everyone knows that everyone else has that resource. - Charles Murray This is the most important part of any UBI scheme. It's the "U" part - universality. Life is so much less stressful when the need for competition is removed from those who don't desire to compete. Case in point, you'll be much less likely to be shot and killed for the contents of your wallet when both you and the mugger start from an equal footing. It's the mismatch between the mugger's means and his expectation of yours that motivates his malicious intent. When everyone gets a UBI, you straighten the Lorenz curve, and everyone gets closer to equality.