
Basic income as an answer to all out automation - dietervds
http://www.newstatesman.com/economics/2013/06/basic-income-versus-robots
======
jerrya
Jeremy Rifkin - 1995 - The End of Work: The Decline of the Global Labor Force
and the Dawn of the Post-Market Era

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

In 1995, Rifkin contended that worldwide unemployment would increase as
information technology eliminated tens of millions of jobs in the
manufacturing, agricultural and service sectors. He predicted devastating
impact of automation on blue-collar, retail and wholesale employees. While a
small elite of corporate managers and knowledge workers would reap the
benefits of the high-tech world economy, the American middle class would
continue to shrink and the workplace become ever more stressful.

As the market economy and public sector decline, Rifkin predicted the growth
of a third sector—voluntary and community-based service organizations—that
would create new jobs with government support to rebuild decaying
neighborhoods and provide social services. To finance this enterprise, he
advocated scaling down the military budget, enacting a value added tax on
nonessential goods and services and redirecting federal and state funds to
provide a "social wage" in lieu of welfare payments to third-sector workers.

\--------------

Jeremy Rifkin - 2005

[http://www.foet.org/press/interviews/Spiegel-%20August%203%2...](http://www.foet.org/press/interviews/Spiegel-%20August%203%202005.pdf)

European politicians often like to blame outsourcing for the disappearance of
jobs. But in reality the work isn't going to the Chinese --it's going to the
robots.

~~~
Joeri
They have been predicting automation will destroy jobs for centuries, and it
hasn't happened. Looking at the unemployment statistics for the past century,
the trend line seems very weak:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:US_Unemployment_1890-2011....](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:US_Unemployment_1890-2011.gif)

The history of technological innovation is that new job categories are created
faster than old ones are lost. There are many job categories which will be
opened up as a result of automation. We will see a shift to creative /
performance jobs instead of mechanistic / routine jobs. Demand will be
artificially created for the products of these new categories, just like it
has been for more than a century (without artificially created demand the
economy would collapse, as we consume a multiple of what we need). The demand
will be focused on "unique", on products tailored by a human for an audience
of one, but produced using mass-production technologies. The more renowned the
bespoke designer, the higher the price tag will be.

Still, if the singularity does happen and we end up in a true post-production
society, I imagine it will look like the Culture (Iain M. Banks). Or at least,
I hope it will.

~~~
aaron695
> They have been predicting automation will destroy jobs for centuries, and it
> hasn't happened.

We have replaced jobs by consuming more. This concept growth is infinite is
not practical(Or mathematically possible), and it's probably not linear
either, when it hits and growth stops being able to replace lost jobs it could
be sudden.

Bespoke is interesting, but I'll probably only visit 1000 different houses in
my lifetime etc 'Bespoke-esque' products will be able to be mass produced and
appear unique, currently they are limited by space time, small markets
overseas trips will have little meaning to goods in the future.

Once 3D printers/scanners work well I can copy anything that an artist creates
why would I buy it off them personally, especially since I'll probably be
unemployed myself.

Sure I'll go to a fancy humans serve me restaurant every now and again,
probably when I'm young and hip, but normally I'll do what everyone else will
do, get a excellent, cheap hassle free meal made to order served by
automatons.

Building and driving are dangerous jobs, it won't take many lawsuits before
they get shut down for humans.

More of a dystopian fan myself.

------
nhaehnle
Basic income is a nice idea, but as long as we cannot automate _everything_ ,
I do feel that it misses the point somewhat because it doesn't address
unemployment.

As long as _somebody_ has to work, unemployment is very divisive for society.
Those who are employed tend to be valued over those who do not work, even when
the unemployment is involuntary (actually, unemployment is usually _defined_
to be involuntary).

This can have jarring psychological consequences. It also reduces the overall
size of the economy. If somebody _wants_ to work, shouldn't we make it
possible for them? Finally, it means that a basic income is always going to be
a politically unstable proposition. It will always be easy for those who hate
basic income to attack it with "welfare queen" type smears. This attack will
likely be even more effective than it is with current welfare programs.

This is why I believe a Job Guarantee to be a better policy. Basically, have a
program that ensures infinite demand for labor at a fixed wage.

One can still have Basic Income on top of a Job Guarantee, of course. The two
proposals aren't mutually exclusive. But I think the Job Guarantee is better
at addressing the real issues, at least as long as we cannot automate
everything.

~~~
anigbrowl
I have never liked the concept that you 'have a job,' I prefer that you 'sell
your labor' and someone else chooses to buy it. The phrase 'having a job'
suggests it's some sort of privilege to work for someone else, rather than a
simple economic transaction.

 _This is why I believe a Job Guarantee to be a better policy. Basically, have
a program that ensures infinite demand for labor at a fixed wage._

But how does it do this? I'm not disputing that it could, I'm just uncertain
how you are proposing to implement this. For example, will I have a choice
over the sort of work I like to do? What if I feel like changing that? I also
a see a bit of a problem when people who are much more competent at some
particular task feel unhappy that they are not able to earn more than someone
who is unskilled or lazy and does inferior work.

~~~
nhaehnle
Yes, semantics can be fun...

As for the implementation, I am partial to the proposals of MMT economists
like Bill Mitchell. They boil down to an arrangement where certain
institutions - mostly local and regional government and non-profits, but the
details vary - can post jobs. Those jobs will administrated by the institution
itself with minimal central oversight. However, funding comes from the central
(monetarily sovereign) government at an hourly wage that is fixed by law.

So it is simply an offer that you can take or not. If there is nothing that
you like, don't take anything. The theory is that there are so many useful
things that could be done once money stops being the limiting factor, it's
extremely unlikely this would happen.

Basic income advocates like to say that it allows you to do whatever work
_you_ want to do. Well, the Job Guarantee intends to allow essentially the
same freedom as long as what you want to do provides some public benefit.

That said, there are other proposals for how to generate infinite demand for
labor at a fixed price, e.g. this one:
[http://www.morganwarstler.com/post/44789487956/guaranteed-
in...](http://www.morganwarstler.com/post/44789487956/guaranteed-income-
auction-the-unemployed)

------
netrus
Basic Income has been a hot topic in Germany for years, and while it is
radical, I still think it's worth a try. It completely shifts the labor
market, and has the potential to raise average life quality tremendously.

~~~
bayesianhorse
It's not a topic in Germany at all. At least not for the majority of citizens
and the parties making up at least 90% of parliament seats.

~~~
muuh-gnu
It was a widely debated topic inside the Pirate Party during their heyday 1-2
years ago. They declared basic income as one of their core goals, which
rendered them unelectable for many people and accelerated their downfall.

~~~
killerpopiller
You are just assuming that. It certainly is a reason why I might vote for them
in the coming election.

~~~
muuh-gnu
Well, I know a number of economically liberal Pirates and Pirate voters who
gave up simply because of the basic income and other leftist policies.

While this clearly is just anecdotal, it might explain the bigger pattern why
the Party had more success 3 years ago while it was clearly economically
liberal, and while it is stagnating today where it is clearly turning more and
more to the left. Younger Germans, who initially grew the Pirates, neither
wished nor need yet another leftist utopia lying to voters about things they
cant finance.

~~~
scotty79
Basic income is leftist? If you have basic income you can do away with most of
the wellfare that disincetvises people, with minimum wage that raises labor
costs, perhaps even with retirement funds. Employment environment becomes so
much clearer and unburdened. I'd argue that basic income is very libertarian
as it liberates large amount of people from governemnt interference.

------
genwin
Basic income could pay for itself with the things created by people who are
doing what they want, as a result of losing their fear of falling below a
basic level of living.

~~~
vixen99
Yes, the four million in Britain who have never had a job in their lives are
immensely productive and make an outstanding contributon to cultural life.
Five million would be even better.

~~~
nhaehnle
I am assuming your comment is meant to be sarcastic.

Be careful about assigning cause and consequence properly. Mass unemployment
is an involuntary, macroeconomic problem. [1]

I am not an expert in the British economy, so I don't know whether your
numbers make sense. But just taking them at face value, it is quite likely
that those millions of people are unproductive _precisely_ because they have
never had a job. So it's not their fault.

Incidentally, I partly agree with you in that I think that basic income
advocates are too starry-eyed about what people would do on basic income.

This is part of why I prefer a Job Guarantee, as I have explained here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5931534](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5931534)

[1] [http://alittleecon.wordpress.com/2013/06/19/the-parable-
of-1...](http://alittleecon.wordpress.com/2013/06/19/the-parable-of-100-dogs-
and-92-bones-why-the-work-programme-cant-work/)

------
yason
Progressive taxation that starts from negative tax rate and goes upwards from
there as more income is generate by working more is quite reasonable.

You always get _something_ but most people want slightly more or much more, so
they can choose to work just enough to get what they wanted. The tax rate goes
up as the more work you do, so at some point you actually start paying taxes
instead of receiving money as negative taxes. In this scheme, if you work more
then you always get more money. Currently it doesn't always make sense to go
to work because welfare/unemployment subsidies will disappear at some point.

~~~
scarmig
Progressive taxation has always been something of a hack: it's easier to get a
greater proportion of someone's money when they're relatively well off than
when they can barely pay for food and housing.

Perhaps for good reason. But one of the compelling parts of a basic income is
that it cuts away the moral argument for progressive taxation: the basic
income amount people are provided is enough to pay for the necessities of
life, which is what progressive taxation tries to allow for. Replacing the
progressive income tax with a basic income funded by a flat tax on all earned
income combines the respective moral appeals of progressive and flat taxation
while also being more economically efficient.

~~~
keithnoizu
The premise for the progressive tax is that those that have benefited the most
from the infrastructure provided by the government should repay the most. I
don't think that tenant disappears the second you include a basic income
allotment.

~~~
scarmig
In my experience, most educated proponents of progressive taxation believe in
something like "the marginal utility per dollar for poor people is higher than
that of rich people, and the government should attempt to tax toward some
concept of equi-utility," though I'm certainly open to hearing that that's not
what most believe. In other words, taxing $1 from a poor person takes food out
of their mouth while taxing $1 from a rich person delays the purchase of a new
yacht by 1 second, so we should take that money from the person who'll lose
less utility by its taking.

We also don't realistically attempt to tax people according to some abstract
conception of who has benefited the most from government infrastructure.

~~~
keithnoizu
Also true, and equally applicable even if a base income were provided.

------
RivieraKid
Another solution would be to shrink the work week to 4 days.

~~~
antoinevg
This would be my preferred solution as it would provide a clear benefit to
both the unemployed and the employed!

~~~
ronaldx
Doubtful on the latter: most employed people spend more than 80% of their
income and most employers would not be willing to increase their rate of pay
by 25% (especially now, with salaries increasing below inflation).

Although it's often claimed that trade unions were instrumental in reducing
the work week to 5 days, I'm curious to know what their stance would be on
this now.

~~~
antoinevg
Weirdly I've ended up spending a lot less money during the times of my life
I've been in situations that allowed me to work 3-4 days a week.

Partly in that I didn't have to pay other folk to do stuff I'm happy to do
myself when I have the time... the other factor is that the absence of free
time brings out an annoying tendency in me to try and make up for it by
spending money on stuff I really don't need!

------
cinquemb
I think these things tend to miss that work is not only about providing
sustenance for oneself (and family) but also about what people want to do with
their lives.

Also these things assume the role of some centralized entity in this age when
governments have been cutting back massively on things considered to be for
the public benefit (because of their own financial short falls eg. Detroit).
We seem to be thinking of doing more of the same in this paradigm when its
falling apart around us…

Who is going melt the PVC to build this pipe dream?

~~~
scarmig
It's unclear what your argument is, here.

Are you saying it's financially unsustainable? I agree that that's the big
question, but saying "Detroit" isn't an argument.

Government expenditures aren't decreasing or being cut back massively: they're
consistently rising, year on year. This isn't merely some artefact of
Democratic administrations (which are hardly anomalies and can't be ignored
anyway), because even the Ryan budget included year on year increases, albeit
at a slower rate (that didn't keep pace with medical inflation, for better or
for worse).

After medical costs, I would argue that people becoming unemployable is the
main cause of this increase. That's why we see spiraling post-secondary
education expenditures, massive SSDI increases, neverending unemployment
benefits. Even SS itself reflects this a bit. If you buy the automation thesis
or a variant--the zero marginal productivity worker--this tendency will not
only continue but accelerate in the coming years and decades.

How do we deal with it? The contours of the issue is that automation
simultaneously makes the world richer but also, because of increased skill
requirements and increased human and informational capital management costs,
makes some people too expensive to hire at any (positive) wage.

What do we do with them? Horses we just turned to glue, but thankfully no one
is suggesting that. But ignoring them effectively does the same. So the
question is how do we most efficiently provide them with the necessities of
life?

If you buy into mainstream economic theory, cash payments are superior to in-
kind ones. And also according to mainstream economic theory, giving benefits
that phase out creates sharp disincentive effects to marginal labor, creating
a welfare trap.

A basic income is the simplest answer to this. People not only have the same
incentives to work as they do today, but indeed more if they're poor, as
additional labor will not cost them benefits. It also undermines employer
monopsony power in the marketplace. Those two things substantially increase
the efficiency of the market.

That doesn't even touch on the possibility of an "entrepreneurial explosion"
that some argue a basic income will allow for, which I'm cautiously optimistic
about.

So, costs: the question as always. I did a rough calculation awhile back, and
if I recall correctly swapping out Medicare, Medicaid, and SS for a basic
income gets us to around $6k/adult citizen in the USA. That's more than
halfway there. The rest? Well, there's the tricky part: some will come from
increased economic efficiency and removing bureaucratic administrative costs
from Medicare and Medicaid, but I'd like some other programs to be cut and,
yes, taxes to be raised. My preferred version is a flat federal income tax
comparable to what the well-off pay as their marginal rate now.

We can debate all the particulars, but the inexorable logic of the world's
economic development demands we do something. A basic income is, in my view,
the something that lets the market do its magic in the most unimpeded and
efficient way possible.

~~~
chii
> So the question is how do we most efficiently provide them with the
> necessities of life?

the problem is this question begs the question - why do we need to provide for
those who is unable to provide for themselves? The moral argument is that you
must help your fellow human being, but i don't think you can use morals, when
logic dictates that it may not be possible to do so.

~~~
scarmig
But it certainly is possible to do. People in contemporary society are
allocated some division of material resources, and most people get by, though
at the edges there's some suffering. And disruptive automation and investment
inherently increase material production, so it's not a lack of goods that is
killing us. It's just a question of how to get those goods to people who can't
provide value in the production chain of them in the most economically
efficient way possible.

------
tehwalrus
As a Briton, I never thought I'd see a New Statesman link on the Hacker News
front page - especially not to see that people are defending it in the
comments! (It's the leftest of left wing magazines, save the SWP rags, even a
wooly liberal like me finds it a bit much.)

There must be fewer Americans on here in the middle of the night or
something...

------
jayfuerstenberg
The transition is rough but I would like automation to reach 100% and nobody
having any jobs.

At that point money is no longer needed, as long as there is an abundance of
things (what the 100% automation is all about).

People spend their days doing what they like and the robots do the heavy
lifting.

~~~
scanr
A couple of questions:

It currently appears that further automation concentrates income to a smaller
and smaller group of folk, how do you propose we mitigate that?

While automation will provide for an abundance of some things, we are running
out of other things (oil, rare metals, bluefin tuna). How should scarce
resources be allocated?

~~~
nhaehnle
> It currently appears that further automation concentrates income to a
> smaller and smaller group of folk, how do you propose we mitigate that?

You know, every time I read such discussions I think that the communists
probably have it right. The answer is to make the means of production (i.e.,
the robots) owned by the community rather than by individuals.

This could even be achieved without changing any laws:
[http://www.demos.org/blog/how-about-us-sovereign-wealth-
fund](http://www.demos.org/blog/how-about-us-sovereign-wealth-fund)

------
scotty79
I like that they point out that alternative to basic income isn't business as
usual but rather all out communist-like revolution like the last time.

------
decasteve
> We are continually being pushed into the territory that distinguishes us
> from machines: emotion, relationships, synthesis, abstraction, beauty, art,
> meaning, and more.

Our future depends on the humanization work:
[http://rossdawsonblog.com/weblog/archives/2013/02/our-
future...](http://rossdawsonblog.com/weblog/archives/2013/02/our-future-
depends-on-the-humanization-of-work.html)

We still have the idea of a discrete education, that once we obtain a skill,
we can be employable using that skill. Such specialization is not going to cut
it going forward. We have to view learning as a life-long continuous endeavour
of an experimentation of ideas.

Start by making university free. Pay people to study. Don't let young people
go 30K+ in debt just to get a basic education. That load of debt starting out
limits possibilities. Mostly limiting the ability to be creative or
entrepreneurial but it can also hinder one's ability to be mobile and to
travel and acquire new perspectives.

------
dho
In Switzerland there will probably be a voting about introducing a basic
income. At least if the initiators manage to get 100'000 signatures for their
initiative until October (so far they have about 90'000 valid signatures).

------
mcantelon
It will be cheaper to engineer a die-off via covert bioweapons and such. From
the perspective of the superclass, why give useless eaters money when that
money could be invested in the consolidation of power?

~~~
michaelochurch
_It will be cheaper to engineer a die-off via covert bioweapons and such._

That's not easy-- how does one keep that kind of secret while setting it up?--
and the precedent it sets is dangerous. If the non-elite are all killed off,
then most of the remaining people (formerly elite) are non-elite and the cycle
repeats.

~~~
mcantelon
>how does one keep that kind of secret while setting it up?

The same as with any controversial program. Claim the program is intended for
non-domestic purposes, compartmentalize the development into different
complimentary components, perform controlled leaks about the development that
allow you to frame the public perception of the program (and makes it "old
news"), and discredit any public "conspiracy theorists".

>If the non-elite are all killed off, then most of the remaining people
(formerly elite) are non-elite and the cycle repeats.

Enough non-elite should be retained to keep the lights on, provide security,
and serve any unforseen purposes in the future.

------
zwieback
Basic income is an interesting idea but the argument that automation and
robots will replace all our jobs is no more true now than it was when I
started my career as an engineer 20 years ago or when the Luddites smashed the
power looms. Anybody who has worked in manufacturing knows that introducing
robotics is expensive and a lot less flexible than you would hope. I guess it
would be a scary prospect for believers of the singularity.

------
Fuxy
He does have a good point and this is going to happen eventually the question
is how it's going to happen. Are the big corporations going to accept this or
are the going to lobby their asses off to stop it. If they do and they win
then we will most likely have another massacre of the rich and greedy. Seems
World War 3 is inevitable if corporations are going to fight this. Hope nobody
uses the nukes or we're all screwed.

~~~
chii
The poor do not have the means or capabilities to "fight" a war, because it
isn't a war in the traditional sense. Its more like boiling a frog alive -
little things slowly happen, and at every step, most people don't think much
of the laws being passed. Until one day, they wake up and see that the world
they live in no longer gives them the freedom they remembered having, and any
efforts to organize change is quickly stamped out by those who rule.

Things like information gathering and surveillance is the first step. In the
name of fighting "terrorism". I predict in 2100, fighters who revolt against
greed/riches of the elite will be called terrorists.

------
rafski
I am not sure whether I find it more disturbing to see that people here think
it is in any way fair to pay people for not doing anything, or that they think
it is economically possible to take something with a perceived value, exchange
it regularly for zero on a mass scale and for this thing to retain its value.

Suppose you give a bar of gold to everyone, for nothing, every month.

Question: what's gold going to be worth on the market in half a year?

------
Tichy
I guess something like that will be inevitable. Unfortunately it will have to
be combined with a control of population size or it will be unsustainable.

~~~
hn1000
It has to be only for adults. Or else people are going to have many children
to get more money.

And it has to be only for native citizens, to avoid mass immigration.

~~~
Tichy
It would be difficult to let kids live in squalor, though. Presumably parents
would receive at least some extra money, but perhaps it would decline with the
number of children.

------
Tycho
As existing jobs get automated, why would be stop seeing new roles which the
automation cannot service?

~~~
chii
The argument is that as more work gets automated, the rate at which new roles
get created slowly decreases (indefinitely - as i m sure theres an infinite
amount of roles out there). But population increases at a rate faster than new
roles come out, and so the logical conclusion would be that there are going to
be displaced people that have no roles for them.

~~~
Tycho
But isn't this just rephrasing the question? AFAICS, there is no general trend
towards global unemployment, and we've been automating things for a long time
already. Why should we now suspect that redundancy will outstrip the volume of
new roles?

------
frobozz
>and it allows for a recognition of the value of certain types of non-market
labour, like caring or raising children.

How? It looks like a full-time carer and a full-time layabout would be equally
rewarded.

That said, I agree with the idea in general, the removal of the claim stigma
is pretty important.

~~~
Dewie
> How? It looks like a full-time carer and a full-time layabout would be
> equally rewarded.

I don't think any basic-income scheme has anything to do with paying the
people that work and the people that don't work the same. It's just about
giving the unemployed a _basic_ income, while those who actually work can have
any income that people are willing to pay them (like now).

~~~
frobozz
I'm not talking about paying everyone the same, I'm talking about the
difference between non-market-work and non-work.

The article states that Basic Income allows for the recognition of the value
of non-market-work. I can't see how.

In order to "recognize the value" of non-market-work, such workers must be
treated differently to non-workers (unless the value is recognized to be
zero). Any difference in the treatment of non-market-workers and non-workers
is equally possible without a Basic Income system.

If those who do non-market work (e.g caring for their disabled partner) get
paid the same as people who do no work at all, then it is valued identically
to non-work. I don't necessarily have a problem with that, but it can hardly
be said to be "recognition of the value" of non-market-work.

This means that a parent who takes time away from market-work to raise
children; a person who provides full-time care for their disabled spouse; and
a person who divides their time between playing CoD and watching Jersey Shore;
are all paid the same.

------
flyinglizard
I see more problems than benefits.

1\. Poverty is a relative term. Giving the entire population a basic income
would shift everyone up, but ultimately it's a zero sum game. Obviously, the
additional income will be marginal for high earners and the income gap will
largely remain.

2\. Massive distribution of money tends to be inflationary. As purchasing
power and demand go up, so does the market pricing. Think of rent prices
around poor neighborhoods for example.

3\. It will not mitigate the "reverse Darwinism" that occurs across the
socioeconomic layers. High earners have neutral or negative population growth,
while the poor are procreating at a much higher rate. This phenomena crosses
communities, countries and continents. It's the reason some rich European
countries have declining indigenous population, with any growth attributed to
poor immigrants.

4\. It reduces the incentive to adapt to the new employment situation.

5\. It does nothing to curb to social unrest that will happen due to income
gaps. I don't want to sound like "The Man", but in effect this has the
potential to make the income gap much more volatile; a large portion of the
population that's idle and feels neglected is a massive unrest waiting for a
cause.

The talks of automation as if it's the end of the materialistic society - as
everything is produced effortlessly and cost effectively - are premature.
We'll be there when we ultimately master the matter at a particle level (think
of the Culture novels). Society can, and will adapt to the added manufacturing
capabilities with strong demand for better products and services. In fact, I
think automation will be the saving grace of manufacturing in the first world
nations.

As controversial as it sounds, I think the solution lies in balancing the
growth across the different socioeconomic levels. There should be a policy of
encouraging growth across the upper echelons of society, while discouraging
the growth among the lower ranks:

1\. Immediately, it will reduce poverty levels;

2\. It will provide a better opportunity to take care of low income families,
including government sponsored education, health and food programs;

3\. In the long run, it will be the most effective redistribution tool of
wealth. For every kid the Walton family had, each of the others had billions
less in inheritance. Accumulation of individual wealth is greatly amplified
when successful families make 1 or 2 children. If they have an average of 4
children, the transfer of wealth between and across generations will be more
reasonable.

The current situation of the financially weakest population multiplying in the
quickest rate is bad for everyone (first and foremost to themselves); it is a
demographic and economic dead end. No matter how much you try patching it with
wealth redistribution, you WILL eventually "run out of other people's money".

~~~
michas
Income redistribution is just a fancy name for stealing. Everyone should have
just as much money as he is capable of earning. There is nothing wrong in high
income gap. It's existence is just an evidence that society works as expected.

Redistribution is just a way of punishing smart and hardworking people for
their success and reward the rest of society for their laziness. This would
surely end in a disaster: people loose motivation to do anything, because they
cannot see any correlation between their effort and income. This is also known
as "learned helplessness" and will occur in most of middle class people.

Also, nothing depraves people more that money got without effort.

~~~
dasil003
> _Income redistribution is just a fancy name for stealing._

And many of world's greatest fortunes were and are created by stealing and
other equally immoral practices. Your apparent ideology that government
taxation is inherently evil, and capitalist markets are inherently good is
incredibly naïve.

~~~
michas
It is a role of the state to prevent creating fortunes by stealing.
Guarantying fair rules of making business, prevent cheating and stealing is a
prerequisite for capitalist market to even exist. That's a government role to
provide such conditions by creating and enforcing the law. That's also the
only thing that money from taxes should be used for.

Capitalist markets are good because they allow people to have a vote in
everything that concerns them. But instead of putting their vote in a ballot
box they vote with their money, which has much more power.

~~~
chii
While i understand your argument (and i wish the world really worked that way
too), the problem with determining "vote" by money is that not everyone
started off with equal vote in the beginning. Some people got rich thru
schemes that was only available to them, and thru either luck, force of
coercion, or trickery/deceit. Thus, the honest poor will remain poor, and any
influence their vote has will be crowded out by the ill gotten gains by the
dishonest ones. Which is what we have today, ala lobby money, political
campaign money, transnational corporations which pay way less tax than they
"should" be, yet enjoy the same rights as a tax paying citizen (e.g., property
rights protection).

~~~
michas
When I was talking about "voting with money" i didn't mean any political vote.
I just meant that if you are in capitalist market and all services are
provided by private companies then you have power over that companies because
you can decide not to buy their products or services. That's something that
gives you a freedom of choice. Lobby money, political campaign money and other
things you mentioned can only matter if government rules most of fields in our
lives. If you limit goverment's powers to minimum then bribing politicians has
just no incentive to a person giving a bribe.

~~~
chii
Things that tend to have a natural monopoly (for example, water pipes) don't
work very well in a truly capitalistic market where everything is privatized.
Unless you start with everyone being on equal footing, the incumbents can
employ a strategy where they force new entrants to the market to pay
exponentially more and thus snuff them out before they become a threat, and
therefore can set their price to whatever the market will beare. Imagine you
have to spend the majority of your income on potable water, simply because you
can't get it anywhere else! You will pay it, because its your life, and it has
infinite value if you can't get enough of it. Therefore, whoever controls the
water can control others thru this power.

------
Dewie
If we envision an eventual time with mostly-automation or full automation,
there will be a transitioning period. Say that there are jobs for 50% and the
rest have basic income: how will those two classes look? The people that are
working will probably want to be compensated fairly well, since they are
dedicating their time and sometimes taking on heavy responsibilities (like
doctors). But how will the folks on basic income handle this new income-
divide? Will they be content with their hobbies, non-profit work etc; or will
they be jealous of the people with (I'm guessing) a substantially higher
income and all their status symbols and trappings? Will this mean a much, much
more competitive labour market, starting from early school and continuing into
university and eventually a more demanding wokplace? Will the "jobless" be
seen as a new low-class, being looked down on not simply for having low-skill
jobs while at the same time working hard, but truly being people with no
responsibilities (like I said, non-profit work and such might be a
possibility)?

In short; will human nature be able to gracefully handle the transitioning
period?

~~~
nkoren
There are two answers to this:

First of all, the idea of basic income is that it is universal: there won't be
a divide between those who have basic income but not work, and those who have
work but not basic income. _Everybody_ will have basic income; the divide will
merely be between those who have work and those who don't.

The solution this divide is to eliminate the minimum wage, which acts as a
significant hurdle to creating employment. In a basic-income world, there is
no more moral argument for minimum wage to exist, because basic sustenance no
longer comes from labour. Everybody will have sufficient food and shelter
whether they work or not, so the exploitation of labour is no longer possible,
and the safeguard of minimum wage is no longer needed. In a basic income
world, labour becomes a privilege for both the employee _and_ the employer.

Eliminating minimum wages means that employment can become a much smoother
continuum of activities, rather than the sustenance-or-nothing proposition
that it is right now. This opens up a vast range of lower-wage job
opportunities, which people could purse when they _want_ to, not actually
because they _need_ to. Want to earn £2/hr working in a community theatre? No
problem. Want to earn £50/week helping to organise a supper club or being an
assistant at a hackerspace? Go for it. Under a minimum wage regime, it's not
even legal to employ people in this capacity; under a basic income regime, the
distinction between "hobby" and "job" will blur into irrelevance. This means
that you will be able to create dramatically _more_ work -- and higher-quality
work, because it would only be things that people pursue out of choice rather
than necessity -- with a basic income than you could ever have without one.

EDIT -- As to how to handle the transition period: phase in the Basic Income
at the same rate that you phase out Minimum Wage and all other forms of income
support. A good Basic Income should be roughly equivalent to a good minimum
wage; in most countries this works out to be about 50% of the mean individual
income. If the Basic Income payments are phased in at the same rate that the
minimum wage and other benefits are phased out, then there will be virtually
no "losers". High-earners will get a little bump from the Basic Income; low-
earners will see their take-home pay unchanged, but they will be increasingly
less reliant on their jobs for it. This will put them in a better bargaining
position vis-a-vis undesirable jobs, while new types of low-wage desirable
jobs will become possible as the minimum wage is reduced. Do this transition
over a course of a decade and it should be relatively smooth.

~~~
chii
Arguing by your logical suppositions, i claim that what would happen is that
jobs that is required for society to function, but nobody wants to do, but is
not automate-able (does toilet cleaning count? it might be automate-able...)
would mean either an increase in the cost of performing that job, or it
doesn't get performed at all at any cost because the benefit doesnt outweight
the cost of getting it done.

THis could mean one of two things - if the job is really really essential,
then the BI income will eventually not be able to cover the cost of that job
(because people would be using their share of BI to cover it). If the job
isn't really that essential, then it will end up being undone, much to the
detriment of society perhaps.

My basic argument for BI's probable failure (i'd very much like to be
proven/convinced otherwise tho), is that the resources invested in the
infrastructure to replace labour must make some sort of return on investment
(especially if it is made by private individuals). In this case, taxing these
automation investments will either make it not worthwhile, or that the owners
of these investments will just raise the price of the goods created to
counteract the tax, thus raising inflation rate, and doesn't really do any
good. The only way it will work is if the investment into automation doesn't
"earn" much profit, and produces goods almost at cost. I doubt that would
happen at all.

~~~
Kliment
This would create strong incentives to make these things automateable.

------
burgerz
>Now, redistribution is already, prima facie, one of the absolute best things
a government can do. Simply put, rich people don't need money, and poor people
do. All else being equal, taking some money from rich people and giving it to
poor people is therefore the absolute best way to improve worldwide welfare we
know of.

This is the most bullshit paragraph I have read all year.

