16 ms·

A universal income is not such a silly idea

• LekkoscPiwa 13y ago
  I'm always shocked how otherwise very rational and logical people tend to be "communists". It is one of the things that lets me down when reading comments on HN. So sophisticated as far as hard science goes, so naive and just - plain dumb - in terms of humanities. Ever heard of inflation? If you give basic income to everyone what happens to the prices of everything? So the ROI on this is extremely limited and the price inflation will kill any benefit. But still for some people rising prices with real unemployment at 15% is a good thing!
  • gnaritas 13y ago
    I'm always shocked how otherwise very rational and logical people tend think every socialist idea is communist and don't seem to know what communist actually means. > Ever heard of inflation? Yes, have you? > If you give basic income to everyone what happens to the prices of everything? I don't think you know how inflation works. Basic income doesn't increase the money supply, it's income redistribution, not money printing. Wealth is taken from those with excessive amounts and given to the rest. It's also not communism.
    • LekkoscPiwa 13y ago
      money printing is inflation.
      • jonknee 13y ago
        And? No one is suggesting that money would be printed.
        • LekkoscPiwa 13y ago
          2008 - 2012 money supply doubled. This means 100% inflation in long term - guaranteed. Who would care about their suggestions. Look at their actions and track record.
      • pacofvf 13y ago
        no, money printing is not inflation, money printing may cause inflation, income redistribution on the other hand is what is proposed and actually it is already happening(welfare programs, etc.), this basic income thing just wants to make it more efficient, it can even save us money!
        • LekkoscPiwa 13y ago
          so if everybody is given 1,000,000 CHF we will just end up suddenly millionaires, huh? Socialists "logic" never stops entertaining me.
      • gnaritas 13y ago
        Basic income is not money printing, it's wealth redistribution from the rich to the poor. Secondly, money printing is not inflation, but may cause it. Inflation is a rise in overall prices of goods and services.
        • LekkoscPiwa 13y ago
          Money printing is inflation because it will always end up in prices of goods and services. It's just a question of "when" and not "if". Secondly, if you take money from the rich who would invest it to someone who will just spend it -- how this economically makes any sense is beyond me. We spent too much - that's how we got into the crisis. Now it is time to save & invest. Not to destroy savings and investments. And thirdly, there are no poor in Switzerland, period. There might be some lazy young people who don't like to work and if their numbers are high enough and their parents are sympathetic to them, you are dealing with big group that you want to please before elections. So trying to make it economically sound (when it isn't!) is just pure propaganda for naive do-gooders.
      • chongli 13y ago
        And money printing devalues the money of the rich and distributes it to the poor.
        • LekkoscPiwa 13y ago
          It devalues money of the rich and of the poor. However, the poor suffer more in inflationary environment. If you spend 80% of your paycheck on housing and food, 30% inflation means you can't even provide to yourself. When you are rich end spent 8% income on housing and food, 30% increase will mean, now you spent just 10.5% of your income on housing and food. You need also to understand that rich benefit greatly from inflation because inflation will show up also in stock market prices (rich own stock), real estate prices (rich own real estate for rent), etc. Inflation is always poor getting poorer and rich getting richer.
• twoodfin 13y ago
  Can we stop putting these "universal income" posts on the front page until someone has something genuinely new to say about the idea or there's some news about an actual implementation?
  • LogicalBorg 13y ago
    I had a genuinely new idea this morning. Paying people for idleness increases idleness, which isn't necessarily good for the recipient. Why not pay them instead for doing things that make their life individually or collectively better? * Pay them for taking and passing college classes. * Pay them for losing weight and getting their BMI to an acceptable level that reduces collective health care costs. * Pay them for giving up smoking, drugs, or drinking or not starting. * Pay them to drive more safely. * Pay them for art appreciation. * Pay them to adopt children and make their lives better. This is an alternative to the model where everyone works for a living. It produces non-work social good that is to the benefit of the recipient and the society they live in.
    • pgsandstrom 13y ago
      Interesting thought! But then we are back to the huge bureaucratic system that needs to reinforce all those rules. Also, several of those ideas sounds very exploitable.
      • LogicalBorg 13y ago
        They're just a brainstorm. The simplest and most effective would probably be measuring BMI for rewards. It could put some brakes on the obesity epidemic. Being paid to do nothing isn't exploitable, because there are no rules, but that doesn't necessary make it better, because there is no connection between effort and reward.
      • sejje 13y ago
        True, but some of them are easily automated. College credits, safe driving. I think they were all just examples, so perhaps other examples that could be automated could be substituted. Beyond that, probably less exploitable than the current welfare system (in America), and with less reward.
• wanda 13y ago
  Can we stop putting these "universal income" posts on the front page.
  • marco-fiset 13y ago
    Actually, we don't put them on the front page, they get upvoted until they land here. That means there is some interest for to this post and may lead to great discussions.
  • etfb 13y ago
    Post something, Wanda. Stop complaining that the people who are doing what you're not doing are more successful at it.
• hatu 13y ago
  In a country with it's own currency, wouldn't this just raise prices until finally the effect would be being back to step 1 but with huge inflation. I.e. I'm selling bread for $3. Now I get $1500 free money every month and I know you do too. I'm selling bread for $6 because I know everyone has extra money lying around and since I have extra money I don't really care if people buy less from me.
  • martin-adams 13y ago
    I used to wonder what would happen if everyone in the UK got £1m given to them as a one off payment. We'd all be millionaires but poor as each other.
    • witek 13y ago
      Emigrate? I guess that could be the problem with universal income as well. You get £20k p.a. for doing nothing, so maybe you'll be doing nothing on a beach in Asia?
    • Ntrails 13y ago
      You are missing the point here, in your example when new money is created (to be able to hand it to everyone) you simply devalue currency and create inflation. Universal income is not being generated out of thin air by the government, it is being generated by tax. Therefore you will not find hyper inflation of the form you suggest.
      • martin-adams 13y ago
        Well, the point I was getting to is how to approach such an effect through a thought experiment. I agree that my scenario is very different, but it's about the short and long term effects. You're right, my example would probably devalue the currency and create inflation, but what would happen as a result. Would prices go up within days, weeks year. What about wages and tax. How long would the rate of increase last.
  • bwanab 13y ago
    There's this side concept called competition. If you sell your bread for $6 because you think the market can afford it, but the vendor next door continues to sell for $3 you go broke. I didn't always see eye to eye with Milton Friedman, but I think we can give him credit that he'd thought through the obvious problems with this approach before he proposed it.
• pothibo 13y ago
  I haven't studied economics long enough to be an expert in the field, but doesn't a universal income drive inflation up? It's basically the same as a minimum hourly wage that keeps going up to follow the inflation, it's always a catch up game and organization fighting for minimum hourly wage always say it's insufficient. Maybe an economic alumni could enlighten me?
  • Mikeb85 13y ago
    Not necessarily. Inflation is caused by several things, but mostly an increase in the money supply. If a universal income is paid for with tax money, then the money supply stays the same and it shouldn't have much effect on inflation. If it's paid for by printing money, then yes, it will contribute to high inflation. (very basic explanation, there are other factors that may cause inflation, but money supply is the big one)
• netcan 13y ago
  Rather than these posts discussing universal basic income in abstract, I would like to see someone go through a back of the envelope scenario for a real country that might try it. Switzerland or some other European country. Presumably there would need to be major changes to income tax brackets (especially for the lower income tiers) & dismantling of various existing welfare programs in order to fund a basic income. I think Friedman included public services like schools, public transport, health services, etc in his definition of welfare. I doubt Europeans would go this far. Then we can discuss the more speculative parts like who will be more or less incentivized to work. Is there something like that on the internet?
  • ansimionescu 13y ago
    Very good point. After all, we all know how sometimes wonderful ideas can turn out badly [1]. [1] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communism
    • dmix 13y ago
      Socialism was a good idea, maybe an unrealistic one in many respects. Whereas Communism via "Vanguard-party" was always a bad idea. Pretty much all of communist countries never got past the Vanguard transitional stage and ended up with a brutal dictatorship.
      • summerdown2 13y ago
        I think socialism has worked pretty well in the UK, all things considered. We've never gone the whole hog, but we have had a welfare state and a number of industries nationalised at various times. I rather like having a mixed economy where some elements of capitalism are balanced by socialism.
    • sjtrny 13y ago
      It's only turned out badly when countries tried to leap from agricultural to communism without the capitalist/industrial intermediary stage.
    • 13y ago
• ck2 13y ago
  It's not a silly idea at all but I like to think of myself as progressive and I think it is a very bad idea in reality vs on paper. Just look at how college costs magically rise to the availability of loans and grants. What do you think is going to happen to food and rent prices once those supply chains figure out there is much more profit to be made? The Walton family alone has more wealth then the lower 42% rest of the USA. What do you think is going to happen when they know all their customers have a certain base income - you think prices are going to stay where they are? So you will just make the wealthy more wealthy.
  • jamesaguilar 13y ago
    Presumably a lot of the potential profit would be taxed to fund this basic income guarantee. In any case, it seems like your argument boils down to "Better not let poor people buy food, in case the price of food rises," which I think fails without significant deeper examination.
    • ck2 13y ago
      Nope, I say make sure poor people have that basic income. You don't have to give it to everyone. I live in a low income neighborhood - you can clearly see the difference in generational poverty and how help is needed. You also can fix the problem by making sure that corporations like Walmart do not rely on their employees getting foodstamps as part of their income as a business model. It is a very unlevel playing field when entire cities are funding the "low prices".
      • drcube 13y ago
        Means testing is a lot of bureaucracy for less effectiveness. Giving everyone a basic income eliminates those issues.
      • brazzy 13y ago
        > Nope, I say make sure poor people have that basic income. > You don't have to give it to everyone. Then it's not a basic income. Giving it to everyone, period, is the defining characteristic of a basic income, and what makes it different than welfare. Proponents believe it to be a superior model because it eliminates a lot of beaurocracy, bad incentives and paternalistic structures that communicate to poor people that they're inferior and might as well not even try to improve themselves.
• ayush66 13y ago
  1. The title is misleading. 2. Are you guys talking in the context of the US, or globally? Different implications based on the two different scenarios. PS: Studied and study economics.
• draugadrotten 13y ago
  Meanwhile, Europe apart from Switzerland is busy building thicker walls around Fortress Europa. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/01/razor-wire-divide-morocco-melilla-inhumane http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/01/razor-wire-divi... http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/asylum-policy-and-treatment-of-refugees-in-the-european-union-a-926939.html http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/asylum-policy-and...
  • amerika_blog 13y ago
    Good. Immigration contributes to overpopulation, both by importing new people and causing replacement breeding in the emigrant nation.
    • pmr_ 13y ago
      But there is no overpopulation in Europe in terms of land availability or food supply (Europe's population density is 72 person/sqkm, the last famine was during WWII and not even then widespread). Sure, population density is very high in urban centers but there is still plenty of space in the country side. It just needs more incentives to be settled. So 'importing new people' really isn't a problem. I cannot find any information on 'Replacement breeding in the emigrant nation' so I really cannot say anything about the validity of this statement. Could you provide a source? EDIT: Fixed sqm to sqkm. Elaborated second paragraph.
      • amerika_blog 13y ago
        http://www.overpopulation.org/immigration.html http://www.overpopulation.org/immigration.html Your first sentence is a logical error, since overpopulation is measured worldwide.
        • pmr_ 13y ago
          You said that both things ('importing new people and replacement breeding') contribute to overpopulation. Importing new people can only contribute to overpopulation if you consider it locally. If you consider it globally moving X people from A to B cannot possibly directly affect the total amount of people in A and B. I considered overpopulation only in Europe and not globally because neither did you.
• hpy_thksgvngzzz 13y ago
  The reason universal income works for the Swiss is because they are the Swiss. There are many countries and cultures and people for which it would not work, at the very least not until some unknown time period required for adjustment, and even then only if conditions were right. This is why (fiscally-liberal-supported) universal healthcare (and subsequently why Obamacare has flunked so far, because they wanted to promise universal healthcare and had to settle for a crappy healthcare marketplace that only a layer and more red tape to add to the overhead and cost of providing healthcase) and (fiscally-conservative-supported) fair tax initiatives would not work in the U.S.; because much of the economy, social norms, etc. are based upon it NOT being set up that way. Status-quo is the best fiscal option. And to everyone complaining that universal income would add to inflation, I'd like to add that I hope you are also not a fan of quantitative easing that we've done that will royally screw the U.S. in the future. We are now in "heavy experimental mode where we don't know what will happen", according to Ivy league experts on economic matters.
• PaulJoslin 13y ago
  The thing I genuinely don't understand regarding the basic income for all argument is that surely it just moves the goal posts rather than solves the problem at hand? In the current system, you can go stay at home and get income support, which should provide you with the basics i.e. a home, food, electricity etc. If you would like more than this, you can go and get a job and hopefully earn more (have a better lifestyle) than staying at home not working. [Note the 'should' and 'hopefully' - This system may not always work, but when it doesn't it's generally a fault with wages paid not being sufficient rather than the benefits system being broken] This therefore means there is an incentive to go work. There is also control, to make sure the money the unemployed person is getting is mostly spent on the basics (such as housing, rather than say drugs). The problem with suddenly giving everyone a minimum amount of money, is that due to everyone now 'at least' having that amount of money at hand, this becomes the new 'bottom' of the market. If I get a job, I earn money on top of this basic amount, which means I can afford nice things and the person unemployed still can't afford anything. To clarify, this works similar to pricing of items in different markets. A beer in the UK is ~£3.50 (£5 in London), a beer in Vietnam is about 14 pence. Both costs are fairly relative to what they would have to pay their work force to produce the item (plus cover costs and make a profit) and what the local market can afford to pay. If let's hypothetically say, you gave everyone in Vietnam this basic wage, the cost of beer would not remain at 14 pence. The first reason is because the work force would find their existing pay negligible compared to the basic pay (so wages would have to rise to be incentive to work on top of basic pay) which would in turn cause cost of manufacturing to rise, but also the market would realise with this extra money available - the price could be set higher and would rise accordingly. Now back in the UK if this was to occur, you would have slight price rises due to these factors which would in affect move the poverty line up higher, which would mean the people at the bottom are still poor relatively. What's worse is that assuming the people who are unemployed are given the choice on how that money is spent, they may in fact not spend the money sensibly (i.e. on their housing) and end up homeless instead. The final problem with this model is that the cost of living and economic output is not evenly distributed throughout a country. £1750 a month in northern England may give you a fantastic lifestyle, where as in London you'd barely cover your rent. (What happens to the unemployed in London in a fixed give everyone a basic income situation? They have to leave London and move where they can afford, which then makes it potentially harder to find a job and splits the country into two halves, the elite / the poor).
• amerika_blog 13y ago
  I have a better idea: Universal no-income. Instead of making costs higher by distributing money and thus making it less effective, distribute no money, lower costs and allow people to live more comfortably.
• downandout 13y ago
  Progressives seem to have lost all understanding of the concept of money. It is a means of trade. The spending power of the basic income will ultimately reflect the value its recipients produced in order to obtain it - zero in this case.
  • nabla9 13y ago
    Progressives? Did you know that Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman supported the idea?
    • clarky07 13y ago
      Friedman supported a negative income tax. While somewhat similar, it is not the same thing.
      • nabla9 13y ago
        Negative income tax is one way to implement basic income. There are others.
  • tokenizer 13y ago
    > The spending power of the basic income will ultimately reflect the value its recipients produced in order to obtain it - zero in this case. What do you think the purchasing power of welfare money is? Furthermore, can you really separate the purchasing power of the money utilized in the minimum income and the income from working?
    • downandout 13y ago
      I am not separating anything. I am saying that inflation will rise, because that's what happens when a country isn't producing anything more, but the country increases the amount of its currency in circulation. It's like a stock split - absent a rise in the actual value of the company, doubling the number of shares makes each share half as valuable. In this case, over time inflation will adjust to the point that the spending power of the basic income will approach zero. It won't actually hit zero, because markets are not 100% efficient. But it will be close.
• mariusz79 13y ago
  Basic income has potential but I think people are waiting for the governments to provide, while there is possibly another way. Imagine creating bitcoin version that does not favor early adopters, but allows everyone participating to get the same amount of coins every week. Of course it's easier said than done, and it would need to be detailed a little more, but I think it's possible.
  • bratsche 13y ago
    Step 2: convince landlord to accept this new currency instead of USD (or whatever local currency). ;)
    • mariusz79 13y ago
      I did not say it would be easy - just possible. :)
  • greiskul 13y ago
    The problem with this is how do you prevent people from creating multiple identities and gain more than their fair share? Bitcoin solves this problem by tying money generation with something that can't be faked, computational power.
    • mariusz79 13y ago
      I would imagine something based on bitcoin with an added web of trust.. One person starts it all. Another person joins and their identity is certified by the first person. You then have to run mining software but it's not required that your rig is fpga or asic based :).. few hours a week on a cpu would be sufficient. If you run the software, some coins are mined and added to your wallet. You signup another person, they do the same... could grow pretty fast. Of course there is more questions than answers, your question of how to prevent people from creating multiple identities... Maybe few people will need to sign the cert.. and they can only signed it if their cert was signed by x number of people.. But even if this did not work out, I'm sure it would be a good experiment that could show us how basic income could/would work in a reality.
• graeme 13y ago
  Does anyone know how the swiss proposal treats travel/residency? I've long thought that a guaranteed income is an idea worth trying. But it did occur to me recently that such an amount would let you live like a king in many developing countries. Is there anything in the proposal to stop people from simply moving abroad? More generally, how should a well designed universal income proposal treat travel/living abroad? If you cut off payments for those that are no longer residents, you suddenly provide a huge disincentive for travel. If you keep them, you encourage mass emigration.
  • ricardobeat 13y ago
    A rule setting a maximum of one or two months/year paid abroad would suffice.
    • graeme 13y ago
      Right. But then you've got a very large incentive against the kind of travel that young people routinely do. Most of my family and friends have taken 3-4 month trips abroad, very formative. I expect many of them would have stayed home if they lost the income.
      • ricardobeat 13y ago
        How so? They wouldn't be expecting any income at all if they only had a job, it would be even worse. Of course, you'd be eligible again on return.
      • seguer 13y ago
        If they want to travel more, they can work to get the extra income required to do so above/beyond the basic income. Which would act as an incentive for them to work.
  • mweibel 13y ago
    As far as I understood it: the proposal doesn't specify this. This (among other questions) has to be solved by the parliament in case the proposal is accepted.
• Fuxy 13y ago
  "This sounds like some communist plot. How can anyone take seriously the idea of paying people to sit around on their backsides?" That's something a person that didn't experience communism would say. Communists would never allow a person to just stay idle doing nothing if you don't have a job you would be sent to forced labor camps where people are needed. Ask any Romania born before 1989 if you don't believe me.
• dangoldin 13y ago
  I think the biggest benefit of a universal income is to remove the perception that unemployment is a bad thing. Now to reduce unemployment there's a fair amount of menial labor and policies encouraging it. If countries didn't have to worry about their employment levels I suspect they'd be a lot more willing to embrace new approaches.
• edwardliu 13y ago
  This is the best timing for this. When the cost of things are driven down anymore, universal income makes more sense than ever. After all, there's no truth in "having" to work. I think there should be the freedom to choose if you'd like to work or not. I've always pondered why people think you "need" to work. You "need" a job. I like working, and have a job, but I know many people are fine getting by, and it stresses them out for having to work everyday, which I think is perfectly fine.
• oleganza 13y ago
  It is an outright fraud. 1. Premise: "Basic income of X units of money is sent to everyone in population". 2. Basic income comes from where? Either from taxes, or from printed money. Either way, purchasing power is being taken from some people in proportion to their savings/income. 3. There's always a difference in income and amount of savings. If everyone was making the same amount of money, doing "basic income" wouldn't change much (except feed some bureaucrats in the process). 4. Therefore, some people will be taxed less than "basic income" they receive. And some people will be taxed more that the income they receive. 5. Therefore, some people do not really receive any extra income. They are getting deprived of a portion of their purchasing power instead. 6. Therefore promoting it as "everyone gets it, no strings attached" is a total lie. If they said "we want to take from some people and give to others" it would be honest and true. But it doesn't sound as fair as "everyone gets", isn't it? Note: I'm not debating taxation itself. Even if you think it's okay to tax and redistribute wealth, the description of this law is a total lie. EDIT: I guess downvoting folks are too busy redistributing people's wealth to point out a logical flaw in my comment.
  • gojomo 13y ago
    Everyone of consequence understands it has to be paid for, and thus it's not a net income win for everyone. So you're refuting an obtuse interpretation of "everyone gets it" that only the very naive might believe. The point of "everyone gets it" is to simplify administration, soften the stigma, and eliminate the sort of marginal-disincentive cliffs that patchwork 'progressive' benefits often create.
    • oleganza 13y ago
      "soften the stigma" is the problem here. It's false, dishonest advertisement which means to produce a psychological effect when the practical effect is different. That's why it is called fraud: you say one thing, but sell another, and you know it in advance.
      • gojomo 13y ago
        A basic income may or may not be a good policy, but people like Milton Friedman and Charles Murray weren't trying to perpetrate a dishonest fraud (or convince people it's a "free lunch") when they outlined its potential benefits over alternate existing patchwork systems of redistribution. "Everyone gets it" means to avoid the complexity, corruption, and gaming that comes with an eligibility-testing bureaucracy. "Softens the stigma" means the marginal incentives, especially for the working poor and near poor, aren't muddied by taboos around other welfare programs. (And "softens the stigma" is a honest way to describe that part of the rationale, as well... because some listeners will consider the stigma a good thing, while others see it as a barrier to the policy's intended effects. Universal eligibility does, in actual fact, alter the stigma associated with receiving government income – and people can still argue about whether that's a good thing or not, without allegations of bad-faith fraud.)
• yetanotherphd 13y ago
  An alternative that I prefer is a welfare system such as in Australia. Australian welfare is very similar to basic income, the main differences being that you have to look for work (but enforcement is not strict) and the way welfare decreases as your income increases, makes your effective marginal tax rate about 50%. I'm not sure what the optimal tax schedule (pre-tax vs post-tax and welfare) should look like, but my intuition is that a high effective marginal tax rate for people on welfare is not bad, as the disincentive to work that it produces affects fewer people, than if we had a flat tax (e.g. VAT) plus basic income. The disincentive to work produced by a higher effective marginal tax rate is also offset by the fact that welfare isn't a lot of money, and the longer you are on welfare the stricter enforcement becomes. I also don't see the moral reason for a true basic income, except perhaps for men, who should be compensated for the possibility of being conscripted.
  • gnaritas 13y ago
    > the main differences being that you have to look for work This is a bad idea in the long term. The whole reason basic income is being seriously looked at is because we know automation is eliminating the need for labor and that trend will continue until work simply isn't available for a large percentage of the population. People need to get over the idea that work will be necessary to live or the idea that work is how one contributes to society.
    • yetanotherphd 13y ago
      We don't know what the full impact of technology would be, so a basic income is premature at best. When you say "People need to get over the idea that work will be necessary to live" you are just insulting people's intelligence. Of course I am aware that if you got paid for doing nothing, then work would no longer be necessary for (an individual) to live. Also, the theory of technological unemployment is that technology will render labor less productive. Basic income might be a kinder and more efficient way to deliver money to people without jobs, but it won't magically make them more productive.
      • 13y ago
• johndevor 13y ago
  I don't think this is a good idea. It could do a lot of harm to future generations. If we pay for this through debt, we're slapping a bill on our children. I also don't like this idea because it increases personal dependence on the state. If the goal is to make people independent and self-confident, how does this help (on the whole, excluding edge cases)? And as the top commenter said, I think this will move the goal posts and surely cause inflation. I also think this will enable some peoples' destructive habits (how does the song go? "It's the first of the month... Get up, wake up!").
  • brazzy 13y ago
    > It could do a lot of harm to future generations. Or it could do them a lot of good. > If we pay for this through debt, we're slapping a bill on our children. That's obviously not the correct way to implement it. > I also don't like this idea because it increases personal dependence on the state. It does the opposite, by replacing paternalistic and beaurocratic social security programmes. > If the goal is to make people independent and self-confident, how does this help (on the whole, excluding edge cases)? By enabling them to do things like working on art or science or startups without having to worry about starving or homelessness. > I also think this will enable some peoples' destructive habits Ah yes, the poor must not be given money lest they spend it on booze. Otherwise they wouldn't be poor. Just world fallacy, anyone?
• InclinedPlane 13y ago
  I'm pretty ambivalent about basic income, although I think it's probably worth a try. Not a version that replaces earned income though, there are too many obvious perverse incentives for such a system, it must be supplementary. On the one hand I can see a lot of positive effects from it. On the other hand one of the biggest downsides is that now you have a very strong divide in terms of citizenship, which could potentially drastically change the dynamics of immigration. Personally I'm very much pro immigration and I think the fact that people from all circumstances have the opportunity to earn substantial benefits from their work by moving to the US (or the developed world in general) is one of the most positive aspects of this country and part of its life blood and character.
• clarky07 13y ago
  I'm a conservative. One would probably assume I'd be against a universal basic income. In theory I am, but I actually think I find the basic income much more palatable than the current welfare state. At least with the basic income, there is never an incentive to not work. It makes it possible to not work, but it doesn't incentivize it. The current welfare systems make it such that if you start working you lose the welfare. If you don't have the skills to make significantly above the welfare level, you are actively incentivized to not work. For those suggesting we'd have massive inflation making this completely worthless, I think you underestimate the level of money we currently give away. While there would be some inflation, we already give huge amounts of money in the form of welfare, food stamps, social security, etc. A basic income would replace all of those things.
  • vasilipupkin 13y ago
    Yes, exactly. The only problem is, in practice, it's so hard to get rid of those things, that we may end up with basic income AND various forms of welfare and that would not be good
• turtle4 13y ago
  My question regarding this is how do you prevent gaming the system causing overpopulation? What will stop currently poor individuals from having 10 kids to collect their income? Is it just not awarded until you reach age of majority?
  • jgj 13y ago
    FTA: > Payable to whom? > Everybody, or at least, every adult citizen.
• michaeldhopkins 13y ago
  In order for a basic income program to save costs on bureaucracy and replace existing programs, those existing programs must be closed by legislation or executive order, and the people employed by them must lose their jobs, and the number of employees in the new basic income agency must be fewer. Many of these employees will not find replacement work due to age or their industry (government bureaucracy) shrinking so will go from middle class to poor on basic income. This will have a large economic effect unless it is done slowly, but if it is done slowly, both programs will have to exist at once without paying too much to the same person. This will require the basic income agency to have the same kind of bureaucracy as the other agencies or else have no oversight. In the first phase of the transition, at least, it would cost much more. The agency would need to maintain some bureaucracy to guard against fraud since obtaining benefits would never require a visit to an office or proof of some activity. It would be easy for someone to claim extra people without oversight.
• DanBC 13y ago
  The UK benefits system has been built up over many years, over a range of different government departments, and covers many different needs and philosophies. This means it's a horrific mess. For years it was not possible to know how much housing benefit you would get before you moved into a property. While I think there are flaws with the free market I can see that crippling it doesn't help at all. It's really hard to work out if you're getting the correct benefits, or if you're getting too many. (We have a tax credit system. The credits lag real world payment information, and many people get caught with having to repay tax credits.) There are other flaws. Someone getting voluntary work (improving their chances of getting full time paid employment) is penalised. Someone with MH illness who gets voluntary work as a step back into society gets penalised. So, the different government departments have been streamlined a bit. The different benefits are being changed, and signals are being sent about acceptable use of the system. I got a letter, to my name and address, with all my relevant information. It had a phone number. I called the number. They asked me security information, and confirmed my name and address. They sent me a form. I had to fill out the form and return it. That form is an assessment for an interview. I'll attend an interview, which is given by a doctor. That doctor doesn't do any diagnosis, they have a rigid check list which they assess the patient against. ("Can you walk 10 metres unaided?" "Can you stand for ten minutes without pain?"). The form is scored and sent to a decision maker. That is then returned to a bureaucrat, who awards one benefit, or another, or none. The checklist is flawed - turn up with a dirty t-shirt because you're a lazy slob? You score points. Turn up with an ironed shirt and tie because your crippling OCD and anxiety won't allow you to leave the house otherwise? You lose points. All of this bureaucracy is very expensive. The system is open to abuse from multiple parties - criminal gangs using dead people's names to claim benefits; people over claiming, or claiming while working, or claiming for something they're not eligible for. Sweeping away all of this and replacing it with a relatively simple "Does this person exist? Are the eligible for the universal income?" would save so much money, and time, and stress. It would free people to do voluntary work, or small informal projects. Then we just need a bonfire of the tax / duties system, and get something sane there.
  • tokenizer 13y ago
    > Sweeping away all of this and replacing it with a relatively simple "Does this person exist? Are the eligible for the universal income?" would save so much money, and time, and stress. It would free people to do voluntary work, or small informal projects. Exactly. Some people just can't wrap their heads around what people want. Decent wages and free time. To give people a certain minimum amount of wealth, we can just acknowledge that the best way to do social welfare is by utilizing efficient taxes and spreading that wealth equally amongst all, not because everybody needs it, but because it's ethical. I'm in favour of the idea that it would still factor into your tax bracket. So making a UMI of $15,000 itself is meaningless at tax time, but working a part-time job and escalating that into the $40,000's should place you in that income. This could mean that it ignores the wealthiest of us on a per year basis if we make more than $100,000 of so. With the savings from those individuals and the elimination of our bureaucratic social system now, I truly think it should be attempted. The real problem is the government firing those workers and saving that money. They would not like that.
• nateabele 13y ago
  People like to bring these things up to as thought experiments about how they'd fly in other countries, but one thing to keep in mind is that Switzerland is a really, really different place. Particularly compared to the US, it has fairly stable demographics, and obtaining citizenship is absurdly difficult. While the Reuter's article doesn't mention that as a prerequisite for income benefits, one can reasonably infer that they're not gonna start handing out money to anyone who wanders in. Contrast that with the US, where you get healthcare and free public education just for making it across the border from Mexico.
  • mweibel 13y ago
    > "[...] and obtaining citizenship is absurdly difficult." Can you elaborate? I'd like to have some arguments from an "outsider" if I encounter a discussion about this again :) The current majority (more or less) of people in Switzerland seem to believe that obtaining citizenship is way to easy and want to limit basicly everything..
    • nateabele 13y ago
      I actually only know this second-hand. A good friend is married to a Swiss national and we've discussed it on a number of occasions.
• hugofirth 13y ago
  One point of confusion for me, that I hope someone with a sounder economics background than myself can address, is: Would the national unconditional basic income render the national minimum wage effectively 0 (or much lower than it currently is)? For example, corporations could be taxed more heavily if they could offer their lowest paid positions a wage of £2 per hour. This extra taxation would then help fund a national basic wage (equivalent to say £5) which would leave a low-skilled worker earning £7 (roughly what they were before). I had assumed that any such 'basic income' scheme would be so prohibitively expensive as to require such drastic means, just to find the money, however I haven't seen any such changes mentioned in many of the articles discussing the relative merits of the Swiss proposal. As an aside - for those saying: "What if people don't spend the money responsibly?" - Isn't that, somewhat idealistically, a large part of the point of the scheme? The scheme would encourage responsibility, rather than treating people like children? Yes things like addiction (to Gambling, Drugs etc...) throws a spanner in the works of this - but charities and support groups exist to tackle this kind of issue already - they could continue to do so, with one critical difference. Charities could do a lot more with less if their workers were earning a basic income from elsewhere, and could afford to give their time for less ££.
  • brazzy 13y ago
    An interesting idea is that it might enable companies to compete much more through a pleasant working environment rather than wages.
• veganarchocap 13y ago
  You would likely have to increase taxes. Taxes are extracted from us involuntarily through coercion. I don't think re-arranging this model in any format will change that. Our best option is to spend less, shrink the state and get rid of income tax, especially on those say, living under this proposed living wage.
• atmosx 13y ago
  I like the idea, a lot. The obsessive attachment to what Friedman said and did not said - like if it's a universal truth - is kinda pathetic.
• atticus010101 13y ago
  I think that eventually universal income will be a good idea. The question is not whether it's a good idea, but whether it's the right time for it. This is a bit of a tangent, but since this is tech oriented community I think it's relevant. It's highly likely that one day strong AI will be able to run the entire world economy, and humans will not longer have to work, nor will they be needed. At that point humans will need basic income to survive. In this scenario, the whole concept of "the economy" will have been stretched and squeezed into something entirely unrecognizable, so the problem of basic income being a drag on the economy will be irrelevant. We are getting closer and closer to this point every year. Just look at employment figures. Computers are replacing humans in the workforce, and they will continue to do so at a rapid pace. Basic income will be useful and needed, it's just a matter of time.
• josephlord 13y ago
  I support this idea in theory although I would need to see calculations of possible levels of universal income and tax rate in a given economy to fully support it. The interesting thing is that with a generous universal income and a fairly high rate of tax (e.g. 45%) you would naturally get a really quite progressive tax and benefit system without the complexity of many thresholds that currently exist. It actually makes the idea of a 'flat tax' actually work and not be ridiculously unfair. It would also enable people not to be employed and to work on projects that they are passionate about whether start-ups, internships, forming pop bands, writing, caring for children or parents but enable people to choose to earn additional money. Unpleasant jobs should command increasing premiums as more people have the choice not to do them open to them but interesting flexible jobs may not need as high wages as current minimum wages (which I could imagine being abolished for recipients of universal income). Of course some would sit around all day doing nothing but I suspect that not many would do this long term and it may be better that they can declare it as an active choice rather than be bullied into interviews and appearances at job centres. There would be complicating factors such whether/when immigrants were entitled to the universal income and if not a minimum wage may be required to protect them from exploitation.
• lettergram 13y ago
  I still cannot comprehend how anyone with a basic knowledge of economics can perceive this as a good idea. All universal income can achieve is increasing the cost of living to the point where it is as if there is no universal income. In other words, the universal income idea simply increases the cost of living by the same factor of the increased income. Perhaps it takes a year or two, so the poor benefit during that time, but in the end all it does is destroy the currency and suppress economic growth. "There is no such thing as a free lunch" Point being, there's always some trade off. All universal income does is push the cost of lunch onto the wealthy even more.
  • drkevorkian 13y ago
    > Point being, there's always some trade off. All universal income does is push the cost of lunch onto the wealthy even more Yes, that is the point of welfare. Universal income is a type of welfare. It is a form of welfare which is preferable to other forms because of its simplicity of implementation.
• JoeAltmaier 13y ago
  Maybe the issue is, in the 'western' world its no longer actually necessary or even useful to have people work. That's not where the wealth comes from any more. So incentive becomes less interesting. Demand, supply, innovation still count. But getting people to pound the streets and dig ditches en-masse is not important any more. So a basic income makes employment not the goal. Its useful innovation and adaptation to changing conditions that matters.
• ryanmarsh 13y ago
  I don't recall Milton Friedman being for a flat basic income. I do recall him being for a negative income tax, which works quite differently.
• lowmagnet 13y ago
  Someone has to try it somewhere. I for one won't make predictions, and instead think I'll wait to see if a country adopts this and see what happens to its industry, quality of life, and so on before being on 'one side or the other'. Most of the predictions in this thread are based on basic assumptions of economics that come from political backgrounds/beliefs, and I don't think that's an appropriate way to argue something this complex. A lot of you are programmers, at least some of you can run simulations. Stop arguing with words, and instead concentrate on developing models. In other words, start contributing to the science or stop arguing from ignorance.
• FrankenPC 13y ago
  One thing is for sure (IMO), this would never work in America. The not-obvious reason is the middleman problem. In America (again, IMO), the primary financial problems we have has to do with capitalist opportunists finding clever ways to become transition siphons for money flowing in any given direction. The: It's-only-2500$-a-month thing would rapidly become 10000$, 100000$, etc a month as politicians add pork fat, Local municipalities siphon from it, public welfare divisions sprout up to "support" the distribution, and finally the capitalist system itself engineers ways to absorb that new free money floating around the system. No. This would never work. This kind of universal support system depends on a core of altruism. I don't think anyone will try to make the argument that America's core is altruistic.
• mck- 13y ago
  One side effect I can think of is that this might spur innovation and entrepreneurialism, because the consequrnces of risk-taking are softened. It increases the opportunity cost of getting a job, vs being an entrepreneur. Perhaps we will see a generation of new entrepreneurs that otherwise would never have taken that leap; Which in turn might be great for the overall economy
• deleted 13y ago
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• dreamdu5t 13y ago
  None of the universal income proposals have any math to back them up. Simple napkin estimates show it's nowhere near affordable. "But people are rich!" is not an explanation. "We can draw on labor" is not an explanation. I want an explanation that actually demonstrates the affordability of such a thing. Not hand-waving about how we just aren't trying hard enough. Can the people proposing a basic income please demonstrate how much they want to give and how much that costs? Then point out how they would fit it into the existing budget? Also, please explain why prices would not react to a basic income? If $40,000 represents the price of doing nothing, other prices will change to respond to real not nominal costs. It doesn't seem like people proposing the basic income understand how prices are formed.
• knewter 13y ago
  why don't we just give everyone $200,000/year. if this is a good idea, mine must be a great idea.
  • throwwit 13y ago
    The idea is to decouple survival/livelyhood from reward. Heck 25k is what's spent on ppl in jail.
• knewter 13y ago
  why don't we just give everyone $200,000/year. if this is a good idea, mine must be a great idea.
• ilkan 13y ago
  Universal income is a fantastic idea. Imagine being able to work on your own coding project for 2 years with a guarantee of basic ramen and safe shelter. I don't think it'd work well in Western society yet. It would be feasible in, say, a dense and autocratic city-state like Singapore. IMHO it will come. As a world, we are starting to automate and displace work faster than our brains can learn new skills en masse. IE one person can create a skill and codify it (years), faster than 300K people can go to training and expand the industry organically (lifetime). This applies to both manufacturing and service jobs. Structural lifetime unemployment is going to be the cause of future civil instability, and governments will use UI as a way to calm and control social order.
• agentultra 13y ago
  I find it sad, but not surprising, that one of the key disagreements with a BI system is the assumption that poor people are lazy and will spend it on drugs. There are people like that but they make up such a small portion of the population considered, "poor," that it's insulting everyone in a very large demographic. I'd wager that the effects of these people who do use their BI for drugs and recreation will be statistically insignificant. Whereas a BI would provide a lot of mobility and improve the bargaining power of the lower classes if I understand BI. It seems to me that would have far-reaching benefits for the economy at large -- even for high-income earners.
  • roosevelt 13y ago
    "assumption that poor people are lazy". Not only poor people are lazy, all people are lazy. People can overcome the laziness only when there are incentives for them to do so: food, housing, sex, fame, vanity. When you take out the basic incentives by providing them for free, laziness will prevail for most people.
• geogra4 13y ago
  Everyone seems so deeply concerned with the specific economic calculus of the poor and low income that this will affect. But nowhere in this thread is there a bare mention of how the economic system has been perverted by incentives that only the truly wealthy and elite have access too (ie. LIBOR, etc.) when there is no BI and capital has complete control over the laborer. A true BI system would not be inflationary and would do a great deal to increasing the general welfare of the populace. We shouldn't demand that people be slaves to the engines of production. A BI at moderate level would alleviate poverty and also in some ways be very good for capital as well. It would increase the velocity of money and increase consumption in the economy (remember that poorer people spend more of their money as a %age than the truly wealthy)
• efnx 13y ago
  This would not be Communism. We shouldn't be arguing Comminism vs Capitalism because both are extremes that have never been fully realized. This is more about compassion vs group association - a typically American Democrat/Republican debate.
• roosevelt 13y ago
  Last time someone implemented this kind of social equality experiment was in 1959, 30-40 million Chinese starved to death: Great Chinese Famine http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine
  • mikhailt 13y ago
    Huh? This isn't the same thing. What happened in China at that time was extensive and more complicated than this very basic system. It worked great in a small village in India recently; http://mondediplo.com/2013/05/04income http://mondediplo.com/2013/05/04income
• williamcotton 13y ago
  It is easy to see that the redistribution of wealth throughout all of society is a noble goal. This becomes clear as we approach a point in our evolution where we start to automate the collection and processing of resources. We're all part of this giant machine of modernity. If everyone can feel the benefits of it, and I mean everyone on the whole planet, then we can start to really feel good about what we're building and how we're gonna compromise all of our own individual pursuits and dreams with all of those people around us. The truth of the matter is that we've all been in this big global machine the whole time. Cultural interchange on a global scale is nothing new, only the speed at which it happens is changing. Pretending that the resources gathered through the skills of just one man somehow doesn't affect the rest of humanity is very short sighted, especially in our modern world. The ability to extract and accumulate resources is amplified loudly by the existing machinery. Facebook is just an aberrate growth on the top of a very large system that is fueled by the blood, sweat and tears of billions of people living now and extending back in time to the dawn of recorded history. This has been known to the modern world for some time. We've built systems that we call social democracy, liberalism, communism and fascism with a lot of these tenants in mind. And we argue about the merits of each, and the merits of other systems, and we pontificate about the expected outcomes of imaginary systems or invent new versions of incomplete readings of the past, and we get lost in an endless maze of rhetoric. There is danger merely in the act of having faith in manmade systems like politics, economics and technotronics. There isn't a point to nor a way to quantify and classify everything under the sun. We can't ever know how these things will work out. We need to make sure that our faith is actually in the people around us. We need to have faith that the vast majority of people have a good heart and able hands, and they also have just as big of an itch to create, discover, and explore the world. We need to carry that understanding with us everyday and in all walks of our lives and stop pretending like "playing the game" is in any way nobel or worthy of anything other than meaningless excess. And yeah, Silicon Valley and the cracker jack crew of Hacker News users, I'm talking right to you.