
Belgian think tank study: universal basic income is a dangerous utopia - enimodas
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loa_in_
In my opinion the basic income idea is the good way to go.

In my mind UBI means stability, stability means better, thought out choice
choice of employment, better work choice means less abuse by employers (who
happily exploit people on the edge) AND more happiness, therefore less stress
and higher productivity.

It's not a perfect solution, as there will be people who will refuse to work,
but those would in my honest opinion use their time to socialize with others,
and less stressed people who actually work would, at least in part, happily
resocialize people left out through socialization and natural integration.
Social circles mean opportunity, opportunities mean chances of success in
finding work.

~~~
Mz
Tech giants are predicting widespread, permanent unemployment. Jobs that
currently pay something like $20k to maybe $50k are supposed to be replaced
with basic income paying more like $10k. If large swaths of the population are
going to take a de facto pay cut over jobs that in some places are already
considered poverty wages AND then they have little or no hope of securing paid
income to supplement their UBI, this sounds like a terrible nightmare to me.

I would much rather people be working on new ways to spread the work around
while improving quality of life for the masses. You know, _the policy they
pursued during the last Industrial Revolution when automation was threatening
to eliminate jobs._

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fvdessen
A UBI that allows citizen to surive on it is simply unfundable; Let's take
Belgium, 1000eur/month per citizen; That's 120 billion eur/year. The Belgian
state revenue is 227 billion eur/year, and Belgium has the highest taxes in
the world. How does the discussion on UBI goes past this simple mathematical
fact ?

~~~
esarbe
Yes, how does a discussion on UBI go past this simple mathematical fact?

By looking at the income distribution and realizing that a vast majority of
the worlds income is concentrated in the hands of a breathtakingly small group
of people and is continuing to be concentrated even more by the advent of even
more integrated automated production and services.

All the while this small group continues to lobby for lower taxes worldwide
and engages in tax-avoidance schemes that drive local manufacturers and
service providers out of business. Heck, this group has so much money, they
don't even know what to do with it anymore! Profits have skyrocketed in the
last 30 years, but these increases have gone exclusively to the richest people
of the world.

Productivity per person has more than quadrupled since the 1950. Yet the wages
have stagnant since the 1970. Where did all the money go? I bet you can answer
that question yourself.

Now, where do you specifically go wrong with the math? By not having a high
enough tax on those that mooch away all the money. They could afford it. They
just don't want to. And the system they built for themselves allows them to
get away with it.

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

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

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

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_avoidance#Methods](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_avoidance#Methods)

~~~
jimmywanger
> By not having a high enough tax on those that mooch away all the money

How are they mooching it away? You have not yet proven away that they haven't
accumulated the money fair and square. At the extremes, tiny differences in
competence lead to exponentially differing compensation scales. Look at any
professional sports league for examples.

> They could afford it. They just don't want to.

Why should they "afford it"? Just being richer does not give anybody lower on
the socio-economic spectrum free reign to determine spending/taxation habits.
You look at somebody with a mclaren and whine that it's not fair - there are
ten people out there looking at your stable supply of food, clothing, and
utilities and saying the exact same thing.

And the system that they built with laws that allow them to get away with it -
the proposal is to fix that with more laws, conveniently forgetting that the
legal system is a NP complex system, which just creates more unintended
consequences that only the extremely rich are allowed to exploit.

~~~
esarbe
> How are they mooching it away? You have not yet proven away that they
> haven't accumulated the money fair and square.

If you are relying on rent instead of work for an income, you are mooching,
simple and easy. Accumulating money that way might be legal, but it's neither
fair nor square. You are exploiting the production capacity of other people
and using economical leverage to enforce that exploitation.

> Why should they "afford it"? Just being richer does not give anybody lower
> on the socio-economic spectrum free reign to determine spending/taxation
> habits.

Yes, it does. Because sooner or later the unemployable, hungry masses will be
rallying in the streets with pitch forks and torches, demanding heads to be
rolling.

> You look at somebody with a mclaren and whine that it's not fair - there are
> ten people out there looking at your stable supply of food, clothing, and
> utilities and saying the exact same thing.

I think you misunderstand my point. I'm not demanding that those earning more
than me should be taxed more - I'm very much aware that I'm a privileged
member of the 1%. I'm among those that should be taxed more!

>And the system that they built with laws that allow them to get away with it
- the proposal is to fix that with more laws, conveniently forgetting that the
legal system is a NP complex system, which just creates more unintended
consequences that only the extremely rich are allowed to exploit.

There are good arguments to be made that a UBI scheme would actually be less
complicated than the complex tangle of social support systems we have
nowadays. At least in Europe.

~~~
jimmywanger
> Accumulating money that way might be legal, but it's neither fair nor
> square. You are exploiting the production capacity of other people and using
> economical leverage to enforce that exploitation.

No, you're also getting paid for the lack of appreciation of the capital in
the machinery, the possibility that the machinery loses value, and the
maintenance and upkeep of the machines. If you're a landlord, you're paying
for maintenance, property tax, and code upgrades in exchange for money for
shelter. It's just a means of exchange of goods for money, like any other.

Or do would you rather that productive machinery (including capital) be not
produce, and capital locked away from productive use? By not charging money
for the use of goods, you disincentivize the purchase of capital
machinery/real estate as there is no upside, only downside to ownership/usage.

> Because sooner or later the unemployable, hungry masses will be rallying in
> the streets with pitch forks and torches, demanding heads to be rolling.

You're talking out of both sides of your mouth. It isn't right for people to
charge rent for the use of capital, just because, and you have to redistribute
wealth because otherwise you'll be forced to anyways, screw what's right.
Either argue from the moral high ground or sheer pragmatism. You can't have
both.

> I'm among those that should be taxed more!

Nobody is stopping you from donating more money to the government or any
number of good charities. Why should extra taxation be necessary and
involuntary when people with consciences like you are willing to act on your
better impulses rather than just whine about the status quo?

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valuearb
You don't need a think tank to figure this out.

We only have stuff because people work.

Paying people not to work means they won't make stuff.

People who remain working will have to be taxed heavily to pay others not to
work, increasing the remaining workers incentive to not work.

Eventually you arrive at a utopia where we have nothing and no one works.

~~~
closeparen
Labor force participation is falling while production is rising. That is what
everyone on HN and in any engineering or computing related field does all day:
figure out how to get more value from less labor.

You're right. People won't make stuff. People _already_ don't make stuff.
Machines do. A tiny elite class of engineers and managers figures out what the
machines should do, designs them, and tends to them. The masses need not be
involved.

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neilwilson
Very true.

The basic income is an idea that is supported by people who don't seem to
understand humans, or who want to take power away from most humans.

Basic income is essentially another form of theft from the workers. People
resent the rich because they do nothing for their income, but apparently if
everybody does nothing for their income then that resentment is magically
disappears.

That doesn't work in human society. Humans require that others contribute. As
the Great Ali said: "Service to others is the price you pay for your room here
on earth".

The problem the UBI has is that, like the rich, it is unfindable _in real
terms_. Those that produce see the fraud, gather together and politically
agitate to have it removed.

And you end up with what we have now - a depleted unemployment benefit system,
and various small handouts to people others consider 'scroungers'.

The actual solution is to expand the definition of 'job', get beyond the
neoliberal idea that everybody and everything is a business trying to create
profit and implement a Job Guarantee full of activities that deliver social
value - allowing people to serve others.

Once you do that, then you just pay them the living wage and the system works.
From an individual's point of view their experience is that they have a job,
one that is matched to their skills and that others consider a useful use of
time. If they move jobs to the private sector, they still get a wage of about
the same value. But the public spending stops instantly - which gets rid of
the need for additional taxation.

[https://medium.com/modern-money-matters/job-guarantee-
jobs-f...](https://medium.com/modern-money-matters/job-guarantee-jobs-for-the-
people-20fdc52f04b8)

