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And what happens when it decreases the number of people who choose to get an education to seek greater opportunities? After all, the thought of perpetual pover

And what happens when it decreases the number of people who choose to get an education to seek greater opportunities? After all, the thought of perpetual poverty is a huge motivator. With that gone? Won't we see a higher divide between skilled and unskilled, rich and poor? I'm a bit skeptical about this supposed panacea that cures crime, disease, and teen pregnancy, all in one fell swoop.

drcube 13y ago
Poverty is a huge cause of crime, disease, teen pregnancy, and poor educational outcomes. Do you disagree? And if someone refuses to get an education or better themselves when given the opportunity, are they somebody you'd like to hire for your company? Better to keep them placated with some minimum of food and shelter so they don't rob you, and save the jobs for the people who want them and will execute to your satisfaction.
- mbesto 13y ago
  I took a criminology class in college and the big takeaway was the supposed statistical correlation between race and crime - which, if study correctly - actually correlates to poverty and crime.
  - DougWebb 13y ago
    That seems to obvious to me, I'm always surprised that more people don't see it that way. I believe that most racism is really classism, and exists primarily in places where race and poverty correlate. Not to say that actual racism doesn't exist; of course it does. But I think when most people think "I'd rather not be around 'those people'", if they thought about it they'd find that 'those people' are really defined by either their culture or economic status, rather than their race, and that their race is just a visually-obvious proxy.
    - mbesto 13y ago
      Well, it's much easier to see someone's skin color than it is their poverty.
lelandbatey 13y ago
Once people reach a livable income, do they totally stop learning, inventing, or creating? I know I don't, and I know other people I see with financial security don't just "stop" either. Because of that, I believe it's at least worth a try.
- cobrausn 13y ago
  My ability to invent and create is limited by my education. If I never got one in the first place because I had my basic needs met, there are quite a few things I could never do that I could now. And 'worth a try' on something this potentially disruptive needs more evidence than wants and feels for me to ever consider it viable. I don't think I'm alone.
  - jchrisa 13y ago
    It seems you'd get more folks w education, not less, if they weren't starving.
  - dragonwriter 13y ago
    > My ability to invent and create is limited by my education. If I never got one in the first place because I had my basic needs met This is wierdly backwards. The people least like to get an education are the people whose basic needs are not met. Its not like people who grow up rich have on average lower levels of educational attainment than those who grow up poor.
- pstuart 13y ago
  I'm sure many would be happy to watch tv all day long. But likely a majority would want to do something with their lives. If we were to do a program like this it should also include free birth control and even the option to sell reproductive rights. I've seen Idiocracy and while it is hyperbolic, I think there are elements of truth there.
- rayiner 13y ago
  No, of course not. But the idea that minimum income would cause everyone to just quit their jobs is predicated on the presumption that the poor are morally inferior. Thus, analogies to what middle and upper class people do once they reach a certain level of income are irrelevant, because those people are not morally inferior. You might see a middle class person leave his comfortable line engineer job to get an MBA or PhD to increase his earning power, but that's a mark of the moral virtue of the middle class. A poor person given any sort of income security would just sit on his ass and eat mcdonalds all day. Or so they say.
moocowduckquack 13y ago
And what happens when it decreases the number of people who choose to get an education to seek greater opportunities? It might free up the courses for those who are passionate about the subject matter instead.
tghw 13y ago
The one real world example we have, of Dauphin, suggests this is not the case at all. A final report was never issued, but Dr. Evelyn Forget conducted an analysis of the program in 2009 which was published in 2011. She found that only new mothers and teenagers worked substantially less. Mothers with newborns stopped working because they wanted to stay at home longer with their babies, and teenagers worked less because they weren't under as much pressure to support their families, which resulted in more teenagers graduating. In addition, those who continued to work were given more opportunities to choose what type of work they did. Forget found that in the period that Mincome was administered, hospital visits dropped 8.5 percent, with fewer incidences of work-related injuries, and fewer emergency room visits from car accidents and domestic abuse. Additionally, the period saw a reduction in rates of psychiatric hospitalization, and in the number of mental illness-related consultations with health professionals.[0] We know that poverty is extremely stressful, and stress leads to all sorts of other negative things. However, there's little evidence showing that poverty provides upward pressure. If we can remove the stress of poverty, people are allowed to start functioning normally. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mincome http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mincome
- cobrausn 13y ago
  The study is interesting, but it was performed in Canada in the 1970s. I would be interested in seeing it performed now in the various 'target markets', with so many more distractions available, especially ones targeted at the teenager who just reached working age (i.e., video games). I really believe we would see different results. EDIT: I play a few video games, hence why I know how distracting they are. Speaking of distractions, I should get back to work...
  - tghw 13y ago
    "Distractions" have existed forever. Comic books, baseball cards, marbles, pogs, etc. have always been around for teenagers to blow their money on and spend way too much time with. Saying that the existence of video games has fundamentally changed the economy as a whole seems wrong. Moreover, if that were the case, we would have already seen it. A mincome wouldn't change that. Yet, right now, teens are one of the most under-employed demographics (as in there are more looking for jobs now than in the past), at least in the US. If they were all distracted by video games, we would have seen fewer looking for work.
nanidin 13y ago
Ideally the income level is below "Owns 42" flatscreen, can go to anything more expensive than McDonald's, owns latest xbox, owns other luxury goods" such that people are no longer living in poverty, but still have motivation to excel beyond their current situation. Unfortunately, if you hand someone with poor money management skills a bunch of cash, they may end up with all of those luxury items & no food on the table.
- cobrausn 13y ago
  Considering how cheap consumer electronics and entertainment are these days, I'm genuinely concerned that this 'minimum income' would be high enough to permit many to live in perpetual 'childhood' - cheap food, cheap entertainment.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - Daishiman 13y ago
    I fail to see the problem when humanity reaps the rewards of automation.
  - mcherm 13y ago
    Why does this concern you? To me, that sounds like hearing someone saying "I'm genuinely concerned that people will start giving their kids strange-sounding names." Sure, it's a bit odd, but so what... it's not affecting you. Maybe you are concerned that they will fail to contribute to the economy, thus dragging it down, but if so then I wonder what you think of our current economic system which leaves a noticeable percentage of people unemployed. Maybe you are motivated by the classic Protestant work ethic and think failing to work hard is a sin, but if so I'm not sure why THIS sin is one you need to worry about in others rather than in yourself. And at this point I should stop knocking down straw men, and wait to hear why this actually concerns you.
    - ahomescu1 13y ago
      > Why does this concern you? To me, that sounds like hearing someone saying "I'm genuinely concerned that people will start giving their kids strange-sounding names." Sure, it's a bit odd, but so what... it's not affecting you. It concerns all taxpayers, since they're the ones paying the bill for basic income.
njharman 13y ago
> to get an education to seek greater opportunities? That, "make mo money", is the poorest and most cynical incentive to "get an education". Education is it's own reward. Not everyone desires/benefits from going into debt for a piece of paper. People should be free (by having basic income) to choose their own education (or not at all). And not be forced into becoming fuel for the economic machine.
- cobrausn 13y ago
  But by providing them a minimum income, you basically make them into fuel for the economic machine - a consumer with no viable skills. And the vital years for gaining these skills are full of distractions, made all the easier to acquire by a basic income.
  - tghw 13y ago
    Look at the Mincome example I posted above. Teens are more likely to graduate high school. Why? Because they aren't pressured to help support their families. This "distraction" theory is a far stretch. Teens have always had distractions. And most of them have the means to acquire those distractions. So they might buy a video game they couldn't afford before. They also don't have to try to go to school and work a full time job to support their family. Having to go to school and work is a much larger distraction.
  - dragonwriter 13y ago
    > But by providing them a minimum income, you basically make them into fuel for the economic machine - a consumer with no viable skills. No, by providing them with a minimum income, you make them into a someone who has the freedom to expend resources to acquire new skills as their existing skills become less relevant, rather than someone chained to their current situation. They may choose to be satisfied with their current situation, but we'd need a lot more productivity from a small slice of the population before the completely unskilled would likely to choose to do so. Under a basic income system, the marginal benefit of additional effort (and, thus, purely financial motivation) is greater than in the status quo system for people who would otherwise be beneficiaries of means-tested social support programs.
makmanalp 13y ago
I think it's the other way round: It's difficult to convince people to get an education when: - It costs money - It's presented as a way to get a profession that could maybe make you money in the long term, and not as a way to get an education. Besides, evidence seems to be to the contrary. - The short term financial benefits are nil, and you need money now. But when people have survival off of their minds, I think it's be easier to convince them of taking a no-risk dive into education. I think consumerism will be there, and people will still be motivated to make more money to spend more money. A bit like the ancient greek free men: They had their lives all set for them, and so they couldn't help but think about governance, politics, arts, rights, etc.
dragonwriter 13y ago
> And what happens when it decreases the number of people who choose to get an education to seek greater opportunities? Why would it do that? > After all, the thought of perpetual poverty is a huge motivator. The threat of absolute poverty may have some marginal value as a motivator, but what it motivates is largely risk-averse behavior to maintain the status quo from those at risk of poverty but not currently in it. At the same time, the reality of poverty often means, regardless of motivation, the absence of the means to many things, regardless of motivation. > With that gone? Won't we see a higher divide between skilled and unskilled, rich and poor? No, if we are funding a basic income guarantee from progressive income taxation, we won't see a greater divide between the rich and the poor, in any case. We might (though I don't see any reason to believe this is particularly likely) see a greater gap in skills between the "skilled" and the "unskilled" by some measures, but as this gap won't produce as large of a gap as currently between the opportunities and choices available to the next generation offspring of the "skilled" and "unskilled", that will simply reflect a greater realization of human freedom.
djur 13y ago
"After all, the thought of perpetual poverty is a huge motivator." Pain, fear, and force are by far the least effective means of motivating labor, and they massively undercut the more effective means (enjoyment of the work, pride in the product of your labor, identification with and emotional investment in the enterprise, etc.). The threat of destitution is not necessary to procure labor, but only to procure it at a bargain rate.
0x09 13y ago
> what happens when it decreases the number of people who choose to get an education ... After all, the thought of perpetual poverty is a huge motivator It's also a catalyst for the kind of lifestyle that quickly stifles further education. As it stands, unskilled, uneducated or partially-educated, non-wealthy individuals often have one realistic option: low-wage, long-hour labor which seems to tend to form a trapping cycle. Now consider for a moment the line of work for (I think it's fair to assume) the majority of users of this site (software development) and the nontrivial number of people in the business who are largely self-educated. It would be silly to promote self-education and free-time online learning as an exact analog to accredited institutional education, but this field in particular presents an interesting case study in individuals simply choosing to get educated in a subject and succeed on their own time. Is it likely that a subset of the population would simply settle for the minimum income lifestyle? Of course. But I'll wager without a second thought that freeing up a large other portion of the population to pursue their interests will in fact raise the number of educated individuals entering the workforce. After all, the promise of a higher standard of living is still a huge motivator with a basic income of only $10,000/year (still below national poverty level.) And societal attitudes towards the former group are not likely to change -- in fact the sense of tax-dollar ownership is liable to increase stigma on nonworking or nontraining individuals. There are no modern examples of such a system to draw concrete conclusions from, so it's all hypothetical in the end. But I think you are looking at it a bit narrowly and missing the greater economic good that could come from removing "basic survival" from the top of the list of concerns of a huge portion of the population.

drcube 13y ago

Poverty is a huge cause of crime, disease, teen pregnancy, and poor educational outcomes. Do you disagree? And if someone refuses to get an education or better themselves when given the opportunity, are they somebody you'd like to hire for your company? Better to keep them placated with some minimum of food and shelter so they don't rob you, and save the jobs for the people who want them and will execute to your satisfaction.

mbesto 13y ago
I took a criminology class in college and the big takeaway was the supposed statistical correlation between race and crime - which, if study correctly - actually correlates to poverty and crime.
- DougWebb 13y ago
  That seems to obvious to me, I'm always surprised that more people don't see it that way. I believe that most racism is really classism, and exists primarily in places where race and poverty correlate. Not to say that actual racism doesn't exist; of course it does. But I think when most people think "I'd rather not be around 'those people'", if they thought about it they'd find that 'those people' are really defined by either their culture or economic status, rather than their race, and that their race is just a visually-obvious proxy.
  - mbesto 13y ago
    Well, it's much easier to see someone's skin color than it is their poverty.

lelandbatey 13y ago

Once people reach a livable income, do they totally stop learning, inventing, or creating? I know I don't, and I know other people I see with financial security don't just "stop" either. Because of that, I believe it's at least worth a try.

cobrausn 13y ago
My ability to invent and create is limited by my education. If I never got one in the first place because I had my basic needs met, there are quite a few things I could never do that I could now. And 'worth a try' on something this potentially disruptive needs more evidence than wants and feels for me to ever consider it viable. I don't think I'm alone.
- jchrisa 13y ago
  It seems you'd get more folks w education, not less, if they weren't starving.
- dragonwriter 13y ago
  > My ability to invent and create is limited by my education. If I never got one in the first place because I had my basic needs met This is wierdly backwards. The people least like to get an education are the people whose basic needs are not met. Its not like people who grow up rich have on average lower levels of educational attainment than those who grow up poor.
pstuart 13y ago
I'm sure many would be happy to watch tv all day long. But likely a majority would want to do something with their lives. If we were to do a program like this it should also include free birth control and even the option to sell reproductive rights. I've seen Idiocracy and while it is hyperbolic, I think there are elements of truth there.
rayiner 13y ago
No, of course not. But the idea that minimum income would cause everyone to just quit their jobs is predicated on the presumption that the poor are morally inferior. Thus, analogies to what middle and upper class people do once they reach a certain level of income are irrelevant, because those people are not morally inferior. You might see a middle class person leave his comfortable line engineer job to get an MBA or PhD to increase his earning power, but that's a mark of the moral virtue of the middle class. A poor person given any sort of income security would just sit on his ass and eat mcdonalds all day. Or so they say.

moocowduckquack 13y ago

And what happens when it decreases the number of people who choose to get an education to seek greater opportunities? It might free up the courses for those who are passionate about the subject matter instead.

tghw 13y ago

The one real world example we have, of Dauphin, suggests this is not the case at all. A final report was never issued, but Dr. Evelyn Forget conducted an analysis of the program in 2009 which was published in 2011. She found that only new mothers and teenagers worked substantially less. Mothers with newborns stopped working because they wanted to stay at home longer with their babies, and teenagers worked less because they weren't under as much pressure to support their families, which resulted in more teenagers graduating. In addition, those who continued to work were given more opportunities to choose what type of work they did. Forget found that in the period that Mincome was administered, hospital visits dropped 8.5 percent, with fewer incidences of work-related injuries, and fewer emergency room visits from car accidents and domestic abuse. Additionally, the period saw a reduction in rates of psychiatric hospitalization, and in the number of mental illness-related consultations with health professionals.[0] We know that poverty is extremely stressful, and stress leads to all sorts of other negative things. However, there's little evidence showing that poverty provides upward pressure. If we can remove the stress of poverty, people are allowed to start functioning normally. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mincome http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mincome

cobrausn 13y ago
The study is interesting, but it was performed in Canada in the 1970s. I would be interested in seeing it performed now in the various 'target markets', with so many more distractions available, especially ones targeted at the teenager who just reached working age (i.e., video games). I really believe we would see different results. EDIT: I play a few video games, hence why I know how distracting they are. Speaking of distractions, I should get back to work...
- tghw 13y ago
  "Distractions" have existed forever. Comic books, baseball cards, marbles, pogs, etc. have always been around for teenagers to blow their money on and spend way too much time with. Saying that the existence of video games has fundamentally changed the economy as a whole seems wrong. Moreover, if that were the case, we would have already seen it. A mincome wouldn't change that. Yet, right now, teens are one of the most under-employed demographics (as in there are more looking for jobs now than in the past), at least in the US. If they were all distracted by video games, we would have seen fewer looking for work.

nanidin 13y ago

Ideally the income level is below "Owns 42" flatscreen, can go to anything more expensive than McDonald's, owns latest xbox, owns other luxury goods" such that people are no longer living in poverty, but still have motivation to excel beyond their current situation. Unfortunately, if you hand someone with poor money management skills a bunch of cash, they may end up with all of those luxury items & no food on the table.

cobrausn 13y ago
Considering how cheap consumer electronics and entertainment are these days, I'm genuinely concerned that this 'minimum income' would be high enough to permit many to live in perpetual 'childhood' - cheap food, cheap entertainment.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- Daishiman 13y ago
  I fail to see the problem when humanity reaps the rewards of automation.
- mcherm 13y ago
  Why does this concern you? To me, that sounds like hearing someone saying "I'm genuinely concerned that people will start giving their kids strange-sounding names." Sure, it's a bit odd, but so what... it's not affecting you. Maybe you are concerned that they will fail to contribute to the economy, thus dragging it down, but if so then I wonder what you think of our current economic system which leaves a noticeable percentage of people unemployed. Maybe you are motivated by the classic Protestant work ethic and think failing to work hard is a sin, but if so I'm not sure why THIS sin is one you need to worry about in others rather than in yourself. And at this point I should stop knocking down straw men, and wait to hear why this actually concerns you.
  - ahomescu1 13y ago
    > Why does this concern you? To me, that sounds like hearing someone saying "I'm genuinely concerned that people will start giving their kids strange-sounding names." Sure, it's a bit odd, but so what... it's not affecting you. It concerns all taxpayers, since they're the ones paying the bill for basic income.

njharman 13y ago

> to get an education to seek greater opportunities? That, "make mo money", is the poorest and most cynical incentive to "get an education". Education is it's own reward. Not everyone desires/benefits from going into debt for a piece of paper. People should be free (by having basic income) to choose their own education (or not at all). And not be forced into becoming fuel for the economic machine.

cobrausn 13y ago
But by providing them a minimum income, you basically make them into fuel for the economic machine - a consumer with no viable skills. And the vital years for gaining these skills are full of distractions, made all the easier to acquire by a basic income.
- tghw 13y ago
  Look at the Mincome example I posted above. Teens are more likely to graduate high school. Why? Because they aren't pressured to help support their families. This "distraction" theory is a far stretch. Teens have always had distractions. And most of them have the means to acquire those distractions. So they might buy a video game they couldn't afford before. They also don't have to try to go to school and work a full time job to support their family. Having to go to school and work is a much larger distraction.
- dragonwriter 13y ago
  > But by providing them a minimum income, you basically make them into fuel for the economic machine - a consumer with no viable skills. No, by providing them with a minimum income, you make them into a someone who has the freedom to expend resources to acquire new skills as their existing skills become less relevant, rather than someone chained to their current situation. They may choose to be satisfied with their current situation, but we'd need a lot more productivity from a small slice of the population before the completely unskilled would likely to choose to do so. Under a basic income system, the marginal benefit of additional effort (and, thus, purely financial motivation) is greater than in the status quo system for people who would otherwise be beneficiaries of means-tested social support programs.

makmanalp 13y ago

I think it's the other way round: It's difficult to convince people to get an education when: - It costs money - It's presented as a way to get a profession that could maybe make you money in the long term, and not as a way to get an education. Besides, evidence seems to be to the contrary. - The short term financial benefits are nil, and you need money now. But when people have survival off of their minds, I think it's be easier to convince them of taking a no-risk dive into education. I think consumerism will be there, and people will still be motivated to make more money to spend more money. A bit like the ancient greek free men: They had their lives all set for them, and so they couldn't help but think about governance, politics, arts, rights, etc.

dragonwriter 13y ago

> And what happens when it decreases the number of people who choose to get an education to seek greater opportunities? Why would it do that? > After all, the thought of perpetual poverty is a huge motivator. The threat of absolute poverty may have some marginal value as a motivator, but what it motivates is largely risk-averse behavior to maintain the status quo from those at risk of poverty but not currently in it. At the same time, the reality of poverty often means, regardless of motivation, the absence of the means to many things, regardless of motivation. > With that gone? Won't we see a higher divide between skilled and unskilled, rich and poor? No, if we are funding a basic income guarantee from progressive income taxation, we won't see a greater divide between the rich and the poor, in any case. We might (though I don't see any reason to believe this is particularly likely) see a greater gap in skills between the "skilled" and the "unskilled" by some measures, but as this gap won't produce as large of a gap as currently between the opportunities and choices available to the next generation offspring of the "skilled" and "unskilled", that will simply reflect a greater realization of human freedom.

djur 13y ago

"After all, the thought of perpetual poverty is a huge motivator." Pain, fear, and force are by far the least effective means of motivating labor, and they massively undercut the more effective means (enjoyment of the work, pride in the product of your labor, identification with and emotional investment in the enterprise, etc.). The threat of destitution is not necessary to procure labor, but only to procure it at a bargain rate.

0x09 13y ago

> what happens when it decreases the number of people who choose to get an education ... After all, the thought of perpetual poverty is a huge motivator It's also a catalyst for the kind of lifestyle that quickly stifles further education. As it stands, unskilled, uneducated or partially-educated, non-wealthy individuals often have one realistic option: low-wage, long-hour labor which seems to tend to form a trapping cycle. Now consider for a moment the line of work for (I think it's fair to assume) the majority of users of this site (software development) and the nontrivial number of people in the business who are largely self-educated. It would be silly to promote self-education and free-time online learning as an exact analog to accredited institutional education, but this field in particular presents an interesting case study in individuals simply choosing to get educated in a subject and succeed on their own time. Is it likely that a subset of the population would simply settle for the minimum income lifestyle? Of course. But I'll wager without a second thought that freeing up a large other portion of the population to pursue their interests will in fact raise the number of educated individuals entering the workforce. After all, the promise of a higher standard of living is still a huge motivator with a basic income of only $10,000/year (still below national poverty level.) And societal attitudes towards the former group are not likely to change -- in fact the sense of tax-dollar ownership is liable to increase stigma on nonworking or nontraining individuals. There are no modern examples of such a system to draw concrete conclusions from, so it's all hypothetical in the end. But I think you are looking at it a bit narrowly and missing the greater economic good that could come from removing "basic survival" from the top of the list of concerns of a huge portion of the population.