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New dutch political party wants € 1,000 basic income for everyone
- namenotrequired 13y agoClickable link to original (Dutch): http://www.hetkanwel.net/2013/10/22/nieuwe-politieke-partij-wil-e1-000-basisinkomen-voor-iedereen/ http://www.hetkanwel.net/2013/10/22/nieuwe-politieke-partij-...
- LaurensBER 13y agoFor comparison, Dutch students receive between 200-400 euro monthly (and do pay a heavily discounted 1800 euro college tuition), "bijstand" (which is sort of a last resort income) is 600-700 euro, unemployment compensation is 70% of the last earned wage for a limited amount of months. People above the 65 receive a "basic income" called "AOW" (algemene ouderdoms wet) which is between 750 and 1400 euros (in addition to a pension). Minimum wage for a fulltime job is around 1400 euro (1200-1300 after taxes). A starts position for someone without college pays around 10-13 euro per hour before taxes. With the current high un-employment numbers a lot of students and young people have to life on a income of 400-800 euro per month which is incredible tight. 1000 euro is a lot of money, I guess I could support something like a 400-600 "basic income" with strong incentive for people to work. Then again the AOW is incredible high and although I do support the idea behind it I do wonder how we're going to support AOW payments with the coming demographic shift.
- guerrilla 13y agoThe situation is somewhat similar in Sweden, especially regarding the 'bijstand.' In our case, you'd have to re-apply each month and they would audit your spending for the previous 3 months (so that, for example, you didn't spend it all on alcohol or an Xbox.) It's also not a fixed sum but based on what they consider necessary, but beyond what I know about U.S. (specifically, California) welfare. This is not the same as unemployment benefits, but, as you say is a last resort. Unemployment benefits here are given on the condition that you show that you are currently applying to jobs. We used to get a few of these applications at our old office. People would come who weren't remotely relevant to the job, but did it just to keep getting the payments, so that's something to think consider when you mention "with strong incentive for people to work." Thanks for explaining the overall situation. I wish I knew more about Sweden's but maybe someone else can post Sweden's corresponding information with details.
- david927 13y agoThis is huge: this definitely seems to be the seeds of a real movement and, if so, it would be one of the most important movements of our lifetime.
- mh_yam 13y agoCommunist countries tried to do this in the 20th century and failed.
- jotm 13y agoReally? You're gonna compare this to those pathetic excuses for communism?
- aredington 13y agoCommunist countries dictated by political fiat where labor resources were allocated, what industries would be engaged in, and how the capitalized wealth of the country would be reinvested. They didn't just go around giving everyone an income that kept them from living in a gutter.
- InclinedPlane 13y agoThat's a facile and inapt comparison that does not aid this discussion.
- nutate 13y agoI thought communism (theoretically) was more similar to a universal shared maximum income.
- jerf 13y agoVery, very theoretically. Communism definitely had many people much more equal than others. It seems that if you hand over all the power to a glorious central authority they will, you know, use it.
- MikusR 13y agoWhich ones?
- ck2 13y agoWe've discussed this here before. I like to think I am progressive but I think this is the wrong approach. Costs will rise to the minimum that everyone is known to afford (or higher to deny the minimum income). So rent will go up, food costs will go up, clothing etc. You are just transfering wealth from the state to a few individuals who own property and own chain stores. Better to have rent control and other cost-of-living regulation.
- rjtavares 13y agoI feel the complete opposite. Rent/price controls never worked well (too many unintended consequences), it's time to try something new.
- tomp 13y agoYou might be right, but your reasoning is not good. Only in a (local) minimum you can improve by choosing any direction; otherwise, you might go down as well as up. If rent/price controls are not working, it doesn't follow that basic income will improve the social inequality and reduce poverty.
- anExcitedBeast 13y agoIt's stunning how much rhetoric is founded in the politician's syllogism.
- rjtavares 13y agoThink of it this way: we're near a local optimal point using the current policies, and we're not going to dramatically improve if we just keep using a gradient descent type algorithm. It's time to start fresh and aim for a global optimum instead of just the local one we've been living with for so long. Is it guaranteed that we'll find it? No. Is it worth it? In my opinion, yes.
- bolder88 13y agoThere's trying something new, and there's complete idiocy. This is the latter. It's dangerous and very worrying that people are trying to repeat mistakes.
- GotAnyMegadeth 13y agoI think this is a good idea. However, this does seem dangerous for drug addicts.
- guerrilla 13y agoI think you have a unique and relative point there. This is going to be one interesting social experiment.
- efdee 13y agoThe Netherlands has a rather liberal drug policy, and because of that, considerably less drug addicts than other European countries. Also, addicts will be addicts. I'd rather they get the money than steal it or kill for it.
- lprubin 13y agoGoogle translate gave me this gem: "Even the Republican Nixon was a form of basic income."
- namenotrequired 13y agoHaha, yes it does funny things with some sentences. :) The original text uses a relatively rare dutch way to phrase that the Republican Nixon was in favour of a certain type of basic income. Similarly, the dutch expression that's oddly translated here to "with straw money" would perhaps be better translated as "throwing money around".
- ck2 13y agoWhat is more funny (or less in that it is sad) is that by today's standards for Republicans, Nixon was a liberal.
- padwan 13y agoChristian Engström Pirate MEP (Sweden) has been talking about this for a couple of years already http://translate.google.se/translate?hl=sv&sl=sv&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fchristianengstrom.wordpress.com%2F2011%2F11%2F20%2Fmedborgarlon-ar-effektivt-for-samhallet-2%2F http://translate.google.se/translate?hl=sv&sl=sv&tl=en&u=htt... http://translate.google.se/translate?hl=sv&sl=sv&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fchristianengstrom.wordpress.com%2Fcategory%2Fmedborgarlon%2F http://translate.google.se/translate?hl=sv&sl=sv&tl=en&u=htt...
- AndrewDucker 13y agoI'd be very happy to replace unemployment benefit/welfare with this - and then to remove the income tax allowance, so that people pay income tax on everything they have over it. This instantly removes the "benefit trap" whereby earning can make you worse off.
- mberning 13y agoI agree with you and with the idea of unconditional basic income, but I would only support it if means tested welfare were completely eliminated and the basic income amount were inflation indexed to a broad spectrum of consumer goods.
- AndrewDucker 13y agoI'd settle for indexing it to median salary. Say at 24% or 33% of it.
- tocomment 13y agoI'd say to index it to GDP.
- bolder88 13y agoIt also instantly removes the concept of personal responsibility, or any incentive to try. Communism failed. Remember? Why bother getting a job when you can just vote in whichever party is going to raise the 'basic income' the most? Why bother, as a political party, with having good solid policies that will benefit everyone, when you can just bribe the electorate with money, by promising to raise the 'basic income' paid for by future debt!
- michalu 13y agoHere we go, already declining Europe turning even more socialist. The problem is that most countries in Europe are not like Switzerland where the common culture is economically educated and work oriented. If this passes in Switzerland or Netherlands it may actually work, but if it spreads to and passes in e.g France, Spain or some post communist countries in EU it may lead to completely different outcome and EU economies are increasingly co-dependent. Even worse thing is that there is a lot of populism in Europe spreading lately, I fear this will be quickly adopted as a tool to get more voters in countries that respond to populism well, eventually gaining support for economically illiterate parties.
- InclinedPlane 13y agoTurning socialist... Have you any concept of the percentage of GDP that most European governments take in through taxation or on what sort of programs that money tends to be spent? Europe has already been socialist for a long time, some places much more so than others.
- danieldk 13y agoHere we go, already declining Europe turning even more socialist. This almost feels like an insult. The modern capitalist wellfare state as it is implemented in The Netherlands, Germany, and Scandinavia have given the population at large huge and equal opportunities. It's actually the solidarity that have given such a wide group a high education. Spain and communist countries were recent authoritarian states. It is not surprising that haven't been able to gain as much resilience yet. The countries that are doing badly are countries that are corrupt, lived on EU subsidies for decades, or are strangled by unions. (In fact, it's funny that you mention Spain, since it had one of the lower levels of social expenditure.)
- Bojangly2000 13y agoListen to this: http://podcasts.tvo.org//bi/audio/2076107_48k.mp3 http://podcasts.tvo.org//bi/audio/2076107_48k.mp3
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- mbesto 13y agoI assume this is akin to Milton Friedman's negative tax: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtpgkX588nM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtpgkX588nM I think it's brilliant. The major issue would be how to do a transition to it and what the "magic number" is.
- digitalengineer 13y agoI agree. However, this will never happen. Our Dutch society is entrenched with 'big governement' on a scale a US citizen could not grasp. Such a proposal would delete most cival servants (and their contractors). Wikipedia: "While the private sector is the cornerstone of the Dutch economy, governments at different levels have a large part to play... In addition to its own spending, the government plays a significant role through the permit requirements and regulations pertaining to almost every aspect of economic activity. "
- aninhumer 13y agoAs I understand it, a negative tax can be used to implement basic income, but more typically refers to schemes which only give money to those on low incomes. Basic income is argued to be preferable, because it's simpler to administer and minimises the poverty trap.
- a8da6b0c91d 13y agoThe major issue, as Milton Friedman noted, is you can't have such social systems and substantial immigration. It's one or the other. Western elites seem to much prefer importing millions of people over anything like solid nets.
- rangibaby 13y agoI think that this is a great idea. I would rather people got their $1,000 and stayed at home playing with their kids or studying on Udacity (or watching movies and eating junk food) than flipping burgers for 12h a day.
- Symmetry 13y agoI would be totally in favor of a basic income as long as it was a replacement for (some of) unemployment insurance and the minimum wage. We as a society really want people to have an incentive to work and don't want to price out people who are only marginally employable, but we also want to help poor people. There is some disincentive effect to a basic income since working for $6/hour when the alternative is nothing is more alluring than when the alternative is just getting by on the basic income. But on the gripping hand, it's ridiculously simple to administer and doesn't have breaking points like other policies. I think that people consistancy underrate the importance of simplicity in government programs, especially in democracies where voter attention is often the binding constraint on good policy. And if robots do eventually replace human labor - something I'd say is unlikely but possible, then we'll be needing something like this.
- guerrilla 13y agoRobots may not replace human labor, but a combination of automation and outsourcing to another nation could significantly reduce the required labor for the original nation.
- neals 13y agoDutch guy here. Would totally spend all my time on OSS development, I can already live of 1,000 a month. Let's make this happen :)
- david927 13y agoI agree -- and I think the amount of innovation that would happen would be unprecedented. I'm deeply disappointed in HN, that it killed this discussion. This is one of the most important ideas around.
- neals 13y agoIndeed, if I think of how much time I waste working on project that the world doesn't need... so many people could spend so much more time on things (also out side of software development) that matter more.
- eterps 13y agoAs another dutch guy, I agree completely.
- kfk 13y agoEconomic growth has historically brought much more wellness and brought up more people from poorness than any kind of State initiative. Let's keep this in mind when reading these news. What we are doing here is saying that taxing more the "rich" and giving to the "poor" brings more wealth than leaving these money to who earned it for investing. Edit. Please, do remember that disagreeing!=down voting
- quinnchr 13y agoNo sorry. The labor movement and state initiatives have brought much more wellness and brought up much more people from poorness than any kind of investor. Also, historically speaking, state initiatives have created the most economic growth.
- kfk 13y agoPlease, go look at the charts of GDP and GDP per capita growth and see it yourself. What we need is growth. Look at our public loans. We have been betting for _decades_ that we would grow more than we are. What do you think will happen if we miss the growth bet with an aging population in need of expensive health care?
- quinnchr 13y agoLooking at GDP per capita over the past century it looks like it rises sharply around WWII and there is a slight rise in the 80s, but for the most part it has steady growth. Considering WWII and the 80s saw the highest increases in deficit spending, I think that just proves my point?
- kingmanaz 13y agoThe Netherlands may wish to reevaluate its immigration policies before subsidizing citizenship. There are many billions of people in the world who are not being paid to reside in their respective nations. A basic income coupled with open borders would likely act as a draw for further economic migration.
- ramblerman 13y agoI have always found this to be the deep irony embedded in socialism. Let's make things really nice and humane. But only for the people born between these lines. You could argue that globalization and a true free market don't make this nationalistic distinction, and are in essence fairer to the human population on a whole.
- bsbechtel 13y agoThis won't work. Prices will rise because ultimately there won't be enough supply to satisfy the increased demand of goods required at the most basic level of living. The only way to help the poor and unemployed is to find innovative ways to increase supply, which will lower the cost of producing said goods. This is why, in the United States, even the poorest citizens have access to food and housing - our government subsidizes the production of these products, which spurs an increase in supply and lowers the price.
- lumberjack 13y agoWhy would the demand for basic goods change? The poor are are already getting fed and clothed in much the same way as they would on basic income.
- bsbechtel 13y agoBecause it puts an extra $1,000 in everyone's pocket, not just the poor, so everyone will have additional money to spend on higher quality goods, driving up demand along the entire spectrum of price/quality for a given item. I'm not a huge fan of subsidies because it distorts international markets and hurts other countries (mainly poor ones), but a better alternative might be to give large corporations a tax incentive to pay their minimum wage workers more, or provide them with additional benefits. Redistribution of wealth through the government is a great idea in theory, but it eventually breaks because you get a crooked politician in office or someone who can't manage the redistribution program effectively, as we're seeing in the US (look at our current debt problem). Plus, redistribution programs involve the government, which is an unnecessary step and complicates the process. If you encourage corporations to just pay their employees more, governments don't need to 'tax the rich' to 'feed the poor'.
- tekalon 13y agoI think if this was implemented in the US, the best way to do it would be to include a mandatory financial education class every x time (one a year, every quarter, etc). Have it online or at local community (YMCA, library, etc). If I had an extra 1k coming in every month, I would totally put all of it back into blasted student loans. How many would love to be able to have it go directly to student loans, mortgage/rent payments, car/credit/other loans? Get rid of a majority of the personal debt in the country, see a boom in the economy. Teach everyone (children and adults) how to save for education, emergency, health, retirement, large purchases- healthy economy.