
Idea of paying citizens a yearly stipend is gaining support in Switzerland - roger_burkhard
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/swiss-consider-welfare-overhaul-guaranteed-minimum-income/
======
atemerev
Many journalists don't understand how Swiss political system works. We have a
direct (not representative) democracy here. Most issues are resolved on the
referendums happening every two months. All kinds of issues — new taxes,
foreign relations, public projects — all is subject to direct vote of the
Swiss people, who have all law-making authority here (systematically
regulated).

The direct consequence of this otherwise excellent system is that basically
anyone can collect 20,000 signatures and introduce his or her idea to the
public voting, no matter how crazy it looks like. This is one of such cases.

We already had law suggestions like make all public transportation free
(didn't pass), abolish Swiss army (many times — didn't pass), disallow
construction of minarets (passed), etc.

The guaranteed basic income law has been rejected with a huge margin — because
Swiss people have basic understanding of who would have been paying for this,
and who wouldn't.

~~~
crimsonalucard
>The direct consequence of this otherwise excellent system is that basically
anyone can collect 20,000 signatures and introduce his or her idea to the
public voting, no matter how crazy it looks like. This is one of such cases.

You realize that this is a good thing? Power is unjustly concentrated among
the rich in a representative democracy. This occurs because only the rich have
enough money to campaign and advertise the "representative."

~~~
landryraccoon
The California proposition system doesn't seem to be working out too well.

~~~
tsotha
That's because everything the people of California vote for gets stuck in the
courts for decades after it passes.

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yodsanklai
I have no idea on the consequences this would have on the economy. But I like
the idea of replacing other very costly social measures (such as unemployment
benefits) with a universal income. We keep seeing unemployment as a huge
failure of our system when at the same time, we're happy that innovation
increases productivity and automation.

Maybe universal basic income is the paradigm switch that we need.

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cpursley
The best argument that I've heard for universal basic income appeals to my
reason, and I'm a pretty hard-core libertarian on most issues.

For it to work, we should move away from taxing production (income) to
progressively taxing consumption (sliding scale from basics -> luxury).

Until the "punish the rich" (left) and "eat the poor" (right) finger-pointing
politics is removed, we're not going to be able to solve problems.

~~~
chiaro
The general libertarian argument for a UBI (or NIT, which I favor) is that a
sufficient guaranteed supplementary income allows for government programs like
the pension and unemployment benefits to be replaced, removing the need for
large administrative bodies making sure money goes only to those who meet the
entitlements. The rationale for minimum wage also rests on their being a
minimum amount of money needed for survival and a maximum number of hours in
which to earn it; if people are no longer working these jobs in order to
simply survive, the need for a minimum wage is lessened.

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ende
Any time a UBI is mentioned I think it is important to point out that the
program is traditionally paired with (and funded exclusively by) a Land Value
Tax. This is an important point because the UBI is not an income
redistribution mechanism, but rather it is a mechanism for paying out to
society the rent paid to society for the right to own land and enjoy the
provlidge of property rights institutionalizing the concept of land ownership.
This is akin to the citizens's dividend paid out from state oil revenues in
Alaska.

For more information on the reasoning behind these ideas, see the works of
Henry George and Thomas Paine.

~~~
jedmeyers
Will the instituted Land Value/Natural Resources dividends be enough to
provide everyone with the UBI sufficient to make a living? I am just looking
for the basic napkin calculations here.

~~~
ende
Good question. The stated goal (generalizing of course) of the LVT is to
replace most other forms of taxation, particularly income tax. I've seen
napkin calculations where that's possible, but the other side of the question
of course is the payout. Most 'realistic' estimates I've personally seen of
that don't necessarily assume that a UBI will provide above a very basic
living. There's usually the intention of incentivizing additional income, but
the UBI at least provides the security to be selective in the job market or
promote risk taking in ventures. By the way, it's also apparently commonly
held among economists that the LVT is a very efficient tax with low evasion.
The difficulty in implementation has historically been considered to be land
valuation itself, but recent advances in things like GIS apparently make high
resolution valuation feasible.

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vorg
If this was tried in Australia, the average residential rent would suddenly go
up, and the landlords would end up with all that money.

~~~
pan69
It's a terrible broken system here in Australia. Being originally from Europe,
the fact the you buy a house (or many houses for that matter) and the rent
them out is completely beyond me. It's a system where e.g. 50% (or less!) of
the population can own 100% of the property market.

But I get it, as long as the politicians have their hands in the property
market as well, it will be, and remain, a broken system until eternity.

~~~
taejo
And Europe doesn't have landlords?

~~~
pan69
Where I'm from (The Netherlands) they have corporations, not individual people
from whom you rent. I think this was created somewhere after world war 2. In
the old inner cities there might still be a "landlord" or two left of
buildings that are in private hands but everything else is pretty much owned
by a co-ops, they can own entire suburbs.

Rent is devised through a point system and therefore everyone who lives in
similar housing pays the same rent (more or less, I think it also has to do
with how long you've been living there).

Over here in Australia the rent is based on pretty much two things; a) the
mortgage of the landlord and b) what they can get away with. Not to mention
the 6 month "inspections" you'll submitted to, you know, just because.

Renting in Australia seems to have a lot of emotion involved in it. If
something is broken in the house it can take ages to get fixed. Not all
landlord are created equal and it's very difficult to police hundred of
thousands of individuals, so they get away with it. Real-estate agents are
pretty much glorified banks and there mostly the serve the landlords, I mean,
it's more difficult to get a landlord on your books than it is to find a
tenant. I.e. path of least resistance.

Disclaimer; I haven't lived in the Netherlands for over 10 years so they might
have f'd up the system just as well. In that scenario, it "was" a pretty good
system.

~~~
taejo
Yeah, Europe isn't the Netherlands. In Germany, at least, there are corporate
landlords, both for-profit and cooperative, but everywhere I've lived has been
a building with five to ten apartments owned by one old rich person (sometimes
managed by a property-management company, which tends to work out better since
they're more professional and you don't have to deal with the possibly
unpleasant/scammy landlord).

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caio1982
TL;DR: basic income might be a pipe dream in developed nations but in
development countries it could be a huge social changer

I'm not arguing this would work or not in Switzerland with that huge basic
income (to my Brazilian standards) but basic income might be an interesting
concept for developing countries where hunger is still a problem. Well,
exactly like in Brazil.

I don't believe we'd have the Australian problem -- that someone else
mentioned in here -- of rents going up and the basic income of people being
diluted in the economy making general prices higher. It has been proposed
before a basic income of between 50-75 USD per month and I believe currently
there's only a single city in the whole country where it's effectively in use;
that's never been approved in country-level, that's why.

That may seem an extremely low income but when you're starving that's a LOT of
money, specially in the country side, and it's enough to make a huge impact in
the economy and the development of the country in the long term. I don't think
anyone who makes 20x more money than that monthly would worry about it, so no
evil landlords to mess with the plan... in theory. Also, because that would
apply for ANYONE who lives in the country (even foreigners), there wouldn't be
this "they get it, I don't" feeling that could generate hatred between
classes. And honestly, to the middle-class 50-75 bucks is nearly nothing.

PS: there's a country-level law in Brazil that institutes some social security
for poor families (the so called "Bolsa-Família"), but it's not treated nor
seen as a basic income law by all means

PPS: sorry for the lack of supportive links, but Google is your friend as this
subject is pretty popular in the Brazilian media. Search for news mentioning
the former senator Eduardo Suplicy, the first to propose all that

~~~
stefantalpalaru
Sounds like guaranteed minimum income which some developed countries already
have. Unconditional basic income is a different concept with somewhat
different goals.

------
mappu
(April 2014)

~~~
roger_burkhard
The article is older but the government will vote for or against it in autumn
2016.

~~~
atemerev
Not the government, the Swiss people. Again. And it will be rejected. Again.
Thankfully.

~~~
Fargren
I think we need to experiment with this before deciding whether it's a good or
bad idea. A whole country is probably not the way to start, though.

~~~
atemerev
There were many experiments like this, including whole countries. E.g. in
North Korea, there _is_ a guaranteed basic income (at least by law),
equivalent to a bowl of rice per day.

~~~
kjjw
Urgh really? That is so disingenuous I actually feel a bit dirty after reading
it. Sorry, but surely you are invoking the comparison to North Korea because
you hope to argue against guaranteed income by association.

Also, a bowl of rice a day really is fundamentally different to a guaranteed
income that can be spent as the recipient wishes. It is more like food stamps
in the US.

~~~
fensipens
> Urgh really? That is so disingenuous I actually feel a bit dirty after
> reading it.

Just walk away. Because you won't win any argument with that type. A very
convinced yet insecure type.

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tonyedgecombe
30,000 CHF seems very high to me, why didn't they start much lower?

~~~
stefantalpalaru
It's not. With the prices in that country being 2-4 times those in Italy, I
think it's about minimum for one person to survive while paying rent in a
small town.

~~~
Kesty
48'000 was what we voted last year when we wanted to put a minimum wage (taht
we don't have right now) and right now 90% of workers earn more than that.

------
tomcam
Why work if there's a guaranteed income? What happens when payouts exceed
available money from taxpayers?

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louithethrid
Its basically just a renaming of the unemployment social service program?

~~~
317070
An unconditional basic income is a form of social security system in which all
citizens or residents of a country regularly receive an unconditional sum of
money, either from a government or some other public institution, __in
addition to any income received from elsewhere__. [1]

So, right now you only receive unemployment benefits when you are unemployed.
This means you are effectively rewarded for not doing any work, which means
that you also need people who check that you are really not doing any work
(which would not be fair towards those that do work). And that is a
schizophrenic situation, because you usually want people to work.

Also, it means you can't employ people for an income below or around these
unemployment benefits, because why would they work for this small increase in
income compared to not working?

Therefore: unconditional basic income. Whatever you do, whoever you are, you
get this fixed income. So you receive it, even if you work! If you want to
have an income higher than this (and you do), you'll have to work for it. But
whatever you earn extra, will be extra.

It effectively eliminates income poverty and the unemployment trap. It makes
lowly paid jobs more attractive, at the cost of higher paid jobs (who will
need to pay more taxes). However, from a labor point of view, it incentivizes
every single member of society to work, which means that as a society we will
be able to produce more and offer better services as a whole.

It however might disincentivize people to go work for their money, if they
feel their income for not working is high enough.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income)

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crimsonalucard
This type of thing can generate freeloaders who deliberately choose not to
work; something no economy wants. I understand and agree with the heart of the
idea though.

A better alternative would be to offer the possibility of a guaranteed
government job with a guaranteed minimum pay. This sort of thing was done on a
massive scale in the united states during the great depression. See the PWA:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Works_Administration](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Works_Administration)

~~~
RayVR
I'd rather have more freeloaders than more bureaucrats.

~~~
crimsonalucard
How does increasing freeloaders decrease bureaucrats? The two are mutually
independent. Either way I'm on your side.

Please read my comment again. I suggested a method similar to a guaranteed
base salary which eliminates freeloaders: Guaranteed work.

Think about it: If you can't find a job, you're down on your luck, the
government can guarantee that you will have a job and have a wage during such
times as part of some public works administration. The skills of the
unemployed will be put to good use AND they will be helped.

Please note the hoover dam was the result of such an endeavor.

~~~
zaccus
How is creating unnecessary jobs a better idea?

Even with the public works projects of the New Deal era, there were still a
lot more unskilled workers than there was work to be done. That didn't change
until WWII, and we definitely don't need another one of those.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Right; its a new world. Today Hoover Dam would be built by large machinery
plus very skilled operators. Not by a mob of folks hauling cement around.

There will be less and less room in this brave new world for unskilled labor.
Either accept that a lot of people will never work again, or as you suggest,
another WWII.

