
The Failure of a Past Basic Income Guarantee, the Speenhamland System - marcusgarvey
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/01/the-failure-of-a-past-basic-income-guarantee-the-speenhamland-system.html
======
learnstats2
This article appears to confuse guaranteed income (means-tested top-up) with
basic income/basic income guarantee (which you get unconditionally)

One of the major criticisms made of Speenhamland (a means-tested top-up) is
that pay was reduced because employers knew employees could claim it back via
the state top-up. That could happen under guaranteed income, as it apparently
does here, but _is not relevant_ to basic income.

Wikipedia clearly points out this difference:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income#Difference_from_g...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income#Difference_from_guaranteed_income)

A very poor article.

~~~
ChuckMcM
That is a very common confusion. Whenever I mention basic income and people
say "That will never work, its been tried!" I ask them to explain what they
think a basic income system would be like, and so far it is always some form
of means tested supplemental income rather than just basic income.

~~~
Retra
A civil responsibility-tested income would be another reasonable alternative.
That is, if you do your taxes, are not currently a criminal, vote in some
elections, obey basic health and safety requirements, exercise responsible
finances, recycle, etc..

There are lots of things worth considering along this line of thought. You are
essentially being paid to be a responsible citizen.

EDIT: When I said there are a lot of things worth considering, I was not
advocating stupidity, but consideration. I.e., thought. For one, it wouldn't
have to be all-or-nothing. Surely if you have to pay a traffic ticket, it will
already be coming out of your income. But if you chose to gamble your income
away and you have children to feed, why should you keep getting it?

~~~
nitrogen
The only way a basic income can avoid being politicized and destroyed is by
making it _truly unconditional_. See various government-run web filters as an
example of the creeping scope expansion every non-unconditional program will
encounter. The easiest way to get people to stop fighting over which
conditions are the right conditions is to have no conditions.

~~~
eru
> The only way a basic income can avoid being politicized and destroyed is by
> making it truly unconditional.

Good luck with that. Do you pay citizens, or residents, or perhaps the
intersection of them? Do you pay only adults? Or every one who has been born?
How dead do you have to be to no longer get the money? (Ie keep your relatives
on the machines for longer for money?)

Anyway, I agree with your sentiment. But it's not as clear cut in practice.
You still have conditions.

~~~
nitrogen
_Good luck with that. Do you pay citizens, or residents, or perhaps the
intersection of them? Do you pay only adults? Or every one who has been born?
How dead do you have to be to no longer get the money? (Ie keep your relatives
on the machines for longer for money?)_

One would draw whatever line results in the least ambiguity and the lowest
enforcement cost. Regarding end-of-life decisions, that's what medical ethics,
living wills, and single-payer healthcare are for.

------
dllthomas
From the article: _" Even though some readers call for a stipend to everyone,
that simply is not going to happen, at least in terms of net results."_

From Wikipedia: _" The authorities at Speenhamland approved a means-tested
sliding-scale of wage supplements in order to mitigate the worst effects of
rural poverty. Families were paid extra to top up wages to a set level
according to a table."_

So... "basic income isn't going to happen, a priori, so I'm going to call the
failure of this other system (that looks much more like what we're currently
doing than like a basic income) a failure of basic income".

~~~
SilasX
That is actually an insanely common tactic in political debate.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
It is. And yet... has true basic income ever been tried, anywhere? If not, the
best guide we can find is to look at the closest thing to it that has so far
been tried (hopefully recognizing that the example is not completely
equivalent, and therefore not completely relevant).

If the new idea takes into account the experience of the old, and has
revisions to specifically deal with the problems that the old system
encountered, then the question is whether the changes are actually going to
fix the problem. (You want to avoid "We painted it orange this time, so your
previous experience doesn't prove that our approach won't work!)

~~~
dllthomas
The sharp drop-off of means testing is precisely the thing that a basic income
is intended to fix. The example cited isn't "basic income" any more than
Welfare is.

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applecore
Since the early twentieth century, the world is undergoing dramatic and
unprecedented change. It's going to be very hard to extrapolate from the
failure of any past system or experience into the twenty-first century.

~~~
gerbal
Though, that a system like this emerged in another period of dramatic and
unprecedented change suggests analogy to today.

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nhaehnle
I find the article to be unfortunately meandering, but it contains an
important question slightly more than half-way down: Why all the popular
support for a Basic Income Guarantee rather than the arguably superior Job
Guarantee (though the two ideas are not mutually exclusive)?

The author makes some frank points that BIG advocates should take to heart.
This paragraph really hits home: _Too many of the fantasies about a basic
income guarantee seem to revolve around a tiny minority, like the individual
who will write a great novel on his stipend. Let’s be real: the overwhelming
majority of people who think they might like to write a book don’t have the
self-displine to do so in the absence of external pressure. And that’s before
you get to the question of whether it will turn out to be good enough for
anyone but the author to want to read it._

~~~
dllthomas
I object to a job guarantee because I think people's time has value and I
don't want it squandered on makework. While I think people can find important
dignity in work, I think paying people to do things that aren't needed
destroys that dignity.

~~~
nhaehnle
The argument is that there are plenty of things that are obviously useful (or
even needed) which aren't being done today because too many people incorrectly
equate "useful" with "profitable" \- and so only the profitable things end up
being done, while many useful things remain undone.

The fact that your strawman appears so frequently shows that knowledge about
the details of a Job Guarantee are not spread widely enough yet.

~~~
dllthomas
It's not a straw man.

How do you tell apart a job guarantee from any old program doing things that
need doing?

The difference is that, with the job guarantee you may eventually have to
start creating make-work; otherwise, it is not a guarantee. I oppose make-
work, so I oppose the guarantee. I do not, on these grounds, oppose creation
of jobs to do things that are not make-work.

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pbreit
Even if it supposedly works, it seems so artificial and counter to individual
freedom and responsibility that it makes no sense whatsoever given the current
US constitution and the principles the country was founded upon.

(yes, I understand there are a lot of things in place that fall under that
umbrella)

~~~
Retra
What is 'it'? Where is it in the constitution? Why are we supposed to be
constrained by founders' principles?

~~~
AnimalMuppet
We are in fact supposed to be constrained by the constitution (at least until
we amend it). But, as you asked, where in the constitution is that? Where
specifically?

~~~
Retra
The constitution is supposed to represent _our_ principles, not the founders'.
The fact that it does not speaks more to our failure than to their success.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
Say what? NO. It's not supposed to represent any generation's principles. The
constitution is supposed to be an agreed-upon set of rules that is in place
until enough people what badly enough to change it that they go through the
deliberately-almost-impossible process of amendment.

Because if you were just going to have each generation decide what principles
that they want to be governed by, why have a constitution in the first place
(especially one that's hard to change)? Why not just, you know, let each
generation do what it wants?

Look, I was initially agreeing with you. If pbreit is going to claim that it
makes no sense given the constitution, I want to see section and clause quoted
before I believe that it's any such thing. But I also don't think that each
generation gets to re-do the constitution in the image of their own
principles.

~~~
Retra
I don't appreciate your tone. You are jumping to conclusions about my opinions
on a complicated and controversial matter.

>But I also don't think that each generation gets to re-do the constitution in
the image of their own principles.

I never said that. But every generation does have that power, because all
other generations are dead and don't get to make amendments anymore. I don't
know what it is about what I've said that makes you think I would support some
_other_ means of modifying the constitution.

Those who are alive have all the power. I don't see what is so objectionable
about that; it's one of the great benefits of not being a corpse.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
Ah, I see. Then, yes, I did misinterpret what you said. My apologies.

(In case you can't tell, I'm not a fan of the "it's a living document, it
means whatever we want it to mean" school of constitutional interpretation.)

~~~
Retra
I'm not a fan either, but in a sense we have no choice. We can't ask older
generations what they meant, we can only hope that their values were passed on
effectively. And where they aren't, we do not share those values and so
shouldn't be constrained by them.

I don't think we should be reinterpreting the law to suit whatever goal we
currently want. That kind of behavior is essentially corruption. We should be
rewriting the laws to say explicitly what we want, why we want it, and how
important it is to us.

------
refurb
This article has issues (as already pointed out by others), but it raises a
valid point. What would be the effects of a basic income? It refers to lower
wages, which might be one.

This just reminds me of other gov't efforts to "tweak" the system. A great
example in the US is drug prices. Some federal gov't programs (Medicare) get
to buy drugs at either discount X% or _the lowest price offered (to non-gov 't
customers)_ whichever is lower.

Sounds like a great idea, but what drug companies started to do is _pull back_
their discounts on private customers in order to minimize the discount to the
gov't. As the gov't started paying more, a mish-mash of "tweaks" were made to
avoid this. This just created new ways for drug companies to respond.

Basic income is a decent idea at first glance, but holy crap it could become a
complex mess pretty quick if it's not done right. It could create some pretty
perverse incentives for either individual or companies to maximize their gain.

~~~
dllthomas
_" It refers to lower wages, which might be one."_

It might, but I don't see why. As _some_ people are more able to opt out of
the workforce, you're reducing the supply of labor. Meanwhile, you're making
some individuals more capable of realizing their needs as demand. It would
hugely surprise me if lower supply and increased demand meant a lower price.
Which is not to say I couldn't be surprised.

 _" Basic income is a decent idea at first glance, but holy crap it could
become a complex mess pretty quick if it's not done right. It could create
some pretty perverse incentives for either individual or companies to maximize
their gain."_

Note that we _already_ have a welfare system with a bunch of layers of
complexity to try and coddle various behaviour out of people. A system with
one simple formula and no discontinuities is likely to be substantially less
weird.

------
tomlock
I think a flat negative income tax is the way to go.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_income_tax](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_income_tax)

When you earn a dollar, you lose 30c of your basic income. Once your basic
income is eaten up in this way, you lose 30c out of your income as tax.

This means that the incentive to earn each subsequent dollar is essentially
the same as the last. Of course, I'm sure someone smarter than me has a better
idea of what:

1) The basic income amount will be 2) What the flat tax amount would be

The idea is that this would be both a tax reform action and also a replacement
of a lot of welfare programs.

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carapace
I normally eschew the practice of judging books by covers, but in this case I
think you can judge the content by the URL and the comments here seem to back
that up.

The robots _are_ taking the jobs and we are going to have to figure out what
people are _for_ (because I'm assuming we cant just throw the "excess"
population into a volcano or something, and just working them for no reason is
obscene.)

Wendell Berry wrote a whole essay about this called, "What are people for?"

~~~
anigbrowl
_I 'm assuming we cant just throw the "excess" population into a volcano or
something_

Something similar was tried not so long ago and I doubt it will be the last
attempt. I can think of quite a lot of people that will cheerfully sacrifice a
mass of people on the altar of their basic ideology, and won't regard
themselves as morally deficient for doing so.

~~~
carapace
Well, okay, lets just throw _those_ people into a volcano.

(Is that an okay ideology? Or should you throw yourself into a volcano if you
believe? I for one would gladly throw all the jerks in the world into a
volcano and _jump in myself afterward_ as I feel it would be worth it to be
immortalized forever as the _Last Asshole on Earth_. Then you all could get on
with your lives in peace and harmony. I expect life would be rather pleasant.
I mean, can you even imagine it? A world with no assholes? Sure the four or
five people left would be pretty lonely but at least there wouldn't be a
littering anymore, eh?)

------
Futurebot
Ms. Smith is confused. Income "top-ups" are not a GBI. Means-tested anything
are not a GBI. Using the "the Speenhamland System" as an argument against the
GBI shows a serious misunderstanding of what a GBI is. For a GBI to work, it'd
have to be:

\- national - otherwise you would get strange arbitraging behavior

\- unconditional

\- available to all adults

The idea is that you get the _minimum_ (let's say 22k a year if we started one
now), then you work to get even more money. It's enough to live on. To not
starve. To pay rent. If you want to live well, you try to get a job if you
can. It would have to replace nearly all of the current welfare state (except
maybe disability - 22k may not be enough for the seriously disabled), and not
just be another program.

I'm also confused about her confidence that there's "so much work to do."
Automation is on the march, and will continue (I'm sure Smith is very familiar
with Autor / McCaffee / Ford and friends.) Many of the jobs that one might
envision (and that still exist) are jobs that no one wants to do in today's
world in any case. They aren't pinnacles of dignity and pride; they're soul-
crushing, meaningless, repetitive, and body-destroying. The sooner we automate
them, the better. No one will miss doing them. A jobs guarantee also puts us
right back in the workhouse / make work mindset.

"People need a sense of purpose and social engagement. Employment provides
that. History is rife with examples of the rich who fail to find a productive
outlet and and whose lives were consumed by addictions or other self-
destructive behavior."

Yes, many people would do drugs and play lots of video games. I think it's
short-sighted to believe we can stop that (and as things like VR improve,
we'll probably get to the point of wireheading.) Many others _would_ spend
time with their friends, make art and music, etc. I think pre-emptively
assuming that most would just be loafers is falling to the same thinking trap
that has sustains ideological wonders like the Protestant work ethic and
modern Social Darwninism. There are other ways to encourage "purpose."

A jobs guarantee is, and will hopefully remain, a non-starter. Machines will
free us from work; then we'll have to find our own purpose.

------
WalterBright
The math: US population - 316m, income $10,000/yr, so a basic income for all
would be 3 trillion dollars. The entire federal budget for 2014 is 3 trillion.

~~~
noonespecial
It wouldn't be 3 trillion _more_ to provide basic income. A great deal of that
$3T is already spent administering and redistributing income in all sorts of
inefficient and ridiculous ways.

We don't need to leap right to "a living wage" for basic income to make a huge
positive difference. $2k is a huge bump to someone who was getting 0.

Basic income is a hedge against a future where labor is no longer required for
productivity so one rich family owns all of the factors of production in the
world and wonders why everyone is too poor to buy the outputs of their robot
factories.

------
ThomPete
The article wrongly confused unconditional income with conditional one. What
proponent of basic income talk about is unconditional basic income.

If you want to look at an actual basic income system look at the test results
from
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mincome](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mincome)

------
rebootthesystem
Given how HN leans due to the vast majority of members being young left-
leaning idealists with little real life experience in enough cultures and
environments to have a realistic world view this isn't bound to be a popular
post. So be it.

The human condition is such that most people devolve into pretty useless
individuals once all is provided for them with no effort. Even if what is
provided is not "all" this usually has negative effects. We do best when we
EARN what we have. We become better people when we have to devote time, effort
and treasure to achive what we want. Various forms of subsidizing life only
succeed at destroying people, communities and futures.

You want a country with a culture hell-bent to innovate, struggle, work hard
and compete. That country will prosper and eat everyone else alive. In the US
we have generations of people on the dole that have, as a result, utterly
destroyed everything from individuals to cities.

While I don't have any data I'd be willing to bet that recipients of huge
ridiculous unearned government and union pensions are some of the most selfish
people out there, just living their "no worries" life without a care in the
world and without doing a thing to help others.

Then you have people like me. I've had two huge business failures. One
resulted in a total business and personal not-a-dime-to-my-name bankrupcy. I
come from an immigrant entrepreneurial family. I licked my wounds and got back
to work each and every time. And did well every time because I worked my ass
off while everyone else was watching TV.

Because I understood failure and struggle so well I have always gone out of my
way to help those struggling. As an example, I have been working with this guy
I met at three meetups here in Los Angeles for a year. He is basically
homeless and sleeps at friend's homes while doing gigs here and there for
money. I am not giving him a dime. I am teaching him how to start a business.
We've been at it for a year. He could barely send an email when we started.
Today, I fully expect him to start making $5K a month by June and up from
there.

Maybe what we need is safety nets for the sick and old without any
family/social (church, friends) backup. The rest get nothing could qualify for
something like welfare for a very limited time and only to pay for food, a
place to live and education. No iphones, no satellite TV, no playstations. You
have to make it such that you turn on the innate drive to problem-solve and
improve your situation that exists in every single able-bodied and able-minded
individual. Nobody is suggesting throwing grandma off a cliff or not helping
those who simply cannot do for themselves due to illness or dire situations.
Charity is important. At the same time, organizations like churches get tax
free status for a reason. They ought to help people rather than build massive
empires (anyone who's been to Texas knows what I mean).

And, yes, businesses, entrepreneurs, might get some kind of a tax incentive to
help and mentor others. I don't have any specific ideas to put forth. I know
this can be abused to a ridiculous extent. I also happen to know that most tax
money that goes to government is often wasted in absolutely grotesque ways.
Imagine if we paid someone a couple of million dollars to build the Obamacare
website properly the first time around and used the billion (or whatever, the
exact number is irrelevant) to launch a massive startup funding program or
some other worthy cause. Imagine if the 60 to 100 billion dollars California
is going to absolutely burn building a high speed train nobody is going to use
and, again, launched an entrepreneurial orgy. No, there's a lot that can be
done to produce positive results before we make slaves out of people, even a
little bit.

~~~
sheepmullet
"The human condition is such that most people devolve into pretty useless
individuals once all is provided for them with no effort. Even if what is
provided is not "all" this usually has negative effects."

Source? Evidence?

It doesn't meet the basic smell test. The vast majority of the population
works far harder and for far longer than they need to to attain a basic
standard of living.

I earned enough to get by in college working ~10 hours a week. When I
graduated I still got a full time job. I also could have retired 10 years ago
but I'm still working hard. You could have simply got a job and worked 10-15
hours a week to have your basic needs met and yet you worked your ass off.

~~~
rebootthesystem
> Source? Evidence?

A few hundred thousand years of human history. What kind of a stupid question
is that? Examples of the human struggle to clear difficult hurdles and advance
abound.

No. Not everyone succeeds.

> You could have simply got a job and worked 10-15 hours a week to have your
> basic needs met and yet you worked your ass off.

That's the beauty of freedom. I chose to work hard, invent technologies, build
companies and, as a result, create jobs for people like you who chose a
different path in life. One isn't any less than the other, just choices. Yet
not everyone is willing to take the risks lots of entrepreneurs will gladly
brave in the pursuit of their dreams and ideas.

What is wrong is taking from those who work 80 hours a week to subsidize thise
who only want to work 10. If you work 10 then you get to live the life 10
hours a week affords you.

I'll give you another example of this. Up until Obamacare our family was
paying $600 a month with a $3,000 annual deductible for health insurance.
After Obamacare we pay $1,400 per month and our deductible is fucking $9,000
per year. So we went from $10,200 per year to $25,800. And we are likely
subsidizing people who want to work 10 hours per week. That is theft.

It is simple. If you want to choose the 10 hour per week lifestyle, fantastic.
Do not steal from others to get he things your work ethic cannot get you.

You can't have it both ways unless you are willing to take risks and work hard
to rise to a different level. Today I probably work less than 10 hours a week
and make more per month than most Silicon Valley developers make in a year.
That took effort, sacrifice, loosing it all twice, learning from mistakes and
not giving up.

~~~
sheepmullet
"A few hundred thousand years of human history. What kind of a stupid question
is that? Examples of the human struggle to clear difficult hurdles and advance
abound."

So you don't have any? I didn't think so.

The western world has had life so easy relative to the thousand years before
and yet we have made far more progress.

We have a lot more provided to us "for free" than third world countries and
yet our productivity per person is miles ahead of theirs.

"That's the beauty of freedom."

Yes it is. And it is clear that the vast majority of us are happy to work hard
even once we have met our basic needs.

The rest of your post is just political talking points. I'm not interested in
talking politics or right vs wrong.

~~~
rebootthesystem
On the contrary, the evidence is overwhelming. You are simply more interested
in pretending it isn't there. Just watched a very interesting documentary that
traces the history of artificial light. It absolutely drives my point home.
The relevant societies could have chosen a social framework where nobody would
care to do better because everything was provided to one degree or another.
Instead, the chaotic process of entrepreneurial evolution resulted in a
technology that changed the lives of billions of people, created billions of
jobs and raised the standard of living of every human being on this planet.
Yet many entrepreneurs had to try and fail before that was possible. People
content with working ten hours a week to just get by do not advance society,
they simply exist within it and are unfairly supported by those who choose to
expend a greater effort to advance themselves and others.

Just say "thank you" and move on. You have no point.

~~~
sheepmullet
"People content with working ten hours a week to just get by do not advance
society"

You are missing the point. I'm saying the majority of the working population
can meet their basic needs with 10 hours a week of work and yet they work much
harder and for much longer.

So why then do you keep insisting if they could meet their basic needs in 0
hours they would just be lazy? If modern society is any indication then the
vast majority would work just as hard.

