
The basic income is a dangerous idea - elmar
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/the-basic-income-is-a-dangerous-idea-that-gives-the-state-power-to-control-every-penny-their-a7030391.html
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wmf
The crux of the article: "Under a basic income, citizens could potentially be
prevented from spending their state earnings on fatty or sugary food"

I'm not aware of _any_ basic income proposal that includes such measures; the
point of basic income is exactly the opposite: to let people spend their money
however they choose. Some governments (California and New York come to mind)
are already regulating unhealthy food, but I don't see any connection to basic
income.

The article also points out that people who currently receive "nothing" from
the government (other than the aqueduct, and sanitation, and roads...) would
probably become dependent on their basic income to some extent and thus could
be influenced by the threat of taking that income away. Governments already
have so many ways to reward/punish people (e.g. tax policy) that I have no
idea whether this would be better or worse than the current status quo.

~~~
jack9
> I'm not aware of any basic income proposal that includes such measures

YET. You've actually summarized the actual text, not the important subtext.
The subtext is that under a UIB, the government can effectively tell you how
to behave and almost directly, control your choices from a new orthogonal
legal standpoint. Hey, the US isn't barring Pepsi from a free and open
marketplace, but if you buy a Pepsi produce we'll revoke your UIB. Who? That
birthed organization that's a cross between the TSA and the IRS to
administrate the UIB which is necessary "to prevent abuse". Fraud will run
rampant in the first attempts. I find these behaviors, embarassingly
commonplace, in US programs.

~~~
wmf
It still seems to me that the government could already do this and thus it is
an argument against any and all new government regulations, but whatever.

~~~
MR4D
Simple example today in the US is welfare. The government prevents people from
buying alcohol or cigarettes with their welfare money. Of course there are
numerous work-arounds, but the point is that it happens today. Now extend that
to the whole population, and the issue is considerable.

~~~
dragonwriter
A very big point of UBI is to _eliminate_ exactly the type of regulation
because both of personal liberty reasons and, perhaps more importantly, it is
a source of administrative inefficiency in the programs.

The development of the political consensus necessary to _pass_ a UBI would be,
_exactly_ , a political rejection of the idea that such restrictions are
desirable.

Trying to scaremonger against UBI with this as the supposed threat is
nonsense, because it is, in effect, _defending_ the _status quo_ in which
these kinds of restrictions _are already_ imposed on people against a change
which would remove them on the idea that somehow, in the distant future, those
type of restrictions might be reimposed.

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1888franklin
This is pretty shallow critique.

"With UBI, ever citizen will rely, at least in part, on his or her income
being handed out by the state. Rather than there existing pockets of state
dependency, all of us will become (albeit to differing degrees) dependent."

Who is enforcing intellectual property law? Who builds roads and subsidizes
factories and offices? You get paid by a corporation, and that corporation is
profoundly dependent on the exercise of state power. It spends a lot of money
to lobby and influence that power. This author supposes that, right now, most
of us are independent actors vis-a-vis the state. That's silly.

The UBI question isn't, "should the state be expanded," because the state is
already expansive. The question is what nature of relationship is the least
worst. As the author acknowledges, right now we intrusively monitor and
examine the poor, ask them to fill out a ton of paperwork, and punish them
with arbitrary cutoffs. The nature of that relationship is horrible. UBI could
improve it.

But hey, if you're well-off and/or feel that the corporate-state fusion is
furthering your interests already, then yeah you might feel "free" at present
and fear any changes.

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dustinmoorenet
How exactly would the government control our purchases? If they expanded the
food stamp program (I'm from the US) to include everyone then that wouldn't be
a basic income because you couldn't use the money to pay rent or utilities or
for a car. Basic income is about removing barriers to assistance. I feel this
article is FUD directed a libertarians to scare them away from supporting
basic income.

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dragonwriter
The whole point of a basic income is that it is a rejection of the idea that
social welfare programs should direct spending.habits or lifestyle: in fact,
it's sold as a replacement for existing programs that do that _precisely_ to
remove that feature. The article is literally ignoring existing programs that
do exactly what it tries to scaremonger about which UBI is opposed to and
designed to replace to try to paint UBI as dangerous because it might someday
become what the programs it is designed to displace already are. It's FUD
designed to prey on ignorance.

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gtf21
In the UK, at least, the welfare system is already extremely controlling of
people's lives. I don't see why a UBI scheme, by necessity, would regulate
people's lives in this way. If applied _universally_ with no caveats -
literally a cash transfer to citizens - then the government loses this
control.

There are plenty of horror stories from those trying to work within the
current welfare regime in the UK and I can't see an a priori reason that this
would be the same for a UBI scheme.

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bko
I never thought about the UBI in those terms but I think the article makes a
convincing case. I am always unnerved by the very common perception that those
who benefit from government services somehow give up some of their liberties.
Such policies include drug testing welfare recipients, and regressive taxes on
sugar and cigarettes. A UBI would certainly change the scope of meddling by
politicians.

I also think it's naive to assume that all the other government welfare
agencies would step aside quietly. The patch-work of programs wasn't an
accident and a UBI will likely by another patch in an ever-growing
bureaucracy.

~~~
mcphage
> Such policies include drug testing welfare recipients

States periodically try that, and then give up after about a year or two
because it costs far more than it recoups.

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keithnz
So, hold on, everyone already has the government involved in their financial
lives. It's called the Tax department. They already can meddle in our lives by
playing with these taxes. So, no real difference other than they are giving
out money. It's important with UBI that U = Unconditional. It's not that BI is
dangerous, it's just we have to setup the correct legal frameworks when
implementing it. Seems way less dangerous than Tax to me where government gets
to take whatever share it feels fit from what you earn :)

------
jacknews
This seems a pretty weak argument which boils down to "The Evil State will
intrude on everyone's lives, not just those pesky/useless
unemployed/sick/disabled/old people".

As far as I can see giving everyone a no-strings-attached payment is actually
far less intrusive than the current system where you have to qualify in some
way for help.

And everyone is already dependent on the state, for healthcare , education,
roads, etc, and more directly, when it comes to tax breaks and so on, which
are often quite specific and prescriptive.

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parenthephobia
The article implies that basic income necessarily leads to food stamps. But
basic income is orthogonal to that. If the UK government wanted to introduce a
food stamp system it could have done it already, and it'd be much easier to do
_without_ a basic income.

If _everyone_ receives food stamps, the administrative overhead for the
government, businesses, and the people would be huge. With basic income it's
quite likely that people currently at, or just above, minimum wage - some 30%
of the population - would find almost all of their income replaced with 'food
stamps'.

The article also observes that the state will be subsidising more businesses.
True as it may be, not everyone considers subsidies to be automatically bad,
and the article makes no case for why we should think that this would be a
problem.

Then the article goes on to suggest that basic income would mean businesses
would increase their profit margins because they wouldn't have to pay as much
in wages. Possibly true for some businesses - things are a bit more
complicated than that: costs would increase because the basic income has to be
funded somehow - but it's rather at odds with the Independent's usual
editorial line to paint this as a bad thing.

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roberto2016
Article doesn't make sense to me. UBI is less prescriptive than many other
govt benefits.

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laughfactory
Although I fall on the conservative side of the spectrum, my greatest concern
with UBI is that it might not work AND cost a lot of money. Would we just get
the same effect we've observed with all the access to student loans and grants
for those going to college? There the idea was that offering easy government
subsidized loans and means tested money would make college more accessible to
every American. What we actually got was vastly more expensive college. So my
concern is that the market would just adjust to reflect the fact that everyone
was now $3000 (for example) richer...which would mean that nothing in real
terms would change. Philosophically, I hope it would have the effect of
ensuring greater innovative behavior and drive. I.e., if you're not afraid of
your ability to make ends meet (have enough food to eat and a roof over your
head) then maybe you launch that start-up you've always dreamed of. Or maybe
you follow more appealing work (which doesn't pay as much as your existing
occupation). Or, perhaps you just decide to work a little less and spend more
time on the things which really matter in life.

The risk is that we'll get sub-optimal outcomes. People may just decide not to
work, and also not to live in a meaningful intentional way--but to just sit
around drinking beer, watching Netflix, and wasting away Wall-E style.

It'll be interesting to see how this plays out.

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ZenoArrow
Interesting article, I hadn't considered the potential impact of health policy
on UBI, there may be some merit in that line of reasoning.

That said, I don't agree with the whole article, especially the part about
government enabling companies to cut wages. If people can survive without a
job, companies are going to have to make it worthwhile to take up a job with
them. So long as people keep their financial commitments low they'll be better
placed to negotiate a better starting salary.

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2noame
FYI, we discussed this over on Reddit too:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/BasicIncome/comments/4jglyc/why_the...](https://www.reddit.com/r/BasicIncome/comments/4jglyc/why_the_basic_income_is_a_dangerous_idea/)

I've also written about this fear before myself, and I suggest everyone look
at Social Security and the Alaska Dividend for evidence. Do these programs
make for more compliant citizens? No, the opposite is true.

Basic income has no conditions, and because everyone gets it, it will quickly
be seen as a right of citizenship. Good luck as a politician touching that
third rail. I'm sure seniors would have no problem whatsoever being told what
they can or can't buy with their SS checks.

------
prawn
Is it worth considering a halfway point with something like the Civilian
Conservation Corps, giving people enough work to feel purposeful and provide
labour for the state (15-20 hours/week), and enough income or staples/services
to live off?

~~~
parenthephobia
I'm not sure CCC is really an alternative to basic income.

It doesn't seem like it would be an option for those incapable of work. And,
it's unlikely that there's enough actually beneficial state work going around
for everyone.

It's not really economically sensible for the state to make up busywork for
people in CCC because there isn't enough real work. The cost of arranging such
work would, I'm sure, outweigh the meagre benefits it would bring. You might
as well pay the workers directly and not have them do the busywork, but that's
essentially the same thing as basic income.

If the scheme didn't support _everyone_ regardless of their ability to do work
and the state's ability to provide work, then CCC would be "just another"
benefits program, rather than something which could, in principle, replace
virtually all current benefits programs.

Having said that, I'm not opposed to the idea that people who are long-term
unemployed in a basic income system could be required to work for the state in
some capacity, when legitimate work is available.

------
010a
Slippery slope argument, but I think its pretty convincing. I'd argue that we
wouldn't see it surface directly in any UBI bill, but rather we might start
seeing UBI being used as an argument to get other restrictive bills passed.

Like: present case study which says that low-income individuals are at the
greatest risk for tobacco dependence -> low-income families benefit the most
from UBI -> anti-tobacco politician can now make the case that the government
is subsidizing their tobacco usage -> argument from guilt that tobacco sales
should be further restricted universally, not just with basic income.

We've seen dumber things happen on capital hill.

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touristtam
[http://isa-global-dialogue.net/indias-great-experiment-the-t...](http://isa-
global-dialogue.net/indias-great-experiment-the-transformative-potential-of-
basic-income-grants/)

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brighton36
Don't all countries have basic income programs in the form of 'jail'?

~~~
parenthephobia
Prisons are very expensive. Each prisoner costs far more than a basic income
for a free man would.

Additionally, prisoners get very little money, and very little freedom to
choose how to spend it. Their accommodations, utilities, food, clothing, etc,
are provided by the state directly.

Conversely, a basic income doesn't involve the cost of incarcerating,
monitoring, and controlling its recipients. Recipients receive enough income
to buy the essentials themselves, with free choice from the vendors in an open
market.

So, no, I'd say the economics of prisons aren't very much like basic income
programs.

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grondilu
The article made me realize an argument I've never thought of before against
the UBI as a replacement for current welfare system : it's a Procrustean bed.

~~~
parenthephobia
Is it? Why? In myth, Procrustes either stretched or amputated people's legs to
make them fit on his bed. Basic income forces a minimum wage, but not a
maximum, so I don't think the comparison is apposite.

~~~
grondilu
Since it's supposed to replace current welfare, chances are there are people
who would get less money with the UBI than what they currently get. In that
case for them that will indeed feel like a _cut_ (pun intended)

And if everybody gets as much or more than what they currently get, then it's
fiscally irresponsible.

~~~
_nalply
And it's fiscally irresponsible to create a bureaucracy to fit the welfare
exactly to the needs. A conundrum.

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JWLong
"'People will spend my money in unoptimal ways because they didn't earn it' —
now you understand my problem with taxes"

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IshKebab
Mostly nonsense. Though I did find the point about lowering wages at least
somewhat compelling. On the other hand, is this _really_ true?

> Many economists observe that when it comes to wages, the floor price is
> often determined by the cost of the workers' ability to survive from day-to-
> day.

If that were the case why would we need the minimum wage?

