
Trends that will create demand for an Unconditional Basic Income - nkoren
http://simulacrum.cc/2013/07/10/three-trends-that-push-us-towards-an-unconditional-basic-income/
======
crazygringo
> _" How would we pay for it? We could start by getting corporations to pay
> their taxes."_

I don't know why people keep harping on corporate taxes. If anything, taxing
corporations is _regressive_ \-- the taxes ultimately get passed on to
consumers through higher product prices, regardless of their income levels.

Taxing corporations doesn't produce magic money -- it's still taxing people in
the end, but it's the consumers. Far better is higher tax rates on
investments, and higher taxes on the rich. We should be taxing the _people_
who _own_ the corporations, or are paid huge salaries by them -- that is, if
you believe in progressive taxation.

~~~
jellicle
> If anything, taxing corporations is regressive -- the taxes ultimately get
> passed on to consumers through higher product prices, regardless of their
> income levels.

Actually, the studies show that corporate taxes are essentially a proxy for
the taxing the ultra-wealthy - a cut in the corporate tax rate is very similar
to cutting the highest marginal income tax rate.

After all, if corporate taxes truly fell on the poor, Republicans wouldn't be
for cutting them.

~~~
gwright
You started off with an interesting addition to the conversation, and I was
hoping for a reference regarding the relationship between corporate taxes and
the ultra-weathy, but instead I got a gratuitous, tired, over-used, boring,
ad-hominem about Republicans that added nothing to conversation.

~~~
criley2
No he didn't. The national Republican Party is outspoken about raising taxes
on lower income people, in "broadening the base". In the election-year expose
of Romney's secret fundraising speeches, we learned about "the 49%" of
Americans who don't pay taxes. Well, we didn't learn about it, it's a very
common trope for conservative politicians.

It's no secret that Republicans largely support "base broadening", as well as
less-overt attacks on the finances of the poor like their CURRENT attempts to
divorce the farm bill from food stamps, to further cut food stamps.

You're trying to enforce some politically correct echo chamber where a
national political party isn't responsible for their votes and their policy.

Republicans are _openly_ for raising taxes on the bottom 50% of Americans, are
_openly_ for decreasing wealth transfer like foodstamps, welfare and
unemployment, and are _openly_ for lowering (and abolishing) corporate taxes.

Those are their policies and it is utterly and totally fair to state that and
reference it.

~~~
talmand
Yes he did.

Your comment and jellicle's comment are not quite the same thing.

Even then, you are painting some of the party's platform in a negative light
without showing why exactly that is their platform to begin with nor why you
consider them terrible ideas. Some of their reasons may be bad, but that
doesn't mean all of their reasons are.

~~~
toomuchtodo
GOP Platform: "I've got mine, f __* you. "

~~~
ctdonath
Leftist Platform: "I'm taking yours, f* you."

Yeah, this line of discussion is going to get us far.

~~~
toomuchtodo
Let me be more specific:

Who is blocking comprehensive reform of the banking sector (which arguably
drove not only the US into a recession, but the world as a whole)? Republicans

Draconian anti-abortion laws? Republics

Raising student loan interest rates while keeping lending rates to banks near
zero? Republicans

Supporting egregious amounts of defense department spending (The US spends
more on defense then the next 10 countries COMBINED;
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_e...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures))?
Republicans

Blocking immigration reform? Republicans

Trying to prevent the implementation of universal healthcare? Republicans.

I could go on, but it would be pointless.

~~~
gwright
If only these issues were as clear-cut as you seem to think they are.

There is plenty of evidence that the risky loans associated with the home
mortgage crisis were motivated by federal policies advocated by Democrats such
as the implicit guarantees associated with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The student loan debacle is another example of unintended consequences of
government loan subsidies and there is considerable evidence that those
subsidies are simply captured by the colleges and universities when they raise
their rates.

Regarding defense spending, it isn't a surprise that the US spends lots of
defense since the US basically provides a national defense capability for
itself and most of its close allies. There is certainly plenty of ways to be
more efficient on defense spending but Congressional support for inefficient
defense spending is hardly a Republican phenomena. It is a systemic problem.

Anyone who thinks that the ACA is the be-all-and-end-all of healthcare systems
is delusional. It is a bureaucratic nightmare riddled with stupid incentives,
accounting flim-flam, and ridiculous complexity. Add to that the completely
reasonable thought that the more appropriate location for these services, if
they are going to be provided, is the states.

Immigration reform: Unending posturing from Democrats who seem to want no
limits to immigration and Republicans who seem to want no immigration at all.
On top of that, I don't think the public knows what it wants (i.e. no real
grassroots consensus)

Abortion: I'm not going there other than to say neither Republicans nor
Democrats are uniform in their opinions on this topic.

My basic philosophy is that neither party is acquitting itself with much
distinction these days. It is foolish to think that the flaws in our public
policy are the fault of either party alone -- they are both complicit.

~~~
flyinRyan
The issues are pretty clear cut, the issue is you're getting bogged down by
political party labels that have little meaning. If someone performs a bunch
deregulation that's not a "left" position no matter what party they claim to
be in.

------
tokenadult
I see no one in this active discussion has mentioned yet Charles Murray's book
_In Our Hands: A Plan to Replace the Welfare State,_

[http://www.amazon.com/books/dp/0844742236](http://www.amazon.com/books/dp/0844742236)

in which Murray goes into detail about how much a program of guaranteed income
for everyone would cost in the United States, and some probable effects that
would have on everyone's everyday behavior. I read the book a year or two
after it was published.

Murray's own summary of his argument

[http://www.irp.wisc.edu/publications/focus/pdfs/foc242a.pdf](http://www.irp.wisc.edu/publications/focus/pdfs/foc242a.pdf)

and reviews of his book

[http://www.aei.org/article/society-and-culture/poverty/in-
ou...](http://www.aei.org/article/society-and-culture/poverty/in-our-hands-a-
plan-to-replace-the-welfare-state-article/)

[http://www.conallboyle.com/BasicIncomeNewEcon/MurrayReview.p...](http://www.conallboyle.com/BasicIncomeNewEcon/MurrayReview.pdf)

[http://www.richmondfed.org/publications/research/region_focu...](http://www.richmondfed.org/publications/research/region_focus/2006/fall/pdf/book_review.pdf)

[http://mises.org/misesreview_detail.aspx?control=296](http://mises.org/misesreview_detail.aspx?control=296)

may inform the discussion here. Big public policy proposals are not easy to
discuss, but the big public policy proposal of a guaranteed basic income for
all is a response to existing policy of supposedly targeted social welfare
programs that are just about equally expensive, but more costly to administer.

~~~
btilly
The other problem with "targeted social welfare programs" is that it is very
easy to dislike programs that someone else (particularly someone that you
don't like) benefits from. A program that you yourself benefit from tends to
be less likely to get eroded by future politicians.

Compare welfare and social security for a classic example of the difference.

~~~
jerf
This is my biggest concern with the idea, which I don't see being addressed
(checked the entire conversation on this post to date). I don't think having
the vote and having the basic income is compatible with each other. Why aren't
people going to vote themselves larger basic incomes every year? How can you
both have the (modern conception of the) vote, and a basic income at the same
time?

Attempts to answer this question also need to deal with human beings as they
are, not as they could be if we were all just really good and pure and all
motivated by selfless interest only in the good of humanity as a whole or
something, because presumably this is being proposed as a real policy for real
people and not some fantasyland.

(Also, I do not consider "well we already have some programs like that today"
to be a defense... I'm not entirely convinced that's just going to turn out
peachy keen in the end either. I'm personally pretty convinced we've already
passed a threshold at which a significant chunk of our government is actively
pursuing government dependency as a conscious policy, and that's not going to
end well either, as the same mechanics take sway... there is always a reason
to grow benefits, it's always evil to cut them, and there's no feasible way to
bound the growth of promised benefits to real growth, other than the really,
really hard one of simply running out of resources.)

While this is a criticism of mine, and I am not trying to hide my general
skepticism as seen in my second paragraph, I am posting this also in a genuine
spirit of inquiry about what answers to this question may have been developed.
I acknowledge the problems the BI idea is trying to solve, and I acknowledge
that I have no answers (including, alas, BI, unless someone can convince me
here).

~~~
dasil003
I think you're overweighting the relative influence BI can exert. Introducing
BI as a tiny fraction of GDP does not make existing financial power structures
disappear. Existing wealth will still wield the same influence it always has.
There will be plenty of lobbyists to push back against corporate tax hikes,
there will still be the usual capitalist incentives to start a business and
increase production, the American people will still believe in upward mobility
and the right of a business owner to make money. In short, I think you're
imagining a slippery slope of a policy without any checks and balances where
in fact there will be many. I could be wrong of course, but it's really
rampant speculation on both our parts because humans don't really have an
intuitive or historical understanding of how such a system would actually pan
out in practice.

On balance it seems like a better risk than the current welfare and disability
systems that dehumanize people and create a perverse incentive not to work in
order to survive. If efficiency and automation trends continue some sort of
wealth redistribution will become strictly necessary whether that is done
through government policy, charity, or revolution. BI for its potential flaws
doesn't look so bad compared to the alternatives.

~~~
jerf
"Introducing BI as a tiny fraction of GDP"

OK, yes, but what's going to _keep_ it a tiny fraction of the GDP? The BI's
natural "lobbying organzation" is _the entire public_... not even the entire
_voting_ public, but the entire public. No current structures have that
characteristic. For almost the entire population, $10,000 is a _lot of money_.
Even people making $150,000/year are going to still appreciate $10,000, and
we're now talking _well_ above median.

If there was a lobbying force large enough to actually countervail the _entire
public 's_ interest in voting themselves more money, I'm pretty sure it would
not be hard to drum up a mob against them.

As I understand it, Basic Income's distinguishing characteristic is that
_everybody_ gets it. You can't use our experiences with things that well less
than half the population gets to judge the effect it will have on voting
patterns.

You can't just think about the first year of Basic Income's implementation.
You have to think about the second year. You have to think about the tenth
year. You have to think about the 18th year, when people who have never lived
in a regime other than having BI exist start voting themselves. Are _they_
going to understand that it's a bad idea to listen to the politicians
promising to make it larger? Because there will be such politicians. Probably
all of them, honestly.

~~~
dragonwriter
> OK, yes, but what's going to keep it a tiny fraction of the GDP? The BI's
> natural "lobbying organzation" is the entire public...

Er, no, its not. The natural lobbying organization is the people whose have an
expected positive _net_ utility from an increased BI. That's not the entire
public, as both increased public debt and increased taxation have negative
consequences for members of the public. (And as, empirically, its been shown
that increased income has a declining, and beyond a certain point,
immeasurably small contribution to experience utility.)

> You have to think about the 18th year, when people who have never lived in a
> regime other than having BI exist start voting themselves. Are they going to
> understand that it's a bad idea to listen to the politicians promising to
> make it larger?

Sure. They'll probably understand the effects of BI level changes a lot better
than people in the first year do.

------
steveplace
Basic income _on top_ of everything else doesn't make much sense (cost-wise).

But if we could trade B.I. for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, SNAP, and
other social progams-- it would probably be more cost efficient as individuals
look after their money better than other people do.

Here's a video from Milton Friedman (not Tom Friedman!) who is advocating for
a negative income tax-- a variation of basic income.

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtpgkX588nM](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtpgkX588nM)

~~~
twoodfin
I agree, but unfortunately I don't think "basic income and no other welfare
programs" is a politically stable policy. No sooner will it have been
introduced than politicians will be tempted to screw with it to help a favored
constituency.

Go to work as an inner city teacher? Here's an extra 20% in your BI.

Live in an area damaged by a hurricane? We'll bump your BI for a year or two.

I don't think a "simpler" tax code would last much longer for the same reason.

The only way I think it could actually work is if we turned over the whole
thing to a bunch of unelected technocrats like the Fed (which might not be a
terrible idea since it gives them another lever on economic policy...)

~~~
Vivtek
_Go to work as an inner city teacher? Here 's an extra 20% in your BI._

So ... politicians would suddenly start to pay people to teach in the inner
city? Those scoundrels! I can see why you're opposed to this concept.

~~~
aidenn0
One of the proposed advantages of BI is its simplicity (which among other
things means few loopholes and lower enforcement overhead). The point the
poster you quote is making is that no tax code will remain simple for very
long.

In fact you support that point. Many of the complexities we have now come from
adding "just one more feature" to the tax code, until we end up with something
so complex that there is an entire industry built up around paying taxes.

If he said "In exchange for supporting inner-city teachers, we will be
indirectly subsidizing H&R Block to the tune of $2B" you might ponder whether
or not it's worth it.

~~~
zanny
Why not? If you get BI out of any political process, you already had a
majority in support of the simplification. It just requires vigilance, which
our current track record for is terrible, but _any_ economic system or _any_
political process requires vigilance, and a BI isn't any different.

It is true that over the entire history of the United States, the American
public has proven itself apathetic to the abuses of their politicians, but
that is a cultural problem that needs to be solved regardless of having a
basic income or not.

------
cdoxsey
I think in the end this wouldn't work. It'd play out something like this:

A certain percentage of the population would stop working entirely since they
no longer need to. (Particularly when politicians push the basic income amount
up to placate constituencies)

Because workers bow out of the system certain industries lose productive
capacity. Maybe we stop producing enough food, or enough fuel.

Prices rise (assuming a moderately free market), which causes the basic income
amount to rise and it spirals out of control from there.

The state is forced to intervene. Either by forcing people to work certain
jobs (ala
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professional_Air_Traffic_Contr...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professional_Air_Traffic_Controllers_Organization_\(1968\)#August_1981_strike))
or by capping the basic income and reincentivizing work.

Hayek: The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they
know about what they imagine they can design.

~~~
penguindev
I'd be far more worried about this sending a false prosperity signal that
could exacerbate our already insane and unsustainable population levels.
What's really depressing is that not a single comment here or on the article
even mentions this.

Why the hell should I pay even more and subsidize those who have more than two
kids?

~~~
dllthomas
I don't think the number of kids goes up with prosperity. Developed countries
and upper classes typically have much lower birth rates than their
counterparts, and some countries are even experiencing negative population
growth.

~~~
penguindev
I agree, but in depressions/recessions it goes down quite reliably. It's a
strong signal

~~~
dllthomas
Hmm, true. Probably something to keep an eye on, then.

------
zxcdw
I don't understand how people oppose unconditional basic income without also
opposing the fact that automation decreases the amount of working hours
available for a person(or in other words, the amount of _jobs_ ), and thus
decreases the amount of income per person, while maintaining productivity
stable if not increasing it, thus making all sorts of goods cheaper.

Someone enlighten me. These discussions always seem so damn complex and heated
for some reason. What am I missing, when I believe that UBI/BIG(basic income
guarantee) is the future, and that in future people _don 't_ need to work 40
hours a week?

Before anyone counters with saying that "people don't need to work and thus
just leech the system", I will cover this now. People _will_ need to work,
because UBI/BIG will _not_ cover anything but the very _basic_ income. This
means cheap housing, cheap food, clothing and whatever else is considered
_basic income_. Perhaps this would be something like 800 USD per month, or 200
per week, give or take some. People would most definitely _want_ to have more
income, and as such they would _want_ to work. A full 40 hour week? Perhaps
not -- maybe 20 or 30 hours a week. Whatever they feel fit best for them.

(note that I live in a country with the nordic welfare system, where most
people live on a rent rather than own a house, which perhaps makes a
difference, or then not. I don't know, hence why I discuss.)

~~~
cheald
Automation reduces costs and prices, creates _new_ job fields, and permits for
specialization. It's been happening since the cotton gin, and is a basic
staple of an advancing society. We're able to sit on our butts in our chairs
and make our livings punching keys on a little rectangle while staring at
another little glowing rectangle because our societies are highly specialized
and highly automated, making it economically viable for us to purchase and
consume goods produced two thousand miles away, rather than having to spend
our time tending our gardens so we can make sure that we have food to eat this
week. Bemoaning automation as the death of the common man's ability to feed
himself is just as silly as it was in Eli Whitney's time.

People will only _need_ to stop working when automation reaches the point that
their needs are met without it imposing a burden of work on anyone else. Of
course, this will be the point at which the robot revolution will begin, and
humanity is doomed.

~~~
TeMPOraL
> Automation reduces costs and prices, creates new job fields, and permits for
> specialization.

Currently automation has reached the point in which it replaces lower-skilled
jobs by higher-skilled jobs. Many people who worked in the former _will not be
able to work in the latter_ (mostly because it takes years to specialize), so
for them, those jobs are as good as gone.

~~~
cheald
Do you have any particular examples we could analyze? Yes, you're right, the
jobs that robots can do better are gone, but any improvement in efficiency in
an industry generally results in lower prices and an increase in job creation
around that industry. Again, in the case of the cotton gin, while the gin
itself reduced the need for manual labor to pick seeds from cotton, it blew
the demand for labor to plant and harvest cotton through the roof, and the
improved output of these larger plantations resulted in the creation of
shipping ports and explosive growth in the textile industry. In fact, this is
widely considered to be a socially _negative_ effect of the cotton gin, since
it dramatically increased the demand for labor, which was then filled by
slavery. That was obviously not desirable, but the core point I'm trying to
make there is that eliminating all those slaves' jobs resulted in a
dramatically larger demand for labor in the supply chain.

Just because the old job is gone doesn't mean there isn't a new one to be
done, and improvements in efficiency and costs of production result in
economic growth that have positive impacts all over related markets.

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _Do you have any particular examples we could analyze?_

I'd look at every job that is being replaced by a robot or a computer system.
I can't give you a particular example in form of "job A replaced by robots,
workers can't move anywhere else", because so far we've been very efficient at
reallocating labor. Throughout last 200 years, people out-automated in
agriculture moved to manufacturing; optimized out from there they are moving
to services, but the computer technology makes this sector fair game, and
there doesn't seem to be anywhere else to go.

More machines are creating more opportunities for building them, but the
manufacturing is already heavily automated, so this is the case of robots
building robots. As a human, you can't compete there much.

Just imagine self-driving cars really taking off in few years and replacing
most jobs in transportation industry. Where will those people go? What kind of
jobs we can imagine they could have without years-long retraining that robots
_arleady_ can't do better?

> _Just because the old job is gone doesn 't mean there isn't a new one to be
> done_

Yes, but my point is that jobs are not made equal, and just because you could
do the old one doesn't mean you will be able to do the new one. It is
increasingly not the case.

~~~
cheald
> _I can 't give you a particular example in form of "job A replaced by
> robots, workers can't move anywhere else", because so far we've been very
> efficient at reallocating labor._

Surely it makes sense to be able to cite examples of how we are failing to
reallocate labor before complaining that we're not able to reallocate labor.

~~~
TeMPOraL
You're right. I can give you a fair share of personal anecdotes and general
social lore related to rising unemployment for STEM-or-finance-educated
people. I can point to first principles and proofs by enumeration. I can't
provide examples of "elimination of an entire class of human skill and
subsequent failure to move labour up the skill ladder" because this
transformation is - I believe - underway, not yet finished.

Regarding the "skill class elimination", as far as I have read, basic
manufacturing is already done; i.e. it's not completely automated _only_
because robots are still a bit more expensive than low-wage workers. But even
in China this seems to be changing (in favour of robots).

~~~
cheald
Personal anecdotes and social lore make for pretty crappy science. I would
love you to point me at first principles and proofs by enumeration.

What I see, in looking at the numbers published by the government, is that the
number of jobs has been consistently tracking with labor force since they
started measuring it in 1925. If automation were wrecking jobs and making
people unemployable, I'd expect that the 20th century - the century in which
the human race made more significant technological advances than during the
rest of human history combined - to have resulted in a consistent decrease in
percentage of the employed workforce. Instead, we see that no such widening
has occurred. There is certainly an argument to be made that people are being
forced out of factory jobs and into foodservice jobs or whatnot, but I can't
see any empirical evidence for the assertion that we're actually innovating
ourselves out of the opportunity to work.

~~~
ihateloggingin
The 20th century also saw the introduction of labor law, working hours
plummet, welfare state, etc..

------
smothers
An interesting repercussion of such a system is the potential for unrestrained
creative endeavour. Fear of meeting basic needs will no longer be the primary
motivator for most workers. Free to think of and most importantly act on new
ideas, our massive population will be able to attempt to function like a
distributed network. There will be those who choose to only consume, but that
is no different today, many people are simply required to perform a
meaningless job in order to do so. I would imagine that the benefit of freeing
millions of willing inventors outweighs the drain imposed by all those who
only consume. Then again, this only makes sense assuming that most repetitive
and "busy" work can be automated.

------
grecy
Australia already has essentially this setup. Every person in the country can
be paid $492.60 every two weeks ($12,800 yearly) and up to another $121 every
two weeks ($3,146 yearly) to help with rent.

Everyone qualifies, forever, irrelevant of past job history, education, family
status, etc. etc. There is no time limit for the payments.

The only difference between this and the article, is that if you get a job,
whatever you earn is deducted from your payments.

I personally think it does a fantastic job of making sure there is no poverty
in the country, and it means Australia has an enormous middle class.

(Link updated) [1] [http://www.crikey.com.au/2013/01/16/dole-around-the-world-
ho...](http://www.crikey.com.au/2013/01/16/dole-around-the-world-how-does-
australia-stack-up/)

~~~
sologoub
Link appears to be broken: [http://www.crikey.com.au/2013/01/16/dole-around-
the-world-ho...](http://www.crikey.com.au/2013/01/16/dole-around-the-world-
how-does-australia-stack-up/)

The interesting part in the article is that in order to receive this payment,
you have to be actively looking for work. Not sure how this is measured, but
the qualification makes it philosophically different from the unconditional
wage being advocated.

~~~
grecy
Thanks for the link update.

You are right, you must apply for x jobs per month, and keep a logbook of that
activity.

In that sense, yes, it's philosophically different from the unconditional
wage, but it's a good example of the effect on society (no extreme poverty,
huge middle class, higher taxes, etc.)

------
jeffdavis
Though some more reasonable forms of this idea exist, this particular
description has some major problems:

* What if the money you pay someone does not go as far as expected? Maybe they lose some of the money in various ways, or maybe they are just very bad at negotiating economic transactions or buy the wrong kinds of things from the wrong places. Maybe they are trying to live in an expensive area -- do we kick them out?

* There will be a significant class of people who simply know _nothing at all_ about work or participation in the economy. That may have all kinds of bad effects for those people, one of which may be a greater likelihood of the problem above.

* Some people who would otherwise be productive will put off both education and work for a while. When the time comes that they want to be involved, it will be hard for them to make the transition, and many will just stay out of the workforce forever. So, some of the ultra-productive people the author is expecting to do the heavy lifting will not exist.

* There will be pressure to stop granting new citizenship/residency to almost anyone, because the potential cost will go way up. Even if, in the long term, immigrants are good for the economy, in the short term it could be crushing if each one gets a comfortable living regardless of work.

* There will be an imbalance in which jobs are actually done. The number of computer programmers might be higher, but the number of nurses might go way down. If having a nurse is required to make some people comfortable, how do we remedy that?

* "Comfort" in general is a moving target in this process because changing the basic income will have a big effect on the economy. It's hard to say whether you could ever really find a stable value that offers anything resembling "comfort" for those living on it.

~~~
mrgoldenbrown
If the number of nurses willing to work for current rates goes down, then the
market rate for nurses will go up. Eventually it will be high enough that
being a nurse is more attractive than being a programmer.

~~~
jeffdavis
Nursing is hard work, and if someone is already "comfortable", there's not a
lot of incentive to study for it and do it unless the pay goes WAY up.

There are a lot of jobs like this, where the threat of discomfort is the
primary motivator. Across the economy it would take a huge amount of money to
incentivize already-comfortable people to do them.

And if the jobs don't get done, then someone else is uncomfortable.

~~~
ihateloggingin
Sounds like an ideal situation to incentivize the solution of discomfort
without creating more discomfort.

------
dkrich
I think the main problem with this argument that software is eating everything
and automation is replacing jobs is that it imagines the world as it is today,
with the current set of jobs as fixed. Lest we forget a time when all goods
were physical and there were no digital goods. The extent of what can be
consumed by technology does have limits. But more than that, we as a society
become wealthier, not poorer, when things become faster, cheaper, and easier
to produce.

There was a time when people spent nearly half their income on food because
food production was an incredibly inefficient process. Eventually much of food
processing became automated and advances made it much more plentiful. What had
a larger impact on the economy? The millions of people no longer needing to
spend valuable time producing food, or the fact that people now had much more
disposable income to spend on other things?

~~~
kokey
That's the thing, instead of giving people a universal basic income and
distorting the prices we should really keep on striving to make the essentials
that people need as cheap as possible.

~~~
guard-of-terra
Which basically means things that do not scale will skyrocket in price.

You already see this as prices of education and housing grow decade to decade.

Essentials are: bad food that doesn't taste well, bad housing, bad medical
care, bad transportation and bad service. That's what Soviet Union
consistently delivered to every citizen and while there were vitrually no
hungry, unemployed or homeless people, nobody felt happy too, everybody fought
to be able to afford a tiny bit of something of quality.

In short, cheap essentials are not so cool.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Also, we're talking about world where robots produce those cheap essentials
out of soil and solar/nuclear power, leaving many more unemployed competing
for ever shrinking pool of jobs that are not done by robots out of free
solar/nuclear power.

Basically it's not any kind of a solution, it's exactly where we are headed
now.

~~~
dkrich
I don't understand why this is a problem. A job is something you have to do to
complete a task. Somebody pays you for it because it brings them some value.
If they can get that task completed for a lower rate, why is that a bad thing?

Sure, in the short-term you lose the paycheck you received for completing that
task, but in the long-term that person who paid you is now wealthier, which
enables them to spend money elsewhere. This causes the jobs to migrate to
where things need to be done. I assure you we are still a very long way from
accomplishing all tasks that need to be done and for which people would be
willing to pay. But if we ever did reach that point, nobody would need to work
because everything would be free.

------
brador
With basic income, wouldn't the economy adapt to the fresh money supply and
rents and other costs raise to account for it? It would effectivly be
additional currency inflation by a different name?

~~~
alexvr
Maybe instead of giving everyone cash, the government could provide people
with a default shelter, food plan, etc.

~~~
danielweber
Yes, public housing projects worked so well.

You can go look up economics papers on Google Scholar or SSRN about the
benefits of direct payments versus in-kind payments. You might worry that
someone will use their direct payment and spend it on hooch, but you can't
stop that: if you give them food stamps they will trade that for money and
then spend it on hooch.

~~~
tomjen3
Actually you can stop it, by doing exactly what he says - you can eat free
food at this particular place, but so can everybody else. It stops hunger, but
it has a resale value of 0.

------
JonSkeptic
The author of this is article is more than a little bit out of touch. To be
honest, HN is the only place I have ever even heard people discuss the concept
of an Unconditional Basic Income or call Bitcoin a "radical economic
ideology". Most people in the US have never even heard of Bitcoin or an
Unconditional Basic Income.

The author is so far removed from reality that it's almost humorous. He cites
an example where Instagram has apparently replaced Kodak, an example as
ignorant as it is misguided. Having known one of Kodak's chief inventors from
before the company began its steep decline, it is evident that Kodak collapsed
from a series of bad decisions and a failure to secure its territory in IP
space. Comparing that to Instagram isn't a comparison of apples to oranges,
it's a comparison of oranges to a desk lamp.

I could go on, but there's no need. This article is crap factually, logically,
and intellectually. I understand that the title panders to the closely held
ideologies of many on these boards, but if you have to look this hard to find
arguments for why we're moving toward a UBI, then we're probably not moving
toward it at all.

~~~
tomkarlo
Agreed... he lost me as soon as he cited that _idiotic_ Kodak to Instagram
concept. The idea that the 13 people at Instagram are the effective
replacement for all of Kodak's business (while ignoring the 500K-odd people
involved in building the phones instagram runs on) is so dumb it's galling.

------
khill
Wouldn't the basic income value need to vary across regions? For example, the
notion that:

"Every single adult member receives a weekly payment from the state, which is
enough to live comfortably on"

would mean a different value in San Francisco than in Grover, NC.

If the government adjusted the basic income to account for regional cost-of-
living, I imagine it would be popular to maintain a fake residency in an
expensive area while actually living somewhere cheaper.

If the basic income wasn't adjusted for different areas, you would probably
see some areas become rich elite enclaves while other areas become basic
income ghettos.

~~~
militiaman21
I'm fairly sure the government knows where we all truly live.

~~~
khill
Unlikely. I know of a lot of people who live in New Jersey but register their
auto in another state under a relative's address for cheaper insurance. I also
know people who use an old address or the address of an acquaintance/relative
so their child can attend a different school district.

~~~
jlgreco
That just implies that communication in government is poor, particularly if it
is a local or state government that wants to know something from the federal
government. I am sure the IRS would have no problem finding those people if
they were so inclined.

------
josephlord
I really like the concept (and have for at least a decade and a half). The
linked article misses one thing which is that minimum wage legislation can
probably be removed too.

What I don't know is actually what the level of the basic income could
realistically be at what levels of income tax (I assume that there would be a
single flat tax rate for all income additional to the Basic Income).

It would be great to get good statistics of earned/savings income
distributions for a few countries and current income tax, capital gains tax
and National Insurance takes and build a tool to see what incomes and rates a
feasible. I picture being able to adjust basic income and see the effect on
the tax rate and vice versa. Ideally you could make the income distribution
adjustable so that you could try different scenarios such as the effect of
more people doing no work.

I'm not sure how children should be handled in these models either as there
are real costs and you don't want child poverty but you don't want to make
breeding too profitable which may occur if they attracted the full rate Basic
Income.

------
bsbechtel
Arguments like this are completely selling ourselves short on our ability as a
species/society to innovate and come up with new ideas that improve our life
for everyone. I'm sorry, but it drives me absolutely nuts! Come on guys, are
we really saying that we aren't capable of continuing to come up with new
ideas and grow them into sustainable businesses that lift a majority of
Americans out of poverty?? What a positive, optimistic this author has on our
future, not to mention his faith in the capabilities of fellow human beings.

Instead of jumping into many of the circular arguments below of where costs
are truly incurred from things such as taxes on the rich and on corporations,
let's think of taxation in a different way - as valves controlling where
capital flows in our economy. Think of taxes as valves in a hydraulic system
or switches/relays in an electrical system. If those valves aren't directing
the right amount of electricity or hydraulic oil to the right parts of the
system, the entire system stops working. In the same line of thinking, if not
enough capital is going to the right places in our economy, our economy slows
down and stops working.

So, the question becomes, where do we need to adjust the valves to get the
entire system working again? Where can we cut taxes, to give that sector of
the economy a boost? It's small businesses, innovators/inventors, and early
stage startups. Why? Because if 1 out of every 1,000 businesses started turns
into the next Microsoft or GM and employs 100,000 people, then we need 10m
people out of work right now/100,000 jobs per Microsoft startup*1,000 startup
businesses = 100,000 startups.

There's a reason the first round of capital for starting a company typically
comes from friends and family - because it's extremely risky, and those
closest to the entrepreneur can make that investment at the lowest risk
possible because they have insider knowledge of the entrepreneur's skillset.
If we have a disappearing middle class, that means that very first round of
capital is disappearing too, because it comes from the middle class, which
means 10 years from now, we will have even fewer jobs for the middle class.
I'll leave it up to everyone else to debate how we can get more money into the
hands of the middle class, but taxing the rich and providing a basic income
for everyone is not the answer.

~~~
TeMPOraL
> Come on guys, are we really saying that we aren't capable of continuing to
> come up with new ideas and grow them into sustainable businesses that lift a
> majority of Americans out of poverty?

Of course we are. The best of those ideas involve robots and weak AIs
systematically replacing humans in everything they do.

What the author says is that the way to innovate ourselves out of this
situation and end up well is _not_ by doing more of the same. Capitalism is
going to die as energy abundance and automation will make manufacturing
essencially free, and smarter software will do the same to most service and
knowledge jobs.

------
speeder
And where the money to pay for that will come from? I suspect if you just tax
the rich like crazy, they will just move out to somewhere else.

~~~
astrodust
The idea seems to be that you can free up a lot of the money wasted on
bureaucracy and pay out to everyone indiscriminately.

The Mincome experiment
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mincome](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mincome))
dabbled with this idea and the results were rather surprising. Most people
seemed to want to work rather than loaf around and collect benefits.

Don't think you'd have to "tax the rich like crazy". Would returning to the
tax rates of the 1990s be "crazy"? Would closing corporate loopholes be
"crazy"? Would investigating why trillions of dollars in tax havens have
somehow escaped oversight be "crazy"?

~~~
effn
> The idea seems to be that you can free up a lot of the money wasted on
> bureaucracy and pay out to everyone indiscriminately.

This idea does not stand up to any scrutiny at all. The cost of administering
a welfare bureaucracy is minuscule compared to the cost of a BI program.

> Don't think you'd have to "tax the rich like crazy". Would returning to the
> tax rates of the 1990s be "crazy"? Would closing corporate loopholes be
> "crazy"? Would investigating why trillions of dollars in tax havens have
> somehow escaped oversight be "crazy"?

None of those suggestions would come anywhere near the amount of money needed
for a BI program.

~~~
dragonwriter
> The cost of administering a welfare bureaucracy is minuscule compared to the
> cost of a BI program.

Most of the cost of administering a welfare bureaucracy is in validating and
enforcing the conditions on beneficiaries. _Unconditional_ Basic Income avoids
these costs quite directly.

------
klausjensen
We have a light version of this in Denmark. It makes a lot of people not want
to work and is the main reason behind why the effective tax is somewhere in
the neighborhood of 70%. Pay 45% income tax, 200% car tax (literally - a
10.000USD car costs 30.000USD), pay high property taxes, "green" taxes like on
gas - and when that is done, please pay 25% VAT of everything you buy after
that.

And you know what? About 80% of the Danish love this system enough to not want
to change it. A party suggesting a 40% flat tax is considered extreme in
Denmark.

I happen to hate it, but that is just me...

------
axuaq
Can we come up with a solution that doesn't strong-arm workers into keeping
society's dead weight around? Why make sure that every non-worker in society
has enough money to eat McDonalds and watch cable TV at the cost of the
freedom of everyone to make and spend money as they please?

~~~
diydsp
thank you for this. I'm an empathetic person, but every morning I drive out of
my driveway to work and look at the house across the street from me with three
people who stay home all day in their house watching TV.

When I get home, their TV is still on and the other people in my building and
I are exhausted from working and finally get some time for recreation, usually
in the dark. The other neighbors say the across-the-street people are selling
opiates. They should be made to do something in return for their government
money: anything useful around town like cleaning up, repainting signs,
babysitting- not just getting free government money to capitalize their opiate
sales.

I love my job, but not enough that I would come here everyday first thing in
the morning if I weren't being paid. That's why the Wikipedia example
mentioned in the article is a _terrible_ counterexample for OP's point. First,
Wikipedia is a _clone_, not an original work. Second, it's billions of micro-
contributions, not people working 40-45 hours per week like the others in my
building and myself. No one is that motivated. As posted yesterday, the theory
of the Tyranny of Structurelessness is real. Only a small portion of society
functions without leaders. And I admit that I am not one of its leaders
(yet!), but I am comfortable for the most getting led toward productive
efforts.

That's why I believe poverty is a failure of leadership. It's the inability or
disinclination of leaders to herd those people into something useful. It's
cheaper to pay them to stay home. It's got nothing to do with them being lazy,
as someone else wrote. MOST of us are lazy, not merely the unemployed.

~~~
cadlin
Have you considered the fact that you don't know anything about the lives of
the people who live across the street from you and maybe you should refrain
from judging them so harshly?

------
jonnathanson
It's a fascinating idea, and it's a real challenge to market capitalism as we
know it in the long run.

But the biggest problem with any such system is unequal need. Need states are
stochastic at the individual level. They might appear to be neater and more
deterministic at the aggregate level, but a system designed in aggregate is
bound to have challenges at the margins. I could easily see this system
becoming, essentially, a fixed amount that just shifts everyone's personal
needs/income graphs up by X amount a year. Above that point, everyone still
needs income to fit any needs not met by X.

An unintended consequence, for example, would be that this system places an
extra burden on the disabled, or the parents of multiple children, or the
elderly, etc., to take on more work to meet their greater needs. By
eliminating need-based welfare and replacing it with a flat payment structure,
we'd basically be handwaving away the fact that need states are variable.

It's possible that I'm misunderstanding how this system works. And many of the
same arguments I'm making against this system could certainly be leveled
against our current system. I guess I'm struggling to see how this system has
greater utility and fewer externalities than the current one.

------
conanbatt
I actually think Argentina would be a great place to impose basic income.

Argentina has a long time standing issue with 'welfare' programs being abused
in corruptive ways, such as government employees cashing in, their relatives,
etc.

Middle class despises the way those funds are used because they are not
regulated or productive: as a foreign national, you could get welfare within 6
months of moving in to argentina. Plus free college education.

Also, argentina has a long-time standing issue with inflation, which in this
case could be worked to its benefit, which is it can fund this strategy.
Currently, the government uses welfare programs to target vulnerable sectors
and generate dependency, but if everyone got it, they wouldnt have that kind
of edge anymore, and if they wanted to better one sector, they would be forced
to help every sector.

But i will still think that although basic income is very forward-thinking, it
has veery unforeseen consequences. We dont know what is going to happen to a
city or a country if such a thing is implemented, for better or worse, in
terms of sociology, more than economics.

I also wonder how to actually make it practical. By basic supply and demand,
this should create a strong increase in demand, which raises prices and the
very basic income would then become less effective.

------
lettergram
I disagree with this article almost entirely. Yes, labor jobs are on the
decline, but service jobs are staying steady if not increasing. The "demand
for unconditional basic income" is a joke, yes it's possible to attempt to
initiate something where every person receives $10,000 a year, but the money
has to come from somewhere.

If the money for this basic income comes from taxation, then both the
government loses net income and the corporations lose as well. You can think
about it an entropy or friction, there is always a cost for doing something.
If corporations essentially pay their customers (via the government) to buy
their goods the world would eventually collapse.

If the money for basic income comes from printing money (or equivalent) it
devalues to insignificant amounts too quick to do virtually anything with it.

This idea is a fantasy, perhaps the population of the world needs to DECREASE
to maintain its stability in a technological world. If there are less jobs,
maybe there's less need for humans.. If this is the case, perhaps it is time
to move to Mars or something, like a cell that has replicated enough
DNA/organelles to split in two and create a new daughter cell.

You cannot suitably hold by basic unconditional income. Any college economics
class/text book would probably make this much more clearer than I, but the
"trends," conclusions and potential sources for the basic income would fall
apart under close inspection. For example, if the need for labor decreases,
the cost of labor decreases (the net company expense), therefore people may
have worse pay, but also the products are cheaper.

The point is basic economic theory define this as an impossibility.

~~~
SapphireSun
300,000,000 people in the US. You give them each 10,000 dollars. That's 3T
dollars, or roughly the size of the existing federal budget (~3.5T). US GDP is
~16T. It's a lot, but that's not beyond the pale of possibility, and the
poorest people will spend that money nearly instantly, reving the economy and
making the world a little bit better for everyone.

"If corporations essentially pay their customers (via the government) to buy
their goods the world would eventually collapse."

I feel like this betrays a misunderstanding of how money works. First of all,
10k per person isn't enough to create an extreme situation. Secondly, it is
the circulation of money that drives progress. If companies didn't disperse
the money they accumulate somehow, the economy would stall.

On a more noble level, giving people the option to not work is simply removing
additional coercive elements from society. People should be free to choose
what they wish to do with their lives. 10k isn't enough to remove the
incentive to better yourself, but it is enough of a cushion so that you don't
need to submit to awful situations simply to survive.

If janitorial tasks become in high demand, they will pay appropriately or
design machines to do it - just like everything else.

~~~
lettergram
"Money" (or any currency) is just a means of trading one good for another, if
there are no goods being transferred via the currency it cannot be considered
a currency. That being said, if you simply hand out 3 trillion a year then you
would be effectively taxing everyone by (3T/total wealth) then redistributing
it does nothing because you've also taxed EVERYONE by that same amount.

To follow up my argument:

3T/16T is 25% that would be the inflation rate per year, of course each year
it would increase as follows:

(3 * 1.25)/(16 * 1.25) (3 * 1.25 * 1.25)/(16 * 1.25 * 1.25) etc.

Of course this doesn't take into consideration the approximate 1% growth or
what ever it currently is. The point remains that the redistribution of wealth
will decrease the amount the currency is worth. Currency that is handed out
WITHOUT something being traded for it does not apply to "currency
circulation." Instead what you have is a situation where every person is taxed
at about 25% and receives slightly less than that tax in return (which was
used to disburse the collected taxes).

This is why NO COUNTRY ON EARTH gives out tax money to all of its citizens. It
may on the other hand provide welfare checks to its needy, which again
deflates the wealth of others (by inflating the currency), but keeps those
poor from starving.

Hopefully my explanation is somewhat sufficient...

~~~
SapphireSun
I do agree that it may cause some inflation (I'm not sure how much). I don't
think those computations are correct though (3/16 = 18.75, not 25 for
example). Inflation is measured as the cost for a basket of goods. Simply
giving lots of people more money would not change the cost structure
immediately. It would provide a larger consumer pool that companies can
compete to server. The effects are complex and it's not immediately clear that
inflation would spike to sky high levels, though a rise in inflation does
occur when there is more trade because people are getting higher wages. A
little bit of inflation is a positive indicator.

However, redistributing definitely does have an economic effect because richer
people has an increase propensity to save. When you take 10k that they weren't
using and give it to someone poor, that money starts flowing immediately. An
analogy would be something like, say you have a lake with some water seeping
out from a small waterfall. If you go and take 10,000 liters and put it in a
dry lake (ignoring soil absorption :P), that water will start flowing net much
faster since you now have two waterfalls going.

I'm not dismissing your inflation argument, I just anticipate that the
magnitude of the effect is small (or at least able to be dealt with with
monetary policy) compared to the benefit of giving people (especially poor
people) some money.

As an aside, part of the reason for doing this is not economic (assuming that
inflation does not outpace reasonable technical measures to oppose it). The
real question is are we rich enough to afford taking basic care of all of our
citizens, regardless of where they started in life? It's a question of
justice. We may not have reached that point yet, but I think it's definitely
arguable that we have.

You may reach a different conclusion, but ask yourself, if you were teleported
outside of time and space, and didn't know if you were going to be rich or
poor. What sort of system would you advocate for?

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veil_of_ignorance](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veil_of_ignorance)

We may not agree on the conclusions, but my position is that we should not let
people starve or suffer if we can afford not to. Secondly, we should allow
people the ability to choose their life circumstances to the best of their
abilities. 10k a year removes many coercive influences and allows them to eat
and sleep in safety.

------
dgallagher
_Every single adult member receives a weekly payment from the state, which is
enough to live comfortably on. The only condition is citizenship and /or
residency._

Sweet! None of us have to work anymore! Party at my place every night for
life!

 _You get the basic income whether or not you’re employed, any wages you earn
are additional._

Few, that's a relief. It'll be nice to close all of the school's down and tell
kids they can go home, play video games indefinitely, and never have to worry
about their future again.

 _The welfare bureaucracy is largely dismantled. No means testing, no signing
on, no bullying young people into stacking shelves for free, no separate state
pension._

Down with welfare, up with communism!

 _Employment law is liberalised, as workers no longer need to fear dismissal._

Hey boss, fuck you! Why? Because fuck you, that's why! What are you going to
do about it? Fire me? Ha!

 _People work for jobs that are available in order to increase their
disposable income._

That's cool. Make sure to tax them high enough to pay for all of my house
parties.

 _Large swathes of the economy are replaced by volunteerism, a continuation of
the current trend._

Who wants to volunteer to clean my toilet and mow my lawn? Anyone? Even if I
say thank you when you're done?

 _The system would be harder to cheat when there’s only a single category of
claimant, with no extraordinary allowances._

I can't figure a way to game it either; it's mathematically and economically
perfect!

~~~
FreakyT
I agree with these concerns; I really can't see how a system like this would
possibly work. Why would anyone do anything if they had no incentive to work?

~~~
imgabe
You don't ever do anything - not any one single thing - without a profit
motive?

~~~
miguelrochefort
Who does?

~~~
lifeformed
Today I drew a picture for fun.

------
norswap
Won't the basic income drive prices up to the point where you need to work
anyway?

~~~
babby
Not necessarily. People will only, for example, buy luxury items that are
affordable - laptops, nice clothes etc. So, if most of the population which
are sustained mostly on this form of base income cant afford said items,
corporations theoretically wont be able to offload their products, products
for which if you consider automation trends, the cost of producing should go
down even further. No idea if this is sustainable.

------
joejohnson
>>>As Jaron Lanier points out, Kodak once provided 140,000 middle class jobs,
and in the smouldering ruins of that company’s bankruptcy we have Instagram,
with 13 employees.

This argument is just plain wrong. Kodak was not replaced by Instagram. Kodak
was replaced by Apple and Samsung and a bunch of other asian manufacturers.
They have way more than 13 employees.

------
jeffasinger
One worry I have with Basic Income discussion is that what most people think
the minimum required just to live is very high, which frames the discussion
wrong.

Basic Income probably shouldn't cover much beyond rent in cheap, shared
accommodation, heat and some electric, and groceries, and healthcare, if that
is provided separately.

~~~
dllthomas
Basic Income should never be enough to live comfortably on with no drain on
savings, at least until we've reached a place where we don't need human labor
for very many tasks (if ever). I say this as an avid supporter of a basic
income.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Basic Income should never be enough to live comfortably on with no drain on
> savings, at least until we've reached a place where we don't need human
> labor for very many tasks (if ever).

Its seems to me to be self-evidentally economically impossible for universal
BI to do this (which, incidentally, means it probably can't replace _all_
existing social benefit programs, because you probably still want to have some
programs that people _can_ live on without a drain on savings, though these
would need to be time limited and almost certainly have other qualifications)
unless we've reached that point of labor-irrelevance.

If you set the level of BI such that it would allow such comfortable living
given pre-BI prices, the resulting effect on prices would quickly drive such
comfortable living back out of reach for those relying solely on BI.

You can _mitigate_ poverty and economic inequality with BI, because the
inflationary effects will be no greater than the income boost given at the low
end of the scale, but there is a declining marginal benefit of each additional
dollar of BI.

~~~
ihateloggingin
> seems to me to be self-evidentally economically impossible for universal BI
> to [be enough to live comfortably on with no drain on savings] unless we've
> reached that point of labor-irrelevance

Why is it economically impossible? It seems quite possible to me.

For example, suppose that 20% of the population _must_ be engineers for
society to survive. But the other 80% of the population is irrelevant to
production. The 80% could be given a BI of $40k, while the 20% could be given
a salary of $200k (or $2M if you like).

(The 20% and 80% figures could just as easily be reversed, if you consider 20%
to be "labor-irrelevance" \-- although it is not irrelevant if it is necessary
to the survival of society to ensure it's done.)

Why is that economically impossible?

------
marc0
Just imagine what one could do with one's life, backed by an unconditional
income! One could strip off parts of the daily worries; one could try out more
things; one could develop ideas, big ideas, without having to fear that a
possible failure risks your and your family's lives.

Today, only very few people with a solid financial background can afford to
work on big ideas. What a waste! Think of all those geniuses out there who
can't just afford to take the time to read a book because they have to work so
hard to feed their families!

I also want to argue, that merely the knowledge that you can't completely fail
in your working life will cause a huge benefit for public health, physical and
mental. I would bet that many diseases would just disappear, due to the
lowering of the general distress level.

~~~
marc0
Actually, let me add that I would like to see another development which is
something like a compromise on the unconditional income:

Sabatticals.

Sabatticals or semi-sabbaticals should be mandatory. Just imagine what a
powerful motivation it would be for anybody, knowing that working hard for a
few years will earn you a year off. Then imagine, what one could do during the
sabbatical, learn, explore, re-think one's live ... And finally, imagine
yourself at the end of your life, looking back saying "yes, maybe I got a bad
a job, but I did so many great things during my sabbaticals, so non, je ne
regrette rien ..."

------
sliverstorm
_Every single adult member receives a weekly payment from the state, which is
enough to live comfortably on._

Maybe we at least start with "enough to live somewhat uncomfortably on"? That
way nobody starves or goes without basic necessities, but still have an
incentive to improve their lot- and it isn't that hard, because they are on
the cusp of living comfortably.

Another important factor, IMO, is how you index how much the income should be.
Do you index it based on where the recipient lives? (I.e. everyone who lives
in New York should get enough to live comfortably in New York) Do you index it
based on average nationwide cost of living? Personally I'd be inclined to the
latter.

------
btilly
I've got a twist on this basic idea.

Fund basic income with a large tax on various CO2 producing activities. With
the idea that - on average - people can pay this tax out of the basic income
received from it. And people will have direct incentives to find ways to
reduce CO2 consumption. Then get rid of silly specific legislation that tries
to achieve the same goal in less successful ways. Thus fuel efficiency,
California's attempts at cap-and-trade, incentives for renewable energy - all
should become unnecessary.

~~~
nawitus
This idea seems to incur very high bureaucracy costs. What are CO2 producing
activies? How much are each of them taxed? Who measures the tax and is
responsible paying for it? Etc.

One selling point of basic income is that there's no loopholes and there's
very little bureaucracy costs, therefore a larger portion of the money is
actually used for consumption instead of doing unnecessary (for society) work.

~~~
randomknowledge
Of course there are details to work out but it is fundamentally a solvable
problem. A tax on any coal natural gas or oil should cover most of the bases
(per ton of carbon contained). If it is being purchased for a use that won't
end up in the atmosphere (IE carbon capture and storage), the burden is on the
purchaser to prove the case for a tax write-off.

~~~
nawitus
I don't think there's a reason to couple a CO2 tax to basic income. You can
create a CO2 tax separately from basic income, as it has enough opponents as
it is.

~~~
btilly
I suggested coupling them because I was looking for something that fits,
"Solve as many problems with one go as possible, getting rid of as much
legislation as possible."

If you create a significant CO2 tax separately from some specific program,
like basic income, the fear is that it will be (and will seen to be) just a
general supplement on government spending. Which has a tendency to grow until
it cannot, so you're just putting off an inevitable crunch that we're already
bumping up against.

But if you tie them together, the pain of the tax is balanced by the pleasure
of the income. And people have been shown to enjoy that sort of thing. Witness
the popularity of tax refunds, even though getting one is strictly worse for
you than not getting one.

------
dannypgh
I think it would make a lot of sense to have a BI and to also double-down in
R&D to improve all levels of understanding and capabilities in the fields of
AI and robotics. The protestant work ethic is deeply engrained in this
society, but perhaps now we should be thinking in terms of "how do we free as
many people as possible for pursuits they haven't yet found" \-- and investing
heavily in removing jobs that the most hours are worked in.

The necessary investment in all levels and types of STEM would be huge, and
the result would be tons of technology that can be used to replace current
work. To prevent the technology from simply being used to make a very small
number of people rich, vast amounts (if not all) of the research should be
released as free & open source technology. I do admit however that FOSS is not
a pancea to address concerns of excessive wealth concentration - and taxes
will continue to play that role.

In a sense, the wealth created by the increases in automation will be captured
back in the form of taxes, and use to fund additional investment in automation
as well as a basic income to sustain all the residents of the society which
decided that it was worthwhile to try to abolish work, instead of continuing
to fetishize it as a moral obligation.

------
mikeurbanski
My favorite quote about this comes from Douglas Rushkoff:

"Our problem is not that we don't have enough stuff -- it's that we don't have
enough ways for people to work and prove that they deserve this stuff."

Are jobs obsolete?:
[http://www.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/09/07/rushkoff.jobs.obsolete...](http://www.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/09/07/rushkoff.jobs.obsolete/index.html)

------
brettinlj
Regarding this quote: "I’ve lived in a country that had a period of 'full
employment' and now has 14% unemployment, and I don’t see how anyone can be so
misanthropic to claim that those 14% of people just got lazier."

I hesitate to take someone's radical economic ideas too seriously if they
either can't do math or does not know the econ 101 definition of "full
employment".

------
washedup
I disagree with the first couple facets of the new system definitions:

"Every single adult member receives a weekly payment from the state, which is
enough to live comfortably on. The only condition is citizenship and/or
residency." \- This is a government.

"You get the basic income whether or not you’re employed, any wages you earn
are additional." \- This is welfare.

"The welfare bureaucracy is largely dismantled. No means testing, no signing
on, no bullying young people into stacking shelves for free, no separate state
pension." \- So a government run welfare program to replace the welfare
bureaucracy. Doesn't sound to radical, in fact, it sounds the same.

"The system would be harder to cheat when there’s only a single category of
claimant, with no extraordinary allowances." \- Some one can always cheat the
system, and there will always be extraordinary allowances because there are
people in the system whose desire is for those things. Opportunism has always
been a part of evolution. Sure we don't "need" it

------
MartinCron
Friendly reminder: People work for all sorts of reasons, having enough money
to not starve is just one of them.

What's the first question people ask you when they meet you? In this country,
it's usually "what do you do?"

I'm just as OK with people being motivated to work by status or prestige or
ego societal pressure as they are by the threat of financial ruin.

------
MattyRad
While I think this article makes some sweeping generalizations and
assumptions, the question it poses is what's important. If we as programmers
continue to automate the world (as is _our_ job), and as previous jobs therein
are rendered unnecessary, how does one reallocate the workforce? Is the
workforce unnecessary at that point?

~~~
ihateloggingin
We just need to adjust social attitudes so that it's accepted that passive
income is the right of everyone, not just 1%.

------
jchrisa
Obligatory link to "What's Wrong with a Free Lunch" a short synopsis of the
main arguments and responses of people against basic income.
[http://www.amazon.com/Whats-Wrong-Lunch-Democracy-
Forum/dp/0...](http://www.amazon.com/Whats-Wrong-Lunch-Democracy-
Forum/dp/0807047139)

------
csomar
_We could start by getting corporations to pay their taxes. As I mentioned
above, corporate profit margins have hit an all time high, and that money will
circulate far faster if it’s placed in the hands of consumers._

This is very wrong when you think about large scale. The model simply can't
work when you apply it to all the population. Think about the point when it'll
break.

There is no free money. Giving money to someone by taxing someone else, is not
a stable equation. This will create a tension between those who produce and
those who consumes. Corporations will move to States/Countries with better tax
schemes.

My strategy is simpler: Liberalize everything. Everybody pays for his own
consumption; and shared resources are paid by people _equally_. There should
be no taxes, and also no subventions. That means people pays for the gov.
bills _equally_.

Well, but that's only on my perfect world view.

------
diydsp
Ok, yes to: "towards" and "trends." However, not "forces" the bring us "all
the way to."

OP misses the point that even though I am listening to free electronica on
youtube right now...

1\. It was once sold for money by its creators 2\. Its creators tolerate it
being given away for free in order to develop their reputations and bring in
an income through performance and sales. This an example of symbiotic
capitalism, not volunteer work. 3\. My listening is driving ad revenue for
google.

So it's not really free out of the goodness of the creator's heart. It's free
+to me right now+, b/c atm I'm not currently in its "for-pay whirlpool."
Advertisers, clubs and music afficiandos _are_ in its for-pay whirlpool.

Finally. OP claims "we are motivated by autonomy, mastery, and purpose, but
not money." This is only true for a small cluster of artisans.

~~~
milesskorpen
But what about Deviant Art, Wikipedia, and most of YouTube? Also, a lot of
musicians can barely afford to eat, even with touring. I imagine it would be
liberating if that wasn't even necessary.

------
medell
Read NPR's beautiful article "UNFIT FOR WORK - The startling rise of
disability in America" if you're not convinced on the costs of the current
system and how people cheat it. [http://apps.npr.org/unfit-for-
work/](http://apps.npr.org/unfit-for-work/)

------
mikekij
Do you have any idea how many people would just not work, sit at home, watch
TV, and collect their BI check?

~~~
maxerickson
Given 300 million people, it's prudent to consider the net impact and not
sweat the details too much.

Say a policy makes 200 million people better off in some virtuous manner but
creates 10 million free loaders. Is that a horrible policy? Say the value of
the virtuous benefit is 10x the cost of the free loading?

~~~
ihateloggingin
The other poster's concern is obviously punishing the undeserving poor.

However, the point of the article here is to assume that millions will be
"free loaders" no matter what we do because their labor is unnecessary.

~~~
dllthomas
> [M]illions will be "free loaders" no matter what we do because their labor
> is unnecessary.

Not if we kill them.

------
aidenn0
The single biggest issue with BI is that there is some fraction of the
population that will fritter it away and starve.

Most people proposing BI are economic liberals so have the point of view "If
we gave them enough money to live off of and they wasted it, it's no longer
our problem" but that doesn't sit will with the rest of the population that
aren't economic liberals.

Even if you buy into that view, you still have to deal with the increased
crime from starving desperate people; it costs a lot more than $10k per year
to keep someone incarcerated, so inevitably non-violent offenders will be
paroled only to offend again.

[edit] Perhaps those downvoting me could let me know why? I'd like to know how
my comment detracts from the conversation on this article.

------
h0w412d
There was an experiment with this called Mincome in Canada. They found that
the only two groups of people who worked less were new moms and teenagers.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mincome](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mincome)

~~~
dllthomas
Note that "Guaranteed Minimum Income" is something else. From my reading
Mincome is in fact a Basic Income system, despite the name, though I'm by no
means an expert on the experiment.

------
dorkrawk
What happens if I squander my basic income on something frivolous and I can't
get a job? Wouldn't there still need to be social programs to prevent people
who fuck up from just starving to death? How would a basic income coexist with
current systems of debt?

Could this exist without VAST healthcare reform? What happens when people get
(expensively) sick?

Who gets a basic income? Every citizen over 18? Every non dependent? Isn't a
basic income for someone with 5 kids fundamentally different than a single
person? Wouldn't a basic income even in the same state be vastly different
(say Chicago vs Urbana in Illinois)?

This is certainly an interesting idea and I'm interested in people's thoughts
on these and other details.

~~~
ihateloggingin
When someone has so lost control of himself that he can't feed himself -- even
though he has the money to do so -- we put him into custody in a hospital, and
hopefully rehabilitate him. That's severe mental disorder.

You're absolutely right about healthcare; you can't replace public healthcare
with a basic income.

------
unclebucknasty
> _"...wealth creation will increasingly be confined to those with capital,
> and things start to follow a Marxist logic. The middle classes (and their
> elected representatives) will not let that happen."_

In the absence of real campaign finance reform, is the middle class really
that empowered to "not let this happen" through their elected representatives?
Those representatives, after all, are currently much more beholden to their
financial masters--the corporations and its wealthier beneficiaries
(executives, prominent shareholders) which provide large campaign donations.

Not that it can't change. There are just a lot of steps between here and
there.

------
aneth4
I agree that a basic income may be the best solution to the decline in demand
for labor. And I consider myself economically conservative. There is still
much to be learned about the societal effect. Its something we need to
consider as an alternative to social upheaval.

However other parts of this article concern me, in particular: "Employment law
is liberalised, as workers no longer need to fear dismissal." Employment laws
should be entirely at will in such a system. Workers _should_ fear dismissal.
And after all, they have a basic income to fall back on.

Combining basic income with "liberal" employment law would be a disaster.

~~~
dragonwriter
I don't think you understand what "liberalised" employment law means, since it
means movement in the direction (if not necessarily to the exact point) you
are arguing for in arguing against it.

~~~
aneth4
Well, "liberalised" as a general term doesn't mean anything, so I wouldn't say
I "don't understand" it. The language is ambiguous, but you may be correct on
second thought.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Well, "liberalised" as a general term doesn't mean anything

With economic policy, it _always_ means reduced regulation in favor of
increased reliance on mutual consent of the parties.

~~~
aneth4
Well I'm all for that outside of safety, transparency, and abuse regulations.

------
tocomment
I read this thread his morning and I'm having a really difficult time figuring
out how the discussion has changed since then. Which comments are new? Which
comments are valuable?

Does anyone else have this problem on HN? Any solutions?

~~~
nollidge
I use a Chrome extension called Hacker News Enhancement Suite, and I'm sure
there's other such options:

[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hacker-news-
enhanc...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hacker-news-
enhancement-s/bappiabcodbpphnojdiaddhnilfnjmpm)

------
kemofo
Taxes reward those who don't produce and punish those who do produce. But,
taxes are the price of living in an organized society. Also, there is no such
thing as a free lunch.

Money isn't the problem, it's a lack of education about how money work that is
the real problem. If you give poor or lazy people money it'll just find it's
way back into the pockets of people who understand how money works (the rich).
Even if we take everything from the rich, they'll just get it back because the
average person, with no financial education, is incapable of preserving or
creating wealth.

------
blackaspen
For all of these "Trends" that seem to "push us towards an unconditional basic
income" I'm sure there are stronger "Real Quantified Trends" that push us in
the opposite direction.

------
skndstry
In Switzerland there are over 100'000 people that support the idea, which
means the public gets to vote on it in the next 2-3 years.

[http://bedingungslos.ch/](http://bedingungslos.ch/)

------
iheart2code
How would a system like this scale to different regions? I can see this
working in a smaller country, not the US. I would need a much larger
subsistence wage to survive in the SF bay area than I would in most other
places in the country. And if certain (already overcrowded) regions are
allowed larger wages, you'd probably see people flocking there for the
increased wages. I can also see this placing strain on the system for the
first few decades if people decide to have more children, since both parents
don't need to work anymore.

~~~
dllthomas
Scaling it by region such that the increased benefits are greater than the
increased expense is an obviously horrible idea. I think that scaling it by
region at all is a bad idea, but am receptive to the notion that a slight
increase might work out better if someone wants to present numbers.

------
typorrhea
What is the advantage of doing this in terms of "income" and "currency" rather
than in terms of "rations" and "allotments"? Is it a purely rhetorical
difference?

~~~
dragonwriter
Basic income in the form of currency is fungible and cumulative with other
income, rations/allotments, as usually understood, are non-fungible (for
specific goods) and usually non-cumulative with other income (that is, a
"ration" means you get that much and can get no more, rather than that you get
a basic amount and can buy more freely.)

------
joshuaellinger
It misses the fact that work is fulfilling for (most) people.

I've heard talk of the government being the employer of last resort, which has
its own problems. But just paying people to breath has problems as well.

~~~
nawitus
>It misses the fact that work is fulfilling for (most) people.

Basic income is not against working, it's point is to let people work in all
kinds of situations. Old-fashion social security usually makes the tax rate
for certain part-time / freelancing work 100% (e.g. $100 increase in pay can
reduce benefits $100, therefore the actual marginal tax rate is 100% and most
people won't do that work).

> But just paying people to breath has problems as well.

You can do that in most Nordic countries, and it has many more benefits than
disadvantages. For example, you can walk safely everywhere because everyone
has sufficient social security. Street robberies and whatnot are practically
non-existent.

~~~
waps
1) Work is not nearly as fulfilling as doing nothing for most people. I have
no trouble admitting this to myself. And while I'd probably still do
something, I'd no longer see any need to make any compromises to work together
with anybody else. That would be satisfying. It would also be an economically
negative proposition, but I'd learn a lot. Or at least, I'd feel I do.

2) About the "Nordic countries". WTF ? Have you looked at the crime stats for
Malmo ?

Please note that the nordic countries are in a somewhat special situation just
because of their location. They also have very few homeless. Of course,
homelessness is a death penalty there, merely because of the weather. That
means that in Nordic countries everybody has a house, and not made from wood,
double glazing, brick, generally solid and everybody's inside before the sun
is down. Breaking and entering after dark is insane.

~~~
nawitus
>2) About the "Nordic countries". WTF ? Have you looked at the crime stats for
Malmo ?

Yeah, well immigration can create major problems with crime.

>They also have very few homeless. Of course, homelessness is a death penalty
there, merely because of the weather. That means that in Nordic countries
everybody has a house, and not made from wood, double glazing, brick,
generally solid and everybody's inside before the sun is down. Breaking and
entering after dark is insane.

Yeah, because we have a good social security and everyone can get an
apartment.

~~~
michas
Or because homeless people just freeze to death quickly...

------
jeena
Shouldn't we also kind of tax machine work and not only human work?

------
drakeandrews
The big issue with UBI entirely replacing the welfare system is that it
ignores those who require more money due to disabilities. Person X can subsist
on £Y/week, but person Z needs fooprazatine which costs a non-negligable
quantity of £Y (there are also other, more nuanced scenarios but drugs come to
mind first). Of course there are ways around it and medical benefit fraud is
already incredibly low (it's hard to fake that you need a carer or an
expensive regimen of drugs (painkillers notwithstanding)).

------
mathattack
I like this conceptually, but where you set that wage is the tricky part. If
most folks don't have to work, most won't. Less people to tax too. That will
in turn cause inflation, as there's less supply of goods. Then you'd have to
increase the wage to follow suit.

To get any kind of equilibrium that preserves an incentive to work, you'd need
that universal payment to be fairly low. This isn't to say, "Don't do it" \-
it's just to be careful with it.

------
Balgair
If money is any object or record that is generally accepted as payment for
goods and services and repayment of debts in a given socio-economic context or
country,(
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money) )
then what are persons who receive this money paying? What changes hands? The
state gives Chad cash and he gives them what in return? Is a minimum income
even money anymore?

~~~
dllthomas
This is inane. So long as people in general are _willing to accept it in
exchange_ for goods and services and repayment of debts, it's money. Even if
it somehow wasn't "money" per that definition but a money-like item that
worked the same as "money" in all contexts but one, how is that an objection?
Wikipedia's phrasing of the definition of "money" provides some kind of moral
obligation?

------
baltcode
This will be another nail in the coffin for the rights of those who are
already neglected[1] in the current system : stateless people, and unpopular
minorities who can be made stateless.

1\. The neglected non-citizen: statelessness and liberal political theory.
[http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17449626.2011.558...](http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17449626.2011.558733#.Ud7krtJOSfU)

------
yaddayadda
I find it interesting that the author mentions BitCoin early on, but then
never addresses how an Unconditional Basic Income would work if corporations
switched to BitCoin or other anonymous, decentralized monetary system.

In concept, I'm a firm proponent of a Unconditional Basic Income/Guaranteed
Minimum Income/Negative Income Tax, but I think BitCoin is going to be a
prohibitive cog in the financial wheel.

~~~
ihateloggingin
BitCoin is not anonymous. Cash is anonymous.

Why don't international corporations just exchange briefcases full of $100
bills right now?

------
Mizza
Very excited to see more and more discussion around this concept - I think
Universal Basic Income should be a goal for humanity in the 21st century.

------
adventured
100 million * $20,000 = $2 trillion

No matter how you shake around the minimum income scales, you'll end up near
those types of massive figures.

That's $2 trillion dollars that doesn't exist right now and would have to be
magically conjured up. And I suspect a comfortable wage would need to be
higher than $20,000. I think the financial disaster of this arrangement would
be closer to $3 trillion.

It's mathematically impossible.

------
trg2
This was really an incredible writeup, and I personally can agree with many of
the long term trends. Loved the Dan Pink citation as well.

------
hosh
I think it would be better to focus on lowering the cost of living
(approaching zero) than to provide an unconditional basic income.

------
justncase80
This reminds me of "For Us, The Living", by Robert Heinlein. Where he
discusses a very similar society and explains the economics of how it might
work: [http://www.amazon.com/For-Us-The-Living-
Customs/dp/074349154...](http://www.amazon.com/For-Us-The-Living-
Customs/dp/0743491548)

------
pieterhg
Can somebody explain to me how basic income can work in terms of the cycle of
spending? If companies have to pay for all of people's income through a
taxable percentage of their income, then these companies will only receive a
share of that amount back through consumer spending? So the economy will
shrink in a vicious cycle, right?

~~~
maxerickson
I think it is hard to be confident about what would happen. If most people
elected to stop working the economy would probably contract. If instead the
impact were to give more people the option of making longer term choices, you
might see the economy expand.

If the basic income is set at a basic enough level, work should remain an
attractive option.

------
anExcitedBeast
Nothing about this would work.

Significantly fewer corporations with a drastically smaller workforce paying
greatly increased tax rates with a substantially weaker dollar to benefit an
unthinkably higher quantity of citizens? I assume we still want to keep our
military, education, and surveillance programs funded, too.

It simply does not math.

------
ezxs
Russians tried it with USSR. Every time new technology is introduced everyone
gets scared that jobs go away. Over time the level of service and innovation
requirements go up providing more jobs for those that adapt. Such as life.
Don't make the world what its not. It most likely won't work. :-)

~~~
steveklabnik
Can you tell me more about basic income in the USSR? The wikipedia page on
basic income doesn't mention it:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income_guarantee#Examples...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income_guarantee#Examples_of_implementation)

~~~
ezxs
Basically the government guaranteed to get you a job with a basic income. All
seemed like a good idea "from each according to their ability, to each
according to their need" until folks realized that the people deciding
basically were the ruling class and the working class now worked out of fear
of Gulag instead of financial rewards.

~~~
steveklabnik
That is _not_ what Basic Income is. That's full employment. Totally different.

------
sbhere
> \- You get the basic income whether or not you’re employed, any wages you
> earn are additional. > > \- The welfare bureaucracy is largely dismantled.
> No means testing, no signing on, no bullying young people into stacking
> shelves for free, no separate state pension.

Self-contradiction.

~~~
dllthomas
Not in the slightest. It takes more bureaucracy to administer a system where
decisions need to be made. If there's some other problem you're seeing, you'll
need to use more than one word to convey it.

------
antitrust
The problem with unconditional basic income is that there's no incentive to do
anything beyond the minimum.

Like most utopian plans, this idea relies on the belief that humans will get
up and do things in large numbers.

We can't even get them to voluntarily recycle and quit beating their kids.

~~~
ihsw
It's becoming increasingly clear that some people can't work despite their
willingness. Full-time job growth is at an all-time low while temporary job
growth is at an all-time high. Most of the jobs gained since 2008 have been
temporary jobs or jobs with too few hours.

~~~
antitrust
I think that's an entirely separate argument. Do you?

The fact that right now the economy stinks (P-U) and that some people who want
to work, cannot, does not really have any bearing on future plans for
guaranteed basic income.

------
COOLIO5676
My vote goes toward less hours, and higher wages. it's another way of solving
the same issues. Everyone could work half as much, for twice as much, and you
still double employment.

~~~
TeMPOraL
This doesn't compute.

1/2 work * 2x wages * 2x employment = 8 * cost per unit of work done.

------
codex
From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.

------
deweller
This will not happen in the United States of America in our lifetime.

------
mk3
Worthless blabber. Giving people good social guarantees leads to more people
unwilling to work. If you want examples take a look to Norway. Also another
dumb question how the hell this article ended up in frontpage of Hacker News
in first place?

------
forgotAgain
But then we'd all have to die at thirty.

~~~
dllthomas
... why?

~~~
forgotAgain
Attempt (failed obviously) to pull in Logan's Run.

~~~
dllthomas
Ah, I wondered about that, but the numbers didn't match when I hit Wikipedia,
so I figured I'd missed something.

------
blacktulip
So Communism wins？

~~~
summerdown2
Or capitalism? One argument for the basic income is it allows everyone to be
an entrepreneur by removing the benefits trap.

------
stefantalpalaru
Here's an in-depth analysis in the form of a documentary[1] (German audio,
English subtitles).

[1]:
[http://www.filmsforaction.org/watch/the_basic_income_2008/](http://www.filmsforaction.org/watch/the_basic_income_2008/)

------
cpursley
Please keep the do-gooder central planning away from my bank account. Thanks.

~~~
toomuchtodo
Says the founder who has a business based off of a major component of US
central planning (housing).

~~~
cpursley
What? The two are mutually exclusive.

I know it's hard to fathom, but people purchased real estate, and will
continue to do so with, or without, central planning.

Central planning (expanding the monetary supply and forcing banks to lend) has
little effect on my business.

~~~
dllthomas
Did you mean "orthogonal" in place of "mutually exclusive"? If they were in
fact mutually exclusive then any central planning should have a dramatic (and
negative) effect on your business.

