
What Is the Point of Universal Basic Income? - ojarow
https://www.perell.com/fellowship-essays/universal-basic-income
======
RivieraKid
The prevailing view seems to be: robots will take our jobs, therefore we will
need UBI, which allows people to live without work.

The way I see it, the main problem that UBI is solving is inequality, it's a
rich to poor transfer. Excessive inequality is bad because the aggregate
utility goes down (rich people don't gain much from an additional dollar, so
it's more effectively used by a poor person).

Transfering cash directly is the most efficient way of decreasing inequality,
so UBI is the right approach. At this time, the amount of UBI should be below
what allows a comfortable life, because it would lead to a feedback loop in
which people would be increasingly demotivated to work.

And what about robots? There is a danger that automation will further
exacerbate income inequality, so redistribution is a natural response, because
it would increase the effective wages of low income jobs. It seems unlikely
that robots will literally take our jobs, you can probably always be someone's
slave (not literally) for $5 / hour.

~~~
silvestrov
Food is not enough. People also want a purpose with their life where they are
important for other people.

Denmark has kind of an UBI: a single mom + one kid, no work for past 20 years,
gets more than $2300 per month. Such a person has enough money for food, good
apartment, etc. All what UBI wants to provide.

But many of these people end up depressed, inactive, feels like a failure,
etc. Many just give completely up.

They don't feel "UBI" is like having a long vacation and a meaningful life.

budget: (notice that the mom can afford a $1000/month apartment)
[https://ekstrabladet.dk/nyheder/politik/danskpolitik/article...](https://ekstrabladet.dk/nyheder/politik/danskpolitik/article4062920.ece)

~~~
jakelazaroff
I can’t read the article, so forgive me if that’s backed by research rather
than just anecdata, but… is that really an issue people would have?

I would love UBI, because it would transform what I could do with my time.
Instead of working 9–5 on software for a company, I could build whatever I
want. There are tons of app ideas floating around in my head that I just don’t
have time to build. And I could release them for free or cheap, because my
survival wouldn’t depend on them being profitable.

With UBI, I would expect to see many more people building open–source
software. I would expect many more going into the arts. I would expect many
more doing volunteer work. There are _so many_ fulfilling and valuable things
to do that are not easily profitable!

~~~
ThrowawayR2
> " _...is that really an issue people would have?_ "

Hell, yes. There are a vast number of low-education people with what the HN
crowd would call "old fashioned attitudes". From
[https://archive.is/CCTXs#selection-1205.100-1205.363](https://archive.is/CCTXs#selection-1205.100-1205.363):

" _' Being a man means supporting your family,' says Mr Davis. 'You’ve got to
do whatever it takes so they eat, [or] you’re no man at all.' Being a man,
says Mr Redden, means you 'work hard, provide for your kids, have a car and
[maybe] get your own house some day.'_"

What would UBI do for them? It isn't going to fulfill their emotional or
spiritual needs. (What they really need is a universal jobs program, IMO.)

> " _With UBI, I would expect to see many more people building open–source
> software. I would expect many more going into the arts. I would expect many
> more doing volunteer work. There are so many fulfilling and valuable things
> to do that are not easily profitable!_ "

Funny, then why aren't people on public assistance already doing all these
things you imagine? As others have noted, EU nations provide benefits better
than any UBI proposal likely to succeed in the US. So where is this magical
wave of creativity?

Could it be (shock, horror) that the vast majority of people don't have the
creativity to build things or make art and don't feel they would be fulfilled
by volunteer work?

~~~
danaris
I think the problem with this is that UBI is being given within the existing
system of work-for-hire, rather than as part of a transition to a post-
scarcity economy.

In the current system, if you want to do X, you have to prove to the people
who are willing to pay you a living wage/market rate to do X that you are
worth hiring to do it.

Under a (hypothetical) post-scarcity system, if you want to do X, you find a
group that's working on X and say you want to spend some of your time working
on it, and you do it, possibly getting trained first if you don't yet have all
the skills needed. Depending on the particular work and/or the particular
system that's been implemented, either your financial needs are entirely taken
care of by the UBI, or you get the UBI and then you may get paid some extra to
do X—but the amount you would be paid to do it would be determined by
completely different factors than under today's system.

This more-or-less eliminates the gap between what people want to do with their
time and what society will let them do with it...though it _will_ still
require a cultural shift away from the idea of the Rugged Individualist Man
Providing For His Otherwise Helpless Woman And Children With Nothing But The
Sweat Of His Brow.

~~~
homonculus1
"Cultural shift"?

What if men providing resources to their families is a drive that runs deeper
than some kind of vestigial macho chauvinism? We already have mass depression,
isolation, falling educational outcomes, suicide, and even radicalization of
men who are unable to find purpose to attach themselves to in the modern
economy.

Are we to gloss over the function and instincts of half the population as an
attitude problem? Social engineering is way too easy inside a theoretical
bubble, where expecting billions of people to fundamentally reconstruct their
entire identities can be handwaved in two words. Progressivism is supposed to
meet people’s social needs, not dictate them.

~~~
danaris
There's a big difference between "I need my family to be provided for" and "
_I_ need to be the one to provide for my family." The former is what UBI and
similar efforts would resolve, and is what is _healthy_ to desire and need.

 _If_ it is true—and I do not for a second believe it is—that the latter is an
actual biological drive in men specifically, then that's something we need to
work on developing strategies to mitigate and work through in a healthy way,
because it's not helpful in our modern society. Y'know, much like our panic
response is not helpful in our modern society, and when someone has an
overdeveloped one, we treat it as a mental illness to be _treated_ , not a
"function and instinct" that needs to be catered to.

Personally, I find the idea that men have a biological imperative to be the
sole reason their families survive to be nothing more than a ludicrous
extension of modern toxic masculinity, on par with "of course men will rape
women, once they get aroused they can't help themselves, _they have a
biological imperative to propagate their genes_."

~~~
homonculus1
I take gross exception to your rape equivocation. That's the sort of
intellectual mine that, much like an actual mine, destroys conversations and
leaves the whole field unwalkable for decades.

Back to the claim, sexual dimorphism and sexual division of labor are such a
fundamental and ubiquitous element of human physiology and society that it is
a mistake to assume there is no adaptation to speak of, or that the role of
the male provider is suddenly maladaptive.

It may be that we can restructure society by common agreement in a different
way that continues to harness the productivity of testosterone. That is not
what you are espousing. Your ideas are a form of social high modernism which
assumes the sexes are interchangeable as a premise, then categorizes any
deviation as toxic and unhealthy (or even on par with _rape apology_ , which
is just... you've got to be kidding).

I don't see any basis to believe this other than that it simplifies the theory
and makes utopia seem within reach. But we do have evidence to believe that
sexual division of labor is effective (in a word, "civilization") and we are
also seeing festering male issues in the decades since we've been
experimenting with the alternative premise.

------
patja
I think this misses one of the social benefits of UBI, or maybe glosses over
it in the umbrella of "addressing poverty and income inequality", which is
that it gives people on the margin the safety net to reboot their career/job
into something more productive rather than destructive behavior they might
otherwise fall into.

I got this insight from the end chapters of the book "Ghettoside", where the
author describes US social security payments to those who are "disabled" as
the closest the US has today to a non-universal basic income. Coal miners who
are no longer able to work because the coal mine shut down and they have no
other skills get this "disability" income, and in Ghettoside the author
describes former gang members also qualifying under the rationale that they
are unsuited to the formal workforce and are therefore "disabled" as well. But
what it can serve to do is break the cycle of criminal behavior: when the
former drug dealer gets out of jail, absent other opportunities or a safety
net source of funding to cover life's basics, they quickly fall into the path
of least resistance and return to their criminal behavior. The social security
disability payments give them another option to turn things around. Now, if
they transform themselves into a legal entrepreneur or productive employee,
they sure don't seem disabled any longer, which is part of the problem with
this being a non-universal BI. It is akin to the downsides of a negative
income tax: it gives only to some, and when you do that you have opportunities
to abuse the system, and you have more process costs/friction and barriers to
entry which keep some who should get it from getting it.

Social security disability is an abused program, with attorneys advertising
their ability to get you qualified, which is the irksome aspect of this being
a non-universal basic income: it is only available to the savvy or those
willing to engage an unscrupulous attorney to qualify. So it is a flawed
comparison to UBI, but I think the social benefits described in Ghettoside
deserve more attention.

~~~
foxyv
A common way to seek social security money is to get a bogus diagnosis of
autism for your children. This makes life a living hell for people with
children that actually have autism and depend on SSA to allow them to act as
caretakers.

I think the current system in the US is designed to degrade and abuse people
for being poor. People who depend on welfare and disability payments are
constantly treated with suspicion as grifters and fraudsters because so many
others actually are. They spend most of their time fighting with the
government to keep their benefits while having little to no hope of replacing
them.

A UBI would allow them to go out and get a job without being afraid they will
just have their other benefits cut. There is no means testing or degrading
requirements to "Prove" you or your dependent is disabled. The government has
no reason to investigate you or pry into your personal life.

------
ww520
Currently new money is injected into the economy via the banks. The hope is
that banks lend out the money to create new jobs. But that route is
increasingly difficult because more money goes into assets to inflate them
instead of creating jobs and services.

UBI is another way to inject money into the system, giving it to the people
who would most likely spend it, creating demand and this spurring the economy.

~~~
mindslight
Exactly! I do agree that UBI is a step up from only giving handouts to the
financial industry.

However, they're both from the same vein of continually creating new money to
sustain ever-growing price inflation. A policy which is utterly nonsensical in
the face of rapid technological progress where most prices should be
continually trending _downwards_ like we see for computing technology itself.
Insistence on continual inflation is precisely what has created the current
rent treadmill most everybody is on, via only being able to pay interest-rent
on skyrocketing assets.

A real alternative would be to simply stop printing all that money in the
first place, let interest rates actually rise, curtail much of this
speculative waste-investment (eg the VC's paying to put electric scooters in
rivers), and let workers actually get ahead by saving and not having their
wages erode. Ideally workers could save up enough to demand lower working
hours, but inflationism has gone on for so long its disastrous results need to
be addressed directly - eg redefine "full time" employment to be 25 hours a
week, with overtime after that (it should have been directly halved to 20
after dual-income households became the norm).

Of course this itself would do nothing _immediate_ to help the poorest members
of society. Some balanced-budget UBI would still certainly help them, and
should not be ruled out. But we need to untangle the problems of the poor
(which can be solved by direct help), with the problems of the working class
(who actually have income, but it's being vacuumed up by rent-seekers).

------
ksec
Let us forget about whether UBI or Negative Income Tax works or not. Let's
just say we _will_ implement it by 2025.

Who is to decide the amount of that? How will it be decided when _living_ cost
is greatly ( or literally ) dependent on property pricing? Hence different
location will have different living cost. Food, as in raw material assuming
you cook yourself which is the cheapest option, could varies from state or
even countries, but even if there is a 50% difference between the same items,
the _total_ amount spent on food will still be minimal. If you are allowed $4
per day and a 50% increase is only $2 increase, or $60 per month difference.

Where as housing prices, rent will differ. Does UBI assumes I am going to live
in remotely in small village? I dont have to live in a Citi, but I need
somewhere to live _while_ having the opportunities to find a job. And the
future is heading towards megacities.

Basically what I am suggesting is, it is sort of pointless to discuss UBI or
basic income guarantee without discussing housing. Which is not only the
biggest expenses for living, but also the biggest asset class in our economy,
and also the biggest problem.

I dont have an answer to those questions, but it just seems every time people
discuss UBI or NIT ( Negative Income Tax ) or other BIG ( basic income
guarantee ), we tends to ignore housing, or suggest hosting is not what BIG is
hoping to solve. That is on the assumption with BIG people could basically
live with sufficient food and water without dying if they are without jobs.

~~~
aqi
The US doesn't have a shortage of land or housing. Rather, the concentration
of jobs in big cities induces localized shortages. UBI would actually make it
feasible to move to areas with lower living costs, decentralizing demand for
housing and pushing rent down in big cities while stimulating the economies of
less densely-populated regions.

------
pjc50
To me, it's the other way up: without UBI, there is a small number of people
who die every year due to not having (sufficient) income. Usually not direct
starvation, but exposure-related due to homelessness, or issues such as not
being able to afford insulin. There are basically three kinds of response to
this:

a) they deserve it, all of them

b) it's sad, but it's not our problem

c) this is not acceptable and something should be done about it by the state

People who believe (a) and (b) are not going to support UBI. Once people
accept (c), only then can we start talking about how to deal with it, and the
disadvantages and distortions of the current means-tested system. Liberating
the system from means-testing means completely giving up on (a) and accepting
that trying to sort the poor into deserving and undeserving is both
intractable and hostile to human dignity. But it's a very long way to get
there.

~~~
kian
What ever happened to d) this is not acceptable, and something should be done
about it by individuals directly? Why do we need to abdicate responsibility
for our local problems to a larger authority? Mutual Aid Societies and
religions used to fill this gap - perhaps we can jointly invent a new modern
substitute.

~~~
aqi
The problems are not fundamentally of local scope. Consider for example the
coal mining towns that have been left in a state of ruin by the shift away
from coal. There is no local prosperity to fund local aid there.

~~~
kian
Let's use your coal mining example - Gilette, Wyoming recently had two mines
close. There are 30,500 residents in that town, and 600 were left without a
job. (Compare this to the 153 mining jobs lost across the entire state the
year before). If every single individual there needed ten thousand dollars in
temporary aid to help them relocate, retrain, or just weather out the year -
that's 6 million dollars. So if six million people aggregated a dollar apiece,
or six hundred thousand (roughly the population of Wyoming) aggregate ten
dollars apiece, then problem resolved.

Being that this is too difficult a logistical problem, we instead propose as a
solution raising many times that amount of money in campaign donations,
lobbying, and volunteer hours to convince a significantly larger group of (the
exact same) people (who we don't think will give a dollar or ten to the same
cause) to spend at least that much in gas and time to get up and go vote for
specific or general measures to care for these people instead.

Do you see the issues with this logic?

------
seibelj
Is this AI revolution ever going to happen? Siri and Alexa still hear the
wrong thing half the time, even when I speak and enunciate very clearly. What
jobs have been eliminated by this revolution that I’ve been hearing about for
the past decade? The self driving cars are not picking me up and not
delivering my packages.

I have a better solution than airdropping everyone welfare money so we can
laze around all day - make it easier to start businesses. It’s extremely easy
for me to create a tech company that scales to millions of users. It’s
extremely difficult for me to give massages, cut hair, sell retail products in
a physical location, and innumerable useful services that require licenses,
bureaucracy, tax forms, inspectors, and on and on.

Even worse is that whatever the poor saves is immediately lost to inflation -
education, healthcare, housing, and literal inflation to the fed printing
money.

Rather than bandaid government-created problems with more government and a
disincentive to create value for society, I wish we would let people other
than CS majors become entrepreneurs organically.

~~~
jrockway
An AI revolution is not required to eliminate jobs. Robots are already doing
the work of millions. You can see it everywhere you look. Was your laptop hand
milled out of aluminum? Nope, a CNC machine did it. Do you see 12 cashiers
manning 12 checkout lanes at the grocery store? Nope, 1 cashier is manning 12
self-checkout lanes. Do you have a secretary that schedules your meetings? No,
you just use Google Calendar. That is what automation is. The 1970s sci-fi
robot is just a distraction.

~~~
seibelj
Yes, technology enhancements (which are not “AI”) have increased productivity,
allowing less people to create more value. Where is the widespread
unemployment?

~~~
ZhuanXia
There is a notion in economics of complements and replacements. The plow was a
complement to horse labour, while the gas engine was a replacement. The former
increased demand for horses while the latter basicly eliminated it. If we
truly had human-level AI, labour models predict human wages would decline
below subsistence. However, applying these labour models in a regime where we
have AGI makes little sense, as all that will matter for human welfare is the
objective functions of the AIs.

------
Pfhreak
I'm glad we are having this conversation about ubi, but I see a lot of
proposals that are basically "just give everyone $X,000 a month and turn off
other social services".

My big concern with that approach is that we'd see landlords immediately bump
rents, or we'd cut medical support for people (when medical bills can clearly
be many multiples of ubi).

But I'm very pro ubi if we can figure out how to protect the people who rely
on it (maybe with some sort of rent control?), support it with other social
programs like healthcare, and build some educational resources about how to
effectively use it.

~~~
Kaiyou
You've pointed out why UBI makes no sense. As the saying goes, if everyone is
a millionaire, nobody is. Likewise, if you give everyone $X that amount
becomes the new baseline.

This is also the reason why it makes no sense to fight wealth inequality.
Without wealth inequality, there wouldn't be wealth, only a baseline.

What UBI tries to solve isn't a bug, but a feature.

~~~
adambyrtek
Sure, but it's a very different baseline when you can afford basic needs
instead of being homeless and hungry. The fact that some other people might
feel "less rich" as a result shouldn't really be considered an issue.

~~~
peteradio
I think maybe OPs point is that current prices for basics are based on some
sort baseline ability to pay. If you increase that baseline then whats to stop
basic prices to rise leaving everyone at that same point or maybe worse since
other social services would get turned off?

~~~
adambyrtek
Competition is what should keep prices at bay, assuming no significant change
in cost of production and market with no monopoly. Actually, more automation
should in the long term reduce prices in real terms.

------
knowtheory
It's very strange to call a proposal (negative income tax) made by economists
as orthodox and central to 20th century conservative politics as Milton
Freedman as _utopian_.

But even beyond the aspirations of a UBI/negative income tax, the real problem
with any such proposal will be implementation and policy details which most
UBI proponents don't talk about much if at all.

Will UBI be counted as income? How will this interact with other programs such
as SNAP, healthcare subsidies, HUD housing subsidies, or any number of state
operated programs? Will they be mutually exclusive?

Will existing policies or laws need to be modified in order to accommodate
such a proposal?

~~~
akvadrako
_> real problem with any such proposal will be implementation and policy
details which most UBI proponents don't talk about much if at all._

They do talk about this, you just haven't been listening. Yang proposes a
voluntary switch between needs-based welfare and UBI combined with a national
VAT.

[https://ubicalculator.com/](https://ubicalculator.com/) provides a good
amount of detail about how various UBI plans will be funded.

------
CRUDite
There is considerable reportage of food stamp usage on for e.g sugar soda
based drinks, and whether even restrictions on usage such that vegetables
should be purchased and soda banned to inhibit diabetes. Inference being ' its
our money and 'they' dont know whats good for them'. Ubi would be distributed
as some credit ( not 'money' ) , and in an era where everything is tracked,
its usage and your monitoring by the 'state' (or whatever apparatus is used)
does not paint a pretty picture of utopian freedom. It may also be an exercise
in converting money to a digital format to enable negative rates and forced
expenditure. The poorest will likely not resist such a change, it will seem a
bargain. Cash would abolished for all and 'banks' and 'bankers' would be
permanently entrenched.

Certainly automation will potentially free up some labor, and the currently
underway automation of thought processes will take out some (or all) middle
class roles. Until there is some sort of direct democratic methodology i would
not trust any of these utopian policy makers. A future where you own nothing,
and timeshare a place of living, transport etc strikes me as one with zero
social mobility and is a prime candidate for corruption.

Its a place you need the stainless steel rat to visit and disrupt.

Otoh i guess i could be wrong and it could be just super.

------
aklemm
I like to think of it as a dividend paid out in proportion to our collective
success in terms of productivity/efficiency.

------
crdrost
Oh goodness, this thing has only been up for 40 minutes and it's already got
20 comments...

I will say that the basic thrust of the article seems to resonate for me, in
that I did come to hear of UBI first because of a utopian ideal.

In my case, it was tax policy. I was very interested in what sort of tax
policy would be agnostic about your family structure, imagining a utopia where
the government does not need to know about weddings and divorces in theory.

If you still want to judge a household by its total income, as well as the
number of people living in it, then the only option is to use a flat tax with
a universal standard deduction being the only way to add any sort of
progressive taxation structure to it.

But with a little bit more insight, that deduction turns out to be significant
if it creates a negative output: if you don't give people back this money,
then your system is not actually family-structure agnostic. And with a little
bit more insight, when you pair that deduction with that flat rate, you are
giving everybody a universal basic income.

One detail in the article also kindles some remembrance... The criticism “An
affordable UBI is inadequate, while an adequate UBI is unaffordable.” I do
remember trying to work out the numbers so that the IRS could still collect
the same tax amounts on a flat-tax-plus-UBI model and indeed that was...
underwhelming. You can just download their info split out by tax bracket and
muck around in Excel, but yeah, I remember that if you cap the flat tax at 30%
or so the UBI that this equal-IRS-income-tax-revenue assumption generated
was... well, it seemed like not very much, heh. I don't think it would have
improved the financial state of the bottom, say, 50% compared to progressive
taxation; it helps out the bottom 10% way way more than progressive taxation
does, and we either have to go to very high tax rates (shifting tax burdens
more onto the rich) or just eat the cost at that middle-class level.

~~~
iso947
Tax in the Uk pays no attention to your marriage or other domestic situation*

A house with a £55k earner and a £5k earner will pay more in tax than a house
with two £30k earners (about £2400 a year more, even without student loan
repayments)

*(There is an odd £200 tax break for people on lower tax brackets who can apply for a transfer from one person to another, but I think it’s going away)

------
dana321
One method of paying for UBI isn't listed - "Printing Money"

(Don't say they aren't thinking about it)

~~~
1996
The europeans are thinking about that: I read an article where the head of the
ECB explored this as an alternative to negative inflation

------
Shivetya
The point? Theoretically provided a floor upon which you cannot fall below but
one from which you can grow up from.

However, there are so many caveats that it requires compromise both on part of
those who wish to create such a system and those who wish to participate in
such a system. It requires changing society in such that acceptance of a
minimal life style is normal and not something to rebel against. It will
require acknowledging that this minimal lifestyle may not be in a location you
truly desire but it will never be in a location you cannot survive.

No UBI based society will survive long as purveyors of jealously and envy prey
on it. This pretty much tanks the idea as long as current political methods
are employed which extort both to gain power and authority over others. Look
how much political effort is expended in making people dislike others simply
for what they have. Worse is the idea insinuated that many did not get what
they have by fair means. All this will doom any society trying to move to UBI
because there cannot be any floor that would be acceptable.

The complex problem is that in such a large population base the numbers of
people who will seek to take advantage of it can outstrip those who want to
improve upon it. This is exaggerated as many succumb to this thinking because
of the near constant bombardment of envy pushed by those with political aims.

------
ZhuanXia
If automation will truly do all jobs, then by definition we have human-level
AI. As labour supply enormously limits economic growth, we would have economic
growth that is unimaginably large in this scenario. Imagine how quickly a
startup could scale if they could clone their best engineer. Now imagine that
applied to the economy as a whole. We would get economic doubling times on the
order of months. If we truly get automation as flexible as any human, economic
growth would be truly insane. Even mild redistribution would be effective in
such a scenerio.

Absent human-level AI, there will remain tasks that only humans can do. Hence
we will have jobs.

But truly, if we do get human-level AI, it seems to me we will have bigger
problems than unemployment. I hate to get all Nick Bostrom, but it really does
seem like the objective functions of the machines would be all that matters in
this scenerio. As it is their objective functions, not laws, that would decide
our fate. Either human-level AI is far off, in which case technological
unemployment is not a worry, or it is not in which case technological
unemployment is the least of our worries.

~~~
Al-Khwarizmi
You say that as long as there are tasks that only humans can do, "we will have
jobs". True, but if and when only highly qualified/specialized jobs (doctors,
researchers, engineers, etc.) need humans, most of the population will not
have a realistic chance to get a job.

~~~
ZhuanXia
In my experience automating tasks many highly educated workers are easier to
replace than low-skill workers. Many a university grad has been made redundant
by a Python script; 0 plumbers have. AI people have a term for
this:[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moravec%27s_paradox](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moravec%27s_paradox)

------
christiansakai
I think the scariest part of UBI for me is, that it attempts to have an
universal solution that’s acceptable for everyone regardless of social status,
productivity, freeloader tendencies, etc and the fact that this is a Pandora’s
Box. We don’t know what we are going to get, and we can’t reverse it once it
is out.

------
AtlasBarfed
There is a guiding Utopian goal of modern economics: a utopia for the rich.

Unfortunately, a utopia for the rich involves slave labor, inequal enforcement
of law, and large class differences and privileges.

A true Utopia is very democratic to the point of communism. Then came
Communism, and the rich and powerful said "no thanks" and then usurped the
civilization struggle of the cold war to undermine all socialist movements
from the New Deal/Great Depression and value the rich and powerful above all.

Anyway, it's funny because the point of UBI to me is pretty obvious in our
highly hockey-sticked wealth distribution.

Fundamentally: don't let people starve or go homeless, let them get reasonable
health care, and that will trigger enough GDP goods/services exchange that the
economic impact shouldn't actually be that negative.

Although globally this is just sheltering Americans from the economic class
they are all headed toward, the same economic class that the Chinese factory
worker is: disposable worker bee, and constructing an intermediate global
class for first world citizens, but it's kind of been like that informally for
decades now.

The difference is the free trade economists can't keep saying with a straight
face that free trade will be good for American workers as their jobs
disappear, they retreat to opioids and suicide, and the rest of the global
workforce get a couple cents an hour raise.

Well, at least the rest of the world has universal healthcare.

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akvadrako
There are several points of UBI according to me:

1) It simplifies the social support system and makes it more market oriented.
Maybe it doesn't eliminate needs-based support totally, but that's a good
goal. Need-based support creates bad incentives because it encourages people
to be needy.

2) It gives people freedom to take risks and pursue what they find important.
Right now many people do pointless work; sometimes this is even supported by
society. All work should be meaningful, otherwise it shouldn't be done.

3) Personally, I would like to spend my time developing open-source software.
That isn't sustainable without a UBI. UBI could fix the open-source funding
model.

~~~
danaris
> Need-based support creates bad incentives because it encourages people to be
> needy.

This needs some unpacking, I think.

Though there is a way in which this is true, it's not the way that most right-
wing pundits would have us all believe. The commonly-sold myth of welfare is
that there are people for whom welfare (or whatever other "needs-based
support") is something they desire, so they kick back and don't try to improve
themselves, so that they stay needy—essentially, they deliberately become
moochers leeching off the system.

The research I've seen indicates that if people like that exist, they are a
rounding error on the books.

What's much, much more common is people who desperately need their support
being forced to avoid bettering themselves, lest they fall into the hole
between "the government admits that you need this" and "you can actually
provide for yourself." (One particular example I've heard of is a disability
system where owning more than $2000 in assets of any kind results in you
getting kicked out of the system permanently.)

Now, what's also much more common is people who genuinely need the support
being unable to get together the wherewithal to prove that they _do_ need it.
(For instance, a form must be submitted in person, or an in-person interview
is required, but the person doesn't own a car, or the disability they're
trying to prove made them unable to drive, or the office that they have to get
to is only open during the hours they work and missing a shift will get them
fired...)

Needs-based support _is_ bad, and we need to move away from it as much as
possible to universal support, but it's not really because of malicious people
preying on the system.

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fulafel
This pits UBI on a weird utopian pedestal whereas it's just mostly a normal
income transfer among others, like most western countries already have many
of. The experiments so far have been encouraging but not dramatic.

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k__
We need UBI with good education.

I don't think robots will steal all jobs, but people will have to do new types
of jobs. If we can't give them a save space to learn these new jobs we are
doomed in the long run.

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ilaksh
There is a small chance that someone viewing the comments won't be aware that
a presidential candidate named Yang is running on UBI.

Please consider not burying my comment.

~~~
Roboprog
I assume the Yang Gang is downvoting the comments against UBI

Yes, this is article is very politically timed given the upcoming primaries.

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foxyv
My only objection to UBI is that it would become a political bone that would
be endlessly chewed on by politicians. Cutting UBI would be akin to cutting
SSA or Alaska Permanent Fund payouts right now. IE: Political Suicide.

I would like to see some objective standard on which the UBI would be set.
Similar to how the Fed sets interest rates.

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GoToRO
UBI is a must as long as printing your own money is illegal. I mean having
your own currency. If you are forced to participate in an unique economy, then
that economy is responsible to give everybody a job and an income. If there
are not enough jobs, then you just have the income anyway.

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platz
UBI is fine as a technical tool.

But it is a political disaster. It creates a fundamental divide in society.

Are you tired of hearing about folks receiving undeserved 'handouts' for
things like food stamps today?

UBI would supercharge that and cement it as a fundamental understanding of
ones status in society

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naveen99
Imagine a mandatory allowance for your kids... like you are required to feed
them and cloth them. Add a requirement to give them some cash too... otherwise
the state takes them away for negligence. (Not actually suggesting we do
this..., just a shower thought).

~~~
iso947
We have that in the uk - £20 a week for the first child, £13 each for the rest

You are required to feed clothe them and deliver them to school. If you don’t
do that you’ll get social services on your back very quickly and eventually
they’d be taken into care.

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Unsimplified
Which is better? Basic income or guaranteed jobs?

Are we ok if Alex works 40hrs/wk for 50K/yr total income while Brett and his
girlfriend work 0 for 30K/yr?

If robots do actually everything prices are zero. No need for BI or GJ.

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dchyrdvh
It's to prevent armed riots when millions of people have no means to exist.
It's definitely not to empower people to let them take more risk, start a
business or anything like that. For this reason, UBI will be just enough to
pay for cheapest food and cheapest housing. And if someone dares to take
risks, start a business or just work, that someone will be stripped from UBI,
only to prevent such activity. In the era of automation and AI, the rich don't
need these millions of hyper active men who have a lot of spare time, and
since they can't just eliminate them, they'll create a system in which any
activity is discouraged. Call me cynical, but I'll be really surprised if I
happen to be wrong.

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Spooky23
I think the idea is that with automation and capital concentration, we need a
model where the masses can be like modern medieval serfs.

Basic needs are taken care of, and the ultra rich get to accumulate their
wealth.

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Ididntdothis
I simply don’t think UBI can survive long term even if it ever gets
introduced. The same people who advocate for tax cuts now will also be
advocating against UBI and the “lazy parasites” the “job creators” have to
feed. People are already complaining about welfare recipients and in the eyes
of the people who work full time people who live on UBI will be exactly the
same. Unless we totally restructure society this won’t work long term.

Also all proposals I have seen are way too low. They will create slums where
people will barely survive.

How about doing some pragmatic stuff like universal health care and increasing
the supply of low cost housing dramatically? They are pretty much
prerequisites for UBI. If we can’t pull that off forget UBI.

~~~
paulgb
> [...] increasing the supply of low cost housing dramatically? They are
> pretty much prerequisites for UBI.

Yes, I'm sort of surprised that fixing housing costs is not the first priority
of people who want UBI ASAP. As I see it, if you don't start adding supply to
the housing market quickly, a UBI would actually become a _regressive_ policy
where a tax on consumption (VAT) is effectively transferred to land owners. On
the intended effect of reducing inequality, it might be counterproductive.

~~~
falcolas
Supply exists. Surplus exists. It’s just reserved for the wealthy, since
homebuilders can make more profit off one luxury home than a hundred
affordable homes, even if they have to leave the luxury home vacant for years
before finding a buyer.

~~~
paulgb
Suddenly having an extra $1k/month isn't going to bump many people into the
bracket where the can suddenly afford the luxury housing, though. It goes back
to the housing supply needing to be fixed, UBI itself does not fix it.

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mwkaufma
The "why not UBI" section misses the most salient critique: what will
landlords do when they learn all their tenants have an extra 2k in the pocket
a month?

~~~
sornaensis
Despair, as people are now able to move freely to areas with cheaper land
values and buy houses for themselves instead of remaining rent slaves.

------
imtringued
Align incentives. Trickle down economics basically means that the more unequal
society is the better society is off. This is trivial to prove wrong. When a
business invests in automation workers lose their job while corporate profits
soar. The success of a company isn't tied to how well it treats its employees.
If one could reverse this situation and somehow make workers look forward to
losing their jobs only then can we truly say that increasing inequality makes
everyone better off. UBI is one way of achieving that. As a country's GDP
grows so does its UBI.

------
screye
I don't see how UBI will be any better than food-stamp-esque social welfare.

If a person is poor enough to need UBI, then their major concerns will be
housing, food, education and medicare.

All 4 of these are taken care off (to varying degrees) by social welfare
structures in place in various western economies.

I do not see why UBI would be a better alternative to instead directing
funding towards welfare programs for the above 4 amenities instead ?

I dislike UBI, because it pretends the problems are not of total free-market
capitalism's own making. UBI won't solve the problem by addressing the
symptom. Centralized regulation and collective bargaining instead address the
problem head on. Thus, I find them to be better solutions.

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gumby
Absurdly so many supposedly “capitalistic” essays on this topic misunderstand
macroeconomics. At the macro level money functions more as a signalling
mechanism than anything else (which is why there is such a struggle to match
the money supply to aggregate “size of the economy”). UBI allows otherwise
non-participants to signal demand for t-shirts vs phones.

At The micro level sure, money has other roles like reservoir of wealth, but
as the marginal cost of production drops precipitously “wealth” becomes less
and less useful.

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exabrial
Forced UBI is theft. You have no right to demand the services of another
person.

~~~
exabrial
Nothing that requires the labors of others is a basic human right.

------
nojvek
Rather than UBI, I think UBS (Universal Basic Services) is of far more
significance. They’re not mutually exclusive.

The idea that you can give $X to everyone solves a lot of problem breaks down
when the basic necessities are owned by capitalistic oligarchical corporations
that resort to rent extortion.

Like US healthcare will suck in all the UBI money. It’s optimized to serve
healthcare at the highest cost it can get away with.

Same with rents in most part of big cities. No new construction means money is
sucked by the landlords who get ever wealthier.

The idea of universal basic services is that you can get access to most basic
necessities within a reasonable capped price. Like electricity, water, cell
internet connection, trash collection, groceries, transport, healthcare,
education, basic housing etc.

So if the govt hands out $X00/month to every citizen, one can be guaranteed to
receive the basics of their choice per their lifestyle.

As in money by itself doesn’t solve the problem, what you can buy with money
solves the actual problems.

------
Simulacra
I always thought it was about votes at Election time.

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kingkawn
Other social services should not be cut to pay for ubi

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austincheney
That article isn’t about UBI in much the same way that capitalism isn’t about
money. Capitalism is primarily about obtaining advantage and money is one
measure among many.

The supposed goals of capitalism are great: competition, innovation,
refinement, transformation, and others. The problem is that those are goals
they teach school children. They aren’t the primary goal that actually matters
in practice. If capitalism could be refocused to these more ideal goals it
would be better, perhaps more utopian. The difference is that the primary goal
is highly exclusive while the ideal goals are highly inclusive.

~~~
Treegarden
Im not sure I agree. These things are relative, and I would argue that
"Capitalism" is an environment that is beneficial to "competition, innovation,
refinement, transformation, and others" relative to other things. Im not sure
about what the "thing" is. Rule system? Laws? Societal norms? But I hope you
get the idea. Things are obviously not universally perfect, but what are they
in relation to other comparable things?

Also, from my econ classes, isn't capitalism fundamentally just property
rights and freedom of trade? Some argue that capitalism is more specifically
about gaining rent (money) through capital alone, and they criticize that this
is undeserved and to the cost of others. But in my view, such criticism
ignores risk of loss and potential long term changes.

~~~
AtlasBarfed
The University of Chicago propagandized about free markets, but we see what
was really going on in the modern economy:

Cartels and Monopolies. Everywhere. Almost all sectors are down to a 1-4
dominant companies that simply entrench themselves with regulatory protections
and rent seek for revenue generation.

Even seemingly pure free market commodity markets like frozen concentrated
orange juice have shadow cartels like ADM and Cargill, and billions of
government assistance and price manipulation.

------
foolzcrow
Fact: The plan is about replacing you with robots at work so they can rake in
more profits. In return you get to go on welfare rebranded as UBI. Look it up
UBI is about automation AI replacing humans for profit. (see geordie rose) So
your 40k job becomes 10k to 15k welfare. MegaCorps pocket the rest of your
wage as reward for selling you out to UBI and AI.

~~~
deepsun
Well MegaCorps still need customers who can pay.

Otherwise we have Great Depression again, when there was a lot of production,
but public simply didn't have any money to buy it.

The solution last time was to basically distribute money to poor, e.g. fund
mega-projects with tax money. I feel like UBI sounds pretty much like that as
well.

~~~
Kaiyou
You're stranded on an uninhabited island and got a robot army fulfilling your
every wish.

...why again do you need customers?

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eanzenberg
Its all nice and hand holdy to think about utopias but utopias don’t have the
best track record for the human race

