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It is, but then again why compromise? Actual basic income schemes proposed by various economists are better than either propping up the minimum wage or using "p

• nickff 13y ago
  >"One single unitary basic income system from which all benefit to the same degree, whether you are now poor, rich, lazy or driven should be our goal." I have to disagree, as my goal is simply for everyone's life to be constantly (but not necessarily monotonically) improving. I am not too choosy about the means by which this is achieved (excepting immoral means such as slavery). >"It is, but then again why compromise? Actual basic income schemes proposed by various economists are better than either propping up the minimum wage or using "public money" to pay workers enough to live." This is a great point, as one problem with the minimum wage (MW) is that it is not a transparent policy, as no one knows its true costs. If a basic income or other system were a line item on the governmental budget, the voters might understand its (direct) costs, and weigh the benefits against those. Democracy requires transparency, as citizens must be able to learn what their votes have done, and will do. Yet another problem of MWs is that their opaqueness makes it easy for firms with low labor costs to lobby for increases in the MW to destroy their competition; while high labor cost companies lobby to keep the MW constant, and increase the money supply (to deflate the MW).