
Universal Basic Income – A Report for Unions [pdf] - ColanR
http://www.world-psi.org/sites/default/files/documents/research/en_ubi_full_report_2019.pdf
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robotbikes
Where is the evidence that people need a "compelled purpose" ? Many people
struggling to survive are not gaining meaning from being threatened by the
constant insecurity of poverty, homelessness, poor nutrition and general
stress from fear that someone else more desperate will try to take from you
something you need. If this stress is removed from people's lives the thought
is they'd have a better chance to actually figure out what they want to do and
pursue higher goals than simply survival in a hostile environment. But
seriously I've known quite affluent people who chose to work jobs because they
wanted something to do not because they needed money and I think that people
in general would probably be more engaged with whatever activity they actively
chose vs. the ones they we're compelled to do. I also think that there is a
general idea that certain people have that they are somehow better than other
people and while they might be able to choose a higher goal the "poor" would
just be lazy and do nothing with their lives. I tend to believe that a lot of
the reasons people are "lazy" is because they understand or believe that the
game is rigged. Any way you look at it our economic system does tend to highly
favor those who were born into situations where they didn't have to worry
about money constantly and so I tend to believe removing that worry one way or
another should be a basic goal of humanity in general.

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jchanimal
It's clear from the cover letter that this report is written by people biased
in favor of waged labor. I think that the economic pressure to work is a
terrible thing that limits most people's potential in ways big and small. The
sooner we can be rid of it, the better. There are other ways to make meaning,
than to be running from poverty.

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pitaj
What is _your_ solution to scarcity, then?

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keerthiko
First step: confirming actual scarcity.

Tell me, what basic human necessity or resource for individuals is in actual
global scarcity right now? Food? Housing? Schooling? Internet/knowledge
access? Sanitation?

There is hoarding, rent-seeking, market-controlling of these things, but not
actual scarcity, except _maybe_ sanitation, and possibly healthcare if you
count that as a resource rather than a process.

Pure capitalism as the vehicle of resource distribution has been proven as a
failure to distribute existing resources to the lower echelons of society,
even after multiple generations. Any solution that requires more than 2
generations to "solve" what it was designed to solve, I think we can safely
call a failure.

It's time to try something else.

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manicdee
There’s a scarcity of oxygen, real estate, food, and fresh water.

We can’t just keep expanding the population, and we have already started a
mass extinction event with the few billion we have now. What’s the world going
to be like when we hit 11 billion in a couple of decades?

In Australia we have overconsumed fresh water to the point that our largest
cities treat desalination as “water supply” rather than “environmental
disaster”. When the fresh water availanlemis not enough to sustain your
population, it’s not the water supply that’s the problem.

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eatdinner
they just canceled the universal income project in my province early because
of p̶o̶l̶i̶t̶i̶c̶s̶ the budget, _before_ any research was concluded. so there
is no evidence one way or the other about its effects :(

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thrower123
You think the opiod epidemic is bad now?

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rayiner
As someone who grew up in the post-Clinton “new left” exposure to some of the
“old left” helps me understand the right a lot better. They’re afraid of
socialism because folks like trade unionists actually espoused socialism. Not
like Scandinavian market socialism, but like “quoting Marx on the first page”
socialism.

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selimthegrim
Cf. Labour’s old Clause Four

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rayiner
Thanks, I didn’t know about that.

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RickJWagner
Hacker News should model UBI. Just give every member 10 'upvotes' a week or
so.

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lopmotr
The arguments against chapter doesn't mention what seems to me to be the
killer reason - that people are very bad at enjoying life without a compelled
purpose. Doing work gives us the motivation to pursue our hobbies. Being
useful keeps people sane. Having a lifetime of free food, shelter, and
consumption of entertainment would be torture. That's the sort of lifestyle
that leads to drug addiction, suicide, crime.

If there really are going to be a lot of unemployed in the future, that itself
is the problem, not their lack of income.

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maxander
This argument works only if you consider those of us lucky enough to have
interesting jobs, which we had some hand in choosing. Do you honestly believe
that the person who cleans the toilets at your work thinks that this labor
gives his life meaning?

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cwbrandsma
Yet those jobs still need to be done.

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maxander
That’s the other thing- they still _would_ get done. All the jobs we really
need would stick around under UBI and we would have people working them. We
would just have to pay them more, since their other option wouldn’t be
starvation.

