
Why Should We Support the Idea of an Unconditional Basic Income? - edward
https://medium.com/working-life/why-should-we-support-the-idea-of-an-unconditional-basic-income-8a2680c73dd3
======
SwellJoe
If you'd told me ten years ago I would ever support a basic income, I would
have laughed. My thought would have been, "People getting paid without doing
anything? Absurd!" But, in the past few years I've thoroughly changed my mind
on this, and a number of other fronts. I now fully support a basic income
(though I think a debate needs to happen about _how much_ that basic income
ought to be and how it ought to be funded, I'm well past the point where I
think we should be discussing _whether_ it ought to happen).

Partly this has been because I did some traveling (a lot of traveling;
fulltime for four years, in a motorhome). I spent a lot of time in places that
aren't Silicon Valley or other thriving metropolis. Detroit, Slab City, New
Orleans, a variety of rural places. There are people who have been completely
pushed out of the legitimate economy or merely scrape by at the very bottom,
for a variety of reasons. And, it's not a small number of people. It is huge
swaths of the population (as much as 39%, based on the poverty line, but more
or less, depending on how you define it). That's not sustainable, ethical, or
efficient.

The CEO to worker pay gap has also contributed to my changing view on this.
When a full-time (or part-time who holds another job) Walmart worker doesn't
earn enough to rent a tiny apartment and pay for basic expenses, while the CEO
makes orders of magnitude more, it becomes apparent there needs to be other
ways to push the income down. If corporations won't behave ethically by
choice, there needs to be outside pressure. Increasing efficiency and
increasing revenue has not resulted in improved quality of life for workers;
and that is mostly reflected across the board. It is not merely egregious
examples like Walmart. Even many "good" companies have horrible pay gaps and
little loyalty to their employees (while expecting loyalty and dedication in
return).

And, that doesn't really even begin to address the changing nature of work.
Many skilled work roles, those jobs that the American middle class was built
on, have disappeared from the US economy in my lifetime, and this hasn't been
reflected in a subsequent increase in pay or benefits for lower-skilled labor
jobs that replaced them (and some of those jobs were not replaced...they just
don't exist anymore). All while real estate prices and rents have gone through
the roof. So, again, large swaths of the population, the kind of people who
could have been middle class home owners in previous generations with
reasonable retirement savings, are now renters who live paycheck to paycheck,
or worse, live on credit. There's certainly room to talk about why the real
estate market is as lopsided as it is. And, there may be room to talk about
increasing skills in people who currently work low-skill jobs (though,
evidence indicates there are many categories of job that are simply not going
to exist in the future). Again, it's not sustainable, ethical, or efficient to
have so many people living in poverty.

Finally, we already spend a couple trillion dollars on welfare programs. The
increased cost for extending that type of benefit to _everyone_ , while
removing the bureaucracy of maintaining the existing programs (eligibility
compliance and case workers, etc.), is actually not as dramatic as it first
seems.

~~~
ekianjo
> The increased cost for extending that type of benefit to everyone, while
> removing the bureaucracy of maintaining the existing programs (eligibility
> compliance and case workers, etc.), is actually not as dramatic as it first
> seems.

You are missing one part, though. If you start giving cash for everyone, it's
very likely this will result in raising prices for all commodities. And there
you go for a another downward spiral, where you have to readjust the basic
income every couple of years to make up for the inflated prices.

Ever heard of minimum wage? Yeah, that one did not work as expected either
(and created massive unemployment when the threshold was set too high as
well).

~~~
SwellJoe
_" Ever heard of minimum wage? Yeah, that one did not work as expected either
(and created massive unemployment when the threshold was set too high as
well)."_

Citation needed. Your assertions do not match my understanding of the facts
about the result of the minimum wage. (Though I would have agreed with you ten
years ago, a better understanding of it has altered my opinion significantly.)

~~~
MCRed
When you raise the minimum wage, you don't change any of the other aspects of
the business affected by it. So, say you have 15 employees making $10 an hour
to keep your company afloat. (Just to keep things simple ,this is about the
logic of it.) Now the minimum wage goes up to $15. What are you going to do?
You would be losing money with a %50 increase in your costs. Most likely what
you will do is lay off 5 employees (The weakest 5) and keep the remaining 10--
but now they have to do the work of 15. Remember the alternative is closing
the business and they all lose their jobs. Plus if some don't like the
workload there are many people who just got laid off (you laid off 5) who
would happily take their jobs.

When you set a minimum wage- or engage in any kind of price fixing- you
distort the market and historically that has always hurt the poorest people
the most.

Looked at another way, minimum wage is the wage below which you will be
unemployed rather than allowed to work.

A minimum wage is a penalty that keeps workers unemployed if they don't have
sufficient marketable skills to overcome it.

Imagine if the minimum wage was $100 an hour. How many of us would be
unemployed?

People seem to imagine that there's just a lot of money out there and the only
reason that anyone might not have enough is that people are being greedy. This
is zero sum theory, and it is not true in economics. It's nice to imagine that
you're "foreign the rich people to give up the money they are hoarding"... but
you're hitting businesses that are on the margins. What's the average margin
for a business? IT's not the %50 that intel enjoys-- a grocery store maybe
makes %3.

What do you think a business that is clearing %3 net is going to do when you
increase labor costs by %50? (in this example.)

Edit: You can disagree with my position, or even find an error in my argument,
but I'm tired of spending time explaining things and giving examples like this
only to be downvoted for ideological reasons... constantly. Is a circle jerk
what you really want HN to be? I don't think any rational person can say that
my comment wasn't a quality explanation for the position.

~~~
chrisbennet
I don't disagree with your argument.

On the other hand... Currently, employers that pay a less than living wage are
subsidized in effect - the government (tax payers) makes up the difference in
the form of food stamps, healthcare, etc. Is it right that businesses should
get subsidized labor?

~~~
philwelch
It's actually the other way around. These employers are basically subsidizing
the social services. If the best job Jimmy can get pays minimum wage, then
logically, if Jimmy couldn't even get that job, he wouldn't earn a living
wage; he'd earn nothing. If Jimmy had the opportunity to earn a living wage,
after all, he would go get the job that pays that living wage and quit Wal-
Mart. But, since Wal-Mart is the best job Jimmy can get, the net effect of
Jimmy earning minimum wage at Wal-Mart is that he costs the state less money
in social services than he would with no job at all. Wal-Mart, therefore, is
the one subsidizing the state and not the other way around.

~~~
hwstar
I respectfully disagree with this line of thinking. The goal of a society is
to eliminate as many people from needing government benefits as possible, and
to ensure that only those who are truly unemployable receive government
benefits. Employers must pay a wage which ensures that basic needs are met.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
That's palpably not true. We all get roads, police, fire, regulated utilities.
Absolutely nobody is trying to wean us from those.

It takes a change in thinking to accept the basic income. I'm afraid a
generation will have to grow old and die before it gains traction, because of
the ingrained thinking that 'full employment' is a good or useful societal
goal.

~~~
MCRed
You mean the generation that remembers what the USSR was like? I'm not being
flippant, I'm being serious. The entire leftist political agenda, including
Basic Income is basic marxism and the arguments for it are the same ones we
had in over a century ago.

We've had a century of experimentation with it, from Fascism in germany ("to
protect our farmers") to communism in Russia to socialism in the UK to all
manner of variations in South America.

It hasn't worked.

Why is it leftists who are always going on as if they're the only ones who
care about the poor, refuse to learn the lessons of history and economics?

History isn't a science, but economics is, and the reasons these things will
fail are always pointed out-- as they were in this comment section-- and
always ignored (as they were downvoted here on HN).

As a result more and more damage is done.

And when you see the damage the next generation of 20 year old leftists calls
for socialism to fix the damage of socialism!

So yeah, when you're over 40 and you've been around the merry go round once
you see what's going on.

OH, and by the way, one thing was constant- in all of these situations the
people at the top profited. The politburo made out, and so that's why they
support it.

It's how they exploit the poor.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
We can paint it with the socialism brush, and write it off. Or we can
recognize that today is a very different economic situation from, well, pretty
much any time in history. We've got automation, and technology, and a
burgeoning unemployed and unemployable population of non-technologists. We can
try to prop up the quaint systems of the past (full employment, work or
starve). Or we can change our system to one that is kinder, economical, and
raises the standard of living for everybody.

As I said, I believe folks will have to grow old and die. Until then, we'll
hear only FUD stories and scare tactics.

------
kalvin
I think if you could see close-up how these systems work now, you'd be
convinced that it's completely not worth the vast cost (in time, energy,
money) to try and figure out who "deserves" each of the many, many special
benefits/allowances/exemptions available (plus it's incredibly difficult for
potential recipients to figure out what they're eligible for, plus it imposes
those costs on the people who aren't eligible, but end up having to jump
through all the same hoops.)

Based on my experience in the last year working on healthcare.gov etc., I
think it's become increasingly clear that the implementation of well-meaning
policies intended to separate the deserving from the undeserving ends up
adding an incredible amount of complexity and overhead, along with
unintentional side effects, edge cases, and bad incentives.

That said, there's no way politically a basic income is going to fly in the US
anytime soon. So since this is HN... is there any way to get to an MVP without
having a sovereign state to experiment with? Or is this solely in the realm of
public policy?

(I asked this a while back on another BI thread, trying again)

~~~
IanCal
In addition, every rule to catch the "undeserving" will catch some people who
really do need the help and who you were trying to help in the first place.

> So since this is HN... is there any way to get to an MVP without having a
> sovereign state to experiment with? Or is this solely in the realm of public
> policy?

Possibly a daft idea, but what if a company paid by the hour worked (or some
other measure of work produced), but had a minimum that was always paid even
if you didn't work.

Rules:

1\. Nobody gets fired for not working.

2\. You can get fired if you attack / something else normally fireable not
related to your work itself.

3\. No other jobs on the side? Less sure about that one. Could be interesting
to support people trying something new but with the ability to do work on the
side for you or come back. Paradoxically, I think that knowing you can leave
but come back reduces the chance you'll leave forever. Quite a few careers
allow sabbaticals of a year for this reason.

Sort of similar to:

1\. Everyone gets BI

2\. You don't get it if you're in prison

3\. You can't go and live in another country and still receive it

------
Kiro
Have the economic consequences been studied on a deeper level? There are so
many complex correlations in economics that I'm afraid Basic Income can lead
to some kind of disaster that's not so obvious at a first glance. How does it
affect the national export/import, monetary value, growth, tax income, GDP,
housing market, demand/supply on jobs/goods in different sectors etc etc?

This article touches those things, which is refreshing compared to most things
written about BI, but I would still like to see a real study.

~~~
jberryman
Not trying to be glib, but you can probably find lots of papers over the past
few decades that try to tackle those questions

[https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=basic+income&btnG...](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=basic+income&btnG=)

------
lloydsparkes
I'm generally a fan of this idea, as long as its implemented correctly.

At the moment lots of western countries, spend billions on welfare
entitlement, and billions more administering a complex system, so that
politicans can change particular benefits to win votes from certian groups of
voters.

Under this system, all benefits are replaced with a single, universal level,
so politicans can give rises either to everyone, or no one. (The only
additional benefits should be for those with serve disabilities).

You also lose the withdrawal issues of going from out of work, to in work, you
can get rid of things like minimum wages, as their not needed any more, and
you can support a more flexible labour market.

Politicans cannot fight over, how particular benefits can change, say increase
pensions, but cut unemployment.

If you also merge this into the tax system, with a flat tax as a negative
income tax, it is even more efficient.

And eventually you also get what alot of people on the right want - a smaller,
more efficient goverment, while doing what alot of people on the left want.

------
cm2187
I always found the idea interesting, at the condition that we suppress all
other forms of benefits. It is a simple and elegant way to solve the welfare
trap and it also would be easier and cheaper to manage than the layers of
benefits from various gvt agencies.

To me there are only two real risks. First the idea that this will lead more
people to stop working instead of less, which would be counterproductive. And
I find it worrying that the counter-argument is "people are working too hard
anyway". It is impossible to guess what would happen but as all former
communist countries know, it is not fun to have grand economic ideas
experimented on a live population.

The second risk is that this could work in a closed society like Japan. But
most western countries have mass immigration and such a system wouldn't
survive very long the abuse it would inevitably trigger in an open society.

~~~
vlasev
The idea of Basic Income goes hand in hand with the process of automation.
There are millions of jobs that will go away due to automation. The counter-
argument to "will basic income lead more people to stop working" is not
"people are working too hard anyway" but rather "most people won't have a
job...coming soon". What are all those people going to do once this happens?
Find another job? Yeah right. Here [1] is an article discussing this very
problem.

Also, I don't think the second risk you mention is really applicable. What's
to stop a nation implementing BI from capping the number of immigrants it
admits? Or am I misunderstanding you.

[1]: [https://medium.com/basic-income/should-we-be-afraid-very-
afr...](https://medium.com/basic-income/should-we-be-afraid-very-
afraid-4f7013a5137c)

~~~
moonchrome
One problem of minimum income is that it will make it very expensive to find
people willing to do "dirty" work. Unless you think robots will take care of
nursing (which is grueling and dirty when dealing with disabled people and it
doesn't pay well), farm work (they already have trouble finding workers),
cleaning, etc.

Automation isn't nowhere near to eliminating those and I'm guessing it would
increase labor costs very disproportionately - diminishing marginal utility of
income and all that. This would then make related products/services more
expensive and further lower your global competitiveness.

This can be mitigated by immigration (ie. not granting minimum income to
immigrants) but that has a bunch of issues on it's own.

~~~
pg314
Maybe the "dirty" work should be better paid. It is convenient to have a large
supply of workers that have to take any work to survive, so the "dirty" work
gets done cheaply, but that doesn't make it right.

~~~
moonchrome
It depends on how you look at it I guess - a large supply of low skilled
workers is what allows you to have access to many things you take for granted
and removing that means that a lot of products and services aren't going to be
accessible to general population.

Overall it would lower the standard of living for anyone not at the bottom of
income bracket and not change much for the top.

------
bayesianhorse
One reason why I am currently not so much in favor of UBI is immigration. I
have three uncommon beliefs about immigration:

First, I don't believe the idea of human rights allows a state to tell people
where they are allowed or forbidden to live.

Secondly, I don't believe immigration controls are ultimately feasible. In the
US this is obvious in the big population of illegal immigrants, other
countries are also discovering that they can't really stop people from
entering and that hunting down and deporting hundreds of thousands of people
is harder than it looks.

Thirdly, I don't believe a society can save money by withholding social
welfare to someone who lives among them. The cost in health care, crime, and
lost potential may very well outpace the savings.

I also believe a UBI would force countries to try and tighten their
immigration controls. The problem is not so much that the immigrants wouldn't
ultimately benefit that society, but the upfront payments and increased
financial risks are just scary as hell.

~~~
oskarth
I agree on 1 and 2, but don't see how 3 follows. If you live as an "illegal
immigrant" you are playing life on a higher difficulty level already. UBI
wouldn't apply to non-citizens.

Of course you might argue that it very well _should_ , but that to me is a
different argument that comes at a way later stage.

EDIT: I believe this argument is confusing how the world _should_ be with how
the world can _feasibly_ be at this point in time. Baby-steps :)

~~~
bayesianhorse
The biggest problem with paying welfare to immigrants is that it has to be
paid upfront, long before there is a profit or cost reduction compared to not
paying it.

The problems with not paying are manifold: They are an underclass, without
most rights and very poor. A proper healthcare system can't refuse them
treatments, for all sorts of reasons, and poverty and lack of rights just
increase health care costs. Then there is the lost potential: Those people do
have children, often naturalized, or not, living in the country, but not
getting the care, food and education they need, which also means they don't
fulfill their potential benefits to society.

I think refusing children basic welfare is about the stupidest thing a society
can do. Both for financial and for humanistic reasons. It is completely
irrelevant whose children they are.

------
jakozaur
One of the better article on subject. It's affordable, though it implies new
huge tax. Like tax on land.

Though not sure if people would support that, once they saw the bill for their
land. Changing status quo is hard.

Though I would suggest that universal free healthcare is some form of basic
income. Maybe let's do it first?

Another less hardcore version is to expand
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earned_income_tax_credit](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earned_income_tax_credit)

E.g. Tax rate is negative on initial amount. E.g. You earn $2k and get
additional $200 tax refund.

~~~
sampo
> _it implies new huge tax_

There are countries (especially Northern Europe) that already spend a large
amount of money for unemployment and social benefits. In those countries the
basic income could be implemented in a cost-neutral manner, just refactoring
how the the sum of money equal to the present benefits, is allotted.

~~~
jakozaur
Yes, but in USA it wouldn't be possible.

E.g. Total welfare spending in 2015 is $454.3 bln / 318 mln population ~= 1428
$/person/year. That's equivalent of basic income 119 $/month. Want to get to
1000 $/month? Need to increase welfare spending 10 fold.

[http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/us_welfare_spending_40.h...](http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/us_welfare_spending_40.html)

People who get larger number use also pension or health care money. Though I
don't think it is a good idea or other people would support that.

~~~
sampo
Wow your math sucks.

First let's take only adults, so it's 230 million, not 318 million population.

And then, let's say for people who earn more than $30 000, or something like
that, per year, we increase their taxes the amount equivalent to what basic
income would increase their earnings. Now, I am unsure how to estimate the
size of this population, because for some reason I easily find only US
household income distributions, not distributions per people. But let's guess
this removes 60% of the adult population.

So we are left with something like 90 million.

And now we do your calculation: $454.3 bln / 318 = $5000/person/year, or
$420/month.

Want to get close to 1000 $/month? Need to increase welfare spending 2-fold

~~~
DanBC
You didn't need the insult.

------
205guy
I like the idea of a basic income on principle, and this article has some
great arguments for it. (Though I agree it is far from being paid for--and a
land tax essentially means it only gets paid to the landless, so you'd need to
exempt "reasonable" owner-occupied land).

But let's simulate how it would look in the real world. I think mindless
consumerism would go way up, especially in the lower classes. Advertising in
all media would simply encourage this. The well-off would buy stock in Walmart
and low end electronics makers with their extra income, thus capturing the
income of the less savvy. Without local manufacturing, much of the distributed
income would go to China. Paternalism and its religious affiliates would rise
up again to capture the income of the not-yet-emancipated (by that I mean
women and children). With perceived abundance and linear income, the birth
rate would rise.

So I think we need to solve some of these issues first. Education should be
the beneficiary for the first trillion in new taxes. Hopefully that could
mitigate the consumerism and prompt more entrepreneurialism, as well as reduce
the paternalism and birth rate. As mentioned, doing universal health care
right would amount to the same thing as a universal income as well (more
security, less worry, more productivity). So I wonder if those two aren't
bigger priorities.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
In the UK the government has recently being trying to increase the birthrate
by giving more money to those who have kids, so its interesting to see you
suggest this would be a problem with BI.

I assume this is a general problem with advanced economies as I read an
article recently that said kids in school were being given better info on how
to get pregnant in some countries, in another attempt to lift the birth rate.

~~~
vixen99
This is simply wrong & it is not government policy moreover UK is the most
densely populated country in Europe after Malta. There is a benefit payment
given in respect of all children under 16 who have parents earning less than
around 60K pounds pa.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
The UK may be densely populated, but if it doesn't produce enough children
then its demographics will be top heavy and there won't be enough people of
working age to support those in retirement. We're currently below the
replacement rate.

If you pay people to do something, that is generally considered by economists
to incentivize that behaviour, so how is giving thousands of pounds to
families not a government policy to encourage people to have kids?

They did recently limit the payments to people earning more than 60,000 pounds
a year, but the average wage is less than half of that.

------
wiz21
I was shocked by the "magic of markets" analysis. When there's no more bread,
people make more bread ? Nope, bread becomes more expensive. Especially with
automation : it's harder for new baker to start in the market, so those in the
market get more powerful. That's concentration.

Basic income will make less poor but more slaves. Slaves that will be
dependent on those (I assume it's the state) who define the exact amount of
that uncondional income. Since a huge part of the population will be out of
the "producer", thus the producer will have more power.

What must be done instead is to make sure power doesn't get concentrated. But
this means less efficiency : one big optimised company is surely more
efficient that ten smaller ones. With less power, the workforce can still
negociate, the workforce can still share the remaining work, those who have no
job still have a chance to get one if they want/need to. With basic income,
there's no need to do that anymore...

So I don't like that basic income.

For example, there's a lot of unemployment in my country. People gets some
allowance to live. The problem is that the lack of work is not acknowledged =>
those people are stigmatized. Anyway, they do get an allowance, kind of your
basic income. The problem is that because of the unemployment, the employer
are in a very strong position to pay people less (since many do want/need a
job). So work valuation diminishes...

Competition is the problem, if companies would compete less, then basic income
could work. There would be more space for choice : do I work or not ? can I
share my work ?

Basic income means : let's detach ourselves from the consequences of
competition.

~~~
pvaldes
Basic income can also mean other things. Some people just are so unique that
don't need to compete.

Some examples of unemployed people that did not have an income other that the
support of his family, friends or government in a part of (or all) his life:

Vincent Van Gogh, too clumsy to farm

John Steinbeck, housed by his father that provides also paper and material

Harper Lee, sabbatical payed by friends

J.K. Rowling, writing whereas on welfare.

... and many others

Take in mind that you don't have just competition, there is also
collaboration, and teaming, and life-changers. Some people just born in
poverty. This would not be his choice if they could. Some born in a poor rural
environment somewhere in Misissipi, other in a manger in the middle of
nowhere. Some of those people are between the most influent people in the
history of the humanity.

People seem to worry about that basic income could lead to a lot of people
scratching his bellies all day (and this is true) but don't always notice that
this will also reveal a hidden minory of fine gem crafters in art, music,
literature or poetry that are just roting now and could be free to create huge
economic values instead.

------
momavujisic
The appeal to UBI for me has always, apart from being a good way to stop
welfare traps and increase income equality now, is that it marks the beginning
of the new phase in our economic system: one from a cash-work model to a
material-existence model. I do subscribe to the total job automation theory
being every so increasingly talked about, and what these proposals tell me is
that government and to a larger extent society is beginning to see that we can
indeed provide for everyone using our productivity gains. The cash part of the
deal I think is just a carry-on from our ageing economic system that will be
replaced by some other form of value transfer mechanism which honestly, I
can't imagine what would look like.

------
lucaspiller
One thing I've always wondered about the basic income is wont it just mean
prices go up because people are greedy? Take the article about trailer parks
that was on here a week ago: The business owners said that they had to be
careful when raising prices to make sure tenants can still afford it. If their
tenants suddenly get an extra $1000/month, what's to stop them putting the
rent up by $1000/month?

~~~
learc83
The reason trailer park owners can keep raising prices is because cities won't
allow new trailer parks to be built. This artificially restricts demand. Local
governments artificially restricting the supply of affordable housing isn't
necessarily going to be fixed by a basic income.

However, if people have an extra $1000 a month, many of them can afford other
types of housing. Increased demand for this newly affordable housing will
drive up the price, and developers will move in to build more housing. The
increase in supply would then drive down prices until they reach an
equilibrium.

------
4ydx
Sadly I think that UBI supporters tend to the false impression that everybody
would be:

1) Frugal. 2) Responsible.

I just don't have that much faith in (roughly) half the population. What
happens when people have too many kids and are still too impoverished? Is
there going to be a "reasonable limit" to the number of kids you can have?
Women could have as many as 20 kids or more. Is that really going to work?
What happens when they are drug addicts (or worse free-to-play video games
addicts) who cannot control their spending?

For me personally I love the idea of UBI, but I just don't think that it can
work on a practical level. The examples that explain how to generate the
required money to pay for it don't seem very feasible to me. You cannot add
VAT. That is borderline "perpetual motion machine" logic right there. At the
most basic level you will just have to tax the wealthy more one way or
another. That is it. The only option. The question is: are they ok with that?

~~~
dopkew
UBI will likely encourage unsustainable population growth. So, population
growth dis-incentives need to be part of the package.

------
graycat
Because with more automation, if we don't, then the population will shrink, in
principle to zero.

------
Qantourisc
The only risk in my opinion is if to little people still pick up a job to
satisfy the need for all. Also the basic income should need to be basic, so
there is some insensitive to work (at least a little). Can be adjusted of
course to compensate. IMPORTANT: legal and medical support has to be free for
this to not cause epic issues. (And maybe some others I forgot.)

------
DanielBMarkham
I am interested in this idea. As I understand it, it's a long-held idea with
some support from the center, left, and right.

Having said that, last week I read through an analysis piece -- 6-8 page pdf
-- that I found on a financial site. I found out some interesting things that
supporters don't emphasize.

The problem, as I understand it, is that UBI is fine in theory and as a high-
level idea. Once you start actually thinking about applying it? The words
could mean dang near anything. Is it across the board? Are there exceptions?
Would you use a reverse income tax, direct payments, or other mechanism to
deliver it? What sorts of incentives does it provide to the working poor? If
you really wanted to eventually replace hourly occupation, wouldn't it make
more sense to begin providing it to those who have worked their entire lives?
Begin direct payments to retirees and then slowly decrease the retirement age
as the years pass?

Those are just questions I made up after reading the article. Apologies if I
botched it. But I was impressed with the fact that there is a ginormous gap
between the _slogan_ of UBI and whatever it actually might end up becoming. A
big enough gap that politicians could say they support it and actually give
you pretty much anything. There's also not a huge amount of real-world data
here.

So my position is "cautiously optimistic". Let's do some limited experiments
with this to see how the real-world politics play out and what the difference
between the PR package and the actual deliverable is. In the U.S., the states
have traditionally been the "laboratories of democracy", but if folks don't
like that, there has to be other ways to do a bunch of limited trials.

What I am not in support of is some huge national movement built around a
slogan where I'm forced to make a yes-no decision for the rest of the
citizenry. Here's hoping it doesn't play out like that.

------
jbb555
Give me $1000 a month and I'd be able to retire. I wouldn't be rich but with
savings and so on I'd be able to manage. So it would cost perhaps $30000 more
than that in lost income taxes too as well as lost productivity. I imagine
very many people would do this.

The whole whole idea is stupid.

~~~
noonespecial
I would too. I'd do so immediately. And what would I do with all that leisure
time? I'd teach the local children robotics with Arduinos and RasPis, just
like I do now with every scrap of my meager free-time only then I'd get to do
it every day.

Imagine how impoverished the world would become if thousands like me took to a
life of such mooching!

------
orlandob
At some point, intelligent members of society (read: YOU PEOPLE) will realize
that there is no such thing as zero-sum fiat monetary system. You don't need
to tax someone for the government to create a new spending program. There is
no scarcity in USD (its fiat money, there's infinite supply). When there are
economic resources untapped, the ~50% unemployed & underemployed, the
Government MUST step in and provide stimulus. The multiplier on the economy
has been well studied and would benefit society greatly.

IN FIAT MONEY SYSTEMS (USD, CAD, JPY, AUD, CHF, etc.) FEDERAL DEBT IS PUBLIC
INCOME. FEDERAL SURPLUS IS PUBLIC DEBT.

------
jboggan
"And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all."

~~~
Meekro
In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,

By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;

But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,

And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don't work you die."

------
cnsbwkf9385
The question is whether the money comes out of existing spending or is in
addition to it. There's no reason that it couldn't be entirely sourced from
existing spending (~36%+ of GDP in US, $6.2T).

------
jmnicolas
In principle I like the idea, but :

\- the System (corporations / politicians) will never allow it

\- we're on a planet with limited resources and all economic theories fail to
acknowledge that

~~~
zxyzzxxx
The planet offers basically unlimited resources. Assuming the population stops
growing, as it is predicted, and settles at some reasonable number, then only
limit is the expiration date of the sun.

~~~
jmnicolas
I read somewhere that the max number of sustainable human pop on earth is
around one billion ...

And unlimited resources, you have to be ready to wait about 500 millions years
to get oil to renew !

------
scrrr
Oh well, looking at history and drawing parallels from the 19th century, we
will probably get something like a basic income, or perhaps a massive police
state. Either way, something will have to change. At least assuming that
satisfaction with current administration and economy is not going to increase.

It is good that we start to discuss such ideas.

------
pratyushag
If you like the idea of giving such an income (or cash transfer) to people but
the idea of an unconditional basic income seems too far away, you can
contribute to newincentives.org which is providing cash transfers to poor
pregnant HIV mothers. Achieves two goals: reduces HIV and puts money in very
needy hands.

------
oskarth
This video is a must-see for people interested in UBI - Milton Friedman, in
1968, on a negative income tax:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtpgkX588nM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtpgkX588nM)

------
Atropos
Would the basic income only apply to high income countries or worldwide?
Because I feel that it would be extremely unfair and maybe even unethical to
give every US citizen a basic income for life, while people elsewhere die from
hunger.

------
alkonaut
There are basically just two important sides to this: In an expansive welfare
state (say a Nordic country) there are large transfers tax money between
people. Some of these transfers are unconditional, for example every child
(parent) is given around $150/month, regardless of family income. These
transfers are pretty expensive. The reasoning behind giving it to every child
is that it is supposed to be directed to the child, and there shouldn't be any
stigma associated with it. You could argue that if this money was directed
only to parents below a certain income , the same amount of money could do a
lot more good

This is the core of this issue: unconditional basic income is a very expensive
kind of transfer. Even the vast bureaucracy required to ensure money goes to
those who need it in a regular welfare state is a lot less expensive than a
basic income reform.

~~~
timClicks
I thought it was actually relatively cheap intervention as there is only a
minor admin overhead. Do you have links to more detailed analysis? Am
interested in learning more.

------
known
Unlike Capitalism, Globalization is Zero-sum WITHOUT
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income)

------
Singletoned
My worry about this would be that in order to prevent mass fraud of the
system, we would have to have a national ID card system, which is something
I've always instinctively opposed.

------
cturner
"In Russia, they thought everyone should have bread. That was a decision made
by those in power, and they then tried to make that happen, whether everyone
wanted bread or not. This did not work so well, and there were shortages."

So they produced bread, but then there were shortages? This doesn't make
sense.

There is something that we could call "The Central-Planner's Dilemma".

People need shoes. Hence, there are people who will be looking to get into the
business of supplying shoes. If you find a way to get shoes, and then sell
them for more than it cost you, you can buy nice things and that impresses the
ladies. You get entire firms dedicated to small problems like shoes for kids,
business shoes, variations that suit people with wide feet. Market economies
are like the mold on your bathroom ceiling - they just happen.

In Russia, the government went to great lengths to stifle that dynamic. They
said: all people will need shoes, so the government will supply shoes to meet
their need. Everyone will work together to give the government all the
resources to do this. If you try divert resources from our project by getting
into the shoe business, we'll shoot you.

So it's a new game. Now if you want to get the ladies, you need to become the
resource allocation guy.

But let's assume that you are the planner, and that your motives are pure.
You're a really good guy, and you do this for the sheer love of people having
shoes. Here's the Dilemma: how do you convert the need of the people to the
reality of the goods you're getting to them. This is crazy difficult.

To start with, how do you get signal about what the people need? This is hard.
You could have a shot at it, by judging birth rates in regions, and getting
height variation. You could send out teams to measure foot dimensions and then
run statistical variance on sizes.

Then you'd needs to communicate that intent to the factories. And then the
factories need to execute at producing the things that they should be
producing. And then you need to somehow get the goods from the different
factories through to the correct regions.

You're doing all this through a fog of politics, because jobs in resource-
allocation are the only game in town, and everyone wants a piece of it.

The Alan Greenspan biography includes a neat section where he got to meet
/the/ Russian central planner after the thaw. As in - the guy who sits in the
room and decides how many shoes to produce. He describes a complicated
mechanisms he set up to plan things. It's a good read.

~~~
conanbatt
I agree that the Russia bread story makes no sense. There's actually not
enough bread in either Capitalist America either, since people also starve.

------
zxyzzxxx
I think the incentive to keep the income would greatly reduce minor crimes.
Just imagine what positive effect would that have on the society

------
known
Tax Corporate Revenues, Not Profits;

------
AreaGuy
$12k per year x 320M people = $3.84 trillion, which is 22.9% of annual GDP.

That's a pretty steep price tag for a thousand dollars a month.

~~~
vlasev
Please take a look at the FAQ[1] on reddit and perhaps at this article[2]
about calculating whether USA can afford BI.

[1]:
[http://en.reddit.com/r/basicincome/wiki/index](http://en.reddit.com/r/basicincome/wiki/index)

[2]: [http://www.economonitor.com/dolanecon/2014/01/13/could-we-
af...](http://www.economonitor.com/dolanecon/2014/01/13/could-we-afford-a-
universal-basic-income/)

------
barbs
(2014) ?

------
dcw303
If there's $2.98 trillion per year to spend, put it into space travel. We
should be colonizing other worlds. With more resources available, there's more
work available. More work means more demand for jobs - and life is infinitely
better when you are being paid for the value you provide to society than what
is really quasi-welfare.

