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> We have no successful model for dealing with this. Canada seems to have had pretty good success with that basic income town. And no major western democracy h

by zanny 12y ago

> We have no successful model for dealing with this. Canada seems to have had pretty good success with that basic income town. And no major western democracy has really attempted it yet. I like it because it lets you have a completely deregulated economy, because both employer and employee would be participating in voluntary negotiation without a huge bias towards the employer - when one side is starving and need shelter and the other just wants a third yacht, the incentives are skewed. If both of them want money for luxuries and not necessities (worker wants a TV, boss wants a movie theater wing on his mansion) you don't need as stringent workers protection regulations and you don't need a minimum wage, because all employment is voluntary and a worker could just walk without fear of homelessness if a boss cannot offer him enough to keep him working. It also means people can pursue what they think is valuable, rather than what the market can show is valuable, which like you say it is becoming worse and worse at over time. It means every artist could draw all day, any recluse could stay in their bedroom trolling reddit all day, and everyone who wanted to help starving children in Africa could help starving children in Africa whenever they wanted.

qwtel 12y ago
I like the idea of basic income, but I'm skeptical about how many problems it can actually solve. Your depiction almost makes it sound miraculous (with a bit of social romanticism), while ignoring the problems it could eventually create. Apart form that we are a long way from having a serious discussion about it, as it's just too alien a concept for most people, including those who would need it.
- zanny 12y ago
  Considering everyone beyond the retirement age is already effectively getting a basic income, or that anyone on unemployment is getting a temporary basic income, or that if you ignore the beuracratic overhead and injustice of welfare then food stamps + section 9 + the free electric programs sum to a near basic income, albeit a much worse implementation in every way, that is hugely destructive for economies and persons involved. People already love getting those income tax returns - when you pay in more than you needed to, and you get the difference back. Basic income is the exact same thing - most people would be paying in significantly less than they get out, while those above a threshold (preferably the peak happiness threshold of income, that varies by location but in general on an individual basis is around 75k a year, src: http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2019628,00.html http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2019628...).
  - dragonwriter 12y ago
    > Considering everyone beyond the retirement age is already effectively getting a basic income No, they aren't. Presumably, this is intended to refer to Social Security, which is not at all like a basic income (even aside from age): 1) Eligibility to receive benefits at all isn't unconditional (again, even discounting age), its based on qualifying contributions -- your own or someone else's -- and other factors. 2) The level of benefits if you are eligible isn't constant, but varies based on the same factors that go into eligibility. > or that anyone on unemployment is getting a temporary basic income Unemployment insurance is also not like basic income, as the benefit level as controlled by qualifying income in the preceding period. > or that if you ignore the beuracratic overhead and injustice of welfare then food stamps + section 9 + the free electric programs sum to a near basic income You probably mean section 8 housing vouchers, but, again, nothing like a basic income; all of those are conditional program with both means and behavioral tests (and in many cases aren't fungible benefits, so they also have use restrictions).
    - zanny 12y ago
      There is a reason we usually prefix BI with universal. No, there are few programs that are legitimately universal, but every instance of non-universality you describe just describes a bureaucratic overhead nightmare that severely cripples any potential efficiency of a public works project. The jump is not from anarchy to UBI. It is from conditional basic income to unconditional. Also, I might be mixing up my district nines and section eights. I wonder why...
msandford 12y ago
In theory that sounds great, but what happens if everyone says "fuck it!" and just starts taking the basic income? I think it's fairly obvious that with nobody paying taxes there is not enough government revenue to pay and thus the system falls apart. Let's call this 0% workforce participation. On the other hand, if everyone works really hard and is super productive and starts businesses and etc then at some point their market wages totally swamp the basic income and it's essentially un-needed and kind of a joke. And if that were to happen, prices would rise to the point where the basic income isn't anywhere near enough to live off of comfortably and it's existence is worthless. Let's call this 100% workforce participation. There exists a whole spectrum of workforce participation between 0% and 100% and some of them might be stable-ish such that there isn't a positive-feedback loop that quickly runs society off the rails. The problem that the champions of basic income haven't really addressed is that people fear the degenerate case of 0% workforce participation (or nearly so) and the mental calculation that people seem so able to do but which proponents of basic income seem to find impossible: where does this money come from? Why will I as a worker have to pay for things that non-workers get? Why do I not get to keep the fruits of my labor? Ultimately money is useless by itself, and the economic system is one which allows us to divvy up the limited physical goods (the planet is finite, our ability to manufacture is finite, roboticized production lines don't operate at infinite speed, neither are they free, we still need SOME farmers, etc) to people. A system which says that everyone can have even if no-one works sounds an awful lot like a perpetual motion machine and thus people are skeptical.
- Zigurd 12y ago
  > In theory that sounds great, but what happens if everyone says "fuck it!" and just starts taking the basic income? That's actually an argument for basic income. It's the mirror image of money politics, only its actually democratic.
  - msandford 12y ago
    I want to write a really sarcastic comment, but that won't really achieve anything. I suspect that either I really don't get something, or that you really don't get something but I can't tell which. You said "That's actually an argument for basic income" in response to my statement "if everyone stops working and starts taking basic income" which I don't understand. I thought I laid out a fairly clear argument that if everyone stopped working everything falls apart. To me, the logical next events are that with not enough taxes the government either prints money or defaults on its debt. That leads to either to massive inflation (undermining the value of basic income and perhaps resulting in civil unrest like in the Arab Spring when food prices got too high) or in the case of default, quite possibly the government ceasing to exist. So how does everyone taking the basic income solve a problem? Is the goal to get rid of the government? I can't take that seriously because if people are serious about a basic income, then it stands to reason that they want it to continue, and if the government fails, so does the basic income which it provides. I'm not saying US-style capitalism is great and perfect; it's clearly flawed in huge, huge ways. But that doesn't somehow make the flaws of a basic income system non-existent does it?
tdaltonc 12y ago
You mean " . . . deregulated labor market." Other parts of the economy would still need to be regulated.

by zanny 12y ago

qwtel 12y ago

I like the idea of basic income, but I'm skeptical about how many problems it can actually solve. Your depiction almost makes it sound miraculous (with a bit of social romanticism), while ignoring the problems it could eventually create. Apart form that we are a long way from having a serious discussion about it, as it's just too alien a concept for most people, including those who would need it.

zanny 12y ago
Considering everyone beyond the retirement age is already effectively getting a basic income, or that anyone on unemployment is getting a temporary basic income, or that if you ignore the beuracratic overhead and injustice of welfare then food stamps + section 9 + the free electric programs sum to a near basic income, albeit a much worse implementation in every way, that is hugely destructive for economies and persons involved. People already love getting those income tax returns - when you pay in more than you needed to, and you get the difference back. Basic income is the exact same thing - most people would be paying in significantly less than they get out, while those above a threshold (preferably the peak happiness threshold of income, that varies by location but in general on an individual basis is around 75k a year, src: http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2019628,00.html http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2019628...).
- dragonwriter 12y ago
  > Considering everyone beyond the retirement age is already effectively getting a basic income No, they aren't. Presumably, this is intended to refer to Social Security, which is not at all like a basic income (even aside from age): 1) Eligibility to receive benefits at all isn't unconditional (again, even discounting age), its based on qualifying contributions -- your own or someone else's -- and other factors. 2) The level of benefits if you are eligible isn't constant, but varies based on the same factors that go into eligibility. > or that anyone on unemployment is getting a temporary basic income Unemployment insurance is also not like basic income, as the benefit level as controlled by qualifying income in the preceding period. > or that if you ignore the beuracratic overhead and injustice of welfare then food stamps + section 9 + the free electric programs sum to a near basic income You probably mean section 8 housing vouchers, but, again, nothing like a basic income; all of those are conditional program with both means and behavioral tests (and in many cases aren't fungible benefits, so they also have use restrictions).
  - zanny 12y ago
    There is a reason we usually prefix BI with universal. No, there are few programs that are legitimately universal, but every instance of non-universality you describe just describes a bureaucratic overhead nightmare that severely cripples any potential efficiency of a public works project. The jump is not from anarchy to UBI. It is from conditional basic income to unconditional. Also, I might be mixing up my district nines and section eights. I wonder why...

msandford 12y ago

In theory that sounds great, but what happens if everyone says "fuck it!" and just starts taking the basic income? I think it's fairly obvious that with nobody paying taxes there is not enough government revenue to pay and thus the system falls apart. Let's call this 0% workforce participation. On the other hand, if everyone works really hard and is super productive and starts businesses and etc then at some point their market wages totally swamp the basic income and it's essentially un-needed and kind of a joke. And if that were to happen, prices would rise to the point where the basic income isn't anywhere near enough to live off of comfortably and it's existence is worthless. Let's call this 100% workforce participation. There exists a whole spectrum of workforce participation between 0% and 100% and some of them might be stable-ish such that there isn't a positive-feedback loop that quickly runs society off the rails. The problem that the champions of basic income haven't really addressed is that people fear the degenerate case of 0% workforce participation (or nearly so) and the mental calculation that people seem so able to do but which proponents of basic income seem to find impossible: where does this money come from? Why will I as a worker have to pay for things that non-workers get? Why do I not get to keep the fruits of my labor? Ultimately money is useless by itself, and the economic system is one which allows us to divvy up the limited physical goods (the planet is finite, our ability to manufacture is finite, roboticized production lines don't operate at infinite speed, neither are they free, we still need SOME farmers, etc) to people. A system which says that everyone can have even if no-one works sounds an awful lot like a perpetual motion machine and thus people are skeptical.

Zigurd 12y ago
> In theory that sounds great, but what happens if everyone says "fuck it!" and just starts taking the basic income? That's actually an argument for basic income. It's the mirror image of money politics, only its actually democratic.
- msandford 12y ago
  I want to write a really sarcastic comment, but that won't really achieve anything. I suspect that either I really don't get something, or that you really don't get something but I can't tell which. You said "That's actually an argument for basic income" in response to my statement "if everyone stops working and starts taking basic income" which I don't understand. I thought I laid out a fairly clear argument that if everyone stopped working everything falls apart. To me, the logical next events are that with not enough taxes the government either prints money or defaults on its debt. That leads to either to massive inflation (undermining the value of basic income and perhaps resulting in civil unrest like in the Arab Spring when food prices got too high) or in the case of default, quite possibly the government ceasing to exist. So how does everyone taking the basic income solve a problem? Is the goal to get rid of the government? I can't take that seriously because if people are serious about a basic income, then it stands to reason that they want it to continue, and if the government fails, so does the basic income which it provides. I'm not saying US-style capitalism is great and perfect; it's clearly flawed in huge, huge ways. But that doesn't somehow make the flaws of a basic income system non-existent does it?

tdaltonc 12y ago

You mean " . . . deregulated labor market." Other parts of the economy would still need to be regulated.