5 ms·

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 curr

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
Filligree 13y ago
As a Norwegian, I.. agree, but still hope you'll do it. For the greater good of humanity (and Norwegians), Switzerland will make a useful laboratory. It might even work. Sorry, but that's how it is.
- m_mueller 13y ago
  Our ancestors have put up a direct democratic system for a reason: In the believe that it will serve as a sufficient check on political groups not to perform experiments on our society that the majority of people don't agree with. Sorry, but there's just no way this is going to happen. On a related note: In the light of recent history I more and more come to believe that exactly these checks are what's missing in the USA. We Europeans have a lot to thank the Americans, first of all the Republican system they pioneered - however our nation founders have gradually improved on their template. It'd be about time for them to roll out version 2.0, based on all the things that have been learned about shortcomings. Step one would be to not allow a single person to completely blockade a political process in congress.
  - gadders 13y ago
    Yeah, but he is the President...
    - m_mueller 13y ago
      Apparently it's also no problem if it's the speaker of the house, if I understand recent news from this kafkaeske play.
    - ekimekim 13y ago
      I thought the parent was referring to a filibuster.
  - rquantz 13y ago
    I (an American) was having a discussion with some European friends recently, and we had a bit of a disconnect. I was trying to convince them that, contrary to their perceptions (they are fooled by the architecture) the United States is very old, and their countries -- France, in particular, are very young. We in the US have the oldest constitutional democracy in the world, or possibly the second oldest if you misinterpret what the British Parliament was in the 18th Century. We are stuck with a government created by a bunch of agrarian colonists in the 1700s, and most of Europe has governments created in the 20th Century, created with knowledge of the labor movement, high capitalism, and totalitarian movements. And also, they've been able to observe the disasters caused by our pidgin compromise of a political system. Compared to you guys (Swiss Federal Constitution: ratified 1999) we aren't even driving horse and buggies. We're on some wobbly farmer's cart pulled by a mule.

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

Filligree 13y ago

As a Norwegian, I.. agree, but still hope you'll do it. For the greater good of humanity (and Norwegians), Switzerland will make a useful laboratory. It might even work. Sorry, but that's how it is.

m_mueller 13y ago
Our ancestors have put up a direct democratic system for a reason: In the believe that it will serve as a sufficient check on political groups not to perform experiments on our society that the majority of people don't agree with. Sorry, but there's just no way this is going to happen. On a related note: In the light of recent history I more and more come to believe that exactly these checks are what's missing in the USA. We Europeans have a lot to thank the Americans, first of all the Republican system they pioneered - however our nation founders have gradually improved on their template. It'd be about time for them to roll out version 2.0, based on all the things that have been learned about shortcomings. Step one would be to not allow a single person to completely blockade a political process in congress.
- gadders 13y ago
  Yeah, but he is the President...
  - m_mueller 13y ago
    Apparently it's also no problem if it's the speaker of the house, if I understand recent news from this kafkaeske play.
  - ekimekim 13y ago
    I thought the parent was referring to a filibuster.
- rquantz 13y ago
  I (an American) was having a discussion with some European friends recently, and we had a bit of a disconnect. I was trying to convince them that, contrary to their perceptions (they are fooled by the architecture) the United States is very old, and their countries -- France, in particular, are very young. We in the US have the oldest constitutional democracy in the world, or possibly the second oldest if you misinterpret what the British Parliament was in the 18th Century. We are stuck with a government created by a bunch of agrarian colonists in the 1700s, and most of Europe has governments created in the 20th Century, created with knowledge of the labor movement, high capitalism, and totalitarian movements. And also, they've been able to observe the disasters caused by our pidgin compromise of a political system. Compared to you guys (Swiss Federal Constitution: ratified 1999) we aren't even driving horse and buggies. We're on some wobbly farmer's cart pulled by a mule.