4 ms·

> A basic income without work makes sense after technology makes human labor obsolete, but we are nowhere near that point yet. I would argue we are slowly movi

by Jacqued 13y ago

> A basic income without work makes sense after technology makes human labor obsolete, but we are nowhere near that point yet. I would argue we are slowly moving to that point. The fact that there is just not enough work do to anymore to keep the entire population employed clearly points in that direction. And that is not factoring in a lot of "kinda useless" work or work where humans could be replaced by machines but have not been yet because labor is so dirty cheap. A few decades down, we might only need a fraction of the population to effectively produce all we need, all we want, and all we neither need nor want but still produce anyway.

hershel 13y ago
>> we are slowly moving to that point. It would be better to rapidly move to that point, that way the transition period(with the suffering it will cause) will shorten. As part of doing that, and from the understanding the lack of jobs in the future, we need to strongly work at reducing costs of basic needs. Partially, it's happening now , with solar, online education.But mostly , with regards to healthcare, housing, transportation and some parts of education(K-12) - we see lack of investment and large regulatory barriers in regards to cost reducing innovation.
yummyfajitas 13y ago
The fact that there is just not enough work do to anymore to keep the entire population employed clearly points in that direction. The average American spends 1.74 hours/day doing household activities. Most of the middle and upper class would be willing to pay others to do some of those tasks, provided the price were sufficiently low. http://www.bls.gov/tus/tables/a1_2012.pdf http://www.bls.gov/tus/tables/a1_2012.pdf There is plenty of work to be done. Unemployed Americans are just unwilling to accept those jobs at a price low enough that people are willing to pay it. To put a technological spin on it - if you had a humanoid robot, would you be unable to find tasks for the robot to do?
- guard-of-terra 13y ago
  "Unemployed Americans are just unwilling to accept those jobs at a price low enough that people are willing to pay it." The whole point of BIG is that people will begin accepting low-paying or even altruistic jobs once they won't lose social security over it. Everything they earn over BI is premium, why not snatch it?
  - yummyfajitas 13y ago
    Let me emphasize that I'm not arguing for the current welfare system. I'm arguing that replacing it with a Basic Job is superior to both the current system and a Basic Income. Much like a Basic Income, a Basic Job also gives you an incentive to work. No work => no pay. People will accept a $10/hour house cleaning job because it's better than a $7.25/hour Basic Job. In contrast, with a Basic Income, the choice is $7.25/hour equivalent for watching TV, or maybe twice that for working hard. Many people will be happy to live without working. Additionally, society gains the benefit of the public works created by people working the Basic Job. We gain cleaner parks, better infrastructure, etc. (Unless you want to claim that US infrastructure is as good as it could possibly be...)
    - guard-of-terra 13y ago
      Basic Job isn't a terrible idea mind you, it's just much more complex and fragile. It would require a lot of political will to constantly prune jobs that do more harm than good, jobs that are degrading and meaningless (think of painting park grass with green paint), have enough jobs so everyone technically have one, and USSR had this Basic Job thing, everybody had a job but nothing got done because you couldn't get fired from one and not get an equal one. So best-performing workers adopted habits of worse-performing ones. Who watches the workers? Does she earn the same $7.25? Another problem is corruption. Easier and prettier Basic Jobs would be lucrative, everybody wanting to have them, and you will have bribes and kickbacks for landing on one. If unwilling to participate in corruption, you will only have a choice of worst ones. Everything can be fixed but it's very hard in total.
      - cheald 13y ago
- legutierr 13y ago
  > Unemployed Americans are just unwilling to accept those jobs at a price low enough that people are willing to pay it. I don't understand what's wrong with that. Why shouldn't the price be high to get another person to clean up your detritus? What ill would befall society if everyone but the most brilliant (and ostensibly highly paid) had to clean up after themselves? Or do you feel that only a certain type of person deserves the dignity of being paid well to clean someone else's toilet? If there were a basic income guarantee, then the price might go up for cleaning toilets and other filth--if it already isn't high enough that a BIG wouldn't make a dent. But I think rich people would still find people to do the job if they paid enough regardless, so what's the big deal?
  - yummyfajitas 13y ago
    It's wrong that hardworking middle class/rich people are forced to support people who are unwilling to work to support themselves. If that's acceptable in your value system I won't be able to persuade you otherwise. But I think it's important to be honest about this point.
    - legutierr 13y ago
      Well, then I think your argument is entirely a moral one. It's axiomatic that BIG is wrong, because any potential free-rider problem creates an intolerable situation, correct?
      - yummyfajitas 13y ago
        This entire argument is a moral one. I'm just pointing out that if you value getting people on welfare back to work (which many proponents of Basic Income appear to, given that they argue Basic Income will do this), there are far more straightforward ways of making this happen which still provide income to the people who would be unemployed in the modern economy.
        legutierr 13y ago
        No, I think there are compelling arguments in favor of basic income that are entirely practical. For instance: * In a capitalist, money-driven economy there are many socially beneficial activities that are not compensated (or are under-compensated), and therefore disincentivized. BIG would allow more people to partake of these activities (for instance, staying home to raise children, caring for elders, performing volunteer work, creating art, receiving an education). * If any social welfare programs are to exist, they are most efficiently delivered through a direct cash transfer, rather than through a means-tested or other qualification-based process, reducing both waste and corruption by eliminating bureaucracy. * If a BIG were high enough, no minimum wage would be necessary to reduce poverty, and it could therefore be eliminated. Thousands if not millions of jobs that do not exist today because of the minimum wage would come into existence. * By ensuring a life-long minimum earnings level for individuals, a whole host of poverty-related social ills could be reduced including crime, addiction, illness and under-education. * As more and more tasks otherwise performed by labor are automated and mechanized, existing social welfare systems, and society itself, will be strained by the needs of formerly-productive workers, as well as their families, who are affected by this transition. If such changes happen fast enough, the economy itself will not be able to adapt in creating new labor opportunities, and more worrying, in replacing their reduced purchasing power. A BIG could make even long-term economic transitions less volatile, in large part by keeping consumption rates stable even in the face of massive and sustained unemployment. Furthermore, it should prove more adaptable to new economic and social circumstances than means-tested and qualification-based social welfare systems.
- Jacqued 13y ago
  The point of the guaranteed minimum is precisely to make this kind of jobs even more expensive, so that people are not forced into unfulfilling jobs by economic necessity. I mean, if you don't need to clean other people's houses to survive, you sure as hell will not do it, unless it pays enough to make your life significantly better. Someone would have to pay me in the millions to work as a maid for a year. With a minimum revenue of $2000 a month for example, the incentive would be very low to do this kind of work for less than say $100 an hour, since it would only marginally increase your standard of living. In the long run this should work towards automatization of these tasks by producing an economic incentive. And at least the robots won't suffer from mental and physical conditions due to a bad work environment.
pandaman 13y ago
If we are moving to that point then tax machines doing human job and split that and only that tax's revenue evenly among the populace. As soon as we get to that point you'll immediately get BI. Till then, I'd rather not work to support people who had not worked a single day for generations.

by Jacqued 13y ago

hershel 13y ago

>> we are slowly moving to that point. It would be better to rapidly move to that point, that way the transition period(with the suffering it will cause) will shorten. As part of doing that, and from the understanding the lack of jobs in the future, we need to strongly work at reducing costs of basic needs. Partially, it's happening now , with solar, online education.But mostly , with regards to healthcare, housing, transportation and some parts of education(K-12) - we see lack of investment and large regulatory barriers in regards to cost reducing innovation.

yummyfajitas 13y ago

The fact that there is just not enough work do to anymore to keep the entire population employed clearly points in that direction. The average American spends 1.74 hours/day doing household activities. Most of the middle and upper class would be willing to pay others to do some of those tasks, provided the price were sufficiently low. http://www.bls.gov/tus/tables/a1_2012.pdf http://www.bls.gov/tus/tables/a1_2012.pdf There is plenty of work to be done. Unemployed Americans are just unwilling to accept those jobs at a price low enough that people are willing to pay it. To put a technological spin on it - if you had a humanoid robot, would you be unable to find tasks for the robot to do?

guard-of-terra 13y ago
"Unemployed Americans are just unwilling to accept those jobs at a price low enough that people are willing to pay it." The whole point of BIG is that people will begin accepting low-paying or even altruistic jobs once they won't lose social security over it. Everything they earn over BI is premium, why not snatch it?
- yummyfajitas 13y ago
  Let me emphasize that I'm not arguing for the current welfare system. I'm arguing that replacing it with a Basic Job is superior to both the current system and a Basic Income. Much like a Basic Income, a Basic Job also gives you an incentive to work. No work => no pay. People will accept a $10/hour house cleaning job because it's better than a $7.25/hour Basic Job. In contrast, with a Basic Income, the choice is $7.25/hour equivalent for watching TV, or maybe twice that for working hard. Many people will be happy to live without working. Additionally, society gains the benefit of the public works created by people working the Basic Job. We gain cleaner parks, better infrastructure, etc. (Unless you want to claim that US infrastructure is as good as it could possibly be...)
  - guard-of-terra 13y ago
    Basic Job isn't a terrible idea mind you, it's just much more complex and fragile. It would require a lot of political will to constantly prune jobs that do more harm than good, jobs that are degrading and meaningless (think of painting park grass with green paint), have enough jobs so everyone technically have one, and USSR had this Basic Job thing, everybody had a job but nothing got done because you couldn't get fired from one and not get an equal one. So best-performing workers adopted habits of worse-performing ones. Who watches the workers? Does she earn the same $7.25? Another problem is corruption. Easier and prettier Basic Jobs would be lucrative, everybody wanting to have them, and you will have bribes and kickbacks for landing on one. If unwilling to participate in corruption, you will only have a choice of worst ones. Everything can be fixed but it's very hard in total.
    - cheald 13y ago
legutierr 13y ago
> Unemployed Americans are just unwilling to accept those jobs at a price low enough that people are willing to pay it. I don't understand what's wrong with that. Why shouldn't the price be high to get another person to clean up your detritus? What ill would befall society if everyone but the most brilliant (and ostensibly highly paid) had to clean up after themselves? Or do you feel that only a certain type of person deserves the dignity of being paid well to clean someone else's toilet? If there were a basic income guarantee, then the price might go up for cleaning toilets and other filth--if it already isn't high enough that a BIG wouldn't make a dent. But I think rich people would still find people to do the job if they paid enough regardless, so what's the big deal?
- yummyfajitas 13y ago
  It's wrong that hardworking middle class/rich people are forced to support people who are unwilling to work to support themselves. If that's acceptable in your value system I won't be able to persuade you otherwise. But I think it's important to be honest about this point.
  - legutierr 13y ago
    Well, then I think your argument is entirely a moral one. It's axiomatic that BIG is wrong, because any potential free-rider problem creates an intolerable situation, correct?
    - yummyfajitas 13y ago
      This entire argument is a moral one. I'm just pointing out that if you value getting people on welfare back to work (which many proponents of Basic Income appear to, given that they argue Basic Income will do this), there are far more straightforward ways of making this happen which still provide income to the people who would be unemployed in the modern economy.
      - legutierr 13y ago
        No, I think there are compelling arguments in favor of basic income that are entirely practical. For instance: * In a capitalist, money-driven economy there are many socially beneficial activities that are not compensated (or are under-compensated), and therefore disincentivized. BIG would allow more people to partake of these activities (for instance, staying home to raise children, caring for elders, performing volunteer work, creating art, receiving an education). * If any social welfare programs are to exist, they are most efficiently delivered through a direct cash transfer, rather than through a means-tested or other qualification-based process, reducing both waste and corruption by eliminating bureaucracy. * If a BIG were high enough, no minimum wage would be necessary to reduce poverty, and it could therefore be eliminated. Thousands if not millions of jobs that do not exist today because of the minimum wage would come into existence. * By ensuring a life-long minimum earnings level for individuals, a whole host of poverty-related social ills could be reduced including crime, addiction, illness and under-education. * As more and more tasks otherwise performed by labor are automated and mechanized, existing social welfare systems, and society itself, will be strained by the needs of formerly-productive workers, as well as their families, who are affected by this transition. If such changes happen fast enough, the economy itself will not be able to adapt in creating new labor opportunities, and more worrying, in replacing their reduced purchasing power. A BIG could make even long-term economic transitions less volatile, in large part by keeping consumption rates stable even in the face of massive and sustained unemployment. Furthermore, it should prove more adaptable to new economic and social circumstances than means-tested and qualification-based social welfare systems.
Jacqued 13y ago
The point of the guaranteed minimum is precisely to make this kind of jobs even more expensive, so that people are not forced into unfulfilling jobs by economic necessity. I mean, if you don't need to clean other people's houses to survive, you sure as hell will not do it, unless it pays enough to make your life significantly better. Someone would have to pay me in the millions to work as a maid for a year. With a minimum revenue of $2000 a month for example, the incentive would be very low to do this kind of work for less than say $100 an hour, since it would only marginally increase your standard of living. In the long run this should work towards automatization of these tasks by producing an economic incentive. And at least the robots won't suffer from mental and physical conditions due to a bad work environment.

pandaman 13y ago

If we are moving to that point then tax machines doing human job and split that and only that tax's revenue evenly among the populace. As soon as we get to that point you'll immediately get BI. Till then, I'd rather not work to support people who had not worked a single day for generations.