4 ms·

It's true that computers and automation are rapidly eliminating most low-level jobs, but it doesn't follow that a non-merit-tested basic income is the best way

by lutusp 12y ago

It's true that computers and automation are rapidly eliminating most low-level jobs, but it doesn't follow that a non-merit-tested basic income is the best way to deal with this new reality. Even with an automated workforce, I think there should still be social incentives, and incentives require merit-based income differentials and some concept of "earned income". We've already witnessed the first large-scale social experiment designed to replace the dog-eat-dog nature of conventional human society, and everyone knows how that turned out. But doing nothing while most jobs are absorbed by teams of obedient robots, and expecting society to rearrange itself optimally with no new ideas, is naive. This is an open problem, and the solution is not obvious.

wutbrodo 12y ago
> Even with an automated workforce, I think there should still be social incentives, and incentives require merit-based income differentials and some concept of "earned income". A properly-implemented basic income barely touches this, on the margins. The majority of social incentives don't lie on the line between starving and subsisting. I don't see how putting a floor at subsistence level (not even enough to buy a TV, e.g.) would somehow remove (or even appreciably affect) the social incentives around getting more money. People want iPods and TVs and Xboxes and decent cars and bigger houses (both to use and to show off), and there's no reason a basic income would change that.
jfoutz 12y ago
In the original plan you could trade each dollar of basic income for $2 of tax free income. you work and make $1000, you keep all of the 1000 + 500bi. you make 2000, you keep all of it + 0bi, you make 10000, you keep the first 2000, you pay tax on the next 8000, and you get 0bi. something like that.
yen223 12y ago
The elegant thing about basic income is that you won't need to lose social incentives. We aren't talking about a soviet-style redistribution of wealth here. If you were earning $100,000/year, and you are now getting a $12,000/year basic income, you aren't going to be quitting your day job.
dragonwriter 12y ago
> Even with an automated workforce, I think there should still be social incentives, and incentives require merit-based income differentials and some concept of "earned income". Basic income doesn't eliminate the concept of "earned income"; one of the major things promoted about it is that, as opposed to means-tested programs, it is fully cumulative with rather than replacing earned income (or capital income, which is outside many definitions of "earned income"), and thus, unlike means-tested benefit programs, does not create a disincentive to other forms of income, including earned income. > We've already witnessed the first large-scale social experiment designed to replace the dog-eat-dog nature of conventional human society, and everyone knows how that turned out. Pretty well, compared to the status quo ante, and compared to the slightly-later effort to do the same thing that opposed it. (I assume, by the "first large-scale social experiment designed to replace the dog-eat-dog nature of conventional human society", you refer to the gradual implementation of the modern mixed economy in the advanced democracies of the West, which while a continuous, ongoing process, started before, say, the Leninist "experiment" and its successors.)

by lutusp 12y ago

wutbrodo 12y ago

> Even with an automated workforce, I think there should still be social incentives, and incentives require merit-based income differentials and some concept of "earned income". A properly-implemented basic income barely touches this, on the margins. The majority of social incentives don't lie on the line between starving and subsisting. I don't see how putting a floor at subsistence level (not even enough to buy a TV, e.g.) would somehow remove (or even appreciably affect) the social incentives around getting more money. People want iPods and TVs and Xboxes and decent cars and bigger houses (both to use and to show off), and there's no reason a basic income would change that.

jfoutz 12y ago

In the original plan you could trade each dollar of basic income for $2 of tax free income. you work and make $1000, you keep all of the 1000 + 500bi. you make 2000, you keep all of it + 0bi, you make 10000, you keep the first 2000, you pay tax on the next 8000, and you get 0bi. something like that.

yen223 12y ago

The elegant thing about basic income is that you won't need to lose social incentives. We aren't talking about a soviet-style redistribution of wealth here. If you were earning $100,000/year, and you are now getting a $12,000/year basic income, you aren't going to be quitting your day job.

dragonwriter 12y ago

> Even with an automated workforce, I think there should still be social incentives, and incentives require merit-based income differentials and some concept of "earned income". Basic income doesn't eliminate the concept of "earned income"; one of the major things promoted about it is that, as opposed to means-tested programs, it is fully cumulative with rather than replacing earned income (or capital income, which is outside many definitions of "earned income"), and thus, unlike means-tested benefit programs, does not create a disincentive to other forms of income, including earned income. > We've already witnessed the first large-scale social experiment designed to replace the dog-eat-dog nature of conventional human society, and everyone knows how that turned out. Pretty well, compared to the status quo ante, and compared to the slightly-later effort to do the same thing that opposed it. (I assume, by the "first large-scale social experiment designed to replace the dog-eat-dog nature of conventional human society", you refer to the gradual implementation of the modern mixed economy in the advanced democracies of the West, which while a continuous, ongoing process, started before, say, the Leninist "experiment" and its successors.)