
Experiment in paying villagers in India an unconditional basic income - xSwag
http://mondediplo.com/2013/05/04income
======
EGreg
To me, this sort of thing is common sense. All the austrian economics fans
talking about better price signals as an argument for less regulation - all of
them should consider using the same argument for giving an unconditional
safety net to the poor.

When a poker player has a small stack at a table, he makes poorer choices.
Similarly, poor people cannot optimally use their resources, but must avoid
one potential crisis after another. If you free them from the rat race, you
can even end minimum wage.

What I see in the USA for the past few years is really a class struggle
manufactured by ideologues, people vilifying the rich, others vilifying the
poor... but with increasing automation and outsourcing, more and more people
will find themselves unemployed. If those people had money they'd spend it on
basic necessities and the things they want the most. This in turn will empower
those industries to produce more things people actually need, and innovate.
Who knlows, maybe the poor will even be able to help fund solutions to their
own challenges in their communities. Even Milton Friedman advocated for a
negative tax.

~~~
eruditely
>When a poker player has a small stack he makes poorer choices

This immediately shows you have not played poker seriously or have a working
knowledge of poker knowledge. The framing of the question is wrong too,

~~~
cynicalkane
Instead of jumping to conclusions, consider that the OP is probably talking
about a typical person playing poker who is prone to making bad decisions for
psychological reasons. Hey, that's just like most real-life people, which is
what this article is about.

~~~
EGreg
Thank you. Exactly. I wanted to add one thing, which I have found to be a good
general principle:

To help someone (including yourself) achieve real success the best way is to
make it safe to fail. That makes it safe to take risks - because there are no
certainties in life.

That poor kid with a talent for singing would have a better shot at helping
the world if he was able to take a risk eg pursue his singing education
instead of working at McDonalds 10 hours a day to pay his rent.

~~~
pi18n
> To help someone (including yourself) achieve real success the best way is to
> make it safe to fail.

Oh I was just thinking this same thing a while ago. If we want to reduce
unemployment we have to empower people to employ themselves, since corporate
spending appears to be trickling down in other countries. I was thinking of it
in the context of free healthcare and free education.

~~~
nhaehnle
I'm not sure if that's what you're saying, but keep in mind that targetting
the unemployed for self-employment is usually not an effective strategy. Mass
unemployment _is_ a macro problem and not the individual fault of the
unemployed, but despite that, the people who end up unemployed do tend to be
on the lower end of the skill range. This means they are not the best
candidates for self-employment to begin with.

It's better to make it safe for those who _are_ employed to give up their
employment to create new businesses and thus create more jobs.

Though in the end, it always comes down to aggregate demand. Even encouraging
startups does not boost aggregate demand.

~~~
pi18n
Ah, no, I do mean to target the already employed people that want to create
their own jobs but cannot take the risk due to having no other source of
healthcare and no other way to pay for their children's education. I think
there must be some group of people that would do their own startup but for
needing healthcare.

------
r00fus
The opposite of austerity. I liked this part:

Direct cash payments cut out the many leaks and corrupt intermediaries. Delawa
said: “The idea of unconditional income comes from the failure of conditional
programmes. As soon as there are conditions, there is erosion. Conditionality
means intermediaries, which means power, which means corruption.”

Corruption is the reason aid programs are so inefficient. By giving money
directly to those impacted, the poor are empowered to save and concentrate
their unconditional small wealth into larger pools and wield power of a sort.

~~~
mjn
That was the reason even Milton Friedman, otherwise pretty much the opposite
of a socialist, though that a basic income was a good option even in western
countries. His view was that just giving people unrestricted cash would cut
out much of the corruption, inefficiency, and market distortion that creeps in
once you start giving intermediaries the power to put conditions and
restrictions on support. For example, with food stamps, he was skeptical that
the restrictions requiring people to buy "proper" food with them produced
better results overall than just giving people the equivalent amount in cash
and letting them decide. For one thing, if individual recipients are choosing
their food, rather than picking it from a list of food-stamp-approved choices,
it completely removes the whole business of lobbying to be on the approved
list, plus the bureaucracy of administering the list.

~~~
jasonwocky
The problem is that the economy is often seen as more than a mechanism for
efficient allocation and transfer of resources: for many, it's also a source
and enforcer of moral order.

"People who work hard and play by the rules should have a shot at success.
People who don't work shouldn't be given handouts. Corporations who misbehave
shouldn't be bailed out, because they're just incented to misbehave again. We
should drug test welfare recipients even though it ultimately costs us more
than it saves us, because drug addicts shouldn't get welfare." etc etc etc.

~~~
Houshalter
I'm not saying it's true, but in all of those cases it intuitively seems like
a bad idea to encourage/not discourage those behaviors. Giving people handouts
might give them an incentive not to work, giving corporations handouts lessens
the incentive to not fail (and keeps the competitors which did better from
gaining a larger market share), refusing drug addicts welfare might encourage
them to get help, etc.

I'm not saying these things are necessarily true, but it certainly seems
reasonable if you don't know otherwise. The point being that it's not because
people necessarily see these things as moral issues, but just possible
incentive problems.

------
aneth4
I consider myself pretty economically conservative.

After a lot of thought about the future of employment, automation, the effect
of wealth distribution, safety nets, and many other factors, I finally
concluded that paying all citizens/residents (determining who may be the
hardest problem) an equal subsistence wage, enough to cover cheap housing in
low demand areas and food, would be of both social and economic benefit to
all. Critically, at the same time, drugs should be legalized, regulated, and
available to addicts in controlled environments.

The threat of starving sick homeless in the street, the basic tenet of laissez
faire capitalism, is not a humane incentive for a modern society, nor is it
beneficial to a developed economy.

~~~
aneth4
I should add, this is, in fact, a socialist distribution of wealth scheme.
That money must come from somewhere if it is not to be inflationary, and it
comes from taxes on incomes and properties. The benefit to society and the
economy should far outweigh the cost. Those with investments will benefit from
the broader base of lower-middle class income to spend money with the
companies they are invested with. Those with high income will benefit from a
stronger economy supported by the middle class. Those with property will
benefit from the reduction in crime, homelessness, poverty, and generally
improved social environment.

The only downside is the reduced incentive to work. That is real. Many who are
now employed may choose not to work, which will increase wages for those who
choose to work and reduce involuntary unemployment, which will be on the rise
regardless as automation reduces the need for unskilled labor. There is more
incentive to work when everyone, employed or unemployed, receives the same
minimum income rather than the current situation, where working only earns the
differential between unemployment and wages.

Unemployment will likely reach 25% in the next 30 years due to increased
economic efficiencies, regardless of whether we have a means of supporting the
unemployed.

------
mc-lovin
Economists have long known that negative income tax (which is equivalent to a
guaranteed basic income) is theoretically optimal under the usual assumptions
of perfect markets and perfect rationality. However only very few economists,
such as Milton Friedman, have advocated it as a practical policy.

On the one hand, guaranteed income is much more resistant corruption, since
the distribution of money follows a simple rule where there is no discretion
on the part of officials, and is similarly resistant to other kinds of rent
seeking.

On the other hand, through traditional welfare systems, governments may be
able to determine who is really in need, and thus save money on giving out
welfare to people who could be earning more if they had to. Governments can
also give out welfare in kind rather than cash, helping people to make better
choices, or make welfare conditional on getting education or training.

I very much doubt that a negative income tax could improve over the best
administered welfare systems such as Australia's. What is interesting is
whether countries with much less ability to administer public services, would
be better off with a guaranteed income.

~~~
gruseom
Relying on governments to do the following:

    
    
      * determine who is really in need
      * helping people to make better choices
    

seems absurd to me, and more a defense of the guaranteed income than a
critique of it. Faith in perfect markets is hogwash, but so is this level of
faith in bureaucracy; even a wise individual would have trouble making these
kinds of judgments personally.

~~~
mc-lovin
These decisions aren't made at a personal level.

E.g. when you provide people with free healthcare instead of giving them
money, your are implicitly constraining their choices. Same for food stamps,
free public transport for the poor, etc.

Determining who is in need means, for example, not giving welfare to people
who are not genuinely searching for work. This is a difficult decision to make
but it is done fairly well in Australia. It is mostly based on objective
criteria e.g. filling in a list of places where you applied for work, showing
up to interviews that are arranged for you.

I suspect that your objection is not to the general principles listed above,
but rather to listing them explicitly without any disclaimers like "I know the
government often gets this wrong" etc.

------
dhughes
Maybe it's the culture that makes it work in India although a billion people
and so many levels of culture it's hard to say if that even true.

Doesn't the UK have a huge problem with generations of families on welfare who
never work?

I can't see this working in Canada either a lot people on EI (employment
insurance) are on it for decades, some all their lives. I know some people who
just become accustomed to living on $8,000 per year just enough to get drunk
and buy smokes. Although a lot of them have cash under the table jobs too so
in a way they do want to or need to work.

~~~
analyst74
I think Canada is an excellent example in support for BI, as the social net is
so great that there is no real poverty.

However, in spite of the fact that there are ways to live on social security,
only a very small number of people choose to do that. It shows that social
security does not stop people from having ambitions.

~~~
raverbashing
Well, in Canada, if you can't support yourself, you'll freeze to death on the
coming winter.

------
corwinstephen
I'm in love with this idea, but I'm concerned that it wouldn't work on a
grander scale. If everyone in the country had the same basic income, wouldn't
the cost of goods and services naturally rise just high enough that the basic
income becomes negligible? If I were a land lord, my first thought would be,
"Okay, so since everyone is now making $300 rupees/month more, I'm just going
to raise the rent by $300 rupees." I feel like it only works in the
experiments because the BI group still interacts with the non-BI group.

~~~
deadairspace
But the landlord is also receiving an extra $300. The landlords who increase
their prices will lose out to those who keep their prices the same.

------
sciurus
This has been tried in other places with positive results.

[http://crookedtimber.org/2009/06/02/the-basic-income-
grant-e...](http://crookedtimber.org/2009/06/02/the-basic-income-grant-
experiment-in-namibia/)

------
rmckayfleming
The Canadian government tried this in Manitoba in the 1970's as well:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mincome>

------
Aloha
I think the concept of the (Guaranteed Annual Income)
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guaranteed_Annual_Income> is the most effective
way to deliver social services. The overhead is much lower than welfare, WIC
or food stamps, meaning it costs less, and more benefit actually makes it to
the poor.

------
StavrosK
What I took from the article is that there are people living on _four dollars
a month_.

------
dxbydt
We issued $2000 per head debit cards during Katrina (
[http://www.wave3.com/Global/story.asp?s=3818003&clientty...](http://www.wave3.com/Global/story.asp?s=3818003&clienttype=printable)
). These villagers have a Katrina every single day of their lives, so it makes
sense.

~~~
andrewflnr
If it makes sense, that's not why. The reason we started giving people money
during Katrina was precisely the _change_ in their circumstances, not their
steady-state condition. Suffering, at least the perception of it, is largely
relative to previous experiences.

Your comment is especially ironic given your username. ;)

------
habosa
I like this idea, and I just have one question that maybe someone more
knowledgeable can answer for me.

If you give everyone an unconditional base income, won't the price of goods
and services eventually rise reflect/negate this? I don't see why I wouldn't
raise the price for the X I'm selling if I knew that everyone buying it now
had a lot more money.

Isn't this part of why things in America are so much more expensive than those
in India in the first place? The people in the article are buying food for a
family on < $0.25 which in America would not even buy a single meal of the
same ingredients. It's not that they're eating crappier eggs or rice than we
are, but we just have more money to buy these things and manufacturers know
that. How do you prevent this in the Basic Income system?

------
downandout
I think that this is awesome, but I have to say that none of these people
should be having children. To bring a child into extreme poverty not only
makes the poverty worse, but is an act of selfish cruelty perpetrated against
a child that had no choice in the matter. I would make the basic income
conditional: if you need this money, then don't have any more kids. I am not
saying you must be rich to have children, but you should at least be able to
feed and clothe them.

~~~
lostlogin
Asking people not to have children is not a good thing to do. Educate them on
when/how but don't make a rule. It's a slippery slope to a dark place. Poverty
doesn't affect a representative portion of the population. It's going to hit
certain races, religions, groups etc harder. As soon as someone cries
eugenics/racism, what do you say? You can't claim its being done to help group
X if group X disagree. Don't start down the hole and it won't go wrong. That
said - I can't imagine having a child in circumstances anywhere near these
levels, and I too think this project is awesome.

~~~
downandout
The choice faced is either allowing unsustainable societies to die off, or
subject ever more children to the unspeakable tragedy of being forced to live
in those societies. This may sound harsh, but the world simply cannot sustain
all of the children that humans choose to produce. The compassionate and
humane thing to do is ensure that these people do not pass on their legacy of
misery.

------
wahsd
The intro narrative is a perfect example for why humanity needs a new model on
the most fundamental level. It's an issue on par with the atrocity of slavery,
one human owning another, their ancestors, and their off-spring; and is
actually a holdover from that dark, sadistic, and unrestrained psychotic age
of humanity.

Inheritance; it needs to die and die fast and hard. The guaranteed success
simply through birth is a disgusting human perversion well represented by
monarchies and aristocracies of old and new all around the world.

A child born to a wealthy person is already going to be so advantaged over
those who simply weren't lucky enough to have come out of the right vagina and
a product of the right sperm; there is zero justification for their
inheritance of anything on top of it.

If anything, those who are the offspring of the most wealthy, should be
eligible for nothing, while those of the most poor should inherit from their
parents tax free.

Mark these words; the economy that works out this model and implements it will
surge past all others who don't. It would empower and support all that
opportunity cost and monopolistic waste that comes from the current system of
oppressing the masses at artificial support for the wealthy.

I realize most won't be able to comprehend the notion, and will reject it as
humans so quickly do when they are faced with something that contradicts their
understanding of how the world works; but what I suggest is on the scale of
impact like moving from serfdom to capitalism, from slavery to equal freedom.
It will be the next positive evolution in human history.

------
kfk
BI income should be available to people that really need, because in most
countries there are no resources to give it to everybody. Even if there were,
I challenge who believes in BI to tell me if the State could not put that
money in research, education or just decrease taxes and get a better outcome
for its people (and humanity).

We have a lot of deadly diseases and a growing need to utilize more and more
efficiently our scarce resource (food, energy, etc.), we need research, we
need development, we need innovation. I really struggle to see that coming any
faster, or at all, in a world were resources are spent to let a big portion of
the population stay at home.

And please, let's not mix what goes on today, the unemployment rates, with
historic economic circles. We are seeing this unemployment since when? 2008? 5
years are not enough to draw drastic conclusion on an economy and its
workforce. By the way, 10% unemployment rate says nothing, look at the active
population, which usually ranges above 40%, counting kids and pensioners.
Which is quite a high number if you ask me, it's not true we don't need
workers anymore, you know...

~~~
visarga
As the workforce will be replaced more and more by robots and machine learning
/ A.I., people will be left jobless. BI will have to be adopted.

~~~
kfk
They probably said that also in the 19th century and look at us today, have we
seen a drastic reduction of the active work population in 2 centuries? No.

This kind of thinking assumes that there are people fundamentally flawed that
can't support in any way our society. This is just unacceptable. Also, work
force is also a scarce resource and as all scarce resources we need to
optimize it, not to waste it.

~~~
dscrd
>They probably said that also in the 19th century and look at us today, have
we seen a drastic reduction of the active work population in 2 centuries? No.

But we have seen quite a massive increase of public sector. How many actually
needed jobs do we have anymore?

~~~
kfk
And yet again, why do we have to assume we have a bunch of people good for
nothing? There is historically no evidence whatsoever that any percentage of
any population provided absolutely nothing to society.

Now we are also saying public sector is not actually needed. I am not sure how
to answer to such wild assumptions.

------
temphn
The thing about the basic guaranteed income is that it's not usually thought
through beyond the first step.

Let's extrapolate it out. Say you receive this income. What would you do?
Perhaps you would go down to the store and purchase rice. The storekeeper has
to work to manage the store, the truck driver drove the rice to market, and
the rice farmer had to plant and harvest the rice.

A portion of your rupee today goes to the storekeeper. But a portion also
diffuses back to the driver and the rice farmer. Those signals are the signals
for them to keep doing what they are doing. Yes, it's true that the
storekeeper bought the rice in advance of your purchase, but if you look at
this as an iterated purchase: in general money flows opposite the flow of
goods/services.

They accept your money today on the tacit belief that you have provided enough
value to someone else, somewhere else that it will even out in the end when it
is their turn to consume.

However, if the state either takes money (via tax) or centrally creates money
(via inflation) to give a "guaranteed basic income", it is essentially forcing
the store owner, truck driver, and rice farmer to work for free. The monetary
signal becomes broken and no longer signals that the person on the purchasing
end has produced something in return for this rice.

The shopkeeper, driver, and farmer don't have the vocabulary to articulate
this in highfalutin', dispassionate tones. But they can understand that while
they are slaving away at work, the person buying their rice is getting
something for nothing. And that something is to a nontrivial extent coming
directly out of their hide (in the form of taxes or monetary dilution).

This is why the passive voice isn't so helpful here - "paying an unconditional
basic income" takes away the role of agency. The state is taxing citizens and
forcing them to provide services to people who aren't producing anything in
return ("unconditional").

Different people have different definitions of justice, but many of those
citizens will leave once they understand what is going on. After all, you
would leave a company structured like that, which diluted down your equity or
awarded an unconditional salary to the flagrantly unproductive. And so you
would leave a country structured like that.

And when people of this sort leave en masse, there is no shopkeeper, truck
driver, or rice farmer where the "guaranteed income" can be spent.

~~~
scarmig
I'm sure you realize this, but to make it explicit: that argument applies to
virtually all government activity. From Social Security to Medicare to public
roads to even the creation and enforcement of private property rights
themselves. All of those things cost money, and for all of those things the
government taxes some people and gives money to incentivize the labor of
others.

And that's all fine and good to object to: I don't agree wholeheartedly with
that idea, but I'm much more sympathetic to it than the average American, let
alone the average anything else.

But you should still support a basic minimum guaranteed income, or at least
replacing our current system of government benefits with it. Because it does
not distort the market in the same way that all those other welfare schemes
do. It's virtually impossible to be manipulated to favor any particular person
or interest group, simply because everyone gets it. And while most current
forms of welfare highly discourage work, the basic income doesn't because it
doesn't phase out: instead of having de facto hidden marginal tax rates in
excess of 100%, you get a simple and clear marginal tax rate that's the same
as the list price.

~~~
dllthomas
> It's virtually impossible to be manipulated to favor any particular person
> or interest group, simply because everyone gets it.

Well, you can raise or lower the stipend and associated taxes, to benefit
those with low or high incomes, respectively (in the short term). Hopefully
there's some amount that is both sufficiently optimal theoretically and
sufficiently politically attractive that we can settle on a single policy for
managing that, though...

------
laurentoget
Le monde diplomatique is something i really miss about france. Love that
someone is asking the real questions.

~~~
mynameishere
I hear they have a website coming out.

------
nn3
"I’m going to save all the money I get and spend it on my son’s wedding.”" ...
“But it’s a middle-class prejudice that the poor don’t know how to use money
sensibly."

I don't want to sound like a "middle class prejudiced person" but spending all
the saved money on a wedding doesn't sound very sensible to me.

~~~
toyg
An indian wedding is not just "a wedding" -- it's a huge social event that
defines the social standing of a family in their community. A _successful
wedding_ will result in increased respect and trust for family members, which
will likely have a direct economic impact: people will be more likely to lend
you money at a favourable rate, they will entrust you with responsibilities
and money (i.e. good jobs) and so on. It's also a great occasion for
networking _per se_. In many rural communities, not just in India, wedding
ceremonies are often an investment, not a cost. Think of it as a huge PR event
where people are basically forced to attend (not attending a wedding of
somebody you know, after being invited, is _very_ disrespectful) and where you
can sell them stuff while they enjoy themselves.

A huge dowry, now _that_ is a waste of money, but it's not mentioned in the
article.

~~~
jasonwocky
_A huge dowry, now that is a waste of money, but it's not mentioned in the
article._

Except that it may prevent your new in-laws from harassing your daughter so
much that she freaking immolates herself.

[http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2013-04-14/rajko...](http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2013-04-14/rajkot/38528767_1_husband-
and-in-laws-banaskantha-dowry)

~~~
toyg
I know perfectly well, which is why I think the dowry system is terrible as a
whole and should be banned. It might have been a sort of incentive not to kill
your own daughters (which is what used to happen in China, for example), but
it's 2013 and even rural Indians now know women have their own unique
strengths and will benefit their own family. Dowries are a terrible tradition
that have no beneficial effect whatsoever for economy and society, and the
sooner they are stopped, the better.

------
whiddershins
Poor people=people without money. Give poor people money. Then they are less
poor. Radical.

------
rumcajz
It really depends on the existing structure of the society. I guess that in,
say, turn-of-century Sicily or present-day Somalia the money would pretty fast
end in the hands of local crooks.

------
JofArnold
Here is a video introduction from SEWA and Prof Guy Standing:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtYtwiG-uAM>

------
jmathai
I believe this works when you give women money.

My dad does this sort of work in India and we've had many conversations about
how you can't trust men with free money.

~~~
enraged_camel
That is not sexist at all.

~~~
mc-lovin
Funny how when things favor women they are just "objective facts" and
therefore can't be labelled "sexist".

While all the things men are better have have already been proven to be
results of cultural bias by esteemed sociologists...

~~~
jmathai
I guess some folks are primarily concerned with not being a *ist.

I'm personally interested in upward mobility of people and groups who are
marginalized.

Black people in the US have a much higher chance of ending up in prison. A
racist statement? I can't really tell you, to be honest. But if that can be
used to help provide upward mobility to that specific group I'm happy to state
that observation.

Or you can just stand on a soapbox.

~~~
mc-lovin
You seem to be ignoring a third possibility, which is stating things because
they are true, not because of how your statements will be "used".

~~~
jmathai
Valid point. I don't personally care about statements of truth unless they can
be used toward some form of improvement. So that's my bias which you might
have picked up on.

~~~
mc-lovin
My own point of view is that I'm not infallible and therefore it is better to
state what I think is true, and let people draw whatever conclusions they
like, and take whatever actions they like, based on what I say.

I expect on averaging that stating the truth should be beneficial rather than
harmful, because people with good intentions will seek to base their arguments
and actions on the truth, while people with bad intentions in many cases won't
care.

So ultimately I also only care about "improvement" but I don't define this in
terms of my own ideology, because I could be wrong on many things.

------
Millennium
One problem with these social experiments is that they never run for long
enough. It takes a good 3-4 generations to really see the effect a policy
change will have on a society: you need to look at people raised by people who
do not remember what came before. Instead, we look at a paltry 5-10 years and
consider the matter settled, when the real effects are only just beginning.

------
gmack
Another great organization working on this model is <http://givedirectly.org>,
co-founded by the irrepressible Rohit Wanchoo. We had lots of discussion
around this model, since his team had done a lot of research around it. It
appears to be working well, and recently received a large donation from
Google.

------
known
I believe implementing <https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perestroika> aka
<https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communal_Award> is the permanent solution

------
nazgulnarsil
The best take on BI (or NIT) I've seen: auction the unemployed. This solves so
many of the problems it's not funny.
[http://www.morganwarstler.com/guaranteed-income-auction-
unem...](http://www.morganwarstler.com/guaranteed-income-auction-unemployed)

------
cheez
Milton Friedman strikes again (though he advocated a negative income tax)

------
michaelochurch
What really gets me going is the realization of how much more value people
would produce if they could own their lives outright instead of renting it
from one boss to the next. There'd be less "work" of the traditional, low-
productivity, subordinate zombie sense, but a lot more getting done.

I want to see BI not because I have an interest in not working. Rather, I want
it to free people _to work_. Work is too important (both as a human need, and
as a productive force in society) to leave it in the hands of the entrenched
boss men who currently own Work.

It would be such an excuse-killer, too, to implement BI and get rid of
compulsory labor. People could no longer justify making so little of their
lives due to having to work. Now, it turns out to still be quite hard to make
something of one's life but, when that excuse is gone, the only thing to say
is "Yes, it's hard; but go on, do it."

Sometimes I wonder, though, if we invented institutional Work to justify
mediocrity, and make it OK. It's often portrayed as an oppression brought in
by deceptive, aggressive Boss Men; but I also think people willingly
participate because it's a way to substitute mediocre/subordinate social
acceptance for the much more intermittent reward/thrill of genuine work. Boss
men definitely were more principal in driving Work to its current state, but
it was a coevolution.

~~~
andrewflnr
Don't forget that it comes out of the excess of those who do decide to work.
I'm not confident that if this was rolled out globally, there would be enough
people who really decide to "make something of their lives" to support the
system. Sure, a lot of them will hate themselves if they don't, but, honestly
now, how often does that stop laziness? Don't look at yourself to answer, look
at the culture.

~~~
michaelochurch
With BI, there are going to be some people who use it as an excuse to slack
off. They're not ambitious or energetic and, relieved of the need to make
something of their lives, they probably won't do much. That's true.

Here's a question: how much are they doing right now? My guess: not much.
Given the high rate of unemployment that exists already, it seems like
society's value for unskilled work is pretty low already. So I don't think the
bulk loss to society in having the least ambitious ~10-20% slack off is that
bad, especially if a large number of people are _more_ engaged in their work.

Parasites at the bottom of society are pretty harmless. Parasites at the _top_
, on the other hand, are extremely damaging. We have a lot of the second kind.
Because people have to work and most need a steady income that just barely
meets expenses, that pretty much means they end up in a subordinate role,
there's a class of useless people called "executives" who have total control
over the economy (and mediocritize it, because it's best for their positional
stability to do so) because people are terrified of losing the jobs and
incomes.

If there's a trade-off between having more parasites at the bottom of society
who don't work vs. having more parasites at the top who ruin others' work, I'd
take the former, hands down.

~~~
jjoonathan
> If there's a trade-off between having more parasites at the bottom of
> society who don't work vs. having more parasites at the top who ruin others'
> wor

Nonono, you have it backwards. We NEED more parasites! The supply of labor
exceeds demand right now which sends the price to 0 (minimum wage paints the
problem a different color but doesn't fix anything). We need to decrease the
supply of labor so that the market can start pricing it rationally again.

If everybody stops working, the price of services skyrockets. But the problem
(soaring cost of services) and the solution (soaring reward for labor) are one
and the same. _This_ is how the free market is supposed to work. In fact, I'd
go so far to say that BI presents a closer approximation to a free market than
the system we have now (where the government price-controls labor).

~~~
Houshalter
>The supply of labor exceeds demand right now which sends the price to 0

That's not quite how prices work. There is always a demand for labor. If the
price of labor fell low enough there would be plenty of jobs. Though no one
would want to work at those wages, it's even illegal to do so. The point is
just that the price will never really fall to zero, even if it gets low.

>If everybody stops working, the price of services skyrockets. But the problem
(soaring cost of services) and the solution (soaring reward for labor) are one
and the same. This is how the free market is supposed to work. In fact, I'd go
so far to say that BI presents a closer approximation to a free market than
the system we have now (where the government price-controls labor).

That's not the intention of guaranteed minimum income at all, and not a good
thing either. You are just cutting off one place (higher prices) to feed the
other (higher wages). At least if I understand what you mean correctly, which
I'm not sure. But the idea of the system is that it will balance out wealth
disparities over time, but not too unfairly on people who do succeed. As well
as provide a safety net. And get rid of all the bad incentives and
complications created by other systems which attempt to do the same.

~~~
johnnyg
> Nonono, you have it backwards. We NEED more parasites! The supply of labor
> exceeds demand right now which sends the price to 0 (minimum wage paints the
> problem a different color but doesn't fix anything). We need to decrease the
> supply of labor so that the market can start pricing it rationally again.

We need to fix the market in a new way, so that the market can be free? What
the what?!

A free market is one where price accurately reflects the mix of supply and
demand.

A free market is NOT and NEVER one where supply and demand are manipulated to
produce a "better" result.

You are arguing supply side good, demand side bad but consider zooming out and
asking first if manipulation of either variable will really produce a
predictable, desirable result.

I've heard lot of arguments that say "but this is GOOD market manipulation"
but it always ends in tears.

Supply and demand will always win out in the end. The market is faster,
smarter and stronger than you.

The winners are the ones that can ride the waves, see what the result of
manipulation this way to that will be, and position themselves accordingly.
Increasing the ability of the participants in the system to react in these
ways makes the system more rational, and in turn more stable.

Juicing one variable or the other makes people build knowledge/lives/decisions
on a pseudo foundation that will eventually be undercut by market forces. It
teaches people the wrong things and makes the system less rational and
therefore more bubble prone.

~~~
nitrogen
I think the argument you quoted (and it looks like your reply somehow got
attached to the wrong post) was implying that the supply of labor is
unnaturally inflated by requiring people to work to eat. Basic income, the
argument proceeds, would allow unwilling suppliers of labor (the "wage
slaves") to drop out of the market, as they naturally would if they weren't
forced to participate. There would no longer be a need for a minimum wage at
that point (since all wages earned go _on top of_ a basic income), so the
supply, demand, and price of labor could reach their true equilibrium.

------
Dewie
If we get to a point in time when most people don't have to work, because of
automation and such, and they start instituting a basic income (as opposed to
it all going to the elite), then I think that the difference between people
when it comes to money is going to become incredibly noticeable. The people
that actually dedicate themselves to some kind of structured work - especially
the ones that have to invest time into learning the trade, and are held
responsible if they screw up, for example doctors - are probably going to be
paid much more than the people on basic income. Of course, the people on basic
income can do productive things, too, but they aren't held to the same
standard as the people that are officially employed - so the people that are
in official employment are going to be depending much more than the basic
income for having less freedom then all the people on basic income. Then there
is going to be an incredible competition for the jobs and the people that miss
out is going to suffer socially because they have less affluence to flaunt,
and thus less status.

There are going to be people that don't care about prestige, of course. The
artistic types in particular could have it great.

------
auctiontheory
This program could change more lives than (gasp!) Facebook. Radical.

------
tomjen3
If you just start paying people money no matter if they work or not, what is
their incentive to improve in life.

Frankly, this smells of people trying to sneak communism in through the
backdoor.

And what do you do when they blow all their money on drugs (this will happen
with some of them).

~~~
hayksaakian
In theory, those who lead destructive lives (drugs) will die sooner (if the
anti-drug claims are true) therefore removing themselves from the system.

I'd imagine the payments in this case are only enough for food and shelter.
Spending $ on drugs makes it harder to obtain the other two.

Communism would be conditional income ("to each according to his means,
etc."). What the article describes is unconditional.

~~~
mathieuh
Socialism would be conditional income, Full Communism would be unconditional.

