
The Case Against the Universal Basic Income - pj_mukh
http://intergalacticproletarian.blogspot.com/2015/11/more-welfare-or-more-weekend.html
======
yetanotheracc
This is a fine piece of writing but I have a problem with the following
statement:

 _With the introduction of a UBI, employers would have a powerful weapon to
force wages down, as they good argue that they needn’t pay as much any more,
because they already had enough to maintain their standard of living._

If this was true, the employers would already be forcing the minimum wage down
on everyone.

The UBI would give the lowest paid workers a powerful leverage they currently
lack: the ability to choose not to work instead of accepting whatever wage the
market offers. For other workers, the minimum wage or any viable UBI is small
compared to their earnings, so it is hard to see how it could be used by the
employer in salary negotiations.

~~~
2noame
You hit on exactly one of the biggest problems with the piece. It is the
inability of anyone to say no to shitty paying jobs that requires the
existence of minimum wage laws in the first place. As long as people can't say
no, because they need the income to survive, they will say yes to shitty
wages, hours, benefits, etc.

This author should ask himself, if he earned $1k/money for breathing, would he
accept a shitty job for $7/hr? If not, how much would it need to pay before he
would accept?

Then the next question is what the effective wage of automation would be. If
because people have basic income, no one will work that job for less than
$15/hr and a machine can do it for $10/hr, then it now makes more sense to
automate that job out of existence.

And that is the direction we should aim for as a civilization - full
unemployment, not full employment. Humans should hand as many jobs to machines
as we can, to free us up to do the work we each feel is most valuable, paid or
unpaid.

Enough with this pro-toil mentality that sees value in everyone being
employed, even if for only 4 hrs a week in order to employ 100% of the
population. As if that is even possible anyway. Like what, we're going to have
10 doctors share the work load of one doctor so that everyone can be employed?
And what of all the work that goes unpaid? We should just keep not recognizing
that? And what of all the jobs that don't need to exist? We should keep those
around so that people can fill them to prove their right to live?

Full employment in the 21st century is a bullshit goal. We as a species are
better than that. Our goal should be to free ourselves to pursue what we each
wish to pursue.

And anyone who thinks people's ability to organize will be in any way
diminished instead of monumentally expanded with basic income, isn't giving
their fellow man enough credit.

People will use basic income to give themselves greater voice. I guarantee it.

~~~
sooheon
I like the way you see the future. What is your response to the argument that
UBI will need to be paid for by inordinate taxes on the few actually
productive firms/individuals, in which case those firms/individuals will be
incentivised to leave, leading to a deadened, unproductive country subsidising
laziness?

~~~
pharrington
The whole point is that a UBI is a realization of the wealth that is being
automatically generated. Calculate it from the GDP. It doesn't require a tax.
Prices continue adjusting accordingly.

~~~
dllthomas
You mean just printing new money to pay a UBI?

------
chipsy
IMHO the basic fallacy of this essay is that ideology is not reality. It sets
the goal to be communism as classically envisioned(worker's paradise), and
only some people are absolutely convinced that that's the culture they want.
We still largely have a strong belief in private property, for example.

In making this case, the author raises a bunch of bogeyman images of
everything else being sacrificed on the altar of UBI. This is a paranoia
tactic. The real exchanges made are done at the level of individual
politicians horse-trading against rivals and various interest groups. It's
possible for something to be popular enough that capital is told to go get
dunked, despite all its other advantages, because the alternative is political
suicide. It doesn't happen often, but this is one of those issues that
captures people's imagination in a big way.

~~~
jjoonathan
Not only that, but its primary objection is buried towards the end, receives a
tiny fraction of the essay's length, and so thoroughly lacks originality that
it has literally driven people in the opposite direction (I originally went
searching for other schools of economic thought _because_ I didn't believe the
"jobs will appear" mantra, not the other way around).

It feels like a student essay where the author has a word quota but no actual
point so instead they just aimlessly wander along tangents until they pass the
"finish line."

~~~
Absentinsomniac
Most of this thing reads more like an argument for than against.

------
Eridrus
While I'm a bit enamoured of UBI myself, a thought came to me while reading
this:

If we are going to be dismantling the welfare system at the same time we
implement UBI, we will have absolutely no margin for error; if UBI turns out
to be the wrong policy, then rebuilding the welfare system will be very
difficult after having fired all the people who make it function.

Living in Oakland, I also think his point about housing is particularly
salient. The ideal of basic income is that employers should hold less power
over employees, but that won't be the case if you need the wage to afford
rent.

~~~
skybrian
A big bang approach would be very disruptive. I think it would be better to
start at a modest level, and increase it after people get used to the idea and
can see some of the effects.

There's no minimum to get started. Something like $100 a month might be hardly
noticeable to most people, but it will make a difference to anyone living on
the edge.

Also consider that having a guaranteed income makes it that much more feasible
to either move somewhere with a low cost of living (since it doesn't depend on
a job), or alternatively, afford to move somewhere a bit more expensive. Hard
to say how it would shake out.

~~~
Eridrus
Personally I'm all for taxing the shit out of rich people (higher rates,
treating capital gains as income, high inheritance taxes, abolishing loopholes
that let companies stash profits overseas where they're not effectively
reinvested, etc), but I feel like the argument around UBI is more likely to
involve cuts, because if we gave every person in the US $100/month, it would
cost the US $385 billion dollars, which is 10% of the entire federal tax
budget.

~~~
merpnderp
IT doesn't change your point, but it would cost $319 billion, not $385. There
are 319 million people in the US.

~~~
twoodfin
There are 12 months in our non-metric years.

------
turkishrevenge
This is more of a historical survey of the idea UBI than a mediation on why
it's good/bad thing.

I get the arguments he makes from the perspective of the revolutionary Left.
They are, however, not interesting or really acknowledging the role that
robotics/computer vision/etc will play in the future. It's not really his
fault though. Rather, I think many people are just ignorant of the profound
impact that this kind of technology is going to have, simply because their
direct exposure to it is so minimal.

As someone that has had experience in the rev. Left for some years and saw
developments with robotics in research at a well-regarded school as a grad
student, I feel like I have some perspective on this article. What I saw in
school really made me change my mind and re-evaluate how the future will play
out. Things are going to change and the genie, so to speak is out of the
bottle and there's no putting it back in. But as pretty much all most socio-
enviro-economic problems, the impediments we collectively face generally
aren't technological as much as they are political, and that's where the
activist focus needs to be. But I digress.

Mr. Phillips, doesn't seem to get that the technology isn't ready to displace
humans from all work. The real threat (which is a threat until further notice)
is that robotic technology is now "good enough" to do the kind of work that
was just out of reach of automation in the past. It is not inconceivable to
think robots will be able to perform the tasks of human garment workers soon.
The gap between robots and semi-skilled labor are disappearing every year.

The idea for calling for a stronger labor movement as a solution is frankly
laughable. It isn't going to happen any time soon and the economic conditions
(what Marxists would colloquially refer to as "super-profitability") that
created things like a labor aristocracy (another term) and social democracy no
longer exist. How does one recreate a strong labor movement when the
industries that were unionized are structurally hollowed out by no-pay robotic
"labor" (which isn't labor in the Marxist sense either)? I'd love to hear a
non hand wavy answer (seriously!).

UBI is actually a strong step on the road to the Marxist idea of communism
(ironically enough) in that it does something special: it decouples the idea
of compensation from labor, which is one of the long term goals of a society
transforming from capitalism to a stateless, classless society. Lenin had a
term for this too, which was "bourgeois right".

Anyway, my 2 cents.

~~~
eru
> How does one recreate a strong labor movement when the industries that were
> unionized are structurally hollowed out by no-pay robotic "labor" (which
> isn't labor in the Marxist sense either)? I'd love to hear a non hand wavy
> answer (seriously!).

Seems like a labour movement is a means, not an end. So I wouldn't be too sad,
if you need other means.

Perhaps the left should pick up Georgism (again)? See
[http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2015/04/land-
val...](http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2015/04/land-value-tax)
for an introduction.

------
sytelus
As long as human requires another human for providing services, universal
basic income would only translate to inflation. In essence, money is simply an
unit for purchasing slice of another human's life time. It is however possible
to have a world where all mining, manufacturing, farming, construction and
most form of services is provided by self-maintaining robots and then humans
are truely free to pursue their interests as they see fit. In that form of
society, price of basic food, clothing, housing etc would be near zero and
value of humans would be accounted by their ability to entertain, explore and
educate as opposed to their wealth. So universal basic income is absolutely
possible as long as humans are not part of the supply chain all the way until
final consumption.

~~~
darkmighty
That would be true only if wealth were equally distributed to start with. So
basic income should bring some inflation, but it also brings some wealth
redistribution.

~~~
WalterBright
Inflation is not caused by price increases. It is caused by an increase in the
money supply relative to the value it represents.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Inflation is not caused by price increases.

No, inflation is _defined as_ the rate of increase of general prices in a
particular market, however that market is bounded.

> It is caused by an increase in the money supply relative to the value it
> represents.

Because the markets for different goods and services are to a certain extent
distinct, and because populations of different levels of wealth demand
different goods and services, redistribution always causes increase in the
supply of money chasing goods and services demanded by the group benefiting
from the redistribution (and a decrease on the other side), at least in the
short run (in the longer run, its effects on overall productivity, which
depend on other details, will determine the effects.) As a result, you'd
expect redistribution to cause some inflation in the market for goods and
services demanded by the beneficiaries of the redistribution.

~~~
petra
Could you please expand a bit more on the long term effects of expanding the
money supply?

~~~
polishninja
The Fed expands and contracts the money supply to keep inflation around 2%.
They use it as a tool to smooth out financial expansions and contractions by
affecting interest rates which affect the demand for money vs interest bearing
holdings.

Currently, they expanded the money supply past demand to accommodate the 2008
crisis and now we are caught in a liquidity trap. If the Fed now wants to
stimulate the economy by lowering the interest rate though expanding the money
supply they can't, because the interest rate is at the lower bound of 0%. They
need to now use less effective and unconventional methods to affect the
economy.

~~~
dragonwriter
As you note, monetary policy is largely a tool to "smooth out financial
expansions and contractions"; that is, its a tool to tweak around the edges of
fairly short-term normal cyclical fluctuations. It may be sufficient to
adequately mitigate harmful disruptions from those kinds of normal cyclical
fluctuations in the economy, but its not adequate for dealing with all
economic issues.

The more powerful tool for dealing with economic issues is fiscal policy,
which is the domain of Congress, not the Fed. But Congress has largely failed
to act, or acted counterproductively, for many years, and left the Fed and
monetary policy to handle things that need Congress and fiscal policy to
address. So, yes, the Fed's pretty much exhausted its tools, because its been
forced to deal with a problem exclusively through monetary policy that should
have been addressed through fiscal policy.

------
mshron
Interesting argued. I say: let's try it somewhere that is game, and see what
happens. As Bob Reich says, we've been running an experiment in trickle down
economics for the past 30 years and it hasn't done most of us much good. I'm
not going to buy much in theory either way until I see some attempts in
practice.

~~~
hodwik
Sure it has, although trickle down is a completely inaccurate way to describe
it.

Real adjusted income per capita is skyrocketing. The only reason it looks like
it is going down is because Liberals always quote the household income. Of
course household income is going down, households are getting smaller and
smaller.

A mere 5 percent of those in the bottom quintile in '75 were still there by
'91.

[http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ZTj_GfalJo8/UCGLgI8nDII/AAAAAAAAFt...](http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ZTj_GfalJo8/UCGLgI8nDII/AAAAAAAAFts/LGj6GB3JIB0/s1600/average-
real-income-in-us-by-sex-1947-2010.png)

~~~
gozo
That's average income. Look at the median income for men and things look less
exciting. Then add the increase in tuition fees and housing cost in urban
areas.

[http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-aTB7SNmJgkY/UCPmRNHaUxI/AAAAAAAAFw...](http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-aTB7SNmJgkY/UCPmRNHaUxI/AAAAAAAAFwc/aA5SesGKpGs/s1600/median-
real-income-in-us-by-sex-1947-2010.PNG)

~~~
twoodfin
Why just men? Aren't we glad they have to complete with women in the labor
market now?

~~~
gozo
Because the primary increase in median salary for women are their increased
participation in the workforce and not actually higher salary? If you look at
median real income per hour you find a similar results as men.

~~~
twoodfin
Yes: As supply doubles, prices go down. Again, what's wrong with that?

~~~
hodwik
Exactly.

There's so much stuff like that going on it's hard to know where to begin with
these people.

For example, demographics. If you have a large young population and a large
elderly population you will have a median income pushed lower than when your
demographics skew middle aged.

Also, when you have large immigration influx, that forces down your median
income as a percentage for the whole population, even if the people who were
there before the influx are doing considerably better in real dollar terms.

Or if retirees are doing part-time "fun" work for small amounts of pay, when
they wouldn't have been 50 years ago, that'll force down median income since
they're not competing for higher wages.

It goes on and on.

------
paulsutter
TL/DR: technology will have no impact on employment, never trust a libertarian
rat, let's just keep the programs we have.

References (trying to enumerate his arguments against UBI):

\- “the supposed looming robot apocalypse...It’s just not going to happen”

\- "Taking even modest initial steps toward a guaranteed income is likely to
further starve critically needed targeted cash transfers and diverse in-kind
benefits"

\- "libertarian right ... has basically the motivation that this will
undermine existing social welfare institutions"

\- "the money goes into one pocket and out the other—a taxpayer transfer to
landlords." (???)

\- "The UBI is not only a subsidy to employers; it is a union-buster." (???)

\- "With the introduction of a UBI, employers would have a powerful weapon to
force wages down" (???)

I was hoping he'd propose an alternative to UBI, but he didn't. I did enjoy
his extensive history of UBI.

~~~
vlehto
>"The UBI is not only a subsidy to employers; it is a union-buster." (???)

This is true. This is also the main reason why I support UBI in Finland.

Here unions are based on negotiating minimum wages for different jobs and
paying unemployment money to laid of workers. (something like 9 months after
lay off, then it's government responsibility.) The membership payments are tax
exempt. Both of these things would be unnecessary with UBI.

Why I don't like the unions? Because cleaning lady at paper factory gets 1,6
times the wage of cleaning lady at a hospital. They are practically fueling
outsourcing more than anything else, because they penalize success.

Also because whatever I vote in the general election, is not going to affect
the job market in any way. Unions hold the power. They have cartel on labor
and it's not illegal like other cartels.

They have that cartel because they lobby shit more than anything else. It
makes economic sense to belong to union. Your payments cost you nothing
because government is basically paying them through tax exemption. If you have
slightest possibility to be ever laid off, unions guarantee relatively high
standard of living for that "in between jobs".

Finnish social democrats are most against UBI in Finland. They have been
accused of being the political wing of Unions.

~~~
dllthomas
You've established that you (and perhaps some others) believe that UBI hurts
unions (and that you think that's desirable), but you've not really explained
the mechanism by which they would be hurt.

~~~
vlehto
Simply not needed as much anymore. Minimum wage loses it's ethical argument
with UBI. Job security is lot less needed because your safety net actually
works.

Unions would surely still exist. But they should not be able to hold as much
power as currently. Which is exactly what I want. I'm not against unions, I'm
against unions having a choke hold of my country.

------
Hytosys
While I found many of the author's assertions to be ideological predictions,
this sentence made me happy: "So much depends on the balance of forces between
capital and labour at the moment of its implementation." Historically
speaking, economic change in favor of the massive people is only successful
(even if fleeting) if it is demanded by millions of working people.

UBI only plays with the ratios of capitalism; a UBI implementation would
result in a different distribution of equality, so surely there would be
historic social consequences. Those consequences are clearly up for endless
debate by concerned reformists (a.k.a. fortune tellers; see the article's
citations).

So, the details are all up in the air.

What a brief Marxian analysis would tell you regarding UBI and any other
reform programs: since the control of the means of production and the
subsequent control of the surplus labor remains in the hands of the
capitalists, the capitalists will maintain their power and quickly destroy any
of the proletarian benefits that the program seemed to promise.

The best example in recent US history of this happening: the New Deal.

~~~
sageikosa
Both Marxist and Austrians agree: intermediate socialist policies are doomed
to fail. Marxists would say because they weren't Marxist enough, and Austrians
would say because all socialist systems must fail because they lack a means to
calculate relative value sufficient for anything other than robbery, and
certainly not sufficient for directing activity fit for an industrial society.

~~~
eru
Fabians (and other social democrats) disagree. So far, the Fabians seem to be
on a roll---social democracy hasn't collapsed yet, and brought much stronger
legal position for workers. (Health-and-safety laws, 40h work week, etc.)

~~~
sageikosa
Every system collapses eventually. I'm not the kind of person who thinks
society can be engineered, so I don't have to posit a counter system that
won't collapse.

------
yummyfajitas
The actual case against basic income: it reduces work effort drastically (13%)
in the experiment where this was measured. For comparison, the great recession
reduced work effort by about 5% (near as I can tell, based on looking at the
delta in unemployment rate).

[http://public.econ.duke.edu/~erw/197/forget-
cea%20(2).pdf](http://public.econ.duke.edu/~erw/197/forget-cea%20\(2\).pdf)

We'd like to pretend everyone is a self-motivated software engineer who will
create value for the world for personal fulfillment. The data shows this
belief is false.

~~~
vidarh
Part of the reason basic income is bandied about more and more is that the
amount of people who is starting to believe that capitalism is eventually
becoming efficient enough to drive up unemployment is rising (though most of
these people are probably unaware that this is a central part of Marx' thesis
of how he believed capitalism will eventually give rise to its own demise).

There is a growing fear amongst some that automation will finally overtake job
creation, and that the resulting unemployment will be sufficient to throw
masses of people back into poverty.

If that actually happens, then a 13% reduction in work effort might very well
be less than desirable if one wishes to prevent social unrest.

There are two key benefits of basic income in that respect: Firstly, to ensure
that if people are unable to find a job, they can still live a decent life.
Secondly, to reduce the amount of people forced into unemployment by making
more people _choose_ to not work or work less, whether because they choose
education or choose to stay home with their young children, or choose to
retire earlier, or simply choose to make do with less.

Of course, the pre-requisite for that to be viable is that society can make do
with 13% less work effort (or whatever it ends up being, whether more or
less).

~~~
nerfhammer
Self-driving vehicles will permanently eliminate several of the most common
occupations in the world – truck drivers, delivery drivers, bus drivers, and
taxi drivers – and that's coming in just a few years.

~~~
eru
Globally we are still in the process of eliminating the most common occupation
of all: subsistence farmer.

------
philwelch
Someone who describes, among other things, the collapse of the Soviet Union as
"the world-historic defeat of the working class in the 70s-80s" is operating
within a much different framework than the rest of us.

------
transfire
"There is no capitalist road to communism. There is only, as ever, the calibre
of the confidence of labour."

Actually Marx himself thought that capitalism was a natural historic necessity
proceeding communism. This issue was widely debated at the founding of USSR
--whether they could skip this phase. Obviously they choose wrong.

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist
until the majority discovers it can vote itself largess out of the public
treasury. After that, the majority always votes for the candidate promising
the most benefits with the result the democracy collapses because of the loose
fiscal policy ensuing, always to be followed by a dictatorship, then a
monarchy."

\- Source unclear, attributed to Alexis de Tocqueville and Elmer T. Peterson

~~~
eru
Democracies have been remarkably stable so far compared to other forms of
government we've tried.

------
aidenn0
Do yourself a favor and change the font to not be a typewriter font. It may be
bourgeois of me, but reading fixed-width font for prose to be sub-optimal.

------
pj_mukh
tl;dr: UBI has a whole host of problems, instead, we should be strengthening
the unions to increase wages to force the capitalists to invest in technology
that makes us more productive

~~~
kapnobatairza
I don't think the author adequately makes the case that a UBI has problems as
a form of welfare.

His argument seems to boil down to the following:

1) Labour being replaced by automation isn't going to happen because it is
going to create more jobs than it displaces..... Not sure if I agree with this
point.

2) That a basic income necessarily needs be IN PLACE OF existing welfare and
labour protections... While some other forms of welfare may evaporate and some
labour protections loosened, it doesn't have to. It provides flexibility for
labourers and employers to negotiate without the looming threat of not having
a basic living wage. It increases the labourers negotiating position more than
the employers IMO.

3) Technology makes us more productivity, which means we can work less hours
which means we can have more leisure time. The problem with this argument is
that it assumes those "less hours" are equally distributed across the entire
pool of laborers. What it just means is there are less hours for a limited
pool of skilled labourers to fight over. Which means more unemployment. It
does not mean that the taxi driver who has his 12 hour days eliminated by
driverless ubers now gets to work 3 hours a day driving an uber or gets to
work 3 hours a day programming those cars.

4) Instead of having a UBI, we should have a militant (violent) revolution
against the rich where we demand increased welfare and labour protections.
Increased welfare like a UBI? I'm not sure why the author feels like positive
social institutions can't be a voluntary concession of the rich to satisfy
discontent of the masses. Why do we have to get out our pitchforks to get
bread if they are offering to hand out a livelihood to every citizen?

This sounds like the sort of leftist rhetoric that comes from someone in a
very comfortable position. Try telling someone in real need that they
shouldn't accept a basic income because "it's just a bribe from the rich so we
don't start some vague revolution!".

~~~
pj_mukh
Caveat: I don't agree with the author, I'm just trying to understand both
sides here. But,

It seems to be a just an Economists (albeit a lefty one) looking for solutions
in previous data.

1) That is the only conclusion that can be gleaned from the past century of
data. Projections as to the effect of an "exponential explosion in AI/ML" have
no data to support it.

2) I don't think he advocates for either. Though as a lefty he definitely
doesn't advocate for busting of social programs (esp Healthcare)

3) Very True.

4) Labour doesn't necessarily ask for increased welfare, they ask for perfect
employment. Which the author implies is a larger force for productivity boosts
than something like UBI. It also gives the masses some control (therefore
keeping the pitchforks away).

Historically, weakening labour has led to slumps in productivity for a myriad
of reasons (that he could've done a better job at laying out). And we have no
evidence that a UBI would increase productivity, but we do know it will
destroy labour unions. Without productivity increases (towards zero marginal
cost), UBI may not be able to deliver on its lofty promisies.

On the flip side: Increasing power to labour would mean another concentration
of power that can (and has) be corrupted easily.

~~~
aninhumer
>1) That is the only conclusion that can be gleaned from the past century of
data. Projections as to the effect of an "exponential explosion in AI/ML" have
no data to support it.

I think a more useful way to think about the problem of automation isn't that
it replaces jobs directly, it's that it devalues human capital. New jobs will
involve more skill, which means each person will need more education and
training. It might get to the point where training everyone so they can work
for a living is _less efficient_ than just taxing and paying for some people's
sustenance directly.

~~~
eru
Wasn't deskilling the thing people complained about with new technologies?

------
codyb
I've always thought that with automation, increasing population, and
globalozation we would need something akin to the universal basic income.

The question becomes, does that just exist for Western societies or for the
entire world?

I didn't read the entire article but it struck me to point out that "The
Captive Mind" by Czeslaw Milosz is extremely relevant here.

While the USSR was no wonderful place to be, artists tended to be happy there,
because even if they were forced to "art" in a particular sense, the USSR
recognized art as a fundamental human right and dignity. Compared to
capitalism where people were starving just to make it.

I've had a few drinks, but I absolutely recommend "The Captive Mind" to anyone
interested in this sort of sociatal interaction. The part where society
collapses (the USSR) and all of the "secret" papers are spilling on to the
street will open your mind.

At least it did mine. When it comes to gold, silver, or secrets, if they can't
feed you, clothe you, or shelther you, when things break down, they're not
worth _shit_.

This is my spurious comment of the night. Check that novel out. "A Captive
Mind".

I'm for a universal basic income. I'm a socialist for essentials, a
libertarian for personal liberties, and a capitalist for the rest. I couldn't
make it through that entire article. All downvotes are deserved.

Cheers.

~~~
eru
European countries pay large amount of subsidies for art..

------
orionblastar
If we can't have a UBI how about creating work at home jobs for the disabled
and people on welfare to do with a computer and an Internet connection? Most
can't afford transportation to get to a job, and need more that welfare or
social security needs.

I'm sure some startup can handle the issue of providing work at home jobs for
the poor, disabled, and people on welfare and the software for them to work
the job where it has a GUI interface and they fill out forms and push buttons.
Stuff like data entry, video captions, video transcripts, or even running
something like a Bitcoin miner that attaches to a USB device that earns money
and pays them some of it.

There should be a way to create jobs using technology that don't require a lot
of skill and training and that basically anyone can do.

Even an app where they fill out surveys and get paid, or do small things like
write a 500 word essay for money. Stuff that people can do that an AI can't do
yet.

------
mark_l_watson
This is a nicely thought out essay but I largely don't agree with it.

The author's basic premise that improvements in technology always bring an
increase of employment will, I believe, not be true at all in the next few
decades.

I think the rich will look at something like universal basic income as
something to keep society civil, avoiding large scale civil unrest.

------
wtbob
You can see from this argument who the real losers in a system of universal
basic income would be: not the poor; not the rich; not the productive middle
classes; but the bureaucrats, both public (welfare workers) and private
(labour organisers).

~~~
akshatpradhan
With Basic Income enabled, why would we need welfare workers? Just put the
welfare workers and labour organizers on basic income!

~~~
wtbob
Yes, but right now they make more than that, which is why they're so opposed
to the idea.

------
akshatpradhan
There were a lot of references that I couldn't understand.

~~~
stephengillie
It seemed intentionally obtuse.

------
danmaz74
Very interesting read about the history of UBI, even if you don't agree with
the author's conclusions.

One point that he doesn't mention, though, is where would the UBI money come
from: taxes of course, but taxes on what? I think that is a very important
point.

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systematical
That font is unreadable dude.

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basicplus2
because it will the super rich's cut

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stefantalpalaru
More like "the case against state-guaranteed survival by someone who never
experienced poverty". UBI is not about leisure, ideology and long disproved
communist utopias. UBI is about asking from the state - that forcefully
extracts work from us in the form of taxes - the guarantee of our survival.

Our welfare systems will never solve the kind of poverty that pushes people to
sleep under bridges. Our unions will never give the work force 100%
occupation. It's easy to dream about revolutions and class warfare when you
don't have to worry about next month's rent, but we're not talking about left
vs. right here. We're talking about a paradigm shift in the human society: no
longer having to worry about food and shelter on the sole basis of being
human. That's the kind of society I want to experience in my life time and I
don't care who wins ideological points over it.

~~~
zghst
No one really has to worry about food in our society with the plethora of
welfare programs, churches, food banks, etc, as well as the many people such
as myself who will routinely give the needy food or money. Shelter is tricky,
however the majority of people have shelter security by proxy of family or
friends. It is only recently that the proxy has been weakened because of the
crumbling relationships and social structures. We are trying so hard to solve
problems we have created. Sad we are trending toward valuing benevolent
strangers than the network of those you know. What is so wrong with our
society that we cannot stick together in tough times? We must be a very sick
society to do all these mental gymnastics to treat our symptoms of deep
cultural flaws.

~~~
quadrangle
You're mistaken in your assertions about our reality. Go watch the documentary
"A Place At The Table"

------
joesmo
Partisan pieces like this are incredibly lame. He doesn't even address the
issue properly. $10k is not a living wage in the US and I doubt it is on in
Canada. Make it $30k and let's see if job wages get depressed (they won't).
The funny part is that there is unfortunately a very good argument against
UBI, the only good argument against UBI IMO, and that is that most countries
cannot afford it. Let's take the US:

$30 000 * 230 000 000 adults = $6 900 000 000 000 a year

Now obviously, 100% of the adult workforce will not be on UBI, but even with
10% of adults on UBI, you're still looking at close to $700 billion a year.
Even currently, I'd bet that way more than 10% of people would quit their
bullshit jobs if they could get UBI (also causing a shortage of employees in
certain industries and wages to go up) and that percentage will rise much
higher in the future.

I'm no economy expert, but somehow, I just don't think we're there yet with
the numbers, though I think we possibly will get there at some point. Or maybe
it's just wishful thinking because I'd like this to work, even in theory only.
Maybe someone has better math than mine ... :)

~~~
lazyjones
> _Now obviously, 100% of the adult workforce will not be on UBI, but even
> with 10% of adults on UBI, you 're still looking at close to $700 billion a
> year_

Isn't the whole point of "Universal" Basic Income that everyone gets it
without exception? A system for the poorest 10% is just another pricey welfare
system similar to those in many countries.

~~~
joesmo
Yeah, you're absolutely right. In which case, the numbers simply do not work
out. Makes the article's argument seem even less thought out as the author
didn't even do some basic calculations.

But this slightly different system I'm describing isn't the same as what we
currently have. What I'm thinking is UBI (or whatever it might be called in
this system) vs. wages. Pick one. This would automatically make the minimum
wage > $30k, probably at least around $40-50k and wouldn't require paying
every adult in the US, including ones who already have jobs. The key
difference is that people would have a choice of going to this new Semi-UBI
system anytime they wanted, no questions asked, with guaranteed income. I
think that's one differentiator. Another differentiator would be removing the
countless barriers that exist in today's systems. The many idiotic rules
around welfare and Medicaid for example are so complicated and require so much
time and paperwork, it's ridiculous. It would keep the state from trying to
force people to look for jobs they don't want and waste time doing it. It
would allow people to go to school full time while still receiving aid (not
possible in many cases today). It'd be a real, living wage, albeit low, that
could remove the stress and uncertainty of today's welfare systems. And
finally, it would hopefully not carry the stigma it has today as artists and
thinkers and all types of people might choose not to work at all, rather than
have this be only a program for the poor.

So yeah, it's not really UBI, but it could still be a lot better than current
systems.

~~~
lazyjones
> _What I 'm thinking is UBI (or whatever it might be called in this system)
> vs. wages. Pick one. This would automatically make the minimum wage > $30k_

The problems with such a system would be:

* even higher threshold for actually seeking a job because you lose BI (yes, the other side of higher minimum wages)

* either the BI is sufficient for a decent life or it isn't: if it is, it's probably too expensive because a large part of the population will receive it. If it isn't, it will be a program for the poor/disabled only and enough people will be seeking jobs to drive the effective minimum wages down to the current level.

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ricardobeat
TL;DR

    
    
        How is it possible that the proposal of a couple of 
        Marxian professors from the Benelux—riffing off some of 
        the more utopian musings of Enlightenment dreamers in a      
        brief outline of an idea that they themselves concluded 
        was only “sketchy and tentative”—has been able to     
        capture the imagination of politicos of every hue in 
        recent years?
    

Also

    
    
        to get productivity growing again, labour has to become 
        more expensive. And the only way for labour to become 
        more expensive is for there to be a genuinely global and    
        militant labour movement
    

I don't even know what that means. Want to know a surefire way to make labour
more expensive? Minimum income for everyone.

~~~
kapnobatairza
Thank you. A basic income increases the negotiating power of the laborer
because he now has an implicit price floor from where he can start his
negotiations.

~~~
jameshart
Not so much a price floor as a better BATNA - the ability to walk away without
having to go and live on the streets.

~~~
kapnobatairza
Yep, that's a much more apt description.

------
dschiptsov
In the long run it is like shifting zero on a scale. The market will react in
exactly this way.

The paid housing would be better idea, BTW.

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hugh4
I have a proposition. How about anyone who wants to live in a society with a
UBI can organise one privately between themselves, and the rest of us can
avoid it?

Start an organisation which takes from each member according to his means and
shares it out equally, and see who wants to join. I wish you well.

------
Eleutheria
Universal income? Sure why not. With your own money.

My money stays in my pocket.

~~~
Frondo
You can keep your money. What you owe in tax is by definition not yours.

~~~
hugh4
In practice yes, but not in moral terms.

~~~
Retra
Maybe you should print your own money, then?

