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Swiss to vote on 2,500 franc basic income for every adult

• tikhonj 13y ago
  A Swiss franc is currently worth a little bit more than a dollar, so this works out to $2800/month or $33600/year. By US standards, this actually seems to be a good salary: significantly better than working full time at minimum wage. It would cover all my current expenses handily. Of course, I'm young and single but by no means frugal. (I find that the little costs involved in worrying about my expenses easily outweigh the money saved.) So this is quite an income. One of the main questions about something like this is about who would do boring, low-paid work with this sort of basic income. What I would really hope is that people would still do many of those jobs, but for far fewer hours--largely as a way to get money for incidental expenses and luxuries beyond the basic income. One problem I find with most jobs is that it's much easier to get more pay than less hours, even if I really want the latter. There is a large drop-off between full-time and part-time work.[1] Beyond a certain level, I would value having more free time far more than making more money. Unfortunately, mostly for social reasons, it's hard to express this preference. A basic income could make this much easier to do. While I suspect this might not pass, I think it would be very valuable for the entire world. One of the unfortunate realities in politics is that it is really hard to run experiments; small countries like Switzerland can act as a test subject for the entire world. Or perhaps like a tech early adopter for modern policies. Either way, this passing would be very interesting. [1]: For me, this is not quite as simple. In reality, there are plenty of jobs where I would be happy to work relatively long hours. But this stops being a question of pay, or even "work": after all, I'm happy to spend hours and hours programming for free. Being paid to do something I really like is wonderful, but it really changes the dynamics in ways that probably do not apply to most people.
  • rmc 13y ago
    * By US standards, this actually seems to be a good salary: significantly better than working full time at minimum wage.* Switzerland is incredibly expensive. I don't really think it's accurate to do an actual comparison with exchange rates.
  • ashray 13y ago
    Just bear in mind for your calculations that in Switzerland a cup of coffee often costs $6 as does a can of coke. Cost of living is extremely high. But still, this does look like a decent deal. Zurich is like San Francisco in terms of expenses.
    • tikhonj 13y ago
      For reference, I currently live in Berkeley. While not quite as expensive as SF, it's pretty close. I also live in one of the somewhat less cheap parts of the city (northside)--my rent is much higher than it could be. On the other hand, I do have a roommate--it all comes back to being young and single (but, again, not frugal).
      • jamesaguilar 13y ago
        I'm just gonna throw this out there as a fellow Bay Area person. I like bragging about how bad I have it as much as the next social network self-flaggelator. But our costs aren't even remotely comparable to Zurich's. You need a lot more money to live there, especially if you even semi-regularly go out to eat. It's bad enough that when Swiss people come back through customs from other countries, their trunks are searched for groceries, not drugs.
        • lifeisstillgood 13y ago
          Well at least no-one tries wrapping an artichoke in a condom and swallowing it to get past customs. Not even the Swiss German speakers ;-)
          • lostlogin 13y ago
            I assumed I had missed a story. I've just run the oddest google search I've tried in the last little while.
            • lifeisstillgood 13y ago
  • psuter 13y ago
    Depending on your age, previous employment, where you live and current situation, you may in fact get a similar total today in Switzerland by combining unemployment and social insurances with health insurance subsidies, and maybe even preferential housing conditions if you're lucky. Needless to say it would be a nightmare, because you continuously need to demonstrate need for each allowance separately, some come from the city, some from the state, etc.
  • evincarofautumn 13y ago
    You’re right on all points. Most people seem to get some enjoyment from what they do for work, or at least can find satisfaction in it at the end of the day. With a basic income, a person can worry less about making ends meet and more about doing what they want to do. In the short term, that might mean slacking off (and inflation)—but in the long term it seems like people would start being generally productive again, and much happier for it. A sizable chunk of people will just keep doing what they’re doing. There is little worse than creating jobs—I equate that with creating inefficiency. (Creating careers is another story.) But the more things we can automate, the more humans can live leisurely, thoughtful, happy lives. I for one would enjoy nothing more than to work full-time on my programming language projects without worrying about where my next meal will come from. P.S. Hi Tikhon! Coming to BA Haskell User Group on the 18th? https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/bahaskell/W0g4J-c5Dhs https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/bahaskell/W0g4J-c5Dh...
    • option_greek 13y ago
      Reminds me of spacers in Asimov novels. Hope this is a starting point from which all of humanity can benefit. If I don't have to worry about making ends meet I will focus fully on learning about and building robots.
    • dinkumthinkum 13y ago
      I think this is so disconnected from reality, though. It's posh and intellectual to think this way but its so not related to reality.
      • evincarofautumn 13y ago
        Maybe I understated the problems. Adding a basic income all at once would have extreme short-term effects on an economy, and that might continue for ten, twenty-odd years. But humans aren’t generally happy working as much as we do in agriculturalist societies. Long-term we have a chance to reduce the work level back to that of hunting and gathering, while preserving other benefits such as population stability in the face of natural disaster. Economy and ecology are inextricably linked. If a basic income stands to benefit us as a species, I’m willing to at least entertain the thought, despite the immediate drawbacks.
  • drob 13y ago
    Not to mention this does away with all the administrative overhead of the dozens of piecemeal welfare programs we have in the US. Rather than whitelisting narrow sets of allowed expenditures and making people prove that they're poor for each program, I suspect giving people an income that allows them to live decently without all the red tape and attached strings will make for a much more efficient way to fight poverty and improve quality of life. That said, I don't think a basic income experiment with a successful outcome would cause us to take the notion seriously in the US. Portugal's decriminalization of drugs in 2001 comes to mind. By all accounts, it was a great success, which we've largely ignored. The dozens of countries with single-payer health care systems that deliver better care for far less money are another regrettable example. Here's hoping Switzerland undertakes what looks to be a fascinating experiment.
    • adventured 13y ago
      The piecemeal programs are on purpose. They're buying votes. The entire modern structure of the US Government is set up around vote buying, on both sides. There's zero chance they'll switch to direct payments. It does away with the power, which is the entire point of having a sprawling bureaucracy - so people like Reid and Boehner and Pelosi can act like they're little kings.
      • drob 13y ago
        There's also a general disdain for the poor, rooted in just-world fallacy. As American politics would have you believe, the poor can't be trusted with cash. "They'll just spend it on drugs and plasma TVs!" Thus, the only politically salient form of aid to the poor is in the form of vouchers for specific things, e.g. food and medicine. This is dogma on the right, but it echoes surprisingly often from the left as well.
        • scott_karana 13y ago
          I'd like to see hard data on this. I've heard numerous anecdotes on both sides of the debate. Eg, "lost faith in humanity at my first job in the liquor store, as soon as Welfare day hit"
  • kijin 13y ago
    > One problem I find with most jobs is that it's much easier to get more pay than less hours, even if I really want the latter. There is a large drop-off between full-time and part-time work. I wonder how much of that is due to habits and regulations that are necessary in the absence of basic income. When most people are full-time workers, and when most people need to be in order to survive, it's not surprising that the entire economic system gets optimized for full-time work. Lots of government regulations are also designed with full-time workers in mind, with the assumption that most part-time workers want to "upgrade" to full-time a.s.a.p. For example, in some jurisdictions it is illegal for an employer to employ a part-time worker for more than X hours a week (nearly full-time) without giving them benefits equivalent to what full-time workers get. This makes it very difficult for an employer to maintain an ongoing relationship with someone who prefers to work 20 hours a week. Not enough hours to justify full-time employment but too many hours to keep on the part-time payroll. Policies like that are necessary to protect workers in a world without basic income. In the long term, I imagine that a guaranteed basic income would make a lot of current employment-related regulations unnecessary, leading to more flexible terms of employment. But it will probably take a decade or more for Switzerland's economic system to adjust to basic income, and I really hope that the pain of the transition period doesn't make them call it a failure too soon. (I can already see the FOX News headline: 3 years after Switzerland implements basic income, their unemployment rate is up 20%! See what happens when Commies take over your country! etc. etc.)
    • yaddayadda 13y ago
      It also means that there are employers who see a full-time employee as more expensive than two part-time employees and therefore have exclusive or nearly exclusive part-time employment. For employees in this situation that need full-time income, they end up taking a second or even third part-time job, thus working full-time or more hours but without the expected benefits of full-time employment.
    • PeterisP 13y ago
      Your example about part-time workers seems very strange - the policies you state don't mean 'part time workers are bad, limit their usage', it simply means 'part time workers are just as okay as everyone else, and naturally they deserve "benefits" as well'. We can (and most likely will) move towards a large part of society working part-time - why should that part have less labor rights than everyone else?
  • cabalamat 13y ago
    > this works out to $2800/month or $33600/year. Switzerland's per capita GDP is about USD 79000/year, so assuming 80% of the Swiss population are adults and citizens, this would cost about 34% of GDP, which may be unaffordable.
    • kijin 13y ago
      Define "unaffordable". It's really annoying that people say "it's unaffordable" to mean "we don't want to pay", when the phrase is supposed to mean "we can't pay, we don't have enough money". I understand why people don't want to part with money, but at least let's be honest. If you sort everyone from poorest to richest, and plot their incomes on a graph, basic income just means that the slope is flatter than before [1]. As long as the area under the graph (GDP) remains the same, it's technically affordable. The flattening is accomplished by (a) taxing the rich more, and (b) a gradual reduction of salaries and/or working hours as the market finds a new equilibrium. What matters is political will, and it seems that Switzerland has more of it than most of the other developed countries. [1] http://i.imgur.com/IGkHoma.png http://i.imgur.com/IGkHoma.png (Sorry, it looks like crap because I just drew it in MS Paint.) Edit: Fixed graph. The red line is now curved properly.
      • mattlutze 13y ago
        Your graph has the richest people making less than they did before. This is unlikely to happen. The affordable question is one of: where the money's going to come from? How will small or large businesses, poor/middle-class/wealthy private individuals be required to support it? The initiative's organizing committee said the basic income could partly be financed through money from social insurance systems in Switzerland. I don't think the initiative people really have a clear idea.
        • kijin 13y ago
          > Your graph has the richest people making less than they did before. This is unlikely to happen. Isn't that the whole point of any policy that implies a massive redistribution of wealth? Of course the money needs to come from higher taxes. Ergo, "What matters is political will." As I said, it's really annoying that people say "it's unaffordable" to mean "we don't want to pay". This usage masks the real problem, which is political will (or lack thereof), not the physical scarcity of USD or CHF.
  • icebraining 13y ago
    One of the main questions about something like this is about who would do boring, low-paid work with this sort of basic income. The people who already do them: immigrants, which make up more than 20% of the population of Switzerland.
    • huhtenberg 13y ago
      Though heck of a lot of these immigrants work in CERN, Nestle, Fifa, Phillip-Morris and other internationals rather than washing toilets and sweeping streets.
    • batiste 13y ago
      I would think that most would would probably keep their jobs. But instead of bringing home only 3000-3500 they would probably bring close to 6000.
  • konstruktor 13y ago
    > One of the main questions about something like this is about who would do boring, low-paid work with this sort of basic income. I think that with basic income, this question would not make sense, and that's exactly the reason that I like the idea so much. The reason why people do boring, dirty and dangerous work for little money is that there are folks who have no skills that would enable them to get a more fulfilling, cleaner, safer job that pays more. Those people depend on income, any income, to live, so they do the dirty jobs, and since there is a large pool of these workers, the shitty jobs can even pay just enough to survive. With a decent basic income scheme, i.e. the basic needs of the people taken care of, the job market would probably flip: You would have to pay people very well for doing unpleasant work, and not so well for fulfilling jobs.
    • marcamillion 13y ago
      > With a decent basic income scheme, i.e. the basic needs of the people taken care of, the job market would probably flip: You would have to pay people very well for doing unpleasant work, and not so well for fulfilling jobs. This is an interesting premise. It would probably cause a lot of firms to be started, that compete to do those 'shitty jobs' - that could potentially drive the cost down and be done much better. This experiment would be VERY interesting indeed.
      • deleted 13y ago
        [deleted]
      • gaius 13y ago
        Very interesting to watch from another country. That is the real reason politics moves so slowly, because the usual results of political experimentation is mass starvation.
        • ZenoArrow 13y ago
          Political experimentation usually leading to starvation... Have you got a high number of examples to back that up? I can only think of a handful.
  • zem 13y ago
    > One of the main questions about something like this is about who would do boring, low-paid work with this sort of basic income. people who talk about this always do so with the assumption that someone else would do the boring, low-paid work. but if you think about it, why should boring work be low-paid? it's unpleasant and time-consuming, so it should ideally be paid commensurately.
  • homeomorphic 13y ago
    > One of the main questions about something like this is about who would do boring, low-paid work with this sort of basic income. My (probably wrong) impression was that hardly any Swiss work those kinds of jobs anymore as it is, and that the country relies on migrant temporary workers. How true is this? Also, your comment is great in general. It really made me think.
    • maurits 13y ago
      The poverty line is 2200, the median around 5700, and a starting cashier at one of the big supermarket chains will make 3200+ and benefits. [1] [1]: http://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/portal/de/index/themen/03/04/blank/key/lohnstruktur/nach_branche.html http://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/portal/de/index/themen/03/04/bla...
  • adventured 13y ago
    100 million adults in the US currently hold no job. $33,600 * 100 million = $3.36 trillion (20% of GDP) Good luck with that. That by itself is about $900 billion more than the total federal tax haul for 2012. Then throw in the other 50 million adults making less than $33.6k per year, assume a solid added cost of at least 25% of GDP. It's pure fantasy, and completely falls apart when you start doing the actual math.
    • homeomorphic 13y ago
      I don't think anybody has suggested introducing the basic income amount of a country with that from the country with (one of) the world's highest costs of living. $33.6k is, at least in comparably priced Norway, a very very low income. As in: way less than what a cleaner or a supermarket cashier would make. The amount would obviously be different in different countries.
    • ZeroGravitas 13y ago
      Basic income is given to everyone, not just the poor and/or unemployed. It's actually a very good idea, supported by people all across the political spectrum. You should read up on it before dismissing it.
      • crassus 13y ago
        Personally I can't imagine working 60 hours a week to pay taxes for someone else staying home and playing World of Warcraft
        • jhuckestein 13y ago
          Another aspect of basic income usually is to pay higher taxes on consumption and lower taxes on work
        • ZeroGravitas 13y ago
          One of the interesting things about basic income, is that it generates responses like this, yet you probably already do this in your country, whether it's welfare linked to job-seeking or disability or having kids etc. Worse still, the way in which these people are currently given the money makes it economically idiotic for them to go and find a small amount of work, since they'd often end up getting less money overall, so they're trapped in this life of which you don't approve.
  • jre 13y ago
    Just to put things in perspective (I'm swiss), 2500CHF is a really low salary in Switzerland. There is another initiative asking for a minimum wage of 4000CHF per month. The median swiss salary is close to 6000CHF[1]. The administration says the poverty line is around 2200CHF per month for someone living alone [2]. You can't really just convert to $ and say it's a lot of money. A lot of basic stuff like food, transportation, housing are really expensive in Switzerland. [1] http://archives.tdg.ch/actu/suisse/suisses-gagnent-moyenne-5979-francs-mois-2011-11-28 http://archives.tdg.ch/actu/suisse/suisses-gagnent-moyenne-5... [2] http://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/portal/fr/index/themen/20/03/blank/key/07/01.html http://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/portal/fr/index/themen/20/03/bla...
    • rmc 13y ago
      Here here. I've travelled through Switzerland, and can confirm that it's really expensive compared to many other countries. I made the mistake once of planning to stay overnight in Switzerland. That was expensive. About €40 to stay in a rural hostel.
      • eplanit 13y ago
        I believe the phrase is "hear, hear".
        • oneeyedpigeon 13y ago
          Both of them are phrases. Everyone understands the, strictly speaking, incorrect one. It's nice to know the origins of the phrase, but when more people use the 'incorrect' variant than the 'correct' one, it becomes 'correct'; that's the nature of language.
          • WCityMike 13y ago
            Under that theory, texting will swiftly become 'correct' English, and I refuse to believe THAT.
            • 13y ago
  • X4 13y ago
    For those who don't know what the idea behind the unconditional income is: I'll briefly explain it. Imagine you work hard and only get enough to live on the edge. Now imagine you're not even the average joe, but feel that you could really change things on the world. You haven't to be a genius in order to do that, but you need to be creative, innovative and willing to work without the command to work. Now let's get an eagle's perspective on what would happen, if encouraged people would not have to spent their entire lives working for the bare minimum that keeps them slaves of the economy and industry. You would essentially create the startup-country #1. Everybody could now cherish their dreams again and make them real. You don't believe it right, that's "stupid eastern communism thinkblarg", right? How comes you Sir, Madam believe in Kickstarter, Crowdfunding, Bitcoin, P2P, Wikipedia.. and the individual freedom, so to say the american dream, when you actually have to rely on the mercy of the rich and your leading political party? Isn't that a wet dream reserverd for the 1:100.000? Let's chill and put into retrospect on what would happen if you were getting a salary that allowed you to get your basics needs fulfilled. You would be less sick, stressed, worn out. You would now be able to do what you always wanted to do in your life. Hey admit it, you wanted to buy a house at some time and have a wife and children and you knew that you'd have to work hard, the half of your life to get there. Believe it or not, but giving people freedom doesn't mean blindly trusting them. You are only one and the community you live in that government that likes to keep you locked into boundaries called country, consist of many of the smartest people on the world. Why not let them free, who do you trust if not them? We're far from a Star Trek world, where anybody get's free access to medicine and any food or resource he needs. Dear patriots, don't be afraid that your Governments managed it to go bankrupt, they've managed that already and not for the first time. It's time you your friends, families understand that the people you thought were the cause, aren't the cause. It's your Government stupid. I don't say hate Governments, but do you blindly trust a complete stranger to care for your baby? Certainly not. For those who're not still convinced that an unconditional income is a good idea: Why do you blindly trust your Government word-by-word to judge on your and everbody else's life's? When these people cannot even cooperate with just a few hundred other politicians? You see how wrong it is to not trust all people, but a selected few. Let's get over the indoctrinated prejudices and get to know each other again. Hi =)
    • thenomad 13y ago
  • m_mueller 13y ago
    As a Swiss I'm not completely opposed to the idea of basic income, I just think it's too early. Right now we still need most of the workforce to create our current level of wealth - our unemployed rate is pretty low, usually around 2-3%, and work efficiency is one of the best in the world - it's a well oiled machine where every cog still counts, including lower incomes. Even with the current GDP, paying that bill would be incredibly difficult, but I'd expect the GDP to even sink for some time, until positive effects can come in, making the whole thing a gamble with the well being of 8M people. Not worth it. However, going some decades into the future the whole thing might look different. Given that we can manage to still gather the planets ressources without stagnating, uneducated jobs will become less and less important as more and more can be automated through robots, intelligent information systems such as Watson's successors and so on. At that point the ratio of revenue to salary will be extremely skewed towards highly educated jobs, making it (a) easier and (b) probably necessary to channel some of this wealth to insure everyone can keep up with education. Note that we already do that now through a wellfare system that allows anyone to get by and get a degree, even at the prestigous ETH Zurich (tuition 1400$/year). At some point a basic income may become cheaper than a welfare system, but that's not now.
    • StavrosK 13y ago
      You're overlooking how expensive poverty is. I don't have numbers, but this may well end up being cheaper than the alternative.
      • m_mueller 13y ago
        Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Right now the cost of our social insurances is somewhere around 20% of GDP[1]. This covers all bases to enable any poor family to let their children escape poverty through education, thus minimizing structural poverty and its effects that will bite the USA in the coming decades. The proposed basic income seems to come out at around 34%. Now tell me (a) what basic income will achieve more than what we have already in Switzerland and (b) how we should come up with the remaining 14%. [1] http://www.pa.uzh.ch/news/NeueLohnreglemente/Sozialversicherungsbeitraege2012.pdf; http://www.pa.uzh.ch/news/NeueLohnreglemente/Sozialversicher... left column: percentage of salary paid by employee, right column: percentage paid by employer, so just add all those numbers up
  • fab13n 13y ago
    About poorly paid boring jobs: either they're socially necessary and will command higher wages, or they're not worth it, and we'll manage without them. The main interest of minimal income is to shift the power balance between employer and employees: today, most employees have a choice between complying and starving. Actually in many countries they have to do both. With minimal income, it becomes a choice between compliance and comfort rather than survival. Negotiation between them and their employers can happen again (people still value comfort)
    • prostoalex 13y ago
      > today, most employees have a choice between complying and starving Really? What's the grand total number of starvation deaths in United States or Switzerland?
      • dinkumthinkum 13y ago
        People go hungry in the US. To suggest otherwise is, frankly stupid. People go hungry and people are poor enough that their main options for food are cheap, unhealthy, high caloric. So is it your contention there are no charity soup kitchens or charity groceries in the US, because you seem to imply it.
        • prostoalex 13y ago
          Unemployment rate is not 0%. Starvation rate is 0%. Grandparent was implying that the only choices are sub-par employment or starvation, end of story, which sounded a bit sensationalist.
  • madaxe 13y ago
    * > who would do boring, low-paid work with this sort of basic income * Software and automation.
  • algorias 13y ago
    >I find with most jobs is that it's much easier to get more pay than less hours Actually, this is less of a problem in Switzerland than in other countries. Specially at the low end of the income scale, it's easy to get jobs in the 30-50% range (100% being 40h/week). Just the fact that people here think in terms of an x% job should tip you off that it's pretty common.
  • sergiosgc 13y ago
    > One of the main questions about something like this is about who would do boring, low-paid work with this sort of basic income. Half jokingly, I would say "Portuguese immigrants". I once went to Zurich for a conference and, on the day of the flight, was unshaved, poorly dressed (two hour sleep night before the fligbt). Man, was I drilled by the border police about my intentions in Switzerland. They were convinced I'd be moving there to serve tables or such (I'm a s/w engineer...). Apparently, there is a huge flow of my compatriots over to Swiss menial jobs.
  • gwu78 13y ago
    A well crafted comment. But I have a thought experiment for you. "One of the main questions about this is who would do boring, low paid work..." First, let's assume we are starting from scratch and reassigning what "work" is compensated with pay and what work is not. For the purposes of our thought experiment, ignore "low paid" and "high paid" below, because we have not yet decided what work will be compensated with pay, let alone how much pay. Hence "boring, low paid work" becomes just "boring work". Next, let's further assume that "boring work" describes the type of work that people do not normally want to do. And here's the though experiment: What if the converse of "boring work" (e.g., "interesting work") was not actually "work"? That is, what if "interesting work" was not compensated? What if people were not paid for doing what they are naturally inclined to do, i.e., for doing what they love? What if we only compensated people for doing "boring work"? Remarkably, this actually does not sound too far from reality. Because that is exactly what many people do in order to be compensated: boring work. Similarly, many of us do plenty of "work" for which we are not compensated. What's different about the thought experiment is that we reassess whether persons who refuse to do boring work in favor of interesting work should actually be paid. After all, they are doing what they love. And they would presumably do this regardless of payment. If only the "grunt workers" get paid, then we have created an incentive to do grunt work. We have not removed the incentive to do more interesting, "higher level" work because that incentive does not find its basis in compensation, for this is the "work" that people actually want to do, regardless of payment. Or so that's what they always tell us.
  • downandout 13y ago
    I am not an economist, but this sounds like a recipe for massive inflation. At some point, the spending power of the basic income, regardless of the actual amount given, will approach zero. Free money, health care, food, and unicorns for everyone sounds great, but these models are notorious for not working out well.
    • fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
      >these models are notorious for not working out well. I guess you know because you've seen it tried so many times? Here is a fact for your non-economist economic model. Automation is displacing labor. And, here is a prediction: Automation will continue to displace labor until most menial labor tasks are gone.
      • sologoub 13y ago
        You forgot the direct causal effect this has on demand. The more labor is displaced, the more demand will need to come from somewhere else, and that is a massive problem to have. When automation increased productivity during most of the last century, demand grew and economy prospered. When towards the end of the century, automation started to cannibalize jobs, we started to rely more and more on debt. And that's where we are today. While there is likely some inflation, it would be really interesting to see how it balances out (if it does) against the benefits of added extra demand.
        • fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
          >You forgot the direct causal effect this has on demand. The more labor is displaced, the more demand will need to come from somewhere else, and that is a massive problem to have. Demand for labor, or demand for products? >When automation increased productivity during most of the last century, demand grew and economy prospered. When towards the end of the century, automation started to cannibalize jobs, we started to rely more and more on debt. And that's where we are today. You're hinting around the most important distinction between then and now (or the not too distant future). For many goods, we are entering a time where we can produce more than we are able to consume. We can continue creating artificial scarcity to keep people employed, which kind of makes labor the product. Or we can relax our ideas about how to distribute the proceeds of peoples' collective efforts. I don't think that it is tenable to continue with the artificial scarcity model because automation is just too attractive to industry.
  • 6d0debc071 13y ago
    > One of the main questions about something like this is about who would do boring, low-paid work with this sort of basic income. If it's more expensive to hire people to do crappy work, then the relative utility of robots goes up. It doesn't strike me as a particularly complex problem to make robots to collect people's trash, or similar jobs. Most of the low-wage jobs are very mechanical and routine in nature.
  • mizchief 13y ago
    Unless they put in price controls for basic goods, nothing will really change when it comes to jobs. When everyone has an extra $2,800 a month to spend across the board, what do you think will happen to prices? Why would I give you my time when I get the money for free? Business will have to pay more to encourage people to continue to work for them, and increase prices to make up the difference.
  • api 13y ago
    "One of the main questions about something like this is about who would do boring, low-paid work with this sort of basic income." Computers and robots. Not true quite yet, but will be in the next few decades.
  • TelmoMenezes 13y ago
    > One of the main questions about something like this is about who would do boring, low-paid work with this sort of basic income. I believe this would not be a problem in the long run for the following reasons: - A lot of boring low-pay work is unnecessary (dealing with the endless paper trail of over-complicated bureaucracies, lots of things that companies do, like telemarketing, just because it's so cheap, etc. etc.); - A lot of it is necessary, so it would just become more expensive. At some price, people will be willing to do this work despite the basic income. Many people actually enjoy doing meaningful work, be it plumbing or being a doctor. It's the soul-crushing pointless work that is so depressing; - This would then create strong economic pressure to finally use technology for what it's good: automatize labor. No longer would there be the job loss dilemma; - Likewise, this would create strong economic pressure to simplify everything: no more pointless bureaucracy, no more over-complicated taxation schemes that require an army of accountants, much less pointless meetings and other corporate fat, and so on. I'm filled with hope by this idea and honestly believe that it has a chance of working. It's time to step into the next era.
    • marknutter 13y ago
      I see it differently. If people are receiving a basic income their performance at a job becomes much less important. Why care if you do a good job if losing it doesn't really impact you that negatively?
      • drewrv 13y ago
        It would impact you negatively, it just won't lead to utter ruin and homelessness.
      • samatman 13y ago
        Let's presume you have a job, rather than being freelance or a founder: Would you continue to do well at it if it was, say, 60% of your income rather than all of it?
        • marknutter 13y ago
          I think that the less the job income affected my bottom line, the less I would care about performing well at it. If it was 10% of my income I would care even less. After all, I'd rather be working on my own ideas than someone else's.
  • fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
    >By US standards, this actually seems to be a good salary: significantly better than working full time at minimum wage. The cost of living in Switzerland is among the highest in the world.
  • gcb1 13y ago
    you cant say a salary is good without listing the cost of living. that salary would barely cover my cheap rent, and maybe 3 month of food... it is like living in san francisco with a "good salary" from the outskirts of idaho.
  • ChuckMcM 13y ago
    I hope this passes because it will put to the test some of the possible benefits of a basic income. This is an interesting question: "One of the main questions about something like this is about who would do boring, low-paid work with this sort of basic income. What I would really hope is that people would still do many of those jobs, but for far fewer hours--largely as a way to get money for incidental expenses and luxuries beyond the basic income. One problem I find with most jobs is that it's much easier to get more pay than less hours, even if I really want the latter. There is a large drop-off between full-time and part-time work." As I understand the theory, people will do this for exactly the reason you give, which is that it will add to their income for extras. The basic tenet of the BI concept (as I understand it) is that you provide subsistence wages and do not add an economic penalty for working, thus people will work because it won't cut down on their basic income (like it does with welfare) instead it will improve their income picture.
  • deleted 13y ago
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  • mcv 13y ago
    Keep in mind that with a $30,000/year basic income, a $30,000/year job would make your total income $60,000. There's definitely an incentive to work. Especially when compared to welfare, unemployment benefits etc, because you lose those when you get a job. You don't lose basic income. You always get ahead by working, even if it's something low paid for only a few hours a week. But more than that, it's quite possible that boring, low paid, unattractive jobs will have to become better paid or more interesting if they're essential jobs, and they might disappear entirely if they're not essential. I think the quality of jobs is likely to increase because of this.
• wavesounds 13y ago
  Meanwhile, in America, the government is shut down to try to stop poor people from receiving subsidies on their private health insurance.
  • Daniel_Newby 13y ago
    This is not an appropriate venue for chanting political slogans.
    • rickjames28 13y ago
      oh bullshit. this is a political forum. these leftist/socialists made it. fight the socialists. they're scum.
    • wavesounds 13y ago
      I stated a 100% true fact that is a direct comparison to the article in question. It's sad people would try to silence facts by dismissing them as 'political slogans'
      • md224 13y ago
        I think it's political because it reduces the debate over healthcare policy to a caricature. I lean left (hell, I voted for the Green Party in the last presidential election) but even I don't believe that every Republican is twirling their moustache and cackling "bwah ha ha, I love oppressing the poor."
      • CrankyPants 13y ago
        Meh, it's your view. There are plenty of people who oppose PPACA for reasons besides trying to stop poor people from receiving subsidies on their health insurance.
        • wavesounds 13y ago
          Listen to Boheners reasoning when he refused to allow a vote on the senate bill[1]. He sites employers not wanting to hire people because they have to subsidize their insurance, and a medical device tax that goes towards providing subsidies to individuals. 1. http://www.disclose.tv/action/viewvideo/153432/Speaker_John_Boehner_Speech_To_House_About_Government_Shutdown_93013/ http://www.disclose.tv/action/viewvideo/153432/Speaker_John_...
• psuter 13y ago
  Before anyone gets too excited, let's remember that this is also the country where the people voted against raising the required paid holidays (2012), for substantial cuts in unemployment allowances (2010), and for increasing the VAT (2009), just to give some recent examples. Regardless of its merits, it is going to be nearly impossible to gather popular support for an idea such as basic income. But hey, at least we'll talk about it.
  • zalew 13y ago
    > just to give some recent examples and the most recent (not necessarily on topic) http://idpc.net/alerts/2013/09/switzerland-decriminalises-cannabis http://idpc.net/alerts/2013/09/switzerland-decriminalises-ca...
    • psuter 13y ago
      That was not through referendum, though. The dynamics are very different. Interestingly enough, when asked, the parliament tends to be more open to change and experimentation than the people.
      • zalew 13y ago
        Yeah, I've stayed in Bern a few times in the 90s and I got a sentiment for it so I take a glance now and then what's going on, and the referendal results are often ridiculously surprising. The weed situation IMO for years has been the weirdest ever, since Swiss have the most liberal and practical drug treatment policies I know of, and AFAIK a high percentage of citizens admits to smoking joints. It looked like people just don't gave a crap enough to legalize it and after a few tries just gave up pushing it. How does it look like on the ground from a Swiss' perspective?
        • romac 13y ago
          "From October 1 [2013], an adult caught smoking cannabis in Switzerland can escape formal legal proceedings by simply paying a fine." http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/swiss_news/Mixed_feelings_over_new_Swiss_cannabis_law.html?cid=36977488 http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/swiss_news/Mixed_feelings_over_n...
• robomartin 13y ago
  Maybe I am too obtuse to understand how such things could work. What happens if nobody has a job? OK, that's a little extreme. Let's see, a family of five would get 12500 F per month unconditionally. That's probably a pretty good chunk of money for doing nothing. I see images of five to ten people living together to collectively earn 25000 F per month. In the same story they talk about limiting executive pay to 12x the salary of the lowest paid employee. Again, I just don't see it. In a global market I just don't see intelligent and capable people not looking past their borders seeking better compensation for what they have to offer. How can you build a sustainable and competitive society this way? Again, I'll admit to not being mentally equipped to comprehend how this can work. Perhaps someone can educate me.
  • ojii 13y ago
    Every adult gets 2500/month, so a family of 2 adults + 3 children would get 5000/month which is nowhere near enough in most places in Switzerland.
    • robomartin 13y ago
      I was thinking of a family with five adults. No reason for the children to leave such a profitable nest. The other scenario is a group of adult friends or relatives.
      • sigkill 13y ago
        This raises another interesting question. Will there be a population explosion in Switzerland in the medium term?
        • Ecio78 13y ago
          Swiss immigration rules are quite strict, maybe a bit relaxed for UE nationals, but still strict. Afaik you generally need to have a job offer in order to move to Swizerland and take residence. Check for example this sites/news: http://www.swissworld.org/en/faq/living_in_switzerland/ http://www.swissworld.org/en/faq/living_in_switzerland/ http://world.time.com/2013/05/01/bachmann-on-switzerland/ http://world.time.com/2013/05/01/bachmann-on-switzerland/ http://voices.yahoo.com/how-move-united-states-switzerland-323522.html http://voices.yahoo.com/how-move-united-states-switzerland-3... And Swiss don't like too much immigrats, and even cross border workers: http://www3.varesenews.it/english/articolo.php?id=184350 http://www3.varesenews.it/english/articolo.php?id=184350
• rickjames28 13y ago
  go for it. and let's see the extrapolation to a economic juggernaut like the U.S. It's always the "norway" argument. If Norway (pop 4 million or so) can do it so can the U.S. Yes, I guess Los Angeles could do something like that, but..
  • unsigner 13y ago
    4 million AND oil-rich.
    • e12e 13y ago
      Like North Dakota?
  • arjie 13y ago
    Not that I specifically care for that argument, but half of American states have lower population than Norway. Choosing to say "I guess Los Angeles could do it" may have a better ring to it than "I guess Colorado or Alabama or South Carolina or Louisiana or Kentucky or Oregon or Oklahoma or Connecticut or Iowa or Mississippi or Arkansas or Kansas or Utah or Nevada and New Mexico together or Nebraska and West Virginia and Idaho together or Hawaii, Maine, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island together or Montana, Delaware, the Dakotas, Alaska, Vermont, and Wyoming together could do something like that", but it makes the US look like it has a lot more people than it does. Now before anyone comes up with "population isn't everything", that's the problem parent decided to mention.
• spikels 13y ago
  I would greatly prefer a basic income to the thousands of poorly run programs that aim to help the poor. The poor are not helpless but simply don't make enough money for some minimal standard of living (i.e. they are poor). A side effect of many existing programs is that they make the poor dependent and actually discourage self-improvement. A basic income would minimize these unfortunate but real consequences of helping them. More info http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income
  • evincarofautumn 13y ago
    A corollary from basic ecology: artificially adding prey to an area that cannot support more predators is tantamount to reducing competition amongst those predators, worsening the problem of motivation; or because of breeding, adding predators, worsening the problem of scarcity.
  • CrankyPants 13y ago
    Yeah, the basic income is tough because it doesn't address all of the elements that discourage self-improvement, but it does address some. I'd be curious to see what the net decrease/increase in costs would be if the US wiped out the vast majority of assistance programs and switched over to a basic income. After that, someone would need to take a stab at seeing what the net increase/decrease is from the change in incentives and general societal structure.
  • mattlutze 13y ago
    Interesting here is everyone would get it. Making 200k, 500k CHF a year? You also get the basic income. For mid-wage jobs, I imagine employers will reduce salaries to compensate, meaning the middle-class employee will likely net the same-ish. Or, rather, would stagnate raises for years until the salary equalizes. For people who make a lot of money and have more leverage over their salaries in negotiations, their salaries would likely not change, suggesting it'd be a government-sponsored raise. I'm curious where the money for this will come from, what percentage of personal and corporate taxes will be increased.
• pyritschard 13y ago
  I think it's worth explaining how swiss legislation works. There are several ways to propose a new law, one of which is for enough citizens to petition, which leads to a referendum style vote. The basic income vote followed this process, and though it gathered enough interest to warrant people voting on it, it has little chance of passing. Interestingly a similar vote recently passed which limited the income in a company to a factor of 12 (i.e: the CEO can not make more than 12 times the lowest salary of his company) which wasn't expected of switzerland (a rather liberal and conservative country)
  • psuter 13y ago
    The 1:12 project is at the same stage as the basic income one: up for referendum. Latest polls showed people were still undecided (vote is at the end of November).
    • riffraff 13y ago
      I was under the impression the 1:12 vote already happened and was voted with an overwhelming majority, e.g. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-21647937 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-21647937 http://www.economist.com/blogs/schumpeter/2013/03/switzerland%E2%80%99s-vote-executive-pay http://www.economist.com/blogs/schumpeter/2013/03/switzerlan... Could you explain the discrepancy ?
      • uraza 13y ago
        From the original article: In March, Swiss voters backed some of the world's strictest controls on executive pay, forcing public companies to give shareholders a binding vote on compensation. A separate proposal to limit monthly executive pay to no more than what the company's lowest-paid staff earn in a year, the so-called 1:12 initiative, faces a popular vote on November 24. The two articles you linked to refer to the first proposal.
      • rstuder 13y ago
        This refers to another constitution change: By strengthening the control of shareholders over payout for executives, they want to stop these extremely high bonuses. So this was a much less radical law change, that the 1:12 article would be.
• JDDunn9 13y ago
  A country that values science, education, peace AND cares about the poor! Have I stepped into another dimension?
  • ojii 13y ago
    You forgot democracy. Note that this bill was introduced by the people, not the government. In Switzerland, as long as you can get 100'000 to sign a referendum, you can get a bill to be voted on. We also vote 4 times a year on bills, that is we the people, not we the politicians.
    • rodgerd 13y ago
      And in 1990 women could even vote!
      • chronolitus 13y ago
        While I don't disagree that my country has had (and in some aspects still has) a backwards mentality, I fail to see how your comment has anything to do with the conversation.
        • TheEzEzz 13y ago
          I take the point as a counter to the notion that a pure democracy is inherently superior to other mixed forms of democracy, where voting is less direct.
          • Udo 13y ago
            If 50% of the population aren't allowed to vote, it's not a pure democracy.
            • seszett 13y ago
              It's easy to say after the facts, but if women aren't allowed to vote and aren't citizens, then 100% of citizens do vote. Most systems we call democracies don't consider their population under 18 as citizens, thus don't allow them to vote, and that's usually around 20% of population. Most also don't consider that immigrants should vote, and in the case of Switzerland that's another 20 or 25%. I'm obviously not saying that not allowing women to vote is good or anything, but that you can't say a system is not "purely" democratic just because of full class of population doesn't vote. As long as 100% of citizens vote, then it's democracy (like in ancient Greece, where no more than 20% of population were citizens).
• stretchwithme 13y ago
  Any petition getting enough signatures can place something on the ballot in Switzerland. They've even voted on whether to abolish the military.
  • Kliment 13y ago
    I don't see how that's unreasonable.
    • claudius 13y ago
      They couldn’t accidentally invade Liechtenstein any more…
    • stretchwithme 13y ago
      it was voted down, of course.
• Kiro 13y ago
  Wouldn't basic income just lead to higher prices and inflation?
  • sjwright 13y ago
    At the income level they set, sadly yes.
  • ck2 13y ago
    Exactly like how in the US, college costs magically rise to the amount students can get in loans. It is a very bad idea to guarantee income instead of controlling costs. All it does is allow the people making money to make more money and possibly take that income out of their country for further investment.
  • comicjk 13y ago
    A redistribution of consumption does not increase prices overall, although in the short run you would expect apples to be more expensive and yachts to be cheaper. An overall increase in consumption, because poor people save a smaller fraction of their money, does lead to inflation, though also to economic growth.
    • notahacker 13y ago
      It's redistributing from people that save most of their income (and often consume outside the Swiss economy) to people that consume most of their income (in Switzerland. The price of yachts on the world market won't move. The price of apples in Zurich will skyrocket, especially since the move simultaneously decreases the supply of low-end labour willing to work all month delivering or selling apples for 3200CHF per month. The combined effect of the two is likely to be massively inflationary. I'd be a lot happier with the Basic Income if I owned-low end rental property in Zurich than if I had a job, unless BI is funded by a property tax...
  • justincormack 13y ago
    The assumption is that the government will do this and still run a balanced budget; how realistic this is I do not know as there are no numbers. In which case its just redistribution, so no its not inflationary.
• ck2 13y ago
  I like to think I am progressive but this minimum income idea is a horrible idea in my eyes. It is like student loans in the USA, everything will rise to the maximum price that people can obtain money.
  • netcan 13y ago
    I think it's an interesting idea. Worth trying in a small country with competent government where a cockup has no effect on me.
    • drcode 13y ago
      Yes, in all for letting the Swiss screw up their country with this idea. Then I no longer have to spend energy explaining why this idea doesn't work.
      • netcan 13y ago
        Or it might work, and then you'll have a harder time with your explaining. :)
• frank_boyd 13y ago
  Switzerland has twice the amount of asylum seekers per capita, compared to the EU average. That seems to be the result of a fairly open asylum policy. Some people find it's too open and complain about that. With the concept of a basic income like this, I suppose their asylum policy would have to become more restrictive.
  • sschueller 13y ago
    The problem isn't necessarily the asylum count but the free flow of people from the EU. They can just come and if they get a job they can stay. Many recruiters are getting jobs for people from the EU before they even move. On the other side, with a growing economy there aren't enough well educated Swiss to full the open positions.
• rmoriz 13y ago
  FYI: You have to live 12 years consecutively in Switzerland, pass a tests and a personal hearing done by the local government to get a citizenship by naturalization. Switzerland has one of the most strict immigration rules in Europe. Source: http://www.bfm.admin.ch/content/bfm/en/home/themen/buergerrecht/faq.0002.html#a_0002 http://www.bfm.admin.ch/content/bfm/en/home/themen/buergerre...
  • swedev 13y ago
    Interesting, I wonder how that would affect foreigners wanting to work in Swiss. If this bill were to pass it would be funded by either increasing taxes or lowering welfare On top of that prices would probably increase at least some. But foreigners would only get the negative effects of this change and not the basic income which would mean they'll probably require more pay to compensate for the loss. I'm guessing that would affect companies who relies on foreign expertise.
  • VMG 13y ago
    So apparently everybody loves this highly nationalist, some might even say racist bill.
    • dinkumthinkum 13y ago
      That's really baiting. What is racist about this bill? I know the entire concept of an "country" or a "citizen" of some country is deeply disgusting to some people, but those are usually kind of weirdos. You can't seriously hold any one as really being a racist because they recognize such things.
      • VMG 13y ago
        I wouldn't call it racist, but the receivers of these benefits are closely correlated to their origin and race -- Switzerland is not famous for accepting immigrants to their country. I just want to point out the inherent contradiction of the claims (a) The system is unlikely to be exploited because humans innately want to work and will be productive in this system. (b) The benefits are only distributed among a certain group of people, only those who are natives to this country in particular. The only reason for this, I imagine, is the fear of the system being exploited. The only conclusion I can draw from this is that those who like this concept think that only native Swiss people will not exploit the system. You're right to call me a weirdo though.
• sjwright 13y ago
  I've always liked the idea of a base salary for all citizens. However, this plan appears to set the base level far too high -- it needs to be barely enough to fund the most basic of life's essentials, and indexed to an inflation rate of essential commodities. Life on this salary needs to be difficult and unsatisfying. The model I imagine would also: * Be paid to all citizens from age zero. Which means it can replace many existing systems, from child support payments and old age pensions. * Child salaries from ~3 onwards could come in the form of vouchers with limited scope, e.g. accredited education providers, accredited child care services. And you need to combine it with some further reforms, e.g: * No minimum wage. * Pretty much all existing welfare scrapped. * Reduced work rights (e.g. less onerous unfair dismissal rules) The underlying goal of such a system would be to dramatically simplify the role of the welfare state, and put the responsibility back on the individual to manage their own welfare.
  • rndmize 13y ago
    I can't see how paying citizens from age zero could possibly be a good idea. Either the government will have control on how that money can be spent (through regulation or otherwise) or the parents will, and I wouldn't consider either case good. Requiring accreditation for services that can be bought with the kids money won't prevent people from corrupting or exploiting the system, only delay them. I also think that while basic income should only covers essentials initially, there's no reason not to increase it as our technology/efficiency/automation improves. This idea that "life needs to be basic and unsatisfying" - unless you work, is IMO not only one of the things basic income should be correcting; it also simply isn't effective. There's an infinity of entertainment out there now, for free, with nothing more than a computer and internet connection. So long as you can afford food to eat, a place to live and medical, I could see people living on only a little more comfortably. The strength of basic income is, I think, that even if you have a chunk of the population that become solely consumers, a large number of people are freed from working on what they're forced to and can work on what they're interested in. There much more space for creativity and failure in all media, in business, in startups. You could potentially accelerate your economic growth by a pretty large degree because it takes so little to get things going today. And the people that do get something going and succeed at scale don't need tens of thousands of other people working for them to grow to a massive level anymore. How many people worked at IBM when they reached a billion dollar valuation in today's dollars? MS? Google? Facebook? I'm going to take a guess and say it was significantly less people with each succeeding company, and that trend is far from over. Plain and simple, we no longer need the whole population working when people can multiply their capabilities with robots, automation, frameworks, search functions, etc.
• deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
• ivoras 13y ago
  For those in the EU, there is currently an official (run by the European Comission) on-line petition in which EU citizens can vote for encouraging the application of the Basic Income idea at https://ec.europa.eu/citizens-initiative/REQ-ECI-2012-000028/public/index.do?lang=en https://ec.europa.eu/citizens-initiative/REQ-ECI-2012-000028... . This is not a "let's apply this now!" thing, but a petition to study the ways and means of how it could be applied.
  • agilebyte 13y ago
    Just to add to that, these are the countries with the highest amount of statements of support (out of threshold level needed to be reached): Slovenia - 79.95% Croatia - 56.12% Belgium - 37.32% Hungary - 31.04% Netherlands - 26.85% Austria - 25.33% France - 25.3% Germany - 24.39% Spain - 22.41%
• sebilasse 13y ago
  2'500 CHF is about the budget for a student life-style in Zurich. I expect a lot of young Swiss going on long holidays to cheaper places like south-east asia or eastern europe.
• znowi 13y ago
  A separate proposal to limit monthly executive pay to no more than what the company's lowest-paid staff earn in a year, the so-called 1:12 initiative, faces a popular vote on November 24. This is a peculiar initiative. Surely, a plot by the commies, or is it not?
• SCAQTony 13y ago
  If they did that in America 50% of the population would quit working and prices would quickly shoot up to MARS! Less workers, higher wages, more money in circulation... What an inflationary mess that would be.
  • astrange 13y ago
    > If they did that in America 50% of the population would quit working And do startups! > What an inflationary mess that would be. The US could use some more inflation. There's no reason this would cause an increase in the money supply though.
    • dinkumthinkum 13y ago
      You think they would quit working and do startups ... You know our community is a sheltered bubble right? ... Ok just going to assume you're joking. :)
  • nilkn 13y ago
    I agree with you on your concerns about inflation. Personally though I think there is this (unhealthy?) competitive culture in America that would drive people to work the same amount. It's like comparing now to the 50s. Almost all our households are dual income now. Surely that means each parent would work half as much, right? Nope. People are too busy competing on how fancy their houses are and therefore drove up housing prices sufficiently high that in many cities two middle class incomes are now necessary to swing the mortgage payments.
• k-mcgrady 13y ago
  I like this idea and think it's something that's going to become more common. As more and more jobs are automated it makes sense that governments would eventually generate money through automating societies least popular jobs and use the money generated through that to pay citizens a basic salary.
• deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
• marcamillion 13y ago
  If this passes, I suspect that Switzerland would see a MAJOR, MAJOR spike in inbound immigration requests. I would love to see what that spike would look like.
  • angularly 13y ago
    Not to talk about an enormous spike in unemployment rate, just like in all other countries where you get paid money for not doing anything. I.e. in Denmark where I come from, we have 400.000 people - out of a population of 6mill - who gain nothing or very little from working, to a point where it don't make sense to work at all, compared to just receiving unemployment pay. And logically people opt to just not work.
    • salvadors 13y ago
      > And logically people opt to just not work Your logic isn't backed up by places that have experimented with this. Yes, there will always be some people who are content to live at the poverty line if they don't have to do any work for it. They are not the people to base your system around. There are many more people who are happy to do something to improve their quality of life even a little. A problem in many countries with an advanced welfare state is that doing even a little work reduces your benefits significantly enough (and introduces so much bureaucracy into your life) that it's not work it. With a basic income, that disappears.
    • scbrg 13y ago
      The difference is that in Denmark (I assume) you trade unemployment benefits when not working to a roughly equivalent salary when you start working. So no, you don't gain anything. With the proposed Swiss system, any salary you earned would be in addition to the basic salary, so there would still be an incentive to work. It's just that it's not strictly necessary to survive. I think the proposed system makes better, as the economical margin effect of working is not negligible, as it is when you just have unemployment benefits. NB: I live in Sweden, and I'm assuming your system is similar to ours. It's a problem I have observed here and I suspect the same applies to you. I may be wrong if it works differently.
  • 13y ago
• vaibpuri 13y ago
  This "might" lead to people actually working more in a certain sense. If a person is to receive an X amount of francs per month then employers will require 40 hour / weeks leading to approximately 15 francs per hour (€12.5), which for a place like Switzerland is kind of fair. Those who choose not to work enough might have to face inflationary affects in housing etc. needing to catch up to the median (not average) population income levels. Eitherways, if the Swiss go wrong on this their system of voting is flexible enough to allow for change back.
• chmars 13y ago
  The text of the Swiss initiative can be found at http://www.admin.ch/ch/d/pore/vi/vis423t.html http://www.admin.ch/ch/d/pore/vi/vis423t.html. Please note that it does not mention 2'500 Swiss francs as a basic income. Rough translation into English: Federal People's Initiative 'For an uncoditional basic income' The federal constituion shall be amended as follows: Art. 110a (new) Unconditional Basic Income (1) The Confederay introduces an unconditional basic income. (2) The basic income shall allow the whole population a decent life and participlation in public activities. (3) The law defines funding and amount of the basic income.
• jre 13y ago
  As a swiss citizen, I'm really happy we'll have to vote on this. I'm not sure yet what I'm going to vote (I'm slightly bending towards a yes), but I think this is a very interesting debate to have. Especially because this is not a traditional left-right fight. On the left, you have some unions saying this is going to be counter-productive and that it will reduce the leverage of employees in negotiation ("You've already got 2500, stop complaining"). Some other unions say it's going to give employee more leverage ("If you don't pay me more, I leave"). There are some people (including right-wing "economy-friendly" politician) who think this is a boost for innovation. By letting people work on what they want, without the risk of becoming homeless if it fails, you'll have more people trying to become independent / create companies. And finally, you have what is still the majority reaction when told about this idea, which is that this is encouraging laziness.
  • omegant 13y ago
    Being from Spain and having seen the reaction to high quantities of money available. A system like this will need to be very well monitored, it can help immensely to those in need, but if done unconditionally it will certainly encourage laziness in a sector of the society. My wife is a doctor and before the crisis she used to have patients DEMAND the permanent disability, because they wanted to stop working. They were always saying "It´s my right, give MY disability!". They were regular people with no or little physical problems. Of course the people that really really needed the disability (very ill and in pain) didn´t want it. They just wanted to keep working and bringing money home. Now as there is no money, the former has almost disappeared from the hospital.
    • Radim 13y ago
      Upvoted you back. Discussing such things on HN must feel surreal if you're not the median HN reader (educated, white, entitled westerner with 1st world problems). Talking about what the "poor" would do if this and that, based on your own "hunches", worldview and ambitions. Mass social experiments designed by intellectuals from an ivory tower... uhh. Good luck to Switzerland though, they may be able to afford providing one much needed data point!
• patatino 13y ago
  We have about 3% unemployment rate in Switzerland. You have to know something about us, we love to work. Why? Because we are raised with the thought that's our strongest asset. Pretty small country with zero resources. Last year we voted for the increase of our holidays from 4 to 6 weeks. Result? 66,5% voted against it. This vote will get something like 80% no votes because people are affraid this will change how people think about work.
• deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
• angularly 13y ago
  Wow, I hope they vote no. I moved to Switzerland recently to avoid the dominant socialism in northern Europe. But they are one of the last liberal stands down here, so there is a good chance it will fall through.
• eatitraw 13y ago
  There are so many people excited about all these "equality" bills, and nobody criticizes it. So I'll just leave it there: http://paulgraham.com/inequality.html http://paulgraham.com/inequality.html
  • Suncho 13y ago
    Paul Graham misses the mark here. I agree with him that it doesn't make sense to try to get rid of income inequality and that income inequality can actually be a positive driving force in the economy. However, it's possible to take money from the rich and give it to the poor, thereby making the poor richer, without preventing income inequality from continuing to increase. Just do it at a low enough rate. And it's not a good use of resources to "teach a man to fish" when "fishing" can be automated or there's not a specific demand for "fishermen." The jobs of tomorrow are becoming less and less definable in terms of the jobs and skills of today. We should be giving people incentive to stay out of the labor force and to spend their time how they want. Some people will stay home and play Xbox. Some will come up with awesome new jobs. Some will do amazing work that benefits humanity and which nobody would have ever thought to pay them for. But it's important to remember that keeping the lazy people out of the labor force decreases the level of incompetence in the labor force. Those Xbox people are staying out of the way of folks who actually want to get things done. Sometimes the best way to contribute to the economy is to stay out of it.
    • DanI-S 13y ago
      He also attempts to justify the social implications of his position by saying that we can still have high levels of risk-taking and innovation but without suffering an oligarchy by severing the connection between wealth and power. This is a nice idea, but in reality the power that comes with wealth is an even greater motivator than the improved quality of life that comes with cash. He suggests that his motivation for becoming wealthy was increased security; well, what position is more secure than one of great power? There's no reason that removing the link between wealth and power would reduce motivation less than flattening top level income.
      • 13y ago
• seeken 13y ago
  There have been experiments with NIT (Negative Income Tax) in the US. My impression was that they were a disaster, but in looking for them I found this article,[1] which explains some of the history of NIT in the US. http://www.city-journal.org/2011/21_1_income-tax.html http://www.city-journal.org/2011/21_1_income-tax.html
  • alextingle 13y ago
    Negative income tax seems quite hard to administer when compared to a basic income. Why bother with all the bureaucracy required to deal with accounting for millions of minuscule incomes, when a simple flat payment would do the same job?
    • seeken 13y ago
      You have to do the income tax anyway, you might as well run the two programs together.
• deleted 13y ago
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• tpainton 13y ago
  Atlas shrugged... and the leaches attacked. I find it hard to believe Swit doesn't already have some welfare system that provides for those who actually need it... but now, 30k a year just for breathing? Sounds like communism to me.... only you don't have to produce anything. Utopianism like this doesn't last. Eventually you run out of payers. it's human nature to eventually grow tired of working hard so someone else doesn't have to. When that time comes, you either join the leaches or you leave the environment. Eventually, you always end up with a negative balance. It is doomed to failure.. Eventually.
  • da02 13y ago
    Are you saying you are against: democratized wealth re-distribution, democratized theft, and charity at gunpoint? How did you "see the light"? Was it Rand or someone else?
    • tpainton 13y ago
      Hard work and payoff. Food stamps and welfare doesn't buy trips to Bora Bora..
  • garg 13y ago
    With the ongoing automation of everything and a population reaching 7.5 billion, a basic income or a standard of living is going to be inevitable.
    • tpainton 13y ago
      Right, we can't ever expect the masses to learn advanced skills that will be needed in the next cyclic revolution. This has to be the most negative thing I have heard all month. It's akin to saying, 'Our people are so incapable of moving with the times, we just have to throw them food.'
      • acuozzo 13y ago
        The assumption is that as automation goes up, demand for people with even "advanced skills" goes down. That is, if all N billion of us "[move] with the times", then the jobs still won't be there for us to fill.
• tpainton 13y ago
  I have to chuckle at the thought of forcing the wealthy to pay other wealthy a minimum income. Or is the 'wealthy' excluded from the definition of 'every adult'. What a complete waste of time and paper.
• AndrewDucker 13y ago
  I'd imagine that for most people this would make little difference - you can adjust income tax and remove the basic allowance so that it balances out somewhere near the median wage. The main thing it would do is to remove the welfare trap - whereby you can earn less from starting work. Suddenly, every Franc you earn adds something onto your income. And you get rid of a whole tranche of bureaucracy at the same time.
• jes 13y ago
  Are the taxes to pay for this voluntary in Switzerland?
• lettergram 13y ago
  Economically speaking this is not going to help anyone... If every person makes a specific lower bound limit all that happens is prices are increased. It probably takes a year or so for the full effect to be felt, at which point there is the choice to either raise it to combat the prices or set limits on how much stuff will cost. Either option sets a limit goods or wages in your country that will not be beneficial. Not to mention, in combination with the other stuff being passed by the swiss there country can have some major problems coming up here.
• transfire 13y ago
  It's a good idea, but that's too high. You want to keep people from starving and living on the streets; not keep them from doing something productive with their lives.
• known 13y ago
  Very much desirable to prevent wage slavery in globalization
• namlem 13y ago
  Can someone explain how they are going to pay such a large amount? Isn't this more than their entire national budget? I punched the numbers into wolfram alpha and they don't add up. Am I misunderstanding something?
• namlem 13y ago
  Can someone explain how they are going to pay such a large amount? Isn't this more than their entire national budget? I punched the numbers into wolfram alpha and they don't add up. Am I misunderstanding something?
• danbmil99 13y ago
  I'll be on the lookout for lots of great Swiss bands to hit the scene around 2017 (if this gets passed). Also lots of alternative art shows, post-feminist poetry readings, etc. Should be fun
• badass 13y ago
  A basic income only serves to maintain the status quo for those at the top. It's a release valve on political pressure to bring fundamental changes to the system to better serve the lower classes. In the US, one can look how the Section 8 housing program serves a similar pressure-relief function in the housing rental market. By giving essentially free rent to those who cannot afford current market rate rents, it relieves political pressure to reform housing policies that keep rental rates high while also inflating rents and property values, heavily distorting the rental market. I think one can easily view the Section 8 program more as welfare program benefiting property owners rather than lower class renters. A basic income would have a similar effect on the general cost of living, inflating values and benefiting the wealthy. Again, like the Section 8 program, this will be a welfare program benefiting the wealthy because this basic wage will simply flow upward and concentrate at the highest economic rungs.
• varelse 13y ago
  Purple Wage anyone? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riders_of_the_Purple_Wage http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riders_of_the_Purple_Wage
• negamax 13y ago
  At the risk of mowed over by the crowd, I want to propose not calling it income. It's welfare. In no way should we equate it to result of someone's work.
  • eropple 13y ago
    "Income" has nothing to do with work, but rather a sum total of all consumption and savings opportunity for an entity over time. This is basic economic terminology, which is why it's...you know...actually used here. But don't worry! Your just-world rhetoric (wrapped, no less, in a pseudo-controversial, woe-is-me-I'm-going-to-get-downvoted "stand", aren't we noble) is noted.
  • jhaglund 13y ago
    Do we call money made from investments or inheritance Welfare? In a post agrarian society, work and income are not related.
• notdrunkatall 13y ago
  Free money for everyone, what could go wrong? /s
• LekkoscPiwa 13y ago
  So what happens if everyone in Switzerland is given 1,000,000 Francs? You really think they all will end up being millionaires? LOL, you will jut create a lot of inflation that's all. Amazing how economically illiterate leftists usually are.
• avty 13y ago
  Basic income is a basic human right.
• ronaldx 13y ago
  I expect massive inflation on particular necessities (likely rent/housing, utilities) as rent-seekers squeeze the available money. Necessities within competitive, or border-crossing markets (likely food) might not be subject to such inflation. The consequences for luxuries are harder to predict, but perhaps they would still be out of reach of the unemployed/underemployed. This could motivate a majority to continue work. If this balances to the point that 'poor' people can maintain a fair lifestyle without working, wages for cheap/exploitative labour will rise wherever people don't find value in the work. This will be balanced by pressure to take on immigrants to work. (Based on my understanding of Swiss politics, it feels unlikely they will receive the same benefits) Not without economic consequences but overall, exciting stuff. A lot of people will have vastly more freedom: risk-taking, entrepreneurialism and general creativity will boom.
• iliis 13y ago
  As a swiss I'm quite excited about this. Even if I'm pessimistic about a successful vote. I want to mention a side-point which I haven't encountered so far: In the 'problem of lazyness' (i.e. "who will do the boring work if you are paid anyway?") one answer that often comes up is automation. Menial/low-skill jobs will be done by robots. It's a common image that in the future robots will clean our toilets and grill our burgers while the humans have ample time to enjoy life, build rockets and do fulfilling work.[1] However, if AI research has told us one thing it's that this view is quite wrong - the opposite is true. Things humans think of as 'easy' like walking around or doing laundry are actually very difficult engineering problems and 'hard' stuff like playing chess or doing rocket science are easier in an absolut sense. The reason behind is simple: Evolution had millions of years to perfect walking on legs and interacting with the environment. Our bodies almost literally have an walkTo(Place) API, so the only thing 'we' (our conscious self) have to do is to call it. Abstract thinking is something new and our brains have to do it manually. It takes you less time to run over debris than to multiply large numbers and so we have a distorted picture of what is hard in an absolute sense. The picture is true for humans but it falls apart when we want to automate it. We are still decades away of beating humans in soccer but Jeopardy is a solved problem. I'm not convinced that 'low'-skill jobs are the first to fall into the hands of machines. [2] --- [1] Ignore for the moment the fact that unclogging toilets can also be fulfilling. [2] This is of course a broad argument. We still have no clue what Intelligence or Creativity actually is - It may still turn out to be very complicated. But I nevertheless think there's a good chance that we will figure out hard AI before you can buy a robot which washes your socks, mows the lawn and fixes your plumbing.
  • polarix 13y ago
    So, if the low-skill jobs stay around, but nobody wants to do them, their price increases, because nobody is forced to do them to stay alive. Then we have a greater incentive to automate and deprecated the immorally unfulfilling jobs.
    • iliis 13y ago
      Yes, the economic argument looks solid. Good old supply and demand. Problem is, we may not be able to automate these jobs so easily.
• hikarudo 13y ago
  "It is an elementary requirement of economic incentive as well as justice that the man who works for a living should always be better off because of that, other things being equal, than the man who refuses to work for a living." [1] [1] Henry Hazlitt, The Conquest of Poverty
  • dllthomas 13y ago
    That still happens, with a basic income.
• sytelus 13y ago
  Obviously people proposing this aren't thinking it through or have no training in basic economics. Intuitively you can think of money as amount of labor that you owe from other human beings [1]. So let's say in some country you need minimum of $1000 /mo to satisfy your basic needs. What this means is that someone needs to grow your food, weave your cloths, run electricity plants etc and that amount of labor costs $1000 at the moment. Now imagine a government suddenly guarantees $2000 of income to everyone. What happens next? A lot of these people who were supposed to grow food for you, weave your cloths and run electricity plants for you will drop out of labor market. This means human labor gets in less supply and its demand suddenly increases. That means cost of labor suddenly increases. That means very soon $2000 is no longer enough to buy enough labor to satisfy your basic needs. In essence, $3000 would now be new minimum that is required for your basic needs. You are back to the square one with only effect being government essentially inflated the currency. [1] In this simplification we assume that most raw material required to satisfy basic needs is available in sufficient quantity so the cost of goods is strongly a function of human labor rather than raw material.
  • chii 13y ago
    This argument assumes that the efficiency cannot be increased, and stays at X amount of "work" per human. Imagine if the basic income enabled large amount of people to try out different inventions, or perform research, such that it now takes only 1/2 X to produce food, where as before it was X. One way this could happen is that because labour costs increased, more automation is encouraged/deployed, and thus gain efficiency. Of course, if the above _doesn't_ happen, then yes, your conclusion is pretty spot on.
    • dinkumthinkum 13y ago
      Sure, but we could also imagine a works with perpetual motion and infinite energy. Boy, this would be a great place to be. But I'm not sure what that has to do with reality. I don't want to rain on anyone's dreams ...
    • dinkumthinkum 13y ago
      Sure, but we could also imagine a works with perpetual motion and infinite energy. Boy, this would be a great place to be. But I'm not sure what that has to do with reality. I don't want to rain on anyone's dreams ...
• habosa 13y ago
  Economic question: won't this just eventually result in a rise in prices to reflect the fact that everyone has more money? I guess imported goods will remain about the same price, but things produced locally would almost definitely go up in price. If I knew all of my customers had $2500/month more, I'd raise prices.
  • marcosdumay 13y ago
    And I'd undercut you by selling at the older price, increasing my total profits... Except that I'd lose market too, because somebody would use the newly achieved scale to save costs and undercut me too. Distributing money does not make capitalism go away.
• yason 13y ago
  I wonder if that just raises the bar and everything becomes the same again: - everyone gets at least X for basic income - for some people it makes more sense to not take low-paid shitty jobs because deducting commuting and lunch expenses from the low-paid salary you can probably make the same money on basic income, especially if you're willing to be a bit frugal - more money gets offered for low-paid shitty jobs because there's high demand and low supply of workers - the extra money is charged from the customers of the companies who employ the workers who do the not-so-low-paid shitty jobs - the costs trickle upwards and cause inflated prices which in turn makes landlords raise rents accordingly - the rents and price of food become painfully high for those who live on basic income - we're back at square one: poor people have to take shitty, relatively low-paid jobs to make a living because the amount of basic income, X, is baked into pretty much all prices in the market