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I like the idea of a basic income on principle, and this article has some great arguments for it. (Though I agree it is far from being paid for--and a land tax
by 205guy 11y ago
I like the idea of a basic income on principle, and this article has some great arguments for it. (Though I agree it is far from being paid for--and a land tax essentially means it only gets paid to the landless, so you'd need to exempt "reasonable" owner-occupied land).
But let's simulate how it would look in the real world. I think mindless consumerism would go way up, especially in the lower classes. Advertising in all media would simply encourage this. The well-off would buy stock in Walmart and low end electronics makers with their extra income, thus capturing the income of the less savvy. Without local manufacturing, much of the distributed income would go to China. Paternalism and its religious affiliates would rise up again to capture the income of the not-yet-emancipated (by that I mean women and children). With perceived abundance and linear income, the birth rate would rise.
So I think we need to solve some of these issues first. Education should be the beneficiary for the first trillion in new taxes. Hopefully that could mitigate the consumerism and prompt more entrepreneurialism, as well as reduce the paternalism and birth rate. As mentioned, doing universal health care right would amount to the same thing as a universal income as well (more security, less worry, more productivity). So I wonder if those two aren't bigger priorities.
- rjaco31 11y agoOn the other hand, the article choose a pretty high monthly value ($1k). Going with $600 or $800 should greatly alleviate this problem.
- ZeroGravitas 11y agoIn the UK the government has recently being trying to increase the birthrate by giving more money to those who have kids, so its interesting to see you suggest this would be a problem with BI. I assume this is a general problem with advanced economies as I read an article recently that said kids in school were being given better info on how to get pregnant in some countries, in another attempt to lift the birth rate.
- vixen99 11y agoThis is simply wrong & it is not government policy moreover UK is the most densely populated country in Europe after Malta. There is a benefit payment given in respect of all children under 16 who have parents earning less than around 60K pounds pa.
- ZeroGravitas 11y agoThe UK may be densely populated, but if it doesn't produce enough children then its demographics will be top heavy and there won't be enough people of working age to support those in retirement. We're currently below the replacement rate. If you pay people to do something, that is generally considered by economists to incentivize that behaviour, so how is giving thousands of pounds to families not a government policy to encourage people to have kids? They did recently limit the payments to people earning more than 60,000 pounds a year, but the average wage is less than half of that.