10 ms·

Idea of paying citizens a yearly stipend is gaining support in Switzerland

69 points by roger_burkhard 11y ago

mappu 11y ago
(April 2014)
- roger_burkhard 11y ago
  The article is older but the government will vote for or against it in autumn 2016.
  - atemerev 11y ago
    Not the government, the Swiss people. Again. And it will be rejected. Again. Thankfully.
    - Fargren 11y ago
      I think we need to experiment with this before deciding whether it's a good or bad idea. A whole country is probably not the way to start, though.
      - atemerev 11y ago
        There were many experiments like this, including whole countries. E.g. in North Korea, there _is_ a guaranteed basic income (at least by law), equivalent to a bowl of rice per day.
        kjjw 11y ago
        Urgh really? That is so disingenuous I actually feel a bit dirty after reading it. Sorry, but surely you are invoking the comparison to North Korea because you hope to argue against guaranteed income by association. Also, a bowl of rice a day really is fundamentally different to a guaranteed income that can be spent as the recipient wishes. It is more like food stamps in the US.
        fensipens 11y ago
        > Urgh really? That is so disingenuous I actually feel a bit dirty after reading it. Just walk away. Because you won't win any argument with that type. A very convinced yet insecure type.
        ionised 11y ago
        A bowl of rice a day is not enough to live on.
      - dagw 11y ago
        While I personally would love to see this pass and the experiment to go ahead, I only really feel comfortable saying that since I don't live in Switzerland and won't have to deal with any potential fallout.
      - clort 11y ago
        There have been experiments along these lines. I'm not sure why but I read about this on on HN not so long ago.. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8792192
        Fargren 11y ago
        As described in plenty of comments in that thread, that experiment was not in basic income. Minimal income and basic income are different in fundamental ways, and could potentially lead to fundamentally different behaviours.
      - tsotha 11y ago
        I'm not sure it will work in a smaller area. If you just did it in one city poor people from all over the country would move there and bankrupt the program.
    - stefantalpalaru 11y ago
      > Thankfully. Sadly. I'd really like to see this being implemented somewhere during my lifetime. A society in which survival is no longer a problem might be just what we need in a time when the biggest problem in european agriculture is overproduction and many houses are empty yet we still worry about putting food on the table and a shelter over our heads. What would people do with this new freedom? An acceleration of technical innovation? An art renaissance? How would relations change in the workplace once you no longer need to work in order to survive? Would volunteering take off as a socially acceptable alternative to paid work? Would it cover areas ignored by the current market?
      - atemerev 11y ago
        This was actually a main selling point of Communism. Like a perpetuum mobile, it is really attractive to most people, but can't be implemented. But people dreaming of free energy are mostly harmless, the only problem being the grant money spent on cold fusion and the like. People dreaming of free money have created worst bloodbaths in history.
        stefantalpalaru 11y ago
        Communism was about forcing individuals to do things for the common good. It obviously didn't work. Unconditional basic income is about freeing people from the constant stress of worrying about their survival and the survival of those depending on them.
atemerev 11y ago
Many journalists don't understand how Swiss political system works. We have a direct (not representative) democracy here. Most issues are resolved on the referendums happening every two months. All kinds of issues — new taxes, foreign relations, public projects — all is subject to direct vote of the Swiss people, who have all law-making authority here (systematically regulated). The direct consequence of this otherwise excellent system is that basically anyone can collect 20,000 signatures and introduce his or her idea to the public voting, no matter how crazy it looks like. This is one of such cases. We already had law suggestions like make all public transportation free (didn't pass), abolish Swiss army (many times — didn't pass), disallow construction of minarets (passed), etc. The guaranteed basic income law has been rejected with a huge margin — because Swiss people have basic understanding of who would have been paying for this, and who wouldn't.
- yodsanklai 11y ago
  > no matter how crazy it looks like. This is one of such cases. It doesn't sound so crazy to me :) > Swiss people have basic understanding of who would have been paying for this, and who wouldn't Can you be more specific?
  - Kesty 11y ago
    They belive what the party tell them to vote.
- colechristensen 11y ago
  Several US states have, let's say, prolific referendums which likewise result in large numbers of wonky proposals on the ballot. Many state legislatures themselves (the bar for entry in some cases can be very low) often have absurd proposed laws that journalists tend to exaggerate the reality of because a small number of nutjobs manage to get themselves elected.
  - barry-cotter 11y ago
    Swiss cantons are a lot smaller than even Rhode Island (by area) or Wyoming (by population). From memory Switzerland has 5 million people and 32 cantons. Municipalities are also free to secede and form their own canton or join a neighbouring canton. Referenda aren't just a national thing either, they have them at every level of government. This all probably contributes to how well it works, that and the extremely strong political culture of consensus, and the way the federal government is organised. The Premiers of each canton sitting in forum are the Swiss federal government, and all decisions are made unanimously. It's a very conservative system. The only country I've ever visited that gave the same impression of having the same level of organisation and competence as Switzerland was Singapore.
vorg 11y ago
If this was tried in Australia, the average residential rent would suddenly go up, and the landlords would end up with all that money.
- pan69 11y ago
  It's a terrible broken system here in Australia. Being originally from Europe, the fact the you buy a house (or many houses for that matter) and the rent them out is completely beyond me. It's a system where e.g. 50% (or less!) of the population can own 100% of the property market. But I get it, as long as the politicians have their hands in the property market as well, it will be, and remain, a broken system until eternity.
  - taejo 11y ago
    And Europe doesn't have landlords?
    - thwd 11y ago
      I don't know about Europe in general. Here in Switzerland the majority of landlords are pension funds, which are constrained investment companies with a social obligation. As such, they normally own upwards of 1000 apartments/houses at a time. They price their properties according to market but they cannot adjust beyond certain thresholds because the risk ratio would exceed what they're allowed to have.
    - pan69 11y ago
      Where I'm from (The Netherlands) they have corporations, not individual people from whom you rent. I think this was created somewhere after world war 2. In the old inner cities there might still be a "landlord" or two left of buildings that are in private hands but everything else is pretty much owned by a co-ops, they can own entire suburbs. Rent is devised through a point system and therefore everyone who lives in similar housing pays the same rent (more or less, I think it also has to do with how long you've been living there). Over here in Australia the rent is based on pretty much two things; a) the mortgage of the landlord and b) what they can get away with. Not to mention the 6 month "inspections" you'll submitted to, you know, just because. Renting in Australia seems to have a lot of emotion involved in it. If something is broken in the house it can take ages to get fixed. Not all landlord are created equal and it's very difficult to police hundred of thousands of individuals, so they get away with it. Real-estate agents are pretty much glorified banks and there mostly the serve the landlords, I mean, it's more difficult to get a landlord on your books than it is to find a tenant. I.e. path of least resistance. Disclaimer; I haven't lived in the Netherlands for over 10 years so they might have f'd up the system just as well. In that scenario, it "was" a pretty good system.
tonyedgecombe 11y ago
30,000 CHF seems very high to me, why didn't they start much lower?
- stefantalpalaru 11y ago
  It's not. With the prices in that country being 2-4 times those in Italy, I think it's about minimum for one person to survive while paying rent in a small town.
  - Kesty 11y ago
    48'000 was what we voted last year when we wanted to put a minimum wage (taht we don't have right now) and right now 90% of workers earn more than that.
yodsanklai 11y ago
I have no idea on the consequences this would have on the economy. But I like the idea of replacing other very costly social measures (such as unemployment benefits) with a universal income. We keep seeing unemployment as a huge failure of our system when at the same time, we're happy that innovation increases productivity and automation. Maybe universal basic income is the paradigm switch that we need.
crimsonalucard 11y ago
This type of thing can generate freeloaders who deliberately choose not to work; something no economy wants. I understand and agree with the heart of the idea though. A better alternative would be to offer the possibility of a guaranteed government job with a guaranteed minimum pay. This sort of thing was done on a massive scale in the united states during the great depression. See the PWA: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Works_Administration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Works_Administration
- thedufer 11y ago
  > This type of thing can generate freeloaders who deliberately choose not to work; something no economy wants. That's actually an explicit goal of many basic income proposals. The fear of high unemployment as we automate industries faster than workers can retrain is a driving force behind the growing popularity of BI.
- stefantalpalaru 11y ago
  The freeloaders exist already. In Italy two thirds of the population is maintained by the other third. A real problem would be if a significant portion of the workforce suddenly decides it doesn't want to work anymore. Maybe social status and cultural pressures will keep this under check. As long as freeloaders don't harm the economy, they're a small price to pay in the overall scheme of things. We won't know until we see it happening somewhere.
  - crimsonalucard 11y ago
    Right. Sure. Guaranteed pay is good to help people during hard times, I totally get and agree with that and I agree with you. But please read the second paragraph of my original post. I suggest Guaranteed government WORK as a better alternative to Guaranteed PAY. Freeloading may be a small sacrifice that is the result of base income, BUT freeloading is virtually non existent if you change base income to guaranteed public work. The unemployed can be set to work on community projects that benefit the entire economy. The hoover dam was built using this technique during the great depression.
louithethrid 11y ago
Its basically just a renaming of the unemployment social service program?
- 317070 11y ago
  An unconditional basic income is a form of social security system in which all citizens or residents of a country regularly receive an unconditional sum of money, either from a government or some other public institution, __in addition to any income received from elsewhere__. [1] So, right now you only receive unemployment benefits when you are unemployed. This means you are effectively rewarded for not doing any work, which means that you also need people who check that you are really not doing any work (which would not be fair towards those that do work). And that is a schizophrenic situation, because you usually want people to work. Also, it means you can't employ people for an income below or around these unemployment benefits, because why would they work for this small increase in income compared to not working? Therefore: unconditional basic income. Whatever you do, whoever you are, you get this fixed income. So you receive it, even if you work! If you want to have an income higher than this (and you do), you'll have to work for it. But whatever you earn extra, will be extra. It effectively eliminates income poverty and the unemployment trap. It makes lowly paid jobs more attractive, at the cost of higher paid jobs (who will need to pay more taxes). However, from a labor point of view, it incentivizes every single member of society to work, which means that as a society we will be able to produce more and offer better services as a whole. It however might disincentivize people to go work for their money, if they feel their income for not working is high enough. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income
caio1982 11y ago
TL;DR: basic income might be a pipe dream in developed nations but in development countries it could be a huge social changer I'm not arguing this would work or not in Switzerland with that huge basic income (to my Brazilian standards) but basic income might be an interesting concept for developing countries where hunger is still a problem. Well, exactly like in Brazil. I don't believe we'd have the Australian problem -- that someone else mentioned in here -- of rents going up and the basic income of people being diluted in the economy making general prices higher. It has been proposed before a basic income of between 50-75 USD per month and I believe currently there's only a single city in the whole country where it's effectively in use; that's never been approved in country-level, that's why. That may seem an extremely low income but when you're starving that's a LOT of money, specially in the country side, and it's enough to make a huge impact in the economy and the development of the country in the long term. I don't think anyone who makes 20x more money than that monthly would worry about it, so no evil landlords to mess with the plan... in theory. Also, because that would apply for ANYONE who lives in the country (even foreigners), there wouldn't be this "they get it, I don't" feeling that could generate hatred between classes. And honestly, to the middle-class 50-75 bucks is nearly nothing. PS: there's a country-level law in Brazil that institutes some social security for poor families (the so called "Bolsa-Família"), but it's not treated nor seen as a basic income law by all means PPS: sorry for the lack of supportive links, but Google is your friend as this subject is pretty popular in the Brazilian media. Search for news mentioning the former senator Eduardo Suplicy, the first to propose all that
- stefantalpalaru 11y ago
  Sounds like guaranteed minimum income which some developed countries already have. Unconditional basic income is a different concept with somewhat different goals.
cpursley 11y ago
The best argument that I've heard for universal basic income appeals to my reason, and I'm a pretty hard-core libertarian on most issues. For it to work, we should move away from taxing production (income) to progressively taxing consumption (sliding scale from basics -> luxury). Until the "punish the rich" (left) and "eat the poor" (right) finger-pointing politics is removed, we're not going to be able to solve problems.
- chiaro 11y ago
  The general libertarian argument for a UBI (or NIT, which I favor) is that a sufficient guaranteed supplementary income allows for government programs like the pension and unemployment benefits to be replaced, removing the need for large administrative bodies making sure money goes only to those who meet the entitlements. The rationale for minimum wage also rests on their being a minimum amount of money needed for survival and a maximum number of hours in which to earn it; if people are no longer working these jobs in order to simply survive, the need for a minimum wage is lessened.
ende 11y ago
Any time a UBI is mentioned I think it is important to point out that the program is traditionally paired with (and funded exclusively by) a Land Value Tax. This is an important point because the UBI is not an income redistribution mechanism, but rather it is a mechanism for paying out to society the rent paid to society for the right to own land and enjoy the provlidge of property rights institutionalizing the concept of land ownership. This is akin to the citizens's dividend paid out from state oil revenues in Alaska. For more information on the reasoning behind these ideas, see the works of Henry George and Thomas Paine.
- jedmeyers 11y ago
  Will the instituted Land Value/Natural Resources dividends be enough to provide everyone with the UBI sufficient to make a living? I am just looking for the basic napkin calculations here.
  - ende 11y ago
    Good question. The stated goal (generalizing of course) of the LVT is to replace most other forms of taxation, particularly income tax. I've seen napkin calculations where that's possible, but the other side of the question of course is the payout. Most 'realistic' estimates I've personally seen of that don't necessarily assume that a UBI will provide above a very basic living. There's usually the intention of incentivizing additional income, but the UBI at least provides the security to be selective in the job market or promote risk taking in ventures. By the way, it's also apparently commonly held among economists that the LVT is a very efficient tax with low evasion. The difficulty in implementation has historically been considered to be land valuation itself, but recent advances in things like GIS apparently make high resolution valuation feasible.
tomcam 11y ago
Why work if there's a guaranteed income? What happens when payouts exceed available money from taxpayers?

mappu 11y ago

(April 2014)

roger_burkhard 11y ago
The article is older but the government will vote for or against it in autumn 2016.
- atemerev 11y ago
  Not the government, the Swiss people. Again. And it will be rejected. Again. Thankfully.
  - Fargren 11y ago
    I think we need to experiment with this before deciding whether it's a good or bad idea. A whole country is probably not the way to start, though.
    - atemerev 11y ago
      There were many experiments like this, including whole countries. E.g. in North Korea, there _is_ a guaranteed basic income (at least by law), equivalent to a bowl of rice per day.
      - kjjw 11y ago
        Urgh really? That is so disingenuous I actually feel a bit dirty after reading it. Sorry, but surely you are invoking the comparison to North Korea because you hope to argue against guaranteed income by association. Also, a bowl of rice a day really is fundamentally different to a guaranteed income that can be spent as the recipient wishes. It is more like food stamps in the US.
        fensipens 11y ago
        > Urgh really? That is so disingenuous I actually feel a bit dirty after reading it. Just walk away. Because you won't win any argument with that type. A very convinced yet insecure type.
      - ionised 11y ago
        A bowl of rice a day is not enough to live on.
    - dagw 11y ago
      While I personally would love to see this pass and the experiment to go ahead, I only really feel comfortable saying that since I don't live in Switzerland and won't have to deal with any potential fallout.
    - clort 11y ago
      There have been experiments along these lines. I'm not sure why but I read about this on on HN not so long ago.. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8792192
      - Fargren 11y ago
        As described in plenty of comments in that thread, that experiment was not in basic income. Minimal income and basic income are different in fundamental ways, and could potentially lead to fundamentally different behaviours.
    - tsotha 11y ago
      I'm not sure it will work in a smaller area. If you just did it in one city poor people from all over the country would move there and bankrupt the program.
  - stefantalpalaru 11y ago
    > Thankfully. Sadly. I'd really like to see this being implemented somewhere during my lifetime. A society in which survival is no longer a problem might be just what we need in a time when the biggest problem in european agriculture is overproduction and many houses are empty yet we still worry about putting food on the table and a shelter over our heads. What would people do with this new freedom? An acceleration of technical innovation? An art renaissance? How would relations change in the workplace once you no longer need to work in order to survive? Would volunteering take off as a socially acceptable alternative to paid work? Would it cover areas ignored by the current market?
    - atemerev 11y ago
      This was actually a main selling point of Communism. Like a perpetuum mobile, it is really attractive to most people, but can't be implemented. But people dreaming of free energy are mostly harmless, the only problem being the grant money spent on cold fusion and the like. People dreaming of free money have created worst bloodbaths in history.
      - stefantalpalaru 11y ago
        Communism was about forcing individuals to do things for the common good. It obviously didn't work. Unconditional basic income is about freeing people from the constant stress of worrying about their survival and the survival of those depending on them.

Many journalists don't understand how Swiss political system works. We have a direct (not representative) democracy here. Most issues are resolved on the referendums happening every two months. All kinds of issues — new taxes, foreign relations, public projects — all is subject to direct vote of the Swiss people, who have all law-making authority here (systematically regulated). The direct consequence of this otherwise excellent system is that basically anyone can collect 20,000 signatures and introduce his or her idea to the public voting, no matter how crazy it looks like. This is one of such cases. We already had law suggestions like make all public transportation free (didn't pass), abolish Swiss army (many times — didn't pass), disallow construction of minarets (passed), etc. The guaranteed basic income law has been rejected with a huge margin — because Swiss people have basic understanding of who would have been paying for this, and who wouldn't.

yodsanklai 11y ago
> no matter how crazy it looks like. This is one of such cases. It doesn't sound so crazy to me :) > Swiss people have basic understanding of who would have been paying for this, and who wouldn't Can you be more specific?
- Kesty 11y ago
  They belive what the party tell them to vote.
colechristensen 11y ago
Several US states have, let's say, prolific referendums which likewise result in large numbers of wonky proposals on the ballot. Many state legislatures themselves (the bar for entry in some cases can be very low) often have absurd proposed laws that journalists tend to exaggerate the reality of because a small number of nutjobs manage to get themselves elected.
- barry-cotter 11y ago
  Swiss cantons are a lot smaller than even Rhode Island (by area) or Wyoming (by population). From memory Switzerland has 5 million people and 32 cantons. Municipalities are also free to secede and form their own canton or join a neighbouring canton. Referenda aren't just a national thing either, they have them at every level of government. This all probably contributes to how well it works, that and the extremely strong political culture of consensus, and the way the federal government is organised. The Premiers of each canton sitting in forum are the Swiss federal government, and all decisions are made unanimously. It's a very conservative system. The only country I've ever visited that gave the same impression of having the same level of organisation and competence as Switzerland was Singapore.

vorg 11y ago

If this was tried in Australia, the average residential rent would suddenly go up, and the landlords would end up with all that money.

pan69 11y ago
It's a terrible broken system here in Australia. Being originally from Europe, the fact the you buy a house (or many houses for that matter) and the rent them out is completely beyond me. It's a system where e.g. 50% (or less!) of the population can own 100% of the property market. But I get it, as long as the politicians have their hands in the property market as well, it will be, and remain, a broken system until eternity.
- taejo 11y ago
  And Europe doesn't have landlords?
  - thwd 11y ago
    I don't know about Europe in general. Here in Switzerland the majority of landlords are pension funds, which are constrained investment companies with a social obligation. As such, they normally own upwards of 1000 apartments/houses at a time. They price their properties according to market but they cannot adjust beyond certain thresholds because the risk ratio would exceed what they're allowed to have.
  - pan69 11y ago
    Where I'm from (The Netherlands) they have corporations, not individual people from whom you rent. I think this was created somewhere after world war 2. In the old inner cities there might still be a "landlord" or two left of buildings that are in private hands but everything else is pretty much owned by a co-ops, they can own entire suburbs. Rent is devised through a point system and therefore everyone who lives in similar housing pays the same rent (more or less, I think it also has to do with how long you've been living there). Over here in Australia the rent is based on pretty much two things; a) the mortgage of the landlord and b) what they can get away with. Not to mention the 6 month "inspections" you'll submitted to, you know, just because. Renting in Australia seems to have a lot of emotion involved in it. If something is broken in the house it can take ages to get fixed. Not all landlord are created equal and it's very difficult to police hundred of thousands of individuals, so they get away with it. Real-estate agents are pretty much glorified banks and there mostly the serve the landlords, I mean, it's more difficult to get a landlord on your books than it is to find a tenant. I.e. path of least resistance. Disclaimer; I haven't lived in the Netherlands for over 10 years so they might have f'd up the system just as well. In that scenario, it "was" a pretty good system.

tonyedgecombe 11y ago

30,000 CHF seems very high to me, why didn't they start much lower?

stefantalpalaru 11y ago
It's not. With the prices in that country being 2-4 times those in Italy, I think it's about minimum for one person to survive while paying rent in a small town.
- Kesty 11y ago
  48'000 was what we voted last year when we wanted to put a minimum wage (taht we don't have right now) and right now 90% of workers earn more than that.

yodsanklai 11y ago

I have no idea on the consequences this would have on the economy. But I like the idea of replacing other very costly social measures (such as unemployment benefits) with a universal income. We keep seeing unemployment as a huge failure of our system when at the same time, we're happy that innovation increases productivity and automation. Maybe universal basic income is the paradigm switch that we need.

crimsonalucard 11y ago

This type of thing can generate freeloaders who deliberately choose not to work; something no economy wants. I understand and agree with the heart of the idea though. A better alternative would be to offer the possibility of a guaranteed government job with a guaranteed minimum pay. This sort of thing was done on a massive scale in the united states during the great depression. See the PWA: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Works_Administration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Works_Administration

thedufer 11y ago
> This type of thing can generate freeloaders who deliberately choose not to work; something no economy wants. That's actually an explicit goal of many basic income proposals. The fear of high unemployment as we automate industries faster than workers can retrain is a driving force behind the growing popularity of BI.
stefantalpalaru 11y ago
The freeloaders exist already. In Italy two thirds of the population is maintained by the other third. A real problem would be if a significant portion of the workforce suddenly decides it doesn't want to work anymore. Maybe social status and cultural pressures will keep this under check. As long as freeloaders don't harm the economy, they're a small price to pay in the overall scheme of things. We won't know until we see it happening somewhere.
- crimsonalucard 11y ago
  Right. Sure. Guaranteed pay is good to help people during hard times, I totally get and agree with that and I agree with you. But please read the second paragraph of my original post. I suggest Guaranteed government WORK as a better alternative to Guaranteed PAY. Freeloading may be a small sacrifice that is the result of base income, BUT freeloading is virtually non existent if you change base income to guaranteed public work. The unemployed can be set to work on community projects that benefit the entire economy. The hoover dam was built using this technique during the great depression.

louithethrid 11y ago

Its basically just a renaming of the unemployment social service program?

317070 11y ago
An unconditional basic income is a form of social security system in which all citizens or residents of a country regularly receive an unconditional sum of money, either from a government or some other public institution, __in addition to any income received from elsewhere__. [1] So, right now you only receive unemployment benefits when you are unemployed. This means you are effectively rewarded for not doing any work, which means that you also need people who check that you are really not doing any work (which would not be fair towards those that do work). And that is a schizophrenic situation, because you usually want people to work. Also, it means you can't employ people for an income below or around these unemployment benefits, because why would they work for this small increase in income compared to not working? Therefore: unconditional basic income. Whatever you do, whoever you are, you get this fixed income. So you receive it, even if you work! If you want to have an income higher than this (and you do), you'll have to work for it. But whatever you earn extra, will be extra. It effectively eliminates income poverty and the unemployment trap. It makes lowly paid jobs more attractive, at the cost of higher paid jobs (who will need to pay more taxes). However, from a labor point of view, it incentivizes every single member of society to work, which means that as a society we will be able to produce more and offer better services as a whole. It however might disincentivize people to go work for their money, if they feel their income for not working is high enough. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income

caio1982 11y ago

TL;DR: basic income might be a pipe dream in developed nations but in development countries it could be a huge social changer I'm not arguing this would work or not in Switzerland with that huge basic income (to my Brazilian standards) but basic income might be an interesting concept for developing countries where hunger is still a problem. Well, exactly like in Brazil. I don't believe we'd have the Australian problem -- that someone else mentioned in here -- of rents going up and the basic income of people being diluted in the economy making general prices higher. It has been proposed before a basic income of between 50-75 USD per month and I believe currently there's only a single city in the whole country where it's effectively in use; that's never been approved in country-level, that's why. That may seem an extremely low income but when you're starving that's a LOT of money, specially in the country side, and it's enough to make a huge impact in the economy and the development of the country in the long term. I don't think anyone who makes 20x more money than that monthly would worry about it, so no evil landlords to mess with the plan... in theory. Also, because that would apply for ANYONE who lives in the country (even foreigners), there wouldn't be this "they get it, I don't" feeling that could generate hatred between classes. And honestly, to the middle-class 50-75 bucks is nearly nothing. PS: there's a country-level law in Brazil that institutes some social security for poor families (the so called "Bolsa-Família"), but it's not treated nor seen as a basic income law by all means PPS: sorry for the lack of supportive links, but Google is your friend as this subject is pretty popular in the Brazilian media. Search for news mentioning the former senator Eduardo Suplicy, the first to propose all that

stefantalpalaru 11y ago
Sounds like guaranteed minimum income which some developed countries already have. Unconditional basic income is a different concept with somewhat different goals.

cpursley 11y ago

The best argument that I've heard for universal basic income appeals to my reason, and I'm a pretty hard-core libertarian on most issues. For it to work, we should move away from taxing production (income) to progressively taxing consumption (sliding scale from basics -> luxury). Until the "punish the rich" (left) and "eat the poor" (right) finger-pointing politics is removed, we're not going to be able to solve problems.

chiaro 11y ago
The general libertarian argument for a UBI (or NIT, which I favor) is that a sufficient guaranteed supplementary income allows for government programs like the pension and unemployment benefits to be replaced, removing the need for large administrative bodies making sure money goes only to those who meet the entitlements. The rationale for minimum wage also rests on their being a minimum amount of money needed for survival and a maximum number of hours in which to earn it; if people are no longer working these jobs in order to simply survive, the need for a minimum wage is lessened.

ende 11y ago

Any time a UBI is mentioned I think it is important to point out that the program is traditionally paired with (and funded exclusively by) a Land Value Tax. This is an important point because the UBI is not an income redistribution mechanism, but rather it is a mechanism for paying out to society the rent paid to society for the right to own land and enjoy the provlidge of property rights institutionalizing the concept of land ownership. This is akin to the citizens's dividend paid out from state oil revenues in Alaska. For more information on the reasoning behind these ideas, see the works of Henry George and Thomas Paine.

jedmeyers 11y ago
Will the instituted Land Value/Natural Resources dividends be enough to provide everyone with the UBI sufficient to make a living? I am just looking for the basic napkin calculations here.
- ende 11y ago
  Good question. The stated goal (generalizing of course) of the LVT is to replace most other forms of taxation, particularly income tax. I've seen napkin calculations where that's possible, but the other side of the question of course is the payout. Most 'realistic' estimates I've personally seen of that don't necessarily assume that a UBI will provide above a very basic living. There's usually the intention of incentivizing additional income, but the UBI at least provides the security to be selective in the job market or promote risk taking in ventures. By the way, it's also apparently commonly held among economists that the LVT is a very efficient tax with low evasion. The difficulty in implementation has historically been considered to be land valuation itself, but recent advances in things like GIS apparently make high resolution valuation feasible.

tomcam 11y ago

Why work if there's a guaranteed income? What happens when payouts exceed available money from taxpayers?