
Basic income is just the beginning as Finland looks to citizen-driven governance - greifswalder
https://www.sitra.fi/en/blogs/basic-income-just-beginning-finland-one-innovative-governments-world-looks-citizen-driven-governance/
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aaron-lebo
It'll be really interesting to see how this basic income thing plays out over
the next few decades. Basic income is most easily testable in small, high
income, relatively homogeneous societies that agree on a more communal way of
governing. So, the Nordic countries, see Finland.

What is most interesting is how many optimistic and as yet untested claims
that basic income advocates make. See this article. Paragraph after paragraph
about how this program will work, what the advantages will be, but we don't
really have any hard numbers, and even once we get them in a limited setting
in Finland, or with random people across the US, we have studies that aren't
generalizable, and we have very few. If n=29 means anything in this context,
we've got like 2.5 (not a rigorously considered statement, don't hurt me).

The really cynical part of me notices how basic income is like the ideal
political promise. "Hey, we're gonna give you money so you don't have to work,
and when we do, society is gonna transform into utopia". We'll all be living
in Truman Burbank's world, apparently. Because of course people won't squander
their basic income (maybe on Bitcoin?) and if they do, so much for a social
safety net.

The general populace (not those at the top) are seeing a bad economic
situation, so of course their response is yes, meanwhile the people who are
the biggest proponents of this as of currently are people like Altman,
Zuckerberg, and Musk. The first two have political ambitions, the last is a
utopian.

Of course when you break down the numbers, it doesn't work. How do you make up
the 3 trillion a year it would take to give everyone $12k when you almost had
healthcare repealed? What programs do you decide to cut and how do you expect
the two parties to have a fruitful discussion about it (lol)? These guys will
never talk about any rigorous plans because they don't have any that would
make it through legislation. They also won't talk about how crushing and
depressing and difficult it is to live on 12k (they have no clue).

It sounds like a future where the super rich throw pennies to the peasants and
at that point it'll be a great excuse. We give you money, why can't you pull
yourself up by your bootstraps?

Will someone lay out a realistic plan detailing how you'd implement BI in the
US?

~~~
petra
The reality is that if you want to cover everyone's basic needs with $12K, you
need to radically reduce the cost of goods and services. How ? That's the
conversation we should be having.

But that than becomes a painful and complex conversation, talking about huge
changes in the structure and possibly quality of real-estate, healthcare,
transportation and roads, universities, etc and maybe some core tenets of
capitalism.

But there's no way for this conversation to be fruitful and have really big
changes - until we have a real crisis - because that's how democracies work in
general.

but here's a starting point, anyway:

1\. Transforming real-estate, from a system largely aimed at profits, into a
system that is focused on offering decent living conditions as cheaply as
possible.

2\. Inserting disruptive innovation and real cost reduction into healthcare.
And yes, like all disruptive innovation , it probably means lowering quality,
at least for some time.

~~~
freeflight
> The reality is that if you want to cover everyone's basic needs with $12K,
> you need to radically reduce the cost of goods and services. How ? That's
> the conversation we should be having.

Why even insist on that $12K number in the first place, isn't that like
approaching the problem from the wrong end?

It's something that always puzzled me about economic policymaking, regardless
of which country; Changes seem to happen at a pace of years and only with
static values, which makes reacting to our modern volatile and interconnected
markets, in any useful way, impossible.

Case in point the basic income: Ideally the amount of money people get could
be linked to the general living costs, adjusted to their area of residence,
and some national economic index.

Sure the first one could be abused by people registering in more expensive
areas while living in cheaper ones, but in the long run, and economic big
picture this would only lead to rising prices (and basic income) in the
cheaper areas, generated through the spending by the "cheaters".

Imho something really underestimated is how much of an economic boost a basic
income would be, it'd be like the government directly subsidizing general
purchasing power, and lot's of that will come back to the government in the
form of taxes. It's like the opposite end version of corporate bailouts and
tax giveaways.

Looking at a number like 7 trillion from that side, suddenly makes it way less
intimidating and way more appealing. It's not like money is some finite
resource that has to be mined in deep and dangerous caves; When it's about
saving banks, Big Whatever or waging wars, against something or somebody,
there always seems to be more than enough of it?

~~~
kobeya
If you make $7tn from thin air and inject it into the economy, consumer price
inflation will drastically rise, which for the most part ends up being a
transfer of wealth from the poor and middle class to the owners of capital.
All you will have done is make the rich richer as the cost of living rises by
about $12k/person.

~~~
inopinatus
If you look up "Quantitative Easing" you'll see that making trillions from
thin air is exactly what the world's central banks do. But instead of giving
it to people, they buy securities from banks, who are, as a result, the
primary beneficiaries. QE-scale market activities aside, this general method
is also standard monetary policy and the means by which new money is created.

Seen in that light, BI provides the opportunity for a whole new economic
policy lever, by channeling new money to people rather than banks.

~~~
rsync
"If you look up "Quantitative Easing" you'll see that making trillions from
thin air is exactly what the world's central banks do. But instead of giving
it to people, they buy securities from banks, who are, as a result, the
primary beneficiaries."

This is not an apples-to-apples comparison since QE (so far) has been
"sterilized" so as not to increase the money supply in the same way as you are
suggesting BI would:

"Also, the Federal Reserve has mostly "sterilized" its bond purchases by
paying interest to banks for reserve deposits. This removes money from
circulation previously added by the Fed's bond purchases. The net effect is to
raise bond prices, lowering borrowing rates for mortgages and other loans,
without an inflationary increase in the money supply"[1]

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

~~~
inopinatus
Yes, the useful message here is that we can indeed inject trillions into
economies without overheating them, if the right conditions and structures are
used.

They will be different for BI, naturally.

------
SubiculumCode
1\. Government spending on public works and services. 2\. Loans to private
sector businesses who are positioned to use that new money productively.

As far as I understand, these are the primary ways new money is issued into
the economy (money created). In general, these two methods work fairly well.
The first enables worthwhile works and services to be provided that the
private sector is unwilling to provide, while the second helps ensure
efficient usage of new dollars to create goods and services.

However, there are situations where these two methods are insufficient. For
example, after the 2008 meltdown, cheaper loans to businesses hardly increased
growth..like pushing a wet noodle. The problem was a lack of dollars in the
pockets of consumers. The businesses were chasing too few dollars. Fiscal
spending on infrastructurr is often proposed, and certainly can help, but is
often inefficient, and diverted away from consumers into corporate coffers.

I believe that a variable basic income where newly created money can be put
directly in consumer's pockets could give policy makers a third tool to ensure
optimal economic growth.

~~~
badestrand
There actually is a small movement in the EU called Quantitative Easing for
People which wants exactly that: Why not give central bank money directly to
people instead of as loans to businesses?

I love the idea but I am afraid the EU is much too conservative, anxious and
in general not an institution serving its people to do something like that.

But what a marvellous world that would be to live in.

------
thinkloop
More citizen participation in democracy is a great thing, but not as simple as
it sounds. Legislating is a complex, time-intensive job. Most bills are long,
nuanced and require real study to understand and vet. Armchair voting based on
sound-bytes by casually engaged citizens can't work. We need paid people that
are dedicated to the activity.

Additionally, legal deal making is a necessary evil. If two parties are at
odds with which direction to go, and simply cannot come to an agreement, one
way we deal with that is by offering exchanges of laws. One side reluctantly
agrees to go forward on one thing, in exchange for the other side compromising
on an unrelated thing that they feel more strongly about. That's why many
bills contain a cornucopia of seemingly unrelated mandates - it's how we are
able to move forward at an impasse. How would independent citizens negotiate
with each other?

~~~
matt4077
That's argument for arguably one of the most interesting new ideas in
"democracy" of this century: "liquid democracy"

It allowed for people to choose to vote on individual issues. But when they
recognised the complexity of certain issues, or just couldn't be bothered to
make up their mind, it allowed to delegate their voting power to someone they
trusted. You could delegate single issues, topics, whole fields of politics or
even everything, and the recipient could do so again. The result would be a
sort of "net of decision making".

Of course the concept's prominence came and went with the rise and fall of the
Pirate Party...

------
RivieraKid
Most people misunderstand basic income. What they're thinking is "basic income
means that everyone will get enough money to fulfill their basic needs". But
you can achieve that in the current system, by transferring more money from
taxpayers to the unemployed. (Assuming Europe, where unemployed are eligible
to small amount of money.)

Basic income is not more welfare, it's a relatively small change to the
structure of the welfare system:

1\. Simplification, everyone gets a constant amount of money. It has some
advantages but some of the current complexity has good justifications. It
allows us to give more to those who need more.

2\. Bigger pay jump when you decide to work. I think this is the strongest
argument for BI.

3\. You get the money automatically, no need for paperwork.

4\. Cultural and mindset change.

~~~
kobeya
5\. It ignores entirely the macroeconomic results of printing tons of money,
which doesn’t end well for society even if widely and directly distributed.

~~~
jhgjklj
Printing tons of money is what is happening even without basic income, BI is
the way forward to free human from boring labor. Probably no one has a
macroeconomic plan. But the basic idea is simple and powerful. Robots do the
menial and boring job of humans and they are taxed that is distributed to
people and people spend on robots for services and the cycle continues.

------
ThomPete
The debate about basic income is based on the wrong premise in the sense that
people evaluate it based on two different viewpoints of the world.

Unconditional Basic Income (UBI) is based on the assumption there will be no
jobs for most humans in the future.

What we have today is CBI or Conditional Basic Income which is conditional
based on the assumption that you can motivate people to find jobs and that
jobs will be available for most. If there are always going to be plenty of
jobs then UBI makes no sense.

But if you believe that there be fewer and fewer jobs for humans, then UBI
make a ton of sense.

I am of the latter belief.

~~~
neon_electro
What about the other benefits of UBI, like increasing the bargaining power of
labor?

Do you believe that basic income wouldn't be able to give workers a greater
ability to say no to low-quality jobs and wages, forcing (1) automation or (2)
an increase in both to attract workers?

~~~
ThomPete
UBI will always make it worthwhile to take a job because you wouldn't have to
give any money back.

~~~
icebraining
Financially, yes, economically, not necessarily. UBI greatly reduces the
marginal value of the money you get from the job (since it's no longer the
difference between paying for basic necessities or not), and since jobs have a
cost, even if it's non-monetary, UBI may tip the balance against taking it.

~~~
ThomPete
Not sure what you mean.

If UBI is, let's say $40000 a year and you do various jobs that land you
$10000 you now have $50000.

Why wouldn't I take that?

~~~
icebraining
Because the jobs may suck, and while earning $10k is much better than $0,
earning $50k is not that much better than $40k.

~~~
ThomPete
Which will be greatly countered by the fact that if you make $10K more than
anyone else you are going to be one of the richest people you know. That $10K
extra can buy you a lot of things.

Again, judging UBI based on how things look like today is exactly where the
discussion goes wrong.

UBI makes sense if you accept the idea that there are almost no jobs left for
humans.

It doesn't make sense in a world where there is plenty of jobs.

In other words, it's NOT a mechanism for getting people to work it's a way to
ensure that all those people who have no work still have some way to buy
things and keep some economy going.

------
jquery
This is a poorly written puff piece that reads like it was generated by AI.

~~~
katastic
I think I could write a random article generator full of catchphrases they
like, and it'd be upvoted like crazy here, Reddit, and Slashdot.

~~~
jquery
Indeed, the more closely I try to read the article, the less comprehensible it
is. Notice a lot of HN commentators using the article title to jump on their
soapbox, and nobody trying to engage the substance of the article, which is
utterly lacking.

Here's the article's conclusion: "The emissions targets of cities and the C-40
climate leadership network promoting it — as well as YIMBYcon, an
international group of grassroots city developers that operates through groups
in Facebook and organises events — provide good examples of such inter-city
policies and discussions. The YIMBYcon network shares international examples
of city development and prepares concrete shadow plans."

My takeaway is that AI is getting better at writing gibberish.

~~~
freeflight
The article is only an edited excerpt from this paper:
[https://www.sitra.fi/en/publications/from-pause-to-
play/#1-t...](https://www.sitra.fi/en/publications/from-pause-to-play/#1-the-
new-engels-pause)

The English used is somewhat odd, but I can forgive that considering the
authors are Finns.

------
Synaesthesia
Macroeconomically, giving the poor money through this kind of redistributio
will stimulate the economy and in fact ultimately benefit the rich and large
corporations! (As well as small businesses). The reason is obvious, poor
people are obliged to spend it all, since they have to stay alive.

~~~
kobeya
And they will spend it, on things they need to survive, like rent and food.
Now the landlords, factory farmers, and Walmart have all the wealth. Oh, and
massive inflation raises all the prices so your next check doesn’t go as far.

BI is extremely regressive in its effects.

~~~
sheepmullet
> Oh, and massive inflation raises all the prices so your next check doesn’t
> go as far.

That is not at all clear.

Food is a competitive market. And even the poor in the US currently get plenty
of food. Why would prices increase?

For most standard goods we could ramp up factory capacity and actually expect
a decrease in cost/unit. We don't have a supply problem.

Rent is heavily tied to location which is tied to job prospects. There is
close to a 10x spread for the same kind of housing dependent on city across
the US.

When I was poor I had to go where the jobs were and just suck it up and pay
the much higher rental price. This meant room sharing in an expensive city.

With BI I would have had a lot more negotiating power. How do you convince me
to pay 5-10x more rent to move to your city?

~~~
kobeya
> Why would prices increase?

Inflation:

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

You inject a double-digit percentage of all cash that exists into the economy
year-after-year -- numbers bounded about in this very thread are on the order
of 1/3 of all US dollars in existence, just for Americans to receive a
minimal, poverty rate handout -- I guarantee you there will be inflation at
levels that have never been seen since the founding of this country.

~~~
sheepmullet
But isn't the idea to take that money in the form of taxes rather than just
printing it?

------
watertom
For the U.S. this will be a non-starter. Most people in the U.S. don't want
lower income people to have access to Universal Healthcare, Universal Basic
Income is a joke concept in the U.S.

~~~
rukittenme
I disagree. Americans are very familiar with the concept of welfare. UBI fits
into that paradigm must better than Universal Healthcare.

Also...

> Most people in the U.S. don't want lower income people to have access to
> Universal Healthcare

This sentence is leaving me speechless. What a terrible interpretation.

------
Divver
How come nobody discusses the countries which already employ universal basic
income for their citizens like Saudi Arabia or the UAE?

I guess because it serves as a counter example to many of the claims of
universal basic income so it’s intentionally left out of such discussions.

But basically Saudi Arabia and the UAE both have some form of universal basic
income for their citizens derived mainly from their massive oil profits.

And the irony is for so much of their labor,

They use so much foreign labor that the percentage of foreign workers is
actually larger than the percentage of citizens (at least in the case of UAE
not sure about Saudi Arabia)

Basically almost all the labor is done by those who aren’t eligible for the
universal basic income (only citizens get the universal basic income)

And their laws essentially make it impossible (or insanely difficult) to
become a citizen

Because once a person becomes a citizen they are eligible for the universal
basic income payouts, so you essentially get people sitting on their ass
getting paychecks.

I mean I don’t see a progressive revolution of art, culture, and modernity
with people “following their dreams” since they are untethered by paychecks

Happening in the UAE or Saudi Arabia which is what people say will happen if
you had universal basic income.

Heck US, India, and Japan has tons of art/music/culture that they export and
none of these three countries have universal basic income....

In fact sometimes I wonder if the massive oil profits played a role in keeping
them so ultraconservative since it allowed them until recently to prevent half
their population from getting an education and roaming/working/driving
freely/indepedently around the country.

If universal basic income was so successful and didn’t kill people’s
willingness to work, I feel like these two countries wouldn’t have to keep
bringing in low wage foreign laborers.

Don’t get me wrong. Universal basic income sounds very cool.

But I’ll be honest if I got enough money to cover my
rent/transportation/healthcare and I didn’t have any loans,

I would immediately quit my high wage tech job

And probably go to Hawaii to teach STEM to entry level college kids to
prevent/reduce the number of college kids who drop out of STEM.

But instead since I have massive college loans to pay off because my parents
didn’t give me a cent for college tuition or housing (they did give me food
money thankfully),

I work in this extremely high wage but sometimes rather mundane “tech job”

So I can pay my college loans, housing, car, food, helping out my elderly
parents, brother’s, etc.

Oh wait shoot I think I basically just said if there was universal basic
income

I would end up following my dreams/passion instead of working a job mainly for
the wage.

Lol whoops killed my own argument against universal basic income.

So I guess universal basic income might actually be cool haha.

But the thing is there’s no way to know how many will just sit on their ass
doing nothing, how many will turn to crime or darker endeavors with all their
new ideal time, and how many will actually use it effectively.

Like how can anyone do a reasonable analysis to predict the outcome of this
system.

Human nature is a mysterious beast.....

I’m sorry I’m just highly skeptical on universal basic income.

It’s so counter to all the existing economic theory I was trained/educated in

That I guess it’s hard for my brain to accept it.

My apologies.

~~~
badestrand
Interesting points about SA and UAE. My take would be that Basic Income
requires a certain level of society. Just like democracy, which requires
people to be informed and free of the worries of basic needs.

>> But the thing is there’s no way to know how many will just sit on their ass
doing nothing

I absolutely agree but don't see it as an argument against BI. We can just
approach it slowly.

~~~
zo1
"Just like democracy, which requires people to be informed and free of the
worries of basic needs."

The world is filled with people that are uninformed (or would disagree with
your definition of "informed", even). I don't think you'd be able to find
_any_ large group of people that would make this work to a sufficient degree
if we go off your premise about them being "informed".

------
alexasmyths
"For example, property consumption and different steering taxes aimed at
changing people’s behaviour, are possible new avenues of income."

I like the overall sentiment, but these statements are ominous to anyone with
a even a casual grasp of the history of the 20th century political
developments around the world.

------
SubiculumCode
As PR,basic income proposals may fare better if branded as the "national
inheritance".

~~~
neon_electro
What about "social security for all"?

~~~
SubiculumCode
I understand the impulse. What I like about the others are that they suggest
that the payment is not charity or a hand out but a fairly earned profit from
owning a piece of the American experiment.

------
unlmtd1
The state does not defend us; rather, the state aggresses against us and it
uses our confiscated property to defend itself. The standard definition of the
state is this: The state is an agency characterized by two unique, logically
connected features. First, the state is an agency that exercises a territorial
monopoly of ultimate decision making. That is, the state is the ultimate
arbiter and judge in every case of conflict, including conflicts involving
itself and its agents. There is no appeal above and beyond the state. Second,
the state is an agency that exercises a territorial monopoly of taxation. That
is, it is an agency that can unilaterally fix the price that its subjects must
pay for the state's service as ultimate judge.

Based on this institutional setup you can safely predict the consequences:
First, instead of preventing and resolving conflict, a monopolist of ultimate
decision making will cause and provoke conflict in order to settle it to its
own advantage. That is, the state does not recognize and protect existing law,
but it perverts law through legislation. Contradiction number one: the state
is a lawbreaking law protector. Second, instead of defending and protecting
anyone or anything, a monopolist of taxation will invariably strive to
maximize his expenditureson protection and at the same time minimize the
actual production of protection. The more money the state can spend and the
less it must work for this money, the better off it is. Contradiction number
two: the state is an expropriating property protector

~ HH Hoppe

