5 ms·

>Once they have every single person who breathes on the dole, this will give them unbelievable leverage against the people. That may not be a bad thing if we'r

>Once they have every single person who breathes on the dole, this will give them unbelievable leverage against the people. That may not be a bad thing if we're talking about people who contribute nil to society. >If the government is giving everyone a check, how hard is it to argue that the check should be more? Not hard. Not hard to argue, very hard to accomplish. Political change in many countries is slow and welfare recipients are rarely afforded much sympathy by the working and managing classes. In any case, the real function of basic income is so much more than a moral institution (we've heard those reasons a million times and I won't touch on them here). The exciting thing is that it gets the useless and/or uncommitted to self-select out of the labor market. That means better productivity, higher quality services, a better work environment, lower labor supply and higher wages. They can continue contributing little-to-nothing, be provided a reasonable minimum by local standards, and leave the rest of us to accomplish what we want to in business, research, etc. That would be a HUGE weight off the backs of workers and companies, and I would gladly pay to keep people who can't be bothered out of work. Make no mistake, we're already carrying these people financially and professionally. Not having them gum up our operations would be well worth whatever instinctual annoyance their mooching causes. That's the conclusion I've arrived at.

ryanx435 11y ago
> The exciting thing is that it gets the useless and/or uncommitted to self-select out of the labor market. That means better productivity, higher quality services, a better work environment, lower labor supply and higher wages. you're going to have to explain this logical leap as it is non intuitive and I don't see any sources on your comment.
- shredprez 11y ago
  Simple enough: clearing the lazy, the unmotivated, and the unaccountable from our labor market would make it easier to get work done (less drain from employees who don't contribute); make work more pleasant (surrounded by motivated colleagues who value what they do); and eliminate competition from useless employees who leech jobs, artificially inflate the labor supply and tarnish average applicant quality because they'd rather stay home and do nothing (improving employees' position relative to employers). The above doesn't seem non intuitive to me, beyond the idea that it might actually be worth it to pay some people to go away.
  - ryanx435 11y ago
    all of the problems you just described can be solved by simply firing a bad employee or not hiring bad ones in the first place. I'm still not following why paying them to do nothing is necessary.
    - shredprez 11y ago
      >all of the problems you just described can be solved by simply firing a bad employee or not hiring bad ones in the first place. Hardly. If hiring and firing could effectively eliminate poor employees, there wouldn't be so many. As it is, only the most egregious are weeded out. Firing costly employees can be exceptionally difficult depending on local regulations and may not even be worth the trouble considering the risk of simply finding another costly employee. In a world where you more or less must work, low-quality job applicants are especially incentivized to misrepresent themselves. Basic income would divert many of these people out of the workforce and into their homes where they can do less damage. >I'm still not following why paying them to do nothing is necessary. They're already being payed to do nothing. They're just doing nothing at work where it costs businesses money, hurts the experience for customers/clients, and worsens the workplace for employees who really care about what they do. And at work they do worse than nothing: not only are they paid to do nothing, but they fill a position that could be filled by a productive employee. So while the business loses money on the employee, the whole machine is simultaneously thrown off balance by a missing cog. Usually fellow coworkers wind up compensating (paying) for this imbalance, with no extra reward. Best case scenario, the business manages to fire the employee. Then the individual either moves on to pilfer another company or goes on welfare. They don't just fall out of the system, they continue racking up costs while contributing nothing. Basic income would allow us to filter them out cheaply (letting low-quality "workers" opt-out instead of making businesses review, employ, and reject them) and fix their monthly cost relative to our economy. Meanwhile, our businesses would become leaner and more effective. You can't eliminate leeches from society, but you can minimize their economic impact. It is less costly to pay them to stay home than to pay them to come to work where their costs are multiplied.
      - ryanx435 11y ago

ryanx435 11y ago

> The exciting thing is that it gets the useless and/or uncommitted to self-select out of the labor market. That means better productivity, higher quality services, a better work environment, lower labor supply and higher wages. you're going to have to explain this logical leap as it is non intuitive and I don't see any sources on your comment.

shredprez 11y ago
Simple enough: clearing the lazy, the unmotivated, and the unaccountable from our labor market would make it easier to get work done (less drain from employees who don't contribute); make work more pleasant (surrounded by motivated colleagues who value what they do); and eliminate competition from useless employees who leech jobs, artificially inflate the labor supply and tarnish average applicant quality because they'd rather stay home and do nothing (improving employees' position relative to employers). The above doesn't seem non intuitive to me, beyond the idea that it might actually be worth it to pay some people to go away.
- ryanx435 11y ago
  all of the problems you just described can be solved by simply firing a bad employee or not hiring bad ones in the first place. I'm still not following why paying them to do nothing is necessary.
  - shredprez 11y ago
    >all of the problems you just described can be solved by simply firing a bad employee or not hiring bad ones in the first place. Hardly. If hiring and firing could effectively eliminate poor employees, there wouldn't be so many. As it is, only the most egregious are weeded out. Firing costly employees can be exceptionally difficult depending on local regulations and may not even be worth the trouble considering the risk of simply finding another costly employee. In a world where you more or less must work, low-quality job applicants are especially incentivized to misrepresent themselves. Basic income would divert many of these people out of the workforce and into their homes where they can do less damage. >I'm still not following why paying them to do nothing is necessary. They're already being payed to do nothing. They're just doing nothing at work where it costs businesses money, hurts the experience for customers/clients, and worsens the workplace for employees who really care about what they do. And at work they do worse than nothing: not only are they paid to do nothing, but they fill a position that could be filled by a productive employee. So while the business loses money on the employee, the whole machine is simultaneously thrown off balance by a missing cog. Usually fellow coworkers wind up compensating (paying) for this imbalance, with no extra reward. Best case scenario, the business manages to fire the employee. Then the individual either moves on to pilfer another company or goes on welfare. They don't just fall out of the system, they continue racking up costs while contributing nothing. Basic income would allow us to filter them out cheaply (letting low-quality "workers" opt-out instead of making businesses review, employ, and reject them) and fix their monthly cost relative to our economy. Meanwhile, our businesses would become leaner and more effective. You can't eliminate leeches from society, but you can minimize their economic impact. It is less costly to pay them to stay home than to pay them to come to work where their costs are multiplied.
    - ryanx435 11y ago