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Look, I think the robots are gonna take over, but you have to be REALLY ignorant to not realize that there are far too many jobs we need humans to do, going on

Look, I think the robots are gonna take over, but you have to be REALLY ignorant to not realize that there are far too many jobs we need humans to do, going on right now, for us to subsidize even the highly technically skilled to go off and follow their whims without any sort of economic integration whatsoever. The value of the denomination of the "minimum income" will fall immediately, lowering that supposed minimum, because no one will want to produce the boring things everyone wants to consume on the other end. Therefore, NEVER, NEVER, NEVER agitate for a basic income in terms of whatever brand-name of money (dollar, euro, nyancoin or some abstract non-existent Platonic form of "money"), but instead say something like "Everyone will be given a X by Y square foot dwelling, allowed Z gallons of water a year, given 20 fresh tomatoes, etc." and THEN reason about how those can be provided (do we force [enslave] people to provide this to others? what do we do if no one coughs up the goods?). If you agitate for a minimum wage or minimum income, it will always be worthless at the whim of the currency's authority(ies). More realistically, just reason instead what the least you need as an individual is, work to get it from within whatever economy you find yourself in, and then begin the REAL work of life, developing your happiness for and from what you have. See: Tolstoy's "How Much Land Does A Man Need?"

michaelchisari 11y ago
The value of the denomination of the "minimum income" will fall immediately, lowering that supposed minimum The word for that is inflation, and so far economists have not seen evidence that a basic income would effect inflation. developing your happiness for and from what you have. That's a good goal for microeconomics. But this is about macroeconomics.
shkkmo 11y ago
>you have to be REALLY ignorant to not realize that there are far too many jobs we need humans to do, going on right now, for us to subsidize even the highly technically skilled to go off and follow their whims without any sort of economic integration whatsoever. Really? First off, any basic income that is provided is not going to come close to what a 'highly technically skilled' individual makes. Secondly, if those individuals do find some activity or undertaking valuable enough to trade the relative income for, it probably has unrecognized value. I would bet they these individuals will acquire expertise, develop new knowledge, and create new things that will be highly benificial to society. This is very similar we what do with grants to scientists conducting general research. Following your logic, we have too many important problems to bother wasting scientists time on anything that isn't an immediate problem. Thirdly, there is no way that these individuals would be operating 'without any sort of economic integration whatsoever'. They would still be consuming in our society and their non-consumptive actions would still have economic effects. That said, I don't think we are at the point we can realistically provide a basic income capable of supporting a reasonable standard of living. I do think we can start providing a basic supplementary income and I think that if paired with reductions in the minimum wage, it could be very successful at stimulating economic growth during the next downturn or slow down.

michaelchisari 11y ago

The value of the denomination of the "minimum income" will fall immediately, lowering that supposed minimum The word for that is inflation, and so far economists have not seen evidence that a basic income would effect inflation. developing your happiness for and from what you have. That's a good goal for microeconomics. But this is about macroeconomics.

shkkmo 11y ago

>you have to be REALLY ignorant to not realize that there are far too many jobs we need humans to do, going on right now, for us to subsidize even the highly technically skilled to go off and follow their whims without any sort of economic integration whatsoever. Really? First off, any basic income that is provided is not going to come close to what a 'highly technically skilled' individual makes. Secondly, if those individuals do find some activity or undertaking valuable enough to trade the relative income for, it probably has unrecognized value. I would bet they these individuals will acquire expertise, develop new knowledge, and create new things that will be highly benificial to society. This is very similar we what do with grants to scientists conducting general research. Following your logic, we have too many important problems to bother wasting scientists time on anything that isn't an immediate problem. Thirdly, there is no way that these individuals would be operating 'without any sort of economic integration whatsoever'. They would still be consuming in our society and their non-consumptive actions would still have economic effects. That said, I don't think we are at the point we can realistically provide a basic income capable of supporting a reasonable standard of living. I do think we can start providing a basic supplementary income and I think that if paired with reductions in the minimum wage, it could be very successful at stimulating economic growth during the next downturn or slow down.