
A universal income is not such a silly idea - giorgiofontana
http://timharford.com/2013/11/a-universal-income-is-not-such-a-silly-idea/
======
ck2
It's not a silly idea at all but I like to think of myself as progressive and
I think it is a very bad idea in reality vs on paper.

Just look at how college costs magically rise to the availability of loans and
grants. What do you think is going to happen to food and rent prices once
those supply chains figure out there is much more profit to be made?

The Walton family alone has more wealth then the lower 42% rest of the USA.
What do you think is going to happen when they know all their customers have a
certain base income - you think prices are going to stay where they are?

So you will just make the wealthy more wealthy.

~~~
ewzimm
It's already worse than that. There are many products which have a smaller
size of that's more expensive than the larger size because the smaller one is
WIC-approved. There's targeted price-gouging for people who are forced by the
government to buy specific products. There are also ridiculous loopholes.
People buy soda and milk with returnable bottles, walk outside, pour it out,
return the bottles for cash, and buy a beer. This happens consistently at
grocery stores.

~~~
gergles
Who cares? The government pays for WIC, so the only people being defrauded in
this circumstance are the government. There's no "price gouging" involved
here; WIC recipients get a voucher that pays full price for the items on the
voucher, no matter what they are or how much that is.

~~~
gnaritas
The government isn't a person, the taxpayer is being defrauded so pretty much
everyone should care.

------
netcan
Rather than these posts discussing universal basic income in abstract, I would
like to see someone go through a back of the envelope scenario for a real
country that might try it. Switzerland or some other European country.

Presumably there would need to be major changes to income tax brackets
(especially for the lower income tiers) & dismantling of various existing
welfare programs in order to fund a basic income. I think Friedman included
public services like schools, public transport, health services, etc in his
definition of welfare. I doubt Europeans would go this far.

 _Then_ we can discuss the more speculative parts like who will be more or
less incentivized to work.

Is there something like that on the internet?

~~~
ansimionescu
Very good point. After all, we all know how sometimes wonderful ideas can turn
out badly [1].

[1] -
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communism](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communism)

~~~
dmix
Socialism was a good idea, maybe an unrealistic one in many respects.

Whereas Communism via "Vanguard-party" was always a bad idea. Pretty much all
of communist countries never got past the Vanguard transitional stage and
ended up with a brutal dictatorship.

~~~
summerdown2
I think socialism has worked pretty well in the UK, all things considered.
We've never gone the whole hog, but we have had a welfare state and a number
of industries nationalised at various times. I rather like having a mixed
economy where some elements of capitalism are balanced by socialism.

------
clarky07
I'm a conservative. One would probably assume I'd be against a universal basic
income. In theory I am, but I actually think I find the basic income much more
palatable than the current welfare state.

At least with the basic income, there is never an _incentive_ to not work. It
makes it possible to not work, but it doesn't incentivize it. The current
welfare systems make it such that if you start working you lose the welfare.
If you don't have the skills to make significantly above the welfare level,
you are actively incentivized to not work.

For those suggesting we'd have massive inflation making this completely
worthless, I think you underestimate the level of money we currently give
away. While there would be some inflation, we already give huge amounts of
money in the form of welfare, food stamps, social security, etc. A basic
income would replace all of those things.

~~~
vasilipupkin
Yes, exactly. The only problem is, in practice, it's so hard to get rid of
those things, that we may end up with basic income AND various forms of
welfare and that would not be good

------
Fuxy
"This sounds like some communist plot. How can anyone take seriously the idea
of paying people to sit around on their backsides?"

That's something a person that didn't experience communism would say.

Communists would never allow a person to just stay idle doing nothing if you
don't have a job you would be sent to forced labor camps where people are
needed.

Ask any Romania born before 1989 if you don't believe me.

------
DanBC
The UK benefits system has been built up over many years, over a range of
different government departments, and covers many different needs and
philosophies.

This means it's a horrific mess. For years it was not possible to know how
much housing benefit you would get before you moved into a property. While I
think there are flaws with the free market I can see that crippling it doesn't
help at all.

It's really hard to work out if you're getting the correct benefits, or if
you're getting too many. (We have a tax credit system. The credits lag real
world payment information, and many people get caught with having to repay tax
credits.)

There are other flaws. Someone getting voluntary work (improving their chances
of getting full time paid employment) is penalised. Someone with MH illness
who gets voluntary work as a step back into society gets penalised.

So, the different government departments have been streamlined a bit. The
different benefits are being changed, and signals are being sent about
acceptable use of the system.

I got a letter, to my name and address, with all my relevant information. It
had a phone number. I called the number. They asked me security information,
and confirmed my name and address. They sent me a form. I had to fill out the
form and return it. That form is an assessment for an interview. I'll attend
an interview, which is given by a doctor. That doctor doesn't do any
diagnosis, they have a rigid check list which they assess the patient against.
("Can you walk 10 metres unaided?" "Can you stand for ten minutes without
pain?"). The form is scored and sent to a decision maker. That is then
returned to a bureaucrat, who awards one benefit, or another, or none.

The checklist is flawed - turn up with a dirty t-shirt because you're a lazy
slob? You score points. Turn up with an ironed shirt and tie because your
crippling OCD and anxiety won't allow you to leave the house otherwise? You
lose points.

All of this bureaucracy is very expensive. The system is open to abuse from
multiple parties - criminal gangs using dead people's names to claim benefits;
people over claiming, or claiming while working, or claiming for something
they're not eligible for.

Sweeping away all of this and replacing it with a relatively simple "Does this
person exist? Are the eligible for the universal income?" would save so much
money, and time, and stress. It would free people to do voluntary work, or
small informal projects.

Then we just need a bonfire of the tax / duties system, and get something sane
there.

~~~
tokenizer
> Sweeping away all of this and replacing it with a relatively simple "Does
> this person exist? Are the eligible for the universal income?" would save so
> much money, and time, and stress. It would free people to do voluntary work,
> or small informal projects.

Exactly. Some people just can't wrap their heads around what people want.
_Decent_ wages and free time.

To give people a certain minimum amount of wealth, we can just acknowledge
that the best way to do social welfare is by utilizing efficient taxes and
spreading that wealth equally amongst all, not because everybody needs it, but
because it's ethical.

I'm in favour of the idea that it would still factor into your tax bracket. So
making a UMI of $15,000 itself is meaningless at tax time, but working a part-
time job and escalating that into the $40,000's should place you in that
income.

This could mean that it ignores the wealthiest of us on a per year basis if we
make more than $100,000 of so.

With the savings from those individuals and the elimination of our
bureaucratic social system now, I truly think it should be attempted.

The real problem is the government firing those workers and saving that money.
They would not like that.

------
downandout
Progressives seem to have lost all understanding of the concept of money. It
is a means of trade. The spending power of the basic income will ultimately
reflect the value its recipients produced in order to obtain it - zero in this
case.

~~~
tokenizer
> The spending power of the basic income will ultimately reflect the value its
> recipients produced in order to obtain it - zero in this case.

What do you think the purchasing power of welfare money is? Furthermore, can
you really separate the purchasing power of the money utilized in the minimum
income and the income from working?

~~~
downandout
I am not separating anything. I am saying that inflation will rise, because
that's what happens when a country isn't producing anything more, but the
country increases the amount of its currency in circulation. It's like a stock
split - absent a rise in the actual value of the company, doubling the number
of shares makes each share half as valuable.

In this case, over time inflation will adjust to the point that the spending
power of the basic income will approach zero. It won't actually hit zero,
because markets are not 100% efficient. But it will be close.

~~~
brazzy
> over time inflation will adjust to the point that the spending power of the
> basic income will approach zero.

Through what mechanism exactly? Please also explain why this hasn't happened
with other, existing forms of social subsidies.

It seems like it is _your_ understanding of money that is laughably over-
simplified.

~~~
downandout
They will have to print this money, because there is nowhere else to get it.
What happens when you print money but there is no additional demand for it?
You guessed it...the value drops. Markets are surprisingly efficient at
pricing things like this in.

Are you seriously trying to make the argument that their economy will absorb
this with no effect on the value of their currency?

~~~
brazzy
> because there is nowhere else to get it.

Why that? Nobody's talking about abolishing taxes. Note also that the basic
income would replace many other forms of social subsidies that already exist
and have harmful side effects.

~~~
downandout
Why that? Because you can't tax enough to fund a basic income for every single
person.

~~~
brazzy
That depends entirely on how high it is, doesn't it?

Ultimately, it's not about money but about productivity. If the economy is
productive enough to give everyone a minimal standard of living as well as
comforts and luxuries for those who earn them, it doesn't really matter how
said minimal standard of living is "funded".

And there is little doubt that the economies of developed countries _are_ that
productive for a reasonable minimal standard.

------
hatu
In a country with it's own currency, wouldn't this just raise prices until
finally the effect would be being back to step 1 but with huge inflation. I.e.
I'm selling bread for $3. Now I get $1500 free money every month and I know
you do too. I'm selling bread for $6 because I know everyone has extra money
lying around and since I have extra money I don't really care if people buy
less from me.

~~~
martin-adams
I used to wonder what would happen if everyone in the UK got £1m given to them
as a one off payment. We'd all be millionaires but poor as each other.

~~~
Ntrails
You are missing the point here, in your example when new money is created (to
be able to hand it to everyone) you simply devalue currency and create
inflation.

Universal income is not being generated out of thin air by the government, it
is being generated by tax. Therefore you will not find hyper inflation of the
form you suggest.

~~~
martin-adams
Well, the point I was getting to is how to approach such an effect through a
thought experiment. I agree that my scenario is very different, but it's about
the short and long term effects. You're right, my example would probably
devalue the currency and create inflation, but what would happen as a result.
Would prices go up within days, weeks year. What about wages and tax. How long
would the rate of increase last.

------
draugadrotten
Meanwhile, Europe apart from Switzerland is busy building thicker walls around
Fortress Europa.

[http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/01/razor-wire-
divi...](http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/01/razor-wire-divide-
morocco-melilla-inhumane)

[http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/asylum-policy-
and...](http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/asylum-policy-and-
treatment-of-refugees-in-the-european-union-a-926939.html)

~~~
amerika_blog
Good. Immigration contributes to overpopulation, both by importing new people
and causing replacement breeding in the emigrant nation.

~~~
pmr_
But there is no overpopulation in Europe in terms of land availability or food
supply (Europe's population density is 72 person/sqkm, the last famine was
during WWII and not even then widespread). Sure, population density is very
high in urban centers but there is still plenty of space in the country side.
It just needs more incentives to be settled. So 'importing new people' really
isn't a problem.

I cannot find any information on 'Replacement breeding in the emigrant nation'
so I really cannot say anything about the validity of this statement. Could
you provide a source?

EDIT: Fixed sqm to sqkm. Elaborated second paragraph.

~~~
Qantourisc
Overpopulation is in the eye of the beholder. 72 is enough, we don't NEED more
people! Side effect of overpopulation capitalism: need more people on the same
space ? You need apartment, which requires capital, which means America and
there 1%/90% ratio ... Do not want!

~~~
pmr_
Are you suggesting that Europe is not capitalist already? I think it is and
despite this we have still managed to maintain greater equality (as measured
by Gini coefficients after taxes and transfers) than the United States by
having more state intervention. Why would immigration change that?

I'm not saying that immigration is just going to turn out to be a positive
effect without any action. Measures have to be taken to account for it, but I
think investing large amounts of money in trying to prevent it is the wrong
approach, because it a) does not work b) is inhumane, and c) does not solve
the actual problem (people being forced to migrate).

------
atticus010101
I think that eventually universal income will be a good idea. The question is
not whether it's a good idea, but whether it's the right time for it.

This is a bit of a tangent, but since this is tech oriented community I think
it's relevant. It's highly likely that one day strong AI will be able to run
the entire world economy, and humans will not longer have to work, nor will
they be needed. At that point humans will _need_ basic income to survive. In
this scenario, the whole concept of "the economy" will have been stretched and
squeezed into something entirely unrecognizable, so the problem of basic
income being a drag on the economy will be irrelevant.

We are getting closer and closer to this point every year. Just look at
employment figures. Computers are replacing humans in the workforce, and they
will continue to do so at a rapid pace.

Basic income will be useful and needed, it's just a matter of time.

------
twoodfin
Can we stop putting these "universal income" posts on the front page until
someone has something genuinely new to say about the idea or there's some news
about an actual implementation?

~~~
LogicalBorg
I had a genuinely new idea this morning. Paying people for idleness increases
idleness, which isn't necessarily good for the recipient. Why not pay them
instead for doing things that make their life individually or collectively
better? * Pay them for taking and passing college classes. * Pay them for
losing weight and getting their BMI to an acceptable level that reduces
collective health care costs. * Pay them for giving up smoking, drugs, or
drinking or not starting. * Pay them to drive more safely. * Pay them for art
appreciation. * Pay them to adopt children and make their lives better.

This is an alternative to the model where everyone works for a living. It
produces non-work social good that is to the benefit of the recipient and the
society they live in.

~~~
pgsandstrom
Interesting thought! But then we are back to the huge bureaucratic system that
needs to reinforce all those rules. Also, several of those ideas sounds very
exploitable.

~~~
LogicalBorg
They're just a brainstorm. The simplest and most effective would probably be
measuring BMI for rewards. It could put some brakes on the obesity epidemic.
Being paid to do nothing isn't exploitable, because there are no rules, but
that doesn't necessary make it better, because there is no connection between
effort and reward.

------
hugofirth
One point of confusion for me, that I hope someone with a sounder economics
background than myself can address, is:

Would the national unconditional basic income render the national minimum wage
effectively 0 (or much lower than it currently is)?

For example, corporations could be taxed more heavily if they could offer
their lowest paid positions a wage of £2 per hour. This extra taxation would
then help fund a national basic wage (equivalent to say £5) which would leave
a low-skilled worker earning £7 (roughly what they were before). I had assumed
that any such 'basic income' scheme would be so prohibitively expensive as to
require such drastic means, just to find the money, however I haven't seen any
such changes mentioned in many of the articles discussing the relative merits
of the Swiss proposal.

As an aside - for those saying: "What if people don't spend the money
responsibly?" \- Isn't that, somewhat idealistically, a large part of the
point of the scheme?

The scheme would encourage responsibility, rather than treating people like
children? Yes things like addiction (to Gambling, Drugs etc...) throws a
spanner in the works of this - but charities and support groups exist to
tackle this kind of issue already - they could continue to do so, with one
critical difference. Charities could do a lot more with less if their workers
were earning a basic income from elsewhere, and could afford to give their
time for less ££.

~~~
brazzy
An interesting idea is that it might enable companies to compete much more
through a pleasant working environment rather than wages.

------
josephlord
I support this idea in theory although I would need to see calculations of
possible levels of universal income and tax rate in a given economy to fully
support it.

The interesting thing is that with a generous universal income and a fairly
high rate of tax (e.g. 45%) you would naturally get a really quite progressive
tax and benefit system without the complexity of many thresholds that
currently exist. It actually makes the idea of a 'flat tax' actually work and
not be ridiculously unfair.

It would also enable people not to be employed and to work on projects that
they are passionate about whether start-ups, internships, forming pop bands,
writing, caring for children or parents but enable people to choose to earn
additional money. Unpleasant jobs should command increasing premiums as more
people have the choice not to do them open to them but interesting flexible
jobs may not need as high wages as current minimum wages (which I could
imagine being abolished for recipients of universal income).

Of course some would sit around all day doing nothing but I suspect that not
many would do this long term and it may be better that they can declare it as
an active choice rather than be bullied into interviews and appearances at job
centres.

There would be complicating factors such whether/when immigrants were entitled
to the universal income and if not a minimum wage may be required to protect
them from exploitation.

------
oleganza
It is an outright fraud.

1\. Premise: "Basic income of X units of money is sent to everyone in
population".

2\. Basic income comes from where? Either from taxes, or from printed money.
Either way, purchasing power is being taken from some people in proportion to
their savings/income.

3\. There's always a difference in income and amount of savings. If everyone
was making the same amount of money, doing "basic income" wouldn't change much
(except feed some bureaucrats in the process).

4\. Therefore, some people will be taxed _less_ than "basic income" they
receive. And some people will be taxed _more_ that the income they receive.

5\. Therefore, some people do not really _receive_ any extra income. They are
getting deprived of a portion of their purchasing power instead.

6\. Therefore promoting it as "everyone gets it, no strings attached" is a
total lie.

If they said "we want to take from some people and give to others" it would be
honest and true. But it doesn't sound as fair as "everyone gets", isn't it?

Note: I'm not debating taxation itself. Even if you think it's okay to tax and
redistribute wealth, the description of this law is a total lie.

EDIT: I guess downvoting folks are too busy redistributing people's wealth to
point out a logical flaw in my comment.

~~~
gojomo
Everyone of consequence understands it has to be paid for, and thus it's not a
_net_ income win for everyone. So you're refuting an obtuse interpretation of
"everyone gets it" that only the very naive might believe.

The point of "everyone gets it" is to simplify administration, soften the
stigma, and eliminate the sort of marginal-disincentive cliffs that patchwork
'progressive' benefits often create.

~~~
oleganza
"soften the stigma" is the problem here. It's false, dishonest advertisement
which means to produce a psychological effect when the practical effect is
different. That's why it is called fraud: you say one thing, but sell another,
and you know it in advance.

~~~
gojomo
A basic income may or may not be a good policy, but people like Milton
Friedman and Charles Murray weren't trying to perpetrate a dishonest fraud (or
convince people it's a "free lunch") when they outlined its potential benefits
over alternate existing patchwork systems of redistribution.

"Everyone gets it" means to avoid the complexity, corruption, and gaming that
comes with an eligibility-testing bureaucracy. "Softens the stigma" means the
marginal incentives, especially for the working poor and near poor, aren't
muddied by taboos around other welfare programs. (And "softens the stigma" is
a honest way to describe that part of the rationale, as well... because some
listeners will consider the stigma a good thing, while others see it as a
barrier to the policy's intended effects. Universal eligibility does, in
actual fact, alter the stigma associated with receiving government income –
and people can still argue about whether that's a good thing or not, without
allegations of bad-faith fraud.)

------
mck-
One side effect I can think of is that this might spur innovation and
entrepreneurialism, because the consequrnces of risk-taking are softened.

It increases the opportunity cost of getting a job, vs being an entrepreneur.
Perhaps we will see a generation of new entrepreneurs that otherwise would
never have taken that leap; Which in turn might be great for the overall
economy

------
yetanotherphd
An alternative that I prefer is a welfare system such as in Australia.
Australian welfare is very similar to basic income, the main differences being
that you have to look for work (but enforcement is not strict) and the way
welfare decreases as your income increases, makes your effective marginal tax
rate about 50%.

I'm not sure what the optimal tax schedule (pre-tax vs post-tax and welfare)
should look like, but my intuition is that a high effective marginal tax rate
for people on welfare is not bad, as the disincentive to work that it produces
affects fewer people, than if we had a flat tax (e.g. VAT) plus basic income.

The disincentive to work produced by a higher effective marginal tax rate is
also offset by the fact that welfare isn't a lot of money, and the longer you
are on welfare the stricter enforcement becomes.

I also don't see the moral reason for a true basic income, except perhaps for
men, who should be compensated for the possibility of being conscripted.

~~~
gnaritas
> the main differences being that you have to look for work

This is a bad idea in the long term. The whole reason basic income is being
seriously looked at is because we know automation is eliminating the need for
labor and that trend will continue until work simply isn't available for a
large percentage of the population. People need to get over the idea that work
will be necessary to live or the idea that work is how one contributes to
society.

~~~
yetanotherphd
We don't know what the full impact of technology would be, so a basic income
is premature at best.

When you say "People need to get over the idea that work will be necessary to
live" you are just insulting people's intelligence. Of course I am aware that
if you got paid for doing nothing, then work would no longer be necessary for
(an individual) to live.

Also, the theory of technological unemployment is that technology will render
labor less productive. Basic income might be a kinder and more efficient way
to deliver money to people without jobs, but it won't magically make them more
productive.

~~~
gnaritas
> We don't know what the full impact of technology would be, so a basic income
> is premature at best.

Now, maybe, but one need only look at long term unemployment trends to see
what's coming.

> When you say "People need to get over the idea that work will be necessary
> to live" you are just insulting people's intelligence.

No, you are just choosing to feel insulted.

> Basic income might be a kinder and more efficient way to deliver money to
> people without jobs, but it won't magically make them more productive.

It's not supposed to make them more productive, so who cares.

------
dangoldin
I think the biggest benefit of a universal income is to remove the perception
that unemployment is a bad thing. Now to reduce unemployment there's a fair
amount of menial labor and policies encouraging it. If countries didn't have
to worry about their employment levels I suspect they'd be a lot more willing
to embrace new approaches.

------
PaulJoslin
The thing I genuinely don't understand regarding the basic income for all
argument is that surely it just moves the goal posts rather than solves the
problem at hand?

In the current system, you can go stay at home and get income support, which
should provide you with the basics i.e. a home, food, electricity etc. If you
would like more than this, you can go and get a job and hopefully earn more
(have a better lifestyle) than staying at home not working.

[Note the 'should' and 'hopefully' \- This system may not always work, but
when it doesn't it's generally a fault with wages paid not being sufficient
rather than the benefits system being broken]

This therefore means there is an incentive to go work. There is also control,
to make sure the money the unemployed person is getting is mostly spent on the
basics (such as housing, rather than say drugs).

The problem with suddenly giving everyone a minimum amount of money, is that
due to everyone now 'at least' having that amount of money at hand, this
becomes the new 'bottom' of the market. If I get a job, I earn money on top of
this basic amount, which means I can afford nice things and the person
unemployed still can't afford anything.

To clarify, this works similar to pricing of items in different markets. A
beer in the UK is ~£3.50 (£5 in London), a beer in Vietnam is about 14 pence.
Both costs are fairly relative to what they would have to pay their work force
to produce the item (plus cover costs and make a profit) and what the local
market can afford to pay.

If let's hypothetically say, you gave everyone in Vietnam this basic wage, the
cost of beer would not remain at 14 pence. The first reason is because the
work force would find their existing pay negligible compared to the basic pay
(so wages would have to rise to be incentive to work on top of basic pay)
which would in turn cause cost of manufacturing to rise, but also the market
would realise with this extra money available - the price could be set higher
and would rise accordingly.

Now back in the UK if this was to occur, you would have slight price rises due
to these factors which would in affect move the poverty line up higher, which
would mean the people at the bottom are still poor relatively.

What's worse is that assuming the people who are unemployed are given the
choice on how that money is spent, they may in fact not spend the money
sensibly (i.e. on their housing) and end up homeless instead.

The final problem with this model is that the cost of living and economic
output is not evenly distributed throughout a country. £1750 a month in
northern England may give you a fantastic lifestyle, where as in London you'd
barely cover your rent. (What happens to the unemployed in London in a fixed
give everyone a basic income situation? They have to leave London and move
where they can afford, which then makes it potentially harder to find a job
and splits the country into two halves, the elite / the poor).

~~~
belorn
I understand the confusion, but its mostly there thanks to misconception about
how things works now,

> If you would like more than this, you can go and get a job and hopefully
> earn more (have a better lifestyle) than staying at home not working.

Staying home and not working today is not actually an option in most places in
the world. The reason is why this new model is called _unconditional_ basic
income. The current system called income support is conditional.

And market forces love the fact that its conditional, since it allows
exploitation. If income support is for example conditional on the unemployed
not having received a job offering, then the market can exploit this fact and
offer people jobs for below income support (or what ever is minimum).
Unemployed people can not say no, or they loose the government income support,
and thus become forced to accept a slave job or loose all income.

unconditional basic income would eliminate this issue from the board, and
increase wages for unattractive jobs.

Inflation should also not be effected by much. The total amount of money in
society is still the same finite amount as before. There is no "extra money
available", only a different form of distribution. There is a larger group
with money to spend on products, which drives prices both up (more demand),
but also down (more incentives for large scale production). It also makes
money change hands more often, and is often attributed as the reason why a
income support system do not actually drive prices or wages down.

~~~
btilly
Your reasoning is severely flawed.

Nobody today wants to accept an income below what you need to survive
because..you need to survive. Liberals don't want to see other people
accepting an income below what is needed for them to survive in a way that we
can accept, so pass rules about a minimum wage.

With this proposal, there is wage that it too low. As long as you make enough
to afford something nice that you want that you couldn't otherwise afford,
there is no reason not to take the job. Therefore at the low end, employers
can pay LESS than they do now.

What it does instead is remove perverse incentives that make poor people
receive less money for working than not working. The classic example being a
single mom who, while working, and paying child care, makes less than on
welfare. (Incentives that we've responded to by passing rules forcing poor
people to take the otherwise irrational work option.)

~~~
yummyfajitas
_Liberals don 't want to see other people accepting an income below what is
needed for them to survive in a way that we can accept, so pass rules about a
minimum wage._

This is silly. If that were the motivation, then minimum wage would be a few
dollars/day.

Here is a list of countries by GDP per capita, _after adjusting for purchasing
power_. Lots of countries (e.g. Venezuela, Georgia, India) have a GDP/capita
below the US minimum wage. The _world_ GDP/capita is below the US minimum
wage. Yet somehow people in those countries still survive.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_\(PPP\)_per_capita)

 _As long as you make enough to afford something nice that you want that you
couldn 't otherwise afford, there is no reason not to take the job._

Sure there is - you might value that nice thing less than you value watching
tv instead of working.

~~~
btilly
I don't think you read what I wrote carefully enough. Here it is again.

 _Liberals don 't want to see other people accepting an income below what is
needed for them to survive in a way that we can accept, so pass rules about a
minimum wage._

The key points being that liberals don't want to see it (they don't see other
countries), and it is the liberals defining what seems acceptable.

As for your "after adjusting for purchasing power" comment, you know enough
economics to know that such adjustments depend on the bundles of goods being
purchased, and the poor purchase different bundles than middle class people
would. (The same problem means that the quoted inflation figures do not
accurately predict the experience of specific socioeconomic groups.) Thus the
figures should be taken with a grain of salt.

But that said, yes, people survive on that. But do liberals like seeing them
do that? I submit that liberals don't, and this is the motivation for the
minimum wage. (See the sibling reply to yours for verification.)

As for watching TV versus working, I'm sure that would happen. I know some of
those people. I also know people who would happily work for less than minimum
wage just to get out of the house.

~~~
yummyfajitas
I definitely misunderstood what you said. Thanks for the clarification. I
suspect your theory about what people like to see has more than a grain of
truth to it.

------
ilkan
Universal income is a _fantastic_ idea. Imagine being able to work on your own
coding project for 2 years with a guarantee of basic ramen and safe shelter. I
don't think it'd work well in Western society yet. It would be feasible in,
say, a dense and autocratic city-state like Singapore. IMHO it will come. As a
world, we are starting to automate and displace work faster than our brains
can learn new skills en masse. IE one person can create a skill and codify it
(years), faster than 300K people can go to training and expand the industry
organically (lifetime). This applies to both manufacturing and service jobs.

Structural lifetime unemployment is going to be the cause of future civil
instability, and governments will use UI as a way to calm and control social
order.

------
graeme
Does anyone know how the swiss proposal treats travel/residency?

I've long thought that a guaranteed income is an idea worth trying. But it did
occur to me recently that such an amount would let you live like a king in
many developing countries. Is there anything in the proposal to stop people
from simply moving abroad?

More generally, how should a well designed universal income proposal treat
travel/living abroad? If you cut off payments for those that are no longer
residents, you suddenly provide a huge disincentive for travel. If you keep
them, you encourage mass emigration.

~~~
ricardobeat
A rule setting a maximum of one or two months/year paid abroad would suffice.

~~~
graeme
Right. But then you've got a very large incentive against the kind of travel
that young people routinely do.

Most of my family and friends have taken 3-4 month trips abroad, very
formative. I expect many of them would have stayed home if they lost the
income.

~~~
seguer
If they want to travel more, they can work to get the extra income required to
do so above/beyond the basic income.

Which would act as an incentive for them to work.

------
edwardliu
This is the best timing for this. When the cost of things are driven down
anymore, universal income makes more sense than ever.

After all, there's no truth in "having" to work. I think there should be the
freedom to choose if you'd like to work or not.

I've always pondered why people think you "need" to work. You "need" a job.

I like working, and have a job, but I know many people are fine getting by,
and it stresses them out for having to work everyday, which I think is
perfectly fine.

------
JoeAltmaier
Maybe the issue is, in the 'western' world its no longer actually necessary or
even useful to have people work. That's not where the wealth comes from any
more.

So incentive becomes less interesting. Demand, supply, innovation still count.
But getting people to pound the streets and dig ditches en-masse is not
important any more.

So a basic income makes employment not the goal. Its useful innovation and
adaptation to changing conditions that matters.

------
michaeldhopkins
In order for a basic income program to save costs on bureaucracy and replace
existing programs, those existing programs must be closed by legislation or
executive order, and the people employed by them must lose their jobs, and the
number of employees in the new basic income agency must be fewer. Many of
these employees will not find replacement work due to age or their industry
(government bureaucracy) shrinking so will go from middle class to poor on
basic income.

This will have a large economic effect unless it is done slowly, but if it is
done slowly, both programs will have to exist at once without paying too much
to the same person. This will require the basic income agency to have the same
kind of bureaucracy as the other agencies or else have no oversight. In the
first phase of the transition, at least, it would cost much more.

The agency would need to maintain some bureaucracy to guard against fraud
since obtaining benefits would never require a visit to an office or proof of
some activity. It would be easy for someone to claim extra people without
oversight.

------
pothibo
I haven't studied economics long enough to be an expert in the field, but
doesn't a universal income drive inflation up?

It's basically the same as a minimum hourly wage that keeps going up to follow
the inflation, it's always a catch up game and organization fighting for
minimum hourly wage always say it's insufficient.

Maybe an economic alumni could enlighten me?

~~~
Mikeb85
Not necessarily. Inflation is caused by several things, but mostly an increase
in the money supply.

If a universal income is paid for with tax money, then the money supply stays
the same and it shouldn't have much effect on inflation. If it's paid for by
printing money, then yes, it will contribute to high inflation.

(very basic explanation, there are other factors that may cause inflation, but
money supply is the big one)

------
dreamdu5t
None of the universal income proposals have any math to back them up. Simple
napkin estimates show it's nowhere near affordable. "But people are rich!" is
not an explanation. "We can draw on labor" is not an explanation. I want an
explanation that actually demonstrates the affordability of such a thing. Not
hand-waving about how we just aren't trying hard enough.

Can the people proposing a basic income please demonstrate how much they want
to give and how much that costs? Then point out how they would fit it into the
existing budget?

Also, please explain why prices would not react to a basic income? If $40,000
represents the price of doing nothing, other prices will change to respond to
_real_ not nominal costs. It doesn't seem like people proposing the basic
income understand how prices are formed.

------
geogra4
Everyone seems so deeply concerned with the specific economic calculus of the
poor and low income that this will affect.

But nowhere in this thread is there a bare mention of how the economic system
has been perverted by incentives that only the truly wealthy and elite have
access too (ie. LIBOR, etc.) when there is no BI and capital has complete
control over the laborer.

A true BI system would not be inflationary and would do a great deal to
increasing the general welfare of the populace. We shouldn't demand that
people be slaves to the engines of production. A BI at moderate level would
alleviate poverty and also in some ways be very good for capital as well. It
would increase the velocity of money and increase consumption in the economy
(remember that poorer people spend more of their money as a %age than the
truly wealthy)

------
InclinedPlane
I'm pretty ambivalent about basic income, although I think it's probably worth
a try. Not a version that replaces earned income though, there are too many
obvious perverse incentives for such a system, it must be supplementary. On
the one hand I can see a lot of positive effects from it. On the other hand
one of the biggest downsides is that now you have a very strong divide in
terms of citizenship, which could potentially drastically change the dynamics
of immigration. Personally I'm very much pro immigration and I think the fact
that people from all circumstances have the opportunity to earn substantial
benefits from their work by moving to the US (or the developed world in
general) is one of the most positive aspects of this country and part of its
life blood and character.

------
lowmagnet
Someone has to try it somewhere. I for one won't make predictions, and instead
think I'll wait to see if a country adopts this and see what happens to its
industry, quality of life, and so on before being on 'one side or the other'.
Most of the predictions in this thread are based on basic assumptions of
economics that come from political backgrounds/beliefs, and I don't think
that's an appropriate way to argue something this complex.

A lot of you are programmers, at least some of you can run simulations. Stop
arguing with words, and instead concentrate on developing models. In other
words, start contributing to the science or stop arguing from ignorance.

------
agentultra
I find it sad, but not surprising, that one of the key disagreements with a BI
system is the assumption that poor people are lazy and will spend it on drugs.

There are people like that but they make up such a small portion of the
population considered, "poor," that it's insulting everyone in a very large
demographic. I'd wager that the effects of these people who do use their BI
for drugs and recreation will be statistically insignificant.

Whereas a BI would provide a lot of mobility and improve the bargaining power
of the lower classes if I understand BI. It seems to me that would have far-
reaching benefits for the economy at large -- even for high-income earners.

~~~
roosevelt
"assumption that poor people are lazy". Not only poor people are lazy, all
people are lazy. People can overcome the laziness only when there are
incentives for them to do so: food, housing, sex, fame, vanity. When you take
out the basic incentives by providing them for free, laziness will prevail for
most people.

------
lettergram
I still cannot comprehend how anyone with a basic knowledge of economics can
perceive this as a good idea. All universal income can achieve is increasing
the cost of living to the point where it is as if there is no universal
income.

In other words, the universal income idea simply increases the cost of living
by the same factor of the increased income. Perhaps it takes a year or two, so
the poor benefit during that time, but in the end all it does is destroy the
currency and suppress economic growth.

"There is no such thing as a free lunch"

Point being, there's always some trade off. All universal income does is push
the cost of lunch onto the wealthy even more.

~~~
drkevorkian
> Point being, there's always some trade off. All universal income does is
> push the cost of lunch onto the wealthy even more

Yes, that is the point of welfare. Universal income is a type of welfare. It
is a form of welfare which is preferable to other forms because of its
simplicity of implementation.

------
nateabele
People like to bring these things up to as thought experiments about how
they'd fly in other countries, but one thing to keep in mind is that
Switzerland is a really, _really_ different place. Particularly compared to
the US, it has fairly stable demographics, and obtaining citizenship is
absurdly difficult.

While the Reuter's article doesn't mention that as a prerequisite for income
benefits, one can reasonably infer that they're not gonna start handing out
money to anyone who wanders in.

Contrast that with the US, where you get healthcare and free public education
just for making it across the border from Mexico.

~~~
mweibel
> "[...] and obtaining citizenship is absurdly difficult."

Can you elaborate? I'd like to have some arguments from an "outsider" if I
encounter a discussion about this again :) The current majority (more or less)
of people in Switzerland seem to believe that obtaining citizenship is way to
easy and want to limit basicly everything..

~~~
nateabele
I actually only know this second-hand. A good friend is married to a Swiss
national and we've discussed it on a number of occasions.

------
johndevor
I don't think this is a good idea. It could do a lot of harm to future
generations. If we pay for this through debt, we're slapping a bill on our
children.

I also don't like this idea because it increases personal dependence on the
state. If the goal is to make people independent and self-confident, how does
this help (on the whole, excluding edge cases)? And as the top commenter said,
I think this will move the goal posts and surely cause inflation. I also think
this will enable some peoples' destructive habits (how does the song go? "It's
the first of the month... Get up, wake up!").

~~~
brazzy
> It could do a lot of harm to future generations.

Or it could do them a lot of good.

> If we pay for this through debt, we're slapping a bill on our children.

That's obviously not the correct way to implement it.

> I also don't like this idea because it increases personal dependence on the
> state.

It does the opposite, by replacing paternalistic and beaurocratic social
security programmes.

> If the goal is to make people independent and self-confident, how does this
> help (on the whole, excluding edge cases)?

By enabling them to do things like working on art or science or startups
without having to worry about starving or homelessness.

> I also think this will enable some peoples' destructive habits

Ah yes, the poor must not be given money lest they spend it on booze.
Otherwise they wouldn't be poor. Just world fallacy, anyone?

------
mariusz79
Basic income has potential but I think people are waiting for the governments
to provide, while there is possibly another way. Imagine creating bitcoin
version that does not favor early adopters, but allows everyone participating
to get the same amount of coins every week. Of course it's easier said than
done, and it would need to be detailed a little more, but I think it's
possible.

~~~
greiskul
The problem with this is how do you prevent people from creating multiple
identities and gain more than their fair share? Bitcoin solves this problem by
tying money generation with something that can't be faked, computational
power.

~~~
mariusz79
I would imagine something based on bitcoin with an added web of trust.. One
person starts it all. Another person joins and their identity is certified by
the first person. You then have to run mining software but it's not required
that your rig is fpga or asic based :).. few hours a week on a cpu would be
sufficient. If you run the software, some coins are mined and added to your
wallet. You signup another person, they do the same... could grow pretty fast.
Of course there is more questions than answers, your question of how to
prevent people from creating multiple identities... Maybe few people will need
to sign the cert.. and they can only signed it if their cert was signed by x
number of people..

But even if this did not work out, I'm sure it would be a good experiment that
could show us how basic income could/would work in a reality.

------
atmosx
I like the idea, a lot. The obsessive attachment to what Friedman said and did
not said - like if it's a universal truth - is kinda pathetic.

------
williamcotton
It is easy to see that the redistribution of wealth throughout all of society
is a noble goal. This becomes clear as we approach a point in our evolution
where we start to automate the collection and processing of resources.

We're all part of this giant machine of modernity. If everyone can feel the
benefits of it, and I mean everyone on the whole planet, then we can start to
really feel good about what we're building and how we're gonna compromise all
of our own individual pursuits and dreams with all of those people around us.

The truth of the matter is that we've all been in this big global machine the
whole time. Cultural interchange on a global scale is nothing new, only the
speed at which it happens is changing. Pretending that the resources gathered
through the skills of just one man somehow doesn't affect the rest of humanity
is very short sighted, especially in our modern world.

The ability to extract and accumulate resources is amplified loudly by the
existing machinery. Facebook is just an aberrate growth on the top of a very
large system that is fueled by the blood, sweat and tears of billions of
people living now and extending back in time to the dawn of recorded history.

This has been known to the modern world for some time. We've built systems
that we call social democracy, liberalism, communism and fascism with a lot of
these tenants in mind. And we argue about the merits of each, and the merits
of other systems, and we pontificate about the expected outcomes of imaginary
systems or invent new versions of incomplete readings of the past, and we get
lost in an endless maze of rhetoric.

There is danger merely in the act of having faith in manmade systems like
politics, economics and technotronics. There isn't a point to nor a way to
quantify and classify everything under the sun. We can't ever know how these
things will work out.

We need to make sure that our faith is actually in the people around us. We
need to have faith that the vast majority of people have a good heart and able
hands, and they also have just as big of an itch to create, discover, and
explore the world. We need to carry that understanding with us everyday and in
all walks of our lives and stop pretending like "playing the game" is in any
way nobel or worthy of anything other than meaningless excess.

And yeah, Silicon Valley and the cracker jack crew of Hacker News users, I'm
talking right to you.

------
veganarchocap
You would likely have to increase taxes. Taxes are extracted from us
involuntarily through coercion. I don't think re-arranging this model in any
format will change that.

Our best option is to spend less, shrink the state and get rid of income tax,
especially on those say, living under this proposed living wage.

------
roosevelt
Last time someone implemented this kind of social equality experiment was in
1959, 30-40 million Chinese starved to death: Great Chinese Famine
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine)

~~~
mikhailt
Huh? This isn't the same thing. What happened in China at that time was
extensive and more complicated than this very basic system.

It worked great in a small village in India recently;
[http://mondediplo.com/2013/05/04income](http://mondediplo.com/2013/05/04income)

------
efnx
This would not be Communism. We shouldn't be arguing Comminism vs Capitalism
because both are extremes that have never been fully realized. This is more
about compassion vs group association - a typically American
Democrat/Republican debate.

------
turtle4
My question regarding this is how do you prevent gaming the system causing
overpopulation? What will stop currently poor individuals from having 10 kids
to collect their income? Is it just not awarded until you reach age of
majority?

~~~
jgj
FTA:

> Payable to whom? > Everybody, or at least, every adult citizen.

------
FrankenPC
One thing is for sure (IMO), this would never work in America. The not-obvious
reason is the middleman problem. In America (again, IMO), the primary
financial problems we have has to do with capitalist opportunists finding
clever ways to become transition siphons for money flowing in any given
direction. The: It's-only-2500$-a-month thing would rapidly become 10000$,
100000$, etc a month as politicians add pork fat, Local municipalities siphon
from it, public welfare divisions sprout up to "support" the distribution, and
finally the capitalist system itself engineers ways to absorb that new free
money floating around the system.

No. This would never work. This kind of universal support system depends on a
core of altruism. I don't think anyone will try to make the argument that
America's core is altruistic.

------
ayush66
1\. The title is misleading. 2\. Are you guys talking in the context of the
US, or globally?

Different implications based on the two different scenarios.

PS: Studied and study economics.

------
ryanmarsh
I don't recall Milton Friedman being for a flat basic income. I do recall him
being for a negative income tax, which works quite differently.

------
knewter
why don't we just give everyone $200,000/year. if this is a good idea, mine
must be a _great_ idea.

~~~
throwwit
The idea is to decouple survival/livelyhood from reward. Heck 25k is what's
spent on ppl in jail.

------
hpy_thksgvngzzz
The reason universal income works for the Swiss is because they are the Swiss.
There are many countries and cultures and people for which it _would_ _not_
_work_ , at the very least not until some unknown time period required for
adjustment, and even then only if conditions were right.

This is why (fiscally-liberal-supported) universal healthcare (and
subsequently why Obamacare has flunked so far, because they wanted to promise
universal healthcare and had to settle for a crappy healthcare marketplace
that only a layer and more red tape to add to the overhead and cost of
providing healthcase) and (fiscally-conservative-supported) fair tax
initiatives would not work in the U.S.; because much of the economy, social
norms, etc. are based upon it NOT being set up that way.

Status-quo is the best fiscal option.

And to everyone complaining that universal income would add to inflation, I'd
like to add that I hope you are also not a fan of quantitative easing that
we've done that will royally screw the U.S. in the future. We are now in
"heavy experimental mode where we don't know what will happen", according to
Ivy league experts on economic matters.

------
LekkoscPiwa
I'm always shocked how otherwise very rational and logical people tend to be
"communists". It is one of the things that lets me down when reading comments
on HN. So sophisticated as far as hard science goes, so naive and just - plain
dumb - in terms of humanities.

Ever heard of inflation? If you give basic income to everyone what happens to
the prices of everything? So the ROI on this is extremely limited and the
price inflation will kill any benefit.

But still for some people rising prices with real unemployment at 15% is a
good thing!

~~~
gnaritas
I'm always shocked how otherwise very rational and logical people tend think
every socialist idea is communist and don't seem to know what communist
actually means.

> Ever heard of inflation?

Yes, have you?

> If you give basic income to everyone what happens to the prices of
> everything?

I don't think you know how inflation works. Basic income doesn't increase the
money supply, it's income redistribution, not money printing. Wealth is taken
from those with excessive amounts and given to the rest.

It's also not communism.

~~~
LekkoscPiwa
money printing is inflation.

~~~
jonknee
And? No one is suggesting that money would be printed.

~~~
LekkoscPiwa
2008 - 2012 money supply doubled. This means 100% inflation in long term -
guaranteed. Who would care about their suggestions. Look at their actions and
track record.

------
amerika_blog
I have a better idea:

Universal no-income.

Instead of making costs higher by distributing money and thus making it less
effective, distribute no money, lower costs and allow people to live more
comfortably.

------
wanda
Can we stop putting these "universal income" posts on the front page.

~~~
marco-fiset
Actually, we don't _put_ them on the front page, they get upvoted until they
land here. That means there is some interest for to this post and may lead to
great discussions.

