5 ms·

> What would the world be like if contract/freelance/part time/short term work were the default? That's actually one of the reasons I find the idea of a guaran

by pluma 12y ago

> What would the world be like if contract/freelance/part time/short term work were the default? That's actually one of the reasons I find the idea of a guaranteed basic income so promising. The biggest thing making an "everybody freelances" world a dystopia rather than a eutopia (sic) is that it would eliminate any semblance of income stability. Static long-term contracts would still be an option because of the reliability they offer to both sides, but it would give employers the benefit of at will employment without the drawbacks that normally has for the employees. Of course I don't really see it happening in the US -- at least not in a way that's good for the employees. A lot of the welfare system in the US is still based on the idea of traditional long-term employment, even with Obamacare and all that decoupling it a bit.

mseebach 12y ago
The concept you're looking for is "savings". Contractors and freelancers charge a premium to compensate for the lack of income stability. If that premium is saved up, you get stability.
- nodata 12y ago
  Except some freelancers don't seem to be very good at the savings part.
  - uknj 12y ago
    If that were the case, one could hardly blame it on that particular hiring process/point of view.
    - nodata 12y ago
      No, but it gives a clue as to why there are more employees than freelancers.
- falcolas 12y ago
  Relying on savings to compensate for irregular income requires you to have a runway to begin with. Given the increasing mountain of debt new graduates start with, this is going to be generally untenable for most new employees; and even some older employees will have enough financial obligations that building up the requisite amount of savings to account for income irregularities would be very difficult. Getting to the point where you can deal with uneven income flow can take quite a bit of time, time you need to spend working for someone.
ansible 12y ago
That's actually one of the reasons I find the idea of a guaranteed basic income so promising. The biggest thing making an "everybody freelances" world a dystopia rather than a eutopia (sic) is that it would eliminate any semblance of income stability. Don't forget health care. That plus a basic living stipend would be quite a revolution to the economy. We'd start to price activities more sanely, and use automation more effectively. The people still driven by status will still work their asses off to get ahead, and in general I think things would still get done. With the energy resources and automation we already have, we can do this now.
- sosborn 12y ago
  > Don't forget health care. That plus a basic living stipend would be quite a revolution to the economy. Don't get me wrong, I think this would be incredible, but where would the money come from to fund this? How would you guarantee that the funding stays in place for the long haul?
  - Iftheshoefits 12y ago
    In America, there is plenty of money to be had by taxing the affluent, wealthy, and "obscenely" rich (a lot) more. There is nothing to guarantee any source of money beyond varying levels of confidence. Medicare and SS have lasted a long time, albeit after repeatedly being weakened. For similar reasons I have some confidence that said taxes used explicitly for guarantees of basic income and health care would be left in place for some considerable time.
  - pluma 12y ago
    Generally the calculations tend to be based on an increased tax on consumption (people who are better off spend more money, so they end up paying more into the system) and/or the reduction of expenses in a lot of the social welfare system (which can largely be rolled into the basic income). Some designs assert that the basic income should simply be paid to every citizen regardless of other sources of income. Other models propose a model with a soft cut-off point (so for every dollar beyond a certain baseline of income you get some fraction of a dollar less basic income, up to a level where you -- again depending on the model -- either start paying it back or simply don't get any basic income at all). In any case the idea is that (unlike with welfare models like the one we have in Germany[0]) for every dollar you earn you actually end up with extra cash in your pocket. Ideally the basic income should be high enough to provide a frugal but sustainable standard of living with access to everything necessary to participate in the market. But arguments can be made for lower amounts as well. [0]: One problem with the German welfare system (and similar ones) is that if you receive welfare benefits and earn money, that money is subtracted from the benefits you receive at a rate of pretty much one-to-one. So if you (hypothetically) get 400 euros in benefits and then find a job that pays you less than 400 euros, you effectively end up with the same money you'd have without the job. This creates an unintentional incentive for welfare recipients not to take on low-paying jobs (frequently the only ones they qualify for) which is then clumsily counteracted with various legal constructs (like forcing people to take job interviews or accept job offers for jobs they are not a good fit for at all). It's not a terrible system, but the design flaws are obvious.
notahacker 12y ago
What's the weekly rate of the average freelance software developer? And how does that compare with that of a freelance bartender, nightwatchman or refuse collector? Relying on a BI (at any feasible level) for even a fairly brief period of time is going to represent a severe drop in income for most skilled contractors, and thus people paying mortgages on their condos in SF are going to be just as worried about income instability as before.
- JoeAltmaier 12y ago
  My rack rate, when I was contracting was $150/hr. So yeah a basic income would have covered basically my health insurance maybe, if I didn't have a gig. But with a rate like that, I didn't have to work but 3/4 time to feel flush.
- pluma 12y ago
  The idea behind a BI is not to make work redundant. Sure, even with BI the loss of a job could mean losing your mortgage. But it would allow you to make do in between jobs without having to live in a van down by the river.
tessierashpool 12y ago
a dystopia rather than a eutopia (sic) This is an awesome typo. "Utopia" is a transliteration from Ancient Greek meaning "No place." The same rules of transliteration would make "eutopia" mean "good place." "Utopia" came into English through a satire, the meaning being that nowhere's really paradise, but today we mostly use it without that edge, i.e., as if it really were spelled "eutopia."
- tricolon 12y ago
  I don't think that's a typo. I think pluma added (sic) to point out that he spelt it differently on purpose, not that he's quoting someone verbatim. But thank you for teaching me about eutopia!
- joshuacc 12y ago
  FYI, St. Thomas More, who coined the term Utopia, seems to have been intentionally ambiguous about whether the term was a transliteration of eutopia (good place) and outopia (no place).
  - tessierashpool 12y ago
    ah, my bad, I think you're right.
- pluma 12y ago
  I wished I could say I coined that term, but I've seen it before. It's sometimes used in literary studies to explicitly distance a positive utopia from a dystopia. That it's a homophone makes it a clever pun, but also pretty useless in normal conversation.
shit_parade 12y ago
It's a beautiful idea but the problem is implementation. The government of most countries is already a powerful and corrupting force, giving it even the additional power and discretion to 'hand out' a basic income is terrifying to consider.

by pluma 12y ago

mseebach 12y ago

The concept you're looking for is "savings". Contractors and freelancers charge a premium to compensate for the lack of income stability. If that premium is saved up, you get stability.

nodata 12y ago
Except some freelancers don't seem to be very good at the savings part.
- uknj 12y ago
  If that were the case, one could hardly blame it on that particular hiring process/point of view.
  - nodata 12y ago
    No, but it gives a clue as to why there are more employees than freelancers.
falcolas 12y ago
Relying on savings to compensate for irregular income requires you to have a runway to begin with. Given the increasing mountain of debt new graduates start with, this is going to be generally untenable for most new employees; and even some older employees will have enough financial obligations that building up the requisite amount of savings to account for income irregularities would be very difficult. Getting to the point where you can deal with uneven income flow can take quite a bit of time, time you need to spend working for someone.

ansible 12y ago

That's actually one of the reasons I find the idea of a guaranteed basic income so promising. The biggest thing making an "everybody freelances" world a dystopia rather than a eutopia (sic) is that it would eliminate any semblance of income stability. Don't forget health care. That plus a basic living stipend would be quite a revolution to the economy. We'd start to price activities more sanely, and use automation more effectively. The people still driven by status will still work their asses off to get ahead, and in general I think things would still get done. With the energy resources and automation we already have, we can do this now.

sosborn 12y ago
> Don't forget health care. That plus a basic living stipend would be quite a revolution to the economy. Don't get me wrong, I think this would be incredible, but where would the money come from to fund this? How would you guarantee that the funding stays in place for the long haul?
- Iftheshoefits 12y ago
  In America, there is plenty of money to be had by taxing the affluent, wealthy, and "obscenely" rich (a lot) more. There is nothing to guarantee any source of money beyond varying levels of confidence. Medicare and SS have lasted a long time, albeit after repeatedly being weakened. For similar reasons I have some confidence that said taxes used explicitly for guarantees of basic income and health care would be left in place for some considerable time.
- pluma 12y ago
  Generally the calculations tend to be based on an increased tax on consumption (people who are better off spend more money, so they end up paying more into the system) and/or the reduction of expenses in a lot of the social welfare system (which can largely be rolled into the basic income). Some designs assert that the basic income should simply be paid to every citizen regardless of other sources of income. Other models propose a model with a soft cut-off point (so for every dollar beyond a certain baseline of income you get some fraction of a dollar less basic income, up to a level where you -- again depending on the model -- either start paying it back or simply don't get any basic income at all). In any case the idea is that (unlike with welfare models like the one we have in Germany[0]) for every dollar you earn you actually end up with extra cash in your pocket. Ideally the basic income should be high enough to provide a frugal but sustainable standard of living with access to everything necessary to participate in the market. But arguments can be made for lower amounts as well. [0]: One problem with the German welfare system (and similar ones) is that if you receive welfare benefits and earn money, that money is subtracted from the benefits you receive at a rate of pretty much one-to-one. So if you (hypothetically) get 400 euros in benefits and then find a job that pays you less than 400 euros, you effectively end up with the same money you'd have without the job. This creates an unintentional incentive for welfare recipients not to take on low-paying jobs (frequently the only ones they qualify for) which is then clumsily counteracted with various legal constructs (like forcing people to take job interviews or accept job offers for jobs they are not a good fit for at all). It's not a terrible system, but the design flaws are obvious.

notahacker 12y ago

What's the weekly rate of the average freelance software developer? And how does that compare with that of a freelance bartender, nightwatchman or refuse collector? Relying on a BI (at any feasible level) for even a fairly brief period of time is going to represent a severe drop in income for most skilled contractors, and thus people paying mortgages on their condos in SF are going to be just as worried about income instability as before.

JoeAltmaier 12y ago
My rack rate, when I was contracting was $150/hr. So yeah a basic income would have covered basically my health insurance maybe, if I didn't have a gig. But with a rate like that, I didn't have to work but 3/4 time to feel flush.
pluma 12y ago
The idea behind a BI is not to make work redundant. Sure, even with BI the loss of a job could mean losing your mortgage. But it would allow you to make do in between jobs without having to live in a van down by the river.

tessierashpool 12y ago

a dystopia rather than a eutopia (sic) This is an awesome typo. "Utopia" is a transliteration from Ancient Greek meaning "No place." The same rules of transliteration would make "eutopia" mean "good place." "Utopia" came into English through a satire, the meaning being that nowhere's really paradise, but today we mostly use it without that edge, i.e., as if it really were spelled "eutopia."

tricolon 12y ago
I don't think that's a typo. I think pluma added (sic) to point out that he spelt it differently on purpose, not that he's quoting someone verbatim. But thank you for teaching me about eutopia!
joshuacc 12y ago
FYI, St. Thomas More, who coined the term Utopia, seems to have been intentionally ambiguous about whether the term was a transliteration of eutopia (good place) and outopia (no place).
- tessierashpool 12y ago
  ah, my bad, I think you're right.
pluma 12y ago
I wished I could say I coined that term, but I've seen it before. It's sometimes used in literary studies to explicitly distance a positive utopia from a dystopia. That it's a homophone makes it a clever pun, but also pretty useless in normal conversation.

shit_parade 12y ago

It's a beautiful idea but the problem is implementation. The government of most countries is already a powerful and corrupting force, giving it even the additional power and discretion to 'hand out' a basic income is terrifying to consider.