
Swiss to vote on 2,500 franc basic income for every adult - selmnoo
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/04/us-swiss-pay-idUSBRE9930O620131004
======
tikhonj
A Swiss franc is currently worth a little bit more than a dollar, so this
works out to $2800/month or $33600/year. By US standards, this actually seems
to be a good salary: significantly better than working full time at minimum
wage.

It would cover all my current expenses handily. Of course, I'm young and
single but by no means frugal. (I find that the little costs involved in
worrying about my expenses easily outweigh the money saved.) So this is quite
an income.

One of the main questions about something like this is about who would do
boring, low-paid work with this sort of basic income. What I would really hope
is that people would still do many of those jobs, but for far fewer hours--
largely as a way to get money for incidental expenses and luxuries beyond the
basic income. One problem I find with most jobs is that it's much easier to
get more pay than less hours, even if I really want the latter. There is a
large drop-off between full-time and part-time work.[1]

Beyond a certain level, I would value having more free time far more than
making more money. Unfortunately, mostly for social reasons, it's hard to
express this preference. A basic income could make this much easier to do.

While I suspect this might not pass, I think it would be very valuable for the
entire world. One of the unfortunate realities in politics is that it is
really hard to run experiments; small countries like Switzerland can act as a
test subject for the entire world. Or perhaps like a tech early adopter for
modern policies.

Either way, this passing would be very interesting.

[1]: For me, this is not quite as simple. In reality, there are plenty of jobs
where I would be _happy_ to work relatively long hours. But this stops being a
question of pay, or even "work": after all, I'm happy to spend hours and hours
programming _for free_. Being paid to do something I really like is wonderful,
but it really changes the dynamics in ways that probably do not apply to most
people.

~~~
jre
Just to put things in perspective (I'm swiss), 2500CHF is a really low salary
in Switzerland. There is another initiative asking for a minimum wage of
4000CHF per month. The median swiss salary is close to 6000CHF[1]. The
administration says the poverty line is around 2200CHF per month for someone
living alone [2].

You can't really just convert to $ and say it's a lot of money. A lot of basic
stuff like food, transportation, housing are really expensive in Switzerland.

[1] [http://archives.tdg.ch/actu/suisse/suisses-gagnent-
moyenne-5...](http://archives.tdg.ch/actu/suisse/suisses-gagnent-
moyenne-5979-francs-mois-2011-11-28)

[2]
[http://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/portal/fr/index/themen/20/03/bla...](http://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/portal/fr/index/themen/20/03/blank/key/07/01.html)

~~~
swissass
Live near the border with France. Buy everything there in EUR.

Border is nonexistent for all practical purposes so this is very doable.

~~~
eli
Don't you still have to go through customs and maybe pay duties since
Switzerland is non-EU?

~~~
arjunnarayan
No, it's Schengen area, so no border checks. You drive across just as you
would from Massachusetts to Vermont.

~~~
Thrymr
My understanding is that that is true for immigration, but not for customs.
There are still limits on the amounts that can be imported into Switzerland,
even from the EU, without duties [1]. Some products are more restricted, e.g.
a limit of 0.5 kg of meat per person per day [2]. Anecdotally, this is rarely
enforced, except during summer barbecue season, and customs officials have the
authority to stop vehicles within 10 km of the border.

[1]
[http://www.ezv.admin.ch/zollinfo_privat/04342/04343/04344/04...](http://www.ezv.admin.ch/zollinfo_privat/04342/04343/04344/04571/index.html?lang=en)

[2]
[http://www.ezv.admin.ch/zollinfo_privat/04342/04343/04349/04...](http://www.ezv.admin.ch/zollinfo_privat/04342/04343/04349/04850/index.html?lang=en&download=NHzLpZeg7t,lnp6I0NTU042l2Z6ln1ad1IZn4Z2qZpnO2Yuq2Z6gpJCDfH5_fWym162epYbg2c_JjKbNoKSn6A--)

~~~
tsotha
Without border checkpoints official limits are sort of irrelevant, assuming
you don't try to resell what you bought.

~~~
Thrymr
There are checkpoints, they are (usually) manned and funnel traffic through
single lanes, it's just that they rarely actually stop people.

~~~
mobiplayer
That's how they work. I was stopped at one of those between France and
Switzerland.

Stopped, searched (me, my gf at that time and the car) and drug-tested.

------
jre
As a swiss citizen, I'm really happy we'll have to vote on this. I'm not sure
yet what I'm going to vote (I'm slightly bending towards a yes), but I think
this is a very interesting debate to have. Especially because this is not a
traditional left-right fight.

On the left, you have some unions saying this is going to be counter-
productive and that it will reduce the leverage of employees in negotiation
("You've already got 2500, stop complaining"). Some other unions say it's
going to give employee more leverage ("If you don't pay me more, I leave").

There are some people (including right-wing "economy-friendly" politician) who
think this is a boost for innovation. By letting people work on what they
want, without the risk of becoming homeless if it fails, you'll have more
people trying to become independent / create companies.

And finally, you have what is still the majority reaction when told about this
idea, which is that this is encouraging laziness.

~~~
omegant
Being from Spain and having seen the reaction to high quantities of money
available. A system like this will need to be very well monitored, it can help
immensely to those in need, but if done unconditionally it will certainly
encourage laziness in a sector of the society. My wife is a doctor and before
the crisis she used to have patients DEMAND the permanent disability, because
they wanted to stop working. They were always saying "It´s my right, give MY
disability!". They were regular people with no or little physical problems. Of
course the people that really really needed the disability (very ill and in
pain) didn´t want it. They just wanted to keep working and bringing money
home. Now as there is no money, the former has almost disappeared from the
hospital.

~~~
summerdown2
> A system like this will need to be very well monitored, it can help
> immensely to those in need, but if done unconditionally it will certainly
> encourage laziness in a sector of the society.

Thought experiment: If the overall effect of basic income is to make things
better overall(1), does it really matter if some people become lazy?

(1) Through whatever metric you want to measure.

... To give some background, my question is whether the existence of laziness
is a sufficient critique in itself. If things get better on average, but some
people are enabled to sit around all day, is that really a problem?

I'm asking this because the UK government at the moment is constantly railing
against lazy people taking benefits, as if it's self-evident that should be
stopped. To me, this just sounds like the politics of envy and hate (though I
admit I could be wrong).

Put another way: if a utopia involves some people getting benefits they don't
deserve, would that be a bad thing?

Obviously, I'm not saying basic income will produce a better society. I think
it might, but needs empirical testing. My question is more whether the
existence of undeserving beneficiaries is sufficient to rule it out.

~~~
danbmil99
This assumes a static proportion of "lazy" or unethical people. I think the
counterargument is one of moral hazard: if you reward laziness, more and more
people will decide to be lazy.

There is also a motivational issue -- many people (I suspect) will find it
harder to work for a living if they sense that their hard-earned money is
taxed and given away to freeloaders.

~~~
urish
But why would you equate "lazy" with unethical?

That's already an assumption that could be challenged. We now don't deem
someone who's unwilling to work from sun up to sun down in the rice fields as
lazy or unethical, but 300 years ago that might have been the case. Why?
Because now a few people grow our food so efficiently that most people can
afford to be "lazy" and work 40 hours a week in an office job, or at least an
air-conditioned job.

~~~
tnorthcutt
But the rest of us _pay_ the efficient farmers for that food. That's the
difference.

------
spikels
I would greatly prefer a basic income to the thousands of poorly run programs
that aim to help the poor. The poor are not helpless but simply don't make
enough money for some minimal standard of living (i.e. they are poor). A side
effect of many existing programs is that they make the poor dependent and
actually discourage self-improvement. A basic income would minimize these
unfortunate but real consequences of helping them.

More info
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income)

~~~
CrankyPants
Yeah, the basic income is tough because it doesn't address all of the elements
that discourage self-improvement, but it does address some.

I'd be curious to see what the net decrease/increase in costs would be if the
US wiped out the vast majority of assistance programs and switched over to a
basic income. After that, someone would need to take a stab at seeing what the
net increase/decrease is from the change in incentives and general societal
structure.

------
pyritschard
I think it's worth explaining how swiss legislation works. There are several
ways to propose a new law, one of which is for enough citizens to petition,
which leads to a referendum style vote.

The basic income vote followed this process, and though it gathered enough
interest to warrant people voting on it, it has little chance of passing.

Interestingly a similar vote recently passed which limited the income in a
company to a factor of 12 (i.e: the CEO can not make more than 12 times the
lowest salary of his company) which wasn't expected of switzerland (a rather
liberal and conservative country)

~~~
psuter
The 1:12 project is at the same stage as the basic income one: up for
referendum. Latest polls showed people were still undecided (vote is at the
end of November).

~~~
riffraff
I was under the impression the 1:12 vote already happened and was voted with
an overwhelming majority, e.g.

[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-
europe-21647937](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-21647937)

[http://www.economist.com/blogs/schumpeter/2013/03/switzerlan...](http://www.economist.com/blogs/schumpeter/2013/03/switzerland%E2%80%99s-vote-
executive-pay)

Could you explain the discrepancy ?

~~~
uraza
From the original article:

    
    
      In March, Swiss voters backed some of the world's strictest controls
      on executive pay, forcing public companies to give shareholders a
      binding vote on compensation.
    
      A separate proposal to limit monthly executive pay to no more than 
      what the company's lowest-paid staff earn in a year, the so-called
      1:12 initiative, faces a popular vote on November 24.
    

The two articles you linked to refer to the first proposal.

------
sjwright
I've always liked the idea of a base salary for all citizens. However, this
plan appears to set the base level far too high -- it needs to be barely
enough to fund the most basic of life's essentials, and indexed to an
inflation rate of essential commodities. Life on this salary needs to be
difficult and unsatisfying.

The model I imagine would also:

* Be paid to all citizens from age zero. Which means it can replace many existing systems, from child support payments and old age pensions.

* Child salaries from ~3 onwards could come in the form of vouchers with limited scope, e.g. accredited education providers, accredited child care services.

And you need to combine it with some further reforms, e.g:

* No minimum wage.

* Pretty much all existing welfare scrapped.

* Reduced work rights (e.g. less onerous unfair dismissal rules)

The underlying goal of such a system would be to dramatically simplify the
role of the welfare state, and put the responsibility back on the individual
to manage their own welfare.

~~~
rndmize
I can't see how paying citizens from age zero could possibly be a good idea.
Either the government will have control on how that money can be spent
(through regulation or otherwise) or the parents will, and I wouldn't consider
either case good. Requiring accreditation for services that can be bought with
the kids money won't prevent people from corrupting or exploiting the system,
only delay them.

I also think that while basic income should only covers essentials initially,
there's no reason not to increase it as our technology/efficiency/automation
improves. This idea that "life needs to be basic and unsatisfying" \- unless
you work, is IMO not only one of the things basic income should be correcting;
it also simply isn't effective. There's an infinity of entertainment out there
now, for free, with nothing more than a computer and internet connection. So
long as you can afford food to eat, a place to live and medical, I could see
people living on only a little more comfortably.

The strength of basic income is, I think, that even if you have a chunk of the
population that become solely consumers, a large number of people are freed
from working on what they're forced to and can work on what they're interested
in. There much more space for creativity and failure in all media, in
business, in startups. You could potentially accelerate your economic growth
by a pretty large degree because it takes so little to get things going today.
And the people that do get something going and succeed at scale don't need
tens of thousands of other people working for them to grow to a massive level
anymore. How many people worked at IBM when they reached a billion dollar
valuation in today's dollars? MS? Google? Facebook? I'm going to take a guess
and say it was significantly less people with each succeeding company, and
that trend is far from over. Plain and simple, we no longer need the whole
population working when people can multiply their capabilities with robots,
automation, frameworks, search functions, etc.

~~~
sjwright
There needs to be some incentive for tedious work to be done at a modest wage.
Otherwise the supply of labor will crash through the floor.

As for accreditation of services, I agree to a limited extent. Personally I
think government should -- where possible -- get out of the business of
service delivery and focus on accreditation. The idea of a government selling
pizza is absurd, but so is the idea of a government allowing a disgusting rat
infested kitchen to sell pizza to the public. We effectively accredit vendors
to sell food. The same model should work for education -- set minimum
standards for everyone, then let the market decide.

~~~
nzp
> There needs to be some incentive for tedious work to be done at a modest
> wage. Otherwise the supply of labor will crash through the floor.

Of _human_ labor, yes, but fortunately we have machines and computers... And
that's exactly the point. Forcing people to do things machines can do is one
of the most irrational and sadistic aspects of modern civilization. The
principal reason we have such a situation is the absence of basic income, or
some equivalent that would eliminate the need for wage slavery in exchange for
bare survival. For all other kinds of work, if it really is something humans
are necessary for, people will do it because it means it's interesting (or
necessary, and I think jobs which are impossible, at the moment, to automate
_and_ necessary _and_ completely uninteresting to anybody are so few that
there will never be shortage of labor).

EDIT: grammar.

~~~
dinkumthinkum
This is by far the most common attitude on HN but would be one of the least
common in the reality based community. Does this sort of view come from too
much science fiction or something? I love science and have never come to these
kinds of views but its hard me to find that exact common reason where this
view comes from. So working for money is the most sadistic thing imaginable
because there is some imaginary machine that could do the work? Torturing
people is sadistic, paying people to work is not. On the one hand we have some
strange indignation that seems to be rooted in the idea that we no longer have
scarcity or something another. The other seems to be, ironically, a lack of
realization of where technology is currently at; it is little more than a
promissory note, Kurzweil notwithstanding.

~~~
nzp
> This is by far the most common attitude on HN but would be one of the least
> common in the reality based community. Does this sort of view come from too
> much science fiction or something?This is by far the most common attitude on
> HN but would be one of the least common in the reality based community. Does
> this sort of view come from too much science fiction or something?

Probably because HN audience tends to be less bound by conventional wisdom and
all kinds of irrationality. As far as politics go, I'm anarcho-communist (thus
anti-capitalist), but on HN I often find comments (although this account is
just a few days old, I've been reading HN for years) on economic and political
issues from people who are very pro-capitalist with which I can agree
(although we would probably disagree on motives and goals). For example in
this discussion. It's very hard to find this in general population.

> So working for money is the most sadistic thing imaginable because there is
> some imaginary machine that could do the work? Torturing people is sadistic,
> paying people to work is not.

This is a strawman. First, I did not say it's the most sadistic thing
imaginable. But yes, it is sadistic because that kind of work typically brings
significant distress and because it's unnecessary. It doesn't matter how good
or bad the wage is. This kind of dreadful work ties a person's mental and
physical potential which could be otherwise used to add great value to society
and the individual. Having a base income would efficiently untie a lot of
reasons for this deadlock which is overwhelmingly of political nature. Do I
think it's likely to happen, even though it's stupid and harmful not to? No,
but why would that stop me from contemplating it and doing whatever I can to
help bring about some change?

> On the one hand we have some strange indignation that seems to be rooted in
> the idea that we no longer have scarcity or something another.

We don't have scarcity in a lot of areas. The problem lies in not having
political will to rationally distribute unscarce resources.

> The other seems to be, ironically, a lack of realization of where technology
> is currently at

It is certainly at a sufficient level to eliminate a huge number of
distressful jobs. That it can't, at this moment, eliminate all such jobs is no
reason to dismiss possible solutions. From a slightly different technological
domain: just because not all long haul travel is via space, doesn't mean we
should dismiss all other forms of transport and just stay put until space
planes become reality.

------
rmoriz
FYI: You have to live 12 years consecutively in Switzerland, pass a tests and
a personal hearing done by the local government to get a citizenship by
naturalization.

Switzerland has one of the most strict immigration rules in Europe.

Source:
[http://www.bfm.admin.ch/content/bfm/en/home/themen/buergerre...](http://www.bfm.admin.ch/content/bfm/en/home/themen/buergerrecht/faq.0002.html#a_0002)

~~~
VMG
So apparently everybody loves this highly nationalist, some might even say
racist bill.

~~~
dinkumthinkum
That's really baiting. What is racist about this bill? I know the entire
concept of an "country" or a "citizen" of some country is deeply disgusting to
some people, but those are usually kind of weirdos. You can't seriously hold
any one as really being a racist because they recognize such things.

~~~
VMG
I wouldn't call it racist, but the receivers of these benefits are closely
correlated to their origin and race -- Switzerland is not famous for accepting
immigrants to their country.

I just want to point out the inherent contradiction of the claims

(a) The system is unlikely to be exploited because humans innately _want_ to
work and will be productive in this system.

(b) The benefits are only distributed among a certain group of people, only
those who are natives to this country in particular. The only reason for this,
I imagine, is the fear of the system being exploited.

The only conclusion I can draw from this is that those who like this concept
think that only native Swiss people will not exploit the system.

You're right to call me a weirdo though.

------
sytelus
Obviously people proposing this aren't thinking it through or have no training
in basic economics. Intuitively you can think of money as amount of _labor_
that you owe from other human beings [1]. So let's say in some country you
need minimum of $1000 /mo to satisfy your basic needs. What this means is that
someone needs to grow your food, weave your cloths, run electricity plants etc
and that amount of labor costs $1000 at the moment. Now imagine a government
suddenly guarantees $2000 of income to everyone. What happens next? A lot of
these people who were supposed to grow food for you, weave your cloths and run
electricity plants for you will drop out of labor market. This means human
labor gets in less supply and its demand suddenly increases. That means _cost_
of labor suddenly increases. That means very soon $2000 is no longer enough to
buy enough labor to satisfy your basic needs. In essence, $3000 would now be
new minimum that is required for your basic needs. You are back to the square
one with only effect being government essentially inflated the currency.

[1] In this simplification we assume that most raw material required to
satisfy basic needs is available in sufficient quantity so the cost of goods
is strongly a function of human labor rather than raw material.

~~~
chii
This argument assumes that the efficiency cannot be increased, and stays at X
amount of "work" per human.

Imagine if the basic income enabled large amount of people to try out
different inventions, or perform research, such that it now takes only 1/2 X
to produce food, where as before it was X. One way this could happen is that
because labour costs increased, more automation is encouraged/deployed, and
thus gain efficiency.

Of course, if the above _doesn't_ happen, then yes, your conclusion is pretty
spot on.

~~~
dinkumthinkum
Sure, but we could also imagine a works with perpetual motion and infinite
energy. Boy, this would be a great place to be. But I'm not sure what that has
to do with reality. I don't want to rain on anyone's dreams ...

------
psuter
Before anyone gets too excited, let's remember that this is also the country
where the people voted against raising the required paid holidays (2012), for
substantial cuts in unemployment allowances (2010), and for increasing the VAT
(2009), just to give some recent examples. Regardless of its merits, it is
going to be nearly impossible to gather popular support for an idea such as
basic income. But hey, at least we'll talk about it.

~~~
ojii
Yes we Swiss have this weird habit of voting against things that look like
they would be a benefit for us (in the short term). I voted against more paid
holidays as I think 4 weeks (minimum) is enough and forcing everyone to raise
it to 5 would hurt the economy. Similarly I'd vote against this proposed bill
if I still lived in Switzerland as I don't see how it could work, despite it
being generally an intriguing idea.

~~~
ddoolin
Now I'm curious about the possibility of immigrating to Switzerland...

Ha. Sort of seriously.

~~~
zalew
Just keep in mind you may get a fine for taking a shower late in the evening.
And that you most friendly neighbor will turn into a snitch after any
violation of yours, especially since you're an auslander. I mean, Switzerland
is a lovely country, but some laws regarding cohabitation around there are
really anal. On the flipside, whenever my neighbor starts mowning his damn
lawn when I'm healing my hangover on sunday, I wish I was there. Grass is
greener on the other side. In general, it's a gorgeous country.

~~~
alternize
_you may get fine for taking a shower late in the evening_ erhm... no. while
there might be house rules set by the lessor which prevents certain things
that might disturb other inhabitants, it's not a law.

~~~
zalew
> certain things that might disturb other inhabitants

isn't a loud shower that certain thing?

~~~
alternize
you might receive notice for your apartment for doing too much of those
things, but certainly no fine for showering.

------
eatitraw
There are so many people excited about all these "equality" bills, and nobody
criticizes it.

So I'll just leave it there:
[http://paulgraham.com/inequality.html](http://paulgraham.com/inequality.html)

~~~
Suncho
Paul Graham misses the mark here. I agree with him that it doesn't make sense
to try to get rid of income inequality and that income inequality can actually
be a positive driving force in the economy. However, it's possible to take
money from the rich and give it to the poor, thereby making the poor richer,
without preventing income inequality from continuing to increase. Just do it
at a low enough rate. And it's _not_ a good use of resources to "teach a man
to fish" when "fishing" can be automated or there's not a specific demand for
"fishermen."

The jobs of tomorrow are becoming less and less definable in terms of the jobs
and skills of today. We should be giving people incentive to stay out of the
labor force and to spend their time how they want. Some people will stay home
and play Xbox. Some will come up with awesome new jobs. Some will do amazing
work that benefits humanity and which nobody would have ever thought to pay
them for. But it's important to remember that keeping the lazy people out of
the labor force decreases the level of incompetence in the labor force. Those
Xbox people are staying out of the way of folks who actually want to get
things done. Sometimes the best way to contribute to the economy is to stay
out of it.

~~~
marknutter
But PG didn't write that essay in response to a basic income argument, he
wrote specifically about the argument for eliminating income inequality. So
yes, he missed the mark, but only because he wasn't trying to hit it in the
first place.

> The jobs of tomorrow are becoming less and less definable in terms of the
> jobs and skills of today.

The jobs of tomorrow are no less definable than they were 50 or 100 years ago.
It's always been anybody's guess what people will be doing for a living in the
future.

> We should be giving people incentive to stay out of the labor force and to
> spend their time how they want. Some people will stay home and play Xbox.
> Some will come up with awesome new jobs. Some will do amazing work that
> benefits humanity and which nobody would have ever thought to pay them for.

This is very idealistic, but probably not realistic. _Most_ people will stay
home and consume entertainment.

> But it's important to remember that keeping the lazy people out of the labor
> force decreases the level of incompetence in the labor force. Those Xbox
> people are staying out of the way of folks who actually want to get things
> done. Sometimes the best way to contribute to the economy is to stay out of
> it.

Competence isn't always the main requirement for jobs. In fact, for most jobs,
it ranks lower than punctuality, politeness, and consistency. If you
effectively remove all the people who are not that competent but able to do
jobs that don't require that much competence (manufacturing, food services,
etc.) you decrease the available labor pool required to provide the goods and
services people like spending their basic income on.

~~~
Suncho
Most of the low-skilled jobs out there can be automated. And there are already
more workers than there are jobs. A decrease in the size of the available
labor pool sounds like just what the doctor ordered.

The jobs of tomorrow _are_ less definable than they were 50 or 100 years ago.
And each tomorrow comes sooner than the last.

------
robomartin
Maybe I am too obtuse to understand how such things could work.

What happens if nobody has a job?

OK, that's a little extreme. Let's see, a family of five would get 12500 F per
month unconditionally. That's probably a pretty good chunk of money for doing
nothing.

I see images of five to ten people living together to collectively earn 25000
F per month.

In the same story they talk about limiting executive pay to 12x the salary of
the lowest paid employee. Again, I just don't see it. In a global market I
just don't see intelligent and capable people not looking past their borders
seeking better compensation for what they have to offer.

How can you build a sustainable and competitive society this way? Again, I'll
admit to not being mentally equipped to comprehend how this can work. Perhaps
someone can educate me.

~~~
jrockway
People always want more, so this will allow people to live comfortably while
they, for example, acquire a more profitable skill than what they currently
have. Then they will earn more, and pay more taxes, and the cycle continues.

Alternatively, the Swiss government may have enough money to invest it all and
pay for this out of dividends. Just because the US is broke doesn't mean that
everyone is.

~~~
erichocean
_People always want more_

Based on the reading I've done on the subject, in places where a minimum basic
income well into the poverty range was given, people actually just cut back on
everything until it covered their expenses, i.e. people preferred poverty to
working low-wage jobs. That makes sense to me.

That said...I'm still in favor of a universal minimum basic income, because I
always expect social regressions whenever people have little to no experience
and culture to mitigate the most harmful effects (c.f. the Internet, Facebook,
Reddit, 4chan, etc.).

My sense is that the first generation after a UBI was established would be
lazy as hell, but the children would be less so, because work, art, etc. _do_
produce meaningful life benefits for those that participate. By the third or
fourth generation, life everywhere would be much, much better
for—literally—everyone.

Anyway...my $0.02.

~~~
ben0x539
I'd love some citations for/links to your reading. I only ever hear about that
small Canadian experiment where the result was supposedly that only fewer
teenagers dropped out of school to work and new parents stopped working for
longer, or something.

------
patatino
We have about 3% unemployment rate in Switzerland. You have to know something
about us, we love to work. Why? Because we are raised with the thought that's
our strongest asset. Pretty small country with zero resources. Last year we
voted for the increase of our holidays from 4 to 6 weeks. Result? 66,5% voted
against it.

This vote will get something like 80% no votes because people are affraid this
will change how people think about work.

------
JDDunn9
A country that values science, education, peace AND cares about the poor! Have
I stepped into another dimension?

~~~
ojii
You forgot democracy. Note that this bill was introduced by the people, not
the government. In Switzerland, as long as you can get 100'000 to sign a
referendum, you can get a bill to be voted on. We also vote 4 times a year on
bills, that is we the people, not we the politicians.

~~~
rodgerd
And in 1990 women could even vote!

~~~
chronolitus
While I don't disagree that my country has had (and in some aspects still has)
a backwards mentality, I fail to see how your comment has anything to do with
the conversation.

~~~
TheEzEzz
I take the point as a counter to the notion that a pure democracy is
inherently superior to other mixed forms of democracy, where voting is less
direct.

~~~
Udo
If 50% of the population aren't allowed to vote, it's not a pure democracy.

~~~
seszett
It's easy to say after the facts, but if women aren't allowed to vote and
aren't citizens, then 100% of citizens do vote.

Most systems we call democracies don't consider their population under 18 as
citizens, thus don't allow them to vote, and that's usually around 20% of
population. Most also don't consider that immigrants should vote, and in the
case of Switzerland that's another 20 or 25%.

I'm obviously not saying that not allowing women to vote is good or anything,
but that you can't say a system is not "purely" democratic just because of
full class of population doesn't vote. As long as 100% of _citizens_ vote,
then it's democracy (like in ancient Greece, where no more than 20% of
population were citizens).

~~~
Udo
I didn't imagine my statement would be so controversial. Granted, it's just my
personal opinion, but if women aren't citizens that's not a democracy either.

~~~
gjm11
> if women aren't citizens that's not a democracy either.

And if children aren't citizens? If immigrants (who live in the country, pay
taxes, etc.) aren't citizens?

The place where democracy first happened, where the name came from, was
ancient Athens circa 500BC. The only people allowed to vote were adult male
citizens who had been through military training.

I do (lest there be any doubt) agree that a polity in which a large fraction
of the population can't vote is an unsatisfactory sort of democracy. But I
think what's wrong with these places is that they _are bad democracies_ , not
that they _aren 't democracies_.

(The line between "bad democracy" and "not democracy" is a bit fuzzy. Take an
ordinary democracy and say that you can't vote if your net worth is negative;
what you get is, at least in my opinion, a bad democracy but still a
democracy. But say that you can't vote unless your net worth is in the top 5%
of the population and you've got a plutocracy. The transition between the two
is a gradual and ill-defined one.)

------
wavesounds
Meanwhile, in America, the government is shut down to try to stop poor people
from receiving subsidies on their private health insurance.

~~~
Daniel_Newby
This is not an appropriate venue for chanting political slogans.

~~~
wavesounds
I stated a 100% true fact that is a direct comparison to the article in
question. It's sad people would try to silence facts by dismissing them as
'political slogans'

~~~
CrankyPants
Meh, it's your view. There are plenty of people who oppose PPACA for reasons
besides trying to stop poor people from receiving subsidies on their health
insurance.

~~~
wavesounds
Listen to Boheners reasoning when he refused to allow a vote on the senate
bill[1]. He sites employers not wanting to hire people because they have to
subsidize their insurance, and a medical device tax that goes towards
providing subsidies to individuals. 1\.
[http://www.disclose.tv/action/viewvideo/153432/Speaker_John_...](http://www.disclose.tv/action/viewvideo/153432/Speaker_John_Boehner_Speech_To_House_About_Government_Shutdown_93013/)

~~~
CrankyPants
Which sounds awfully different from saying that poor people shouldn't get
subsidies.

But, since you bring it up, why should or shouldn't healthcare be coupled to
employment? One could argue it's the cause for much of the trouble we're in,
with a lack of portability, increasing costs (same reason sports seats have
become prohibitively expensive for many individuals), so what's inherently
evil about employers admitting that increased labor costs will almost
necessarily impact their hiring?

For that matter, why is or isn't a medical device tax the best way of funding
those subsidies?

Those are the kinds of things that we could be discussing–tho probably not as
comments to this particular article article–not doing what you are.

To be specific, you're preemptively ascribing the worst possible motives to
anyone who disagrees with you on a pretty charged political issue, in a fairly
off-topic quip in response to nobody, which is a pretty bad way of raising the
level of debate. Debate the issues if you want, but your original comment is
going to be difficult for you to justify as anything but partisan politics.

People who disagree with you may not be inherently evil. Hard to believe,
sometimes, but no matter what side of an argument you're on, it's not a very
productive or proper default assumption. Assuming bad faith won't help anyone,
whatever the side of almost whatever the issue.

~~~
Daniel_Newby
The medical device tax is a good example of malicious bureaucracy. How can
services be subsidized by the goods applied by the services?

The first-order cynical answer is that medical devices are primarily used by
rich Republicans who can easily afford a few percent extra on their artificial
knees. It requires no imagination to see why a left wing moonbat would vote
for such blatant pandering.

The second-order cynical answer is that poor minorities have worse health, and
a huge unfulfilled need for medical devices. Thus the device tax is a ghastly
unintended consequence of well-meaning liberals.

The third-order cynical answer is that it is an intended consequence. They
want Lashonda's artificial pancreas to pay for little Cindy's counseling. Much
like lotteries exist to get poor people to send rich kids to college.

The fourth-order cynical answer is that the whole thing is secretly a ploy to
generate plot material for someone's Dune/Washington, D.C. crossover fan
fiction.

------
tpainton
Atlas shrugged... and the leaches attacked. I find it hard to believe Swit
doesn't already have some welfare system that provides for those who actually
need it... but now, 30k a year just for breathing? Sounds like communism to
me.... only you don't have to produce anything. Utopianism like this doesn't
last. Eventually you run out of payers. it's human nature to eventually grow
tired of working hard so someone else doesn't have to. When that time comes,
you either join the leaches or you leave the environment. Eventually, you
always end up with a negative balance. It is doomed to failure.. Eventually.

~~~
rsynnott
> Sounds like communism to me...

Yes, this is exactly what happened in communist countries. That's why everyone
hated Stalin so much; he kept giving people money for free.

In real life, basic income has mostly been a popular idea with liberal
socialists and with libertarians; Bertrand Russell suggested it, but so did
Milton Friedman. It very much isn't popular amongst communists, however.

~~~
tpainton
I agree. However, in communist countries (in which my co-workers lived (ex-
Soviet)) The job was just a symbol. There would be department stores that sold
hardly anything, with 3 people manning a cash register. This is no different
than what Swit proposes.. It's just Swit has chosen to forgo the mock job.

~~~
rsynnott
The Soviet fake-job thing was really more a failure of central planning; it's
not like the Soviets deliberately set out to create fake jobs. The intent is
very different, and of course a recipient of basic income would be free (and
indeed expected) to have a proper job too.

------
Kiro
Wouldn't basic income just lead to higher prices and inflation?

~~~
comicjk
A redistribution of consumption does not increase prices overall, although in
the short run you would expect apples to be more expensive and yachts to be
cheaper. An overall increase in consumption, because poor people save a
smaller fraction of their money, does lead to inflation, though also to
economic growth.

~~~
notahacker
It's redistributing from people that save most of their income (and often
consume outside the Swiss economy) to people that consume most of their income
(in Switzerland. The price of yachts on the world market won't move. The price
of apples in Zurich will skyrocket, especially since the move simultaneously
decreases the supply of low-end labour willing to work all month delivering or
selling apples for 3200CHF per month. The combined effect of the two is likely
to be massively inflationary.

I'd be a lot happier with the Basic Income if I owned-low end rental property
in Zurich than if I had a job, unless BI is funded by a property tax...

------
chmars
The text of the Swiss initiative can be found at
[http://www.admin.ch/ch/d/pore/vi/vis423t.html](http://www.admin.ch/ch/d/pore/vi/vis423t.html).
Please note that it does not mention 2'500 Swiss francs as a basic income.

Rough translation into English:

 _Federal People 's Initiative 'For an uncoditional basic income'_

 _The federal constituion shall be amended as follows:_

 _Art. 110a (new) Unconditional Basic Income_

 _(1) The Confederay introduces an unconditional basic income._

 _(2) The basic income shall allow the whole population a decent life and
participlation in public activities._

 _(3) The law defines funding and amount of the basic income._

------
ck2
I like to think I am progressive but this minimum income idea is a horrible
idea in my eyes.

It is like student loans in the USA, everything will rise to the maximum price
that people can obtain money.

~~~
netcan
I think it's an interesting idea. Worth trying in a small country with
competent government where a cockup has no effect on me.

~~~
drcode
Yes, in all for letting the Swiss screw up their country with this idea.

Then I no longer have to spend energy explaining why this idea doesn't work.

~~~
netcan
Or it might work, and then you'll have a harder time with your explaining.

:)

------
iliis
As a swiss I'm quite excited about this. Even if I'm pessimistic about a
successful vote.

I want to mention a side-point which I haven't encountered so far: In the
'problem of lazyness' (i.e. "who will do the boring work if you are paid
anyway?") one answer that often comes up is automation. Menial/low-skill jobs
will be done by robots.

It's a common image that in the future robots will clean our toilets and grill
our burgers while the humans have ample time to enjoy life, build rockets and
do fulfilling work.[1] However, if AI research has told us one thing it's that
this view is quite wrong - the opposite is true. Things humans think of as
'easy' like walking around or doing laundry are actually very difficult
engineering problems and 'hard' stuff like playing chess or doing rocket
science are easier in an absolut sense.

The reason behind is simple: Evolution had millions of years to perfect
walking on legs and interacting with the environment. Our bodies almost
literally have an walkTo(Place) API, so the only thing 'we' (our conscious
self) have to do is to call it. Abstract thinking is something new and our
brains have to do it manually. It takes you less time to run over debris than
to multiply large numbers and so we have a distorted picture of what is hard
in an absolute sense.

The picture is true for humans but it falls apart when we want to automate it.
We are still decades away of beating humans in soccer but Jeopardy is a solved
problem.

I'm not convinced that 'low'-skill jobs are the first to fall into the hands
of machines. [2]

\---

[1] Ignore for the moment the fact that unclogging toilets can also be
fulfilling.

[2] This is of course a broad argument. We still have no clue what
Intelligence or Creativity actually _is_ \- It may still turn out to be very
complicated. But I nevertheless think there's a good chance that we will
figure out hard AI before you can buy a robot which washes your socks, mows
the lawn _and_ fixes your plumbing.

~~~
polarix
So, if the low-skill jobs stay around, but nobody wants to do them, their
price increases, because nobody is forced to do them to stay alive.

Then we have a greater incentive to automate and deprecated the immorally
unfulfilling jobs.

~~~
iliis
Yes, the economic argument looks solid. Good old supply and demand.

Problem is, we may not be able to automate these jobs so easily.

~~~
PeterisP
While we're not able to automate them, the labor costs for them will rise -
and that's a very good thing.

I've looked at business process automation analysis in a few industries, and
I've seen a TON of mind-numbing things that we actually would able to
automate, but it's not worth to try since a bunch of low-wage people is
cheaper. In some cases it's not even a question of "how to automate" \- simply
purchasing well-known machines would do that, but people were cheaper. It
would be oh so great if that would change - there are a lot of jobs that IMHO
are below humans as such, which are so stupid and soul-crushing shouldn't ever
be done by a sentient being, but we as society force them to do so because
they want to eat. People can handle shit-jobs - they "turn off", or socialize
with coworkers and power through it in order to get their paycheck and come
back to their "real life" afterwards - but in the long run, people shouldn't
be forced to do that, not anyone, not ever.

------
negamax
At the risk of mowed over by the crowd, I want to propose not calling it
income. It's welfare. In no way should we equate it to result of someone's
work.

~~~
eropple
"Income" has nothing to do with work, but rather a sum total of all
consumption and savings opportunity for an entity over time. This is basic
economic terminology, which is why it's...you know... _actually used here_.

But don't worry! Your just-world rhetoric (wrapped, no less, in a pseudo-
controversial, woe-is-me-I'm-going-to-get-downvoted "stand", aren't we noble)
is noted.

------
angularly
Wow, I hope they vote no. I moved to Switzerland recently to avoid the
dominant socialism in northern Europe. But they are one of the last liberal
stands down here, so there is a good chance it will fall through.

------
badass
A basic income only serves to maintain the status quo for those at the top.
It's a release valve on political pressure to bring fundamental changes to the
system to better serve the lower classes.

In the US, one can look how the Section 8 housing program serves a similar
pressure-relief function in the housing rental market. By giving essentially
free rent to those who cannot afford current market rate rents, it relieves
political pressure to reform housing policies that keep rental rates high
while also inflating rents and property values, heavily distorting the rental
market. I think one can easily view the Section 8 program more as welfare
program benefiting property owners rather than lower class renters.

A basic income would have a similar effect on the general cost of living,
inflating values and benefiting the wealthy. Again, like the Section 8
program, this will be a welfare program benefiting the wealthy because this
basic wage will simply flow upward and concentrate at the highest economic
rungs.

------
seeken
There have been experiments with NIT (Negative Income Tax) in the US. My
impression was that they were a disaster, but in looking for them I found this
article,[1] which explains some of the history of NIT in the US.

[http://www.city-journal.org/2011/21_1_income-tax.html](http://www.city-
journal.org/2011/21_1_income-tax.html)

~~~
alextingle
Negative income tax seems quite hard to administer when compared to a basic
income. Why bother with all the bureaucracy required to deal with accounting
for millions of minuscule incomes, when a simple flat payment would do the
same job?

~~~
seeken
You have to do the income tax anyway, you might as well run the two programs
together.

------
vaibpuri
This "might" lead to people actually working more in a certain sense. If a
person is to receive an X amount of francs per month then employers will
require 40 hour / weeks leading to approximately 15 francs per hour (€12.5),
which for a place like Switzerland is kind of fair.

Those who choose not to work enough might have to face inflationary affects in
housing etc. needing to catch up to the median (not average) population income
levels.

Eitherways, if the Swiss go wrong on this their system of voting is flexible
enough to allow for change back.

------
ronaldx
I expect massive inflation on particular necessities (likely rent/housing,
utilities) as rent-seekers squeeze the available money.

Necessities within competitive, or border-crossing markets (likely food) might
not be subject to such inflation.

The consequences for luxuries are harder to predict, but perhaps they would
still be out of reach of the unemployed/underemployed. This could motivate a
majority to continue work.

If this balances to the point that 'poor' people can maintain a fair lifestyle
without working, wages for cheap/exploitative labour will rise wherever people
don't find value in the work. This will be balanced by pressure to take on
immigrants to work. (Based on my understanding of Swiss politics, it feels
unlikely they will receive the same benefits)

Not without economic consequences but overall, exciting stuff. A lot of people
will have vastly more freedom: risk-taking, entrepreneurialism and general
creativity will boom.

------
yason
I wonder if that just raises the bar and everything becomes the same again:

\- everyone gets at least X for basic income

\- for some people it makes more sense to not take low-paid shitty jobs
because deducting commuting and lunch expenses from the low-paid salary you
can probably make the same money on basic income, especially if you're willing
to be a bit frugal

\- more money gets offered for low-paid shitty jobs because there's high
demand and low supply of workers

\- the extra money is charged from the customers of the companies who employ
the workers who do the not-so-low-paid shitty jobs

\- the costs trickle upwards and cause inflated prices which in turn makes
landlords raise rents accordingly

\- the rents and price of food become painfully high for those who live on
basic income

\- we're back at square one: poor people have to take shitty, relatively low-
paid jobs to make a living because the amount of basic income, X, is baked
into pretty much all prices in the market

------
hikarudo
"It is an elementary requirement of economic incentive as well as justice that
the man who works for a living should always be better off because of that,
other things being equal, than the man who refuses to work for a living." [1]

[1] Henry Hazlitt, The Conquest of Poverty

~~~
dllthomas
That still happens, with a basic income.

------
lettergram
Economically speaking this is not going to help anyone... If every person
makes a specific lower bound limit all that happens is prices are increased.
It probably takes a year or so for the full effect to be felt, at which point
there is the choice to either raise it to combat the prices or set limits on
how much stuff will cost. Either option sets a limit goods or wages in your
country that will not be beneficial.

Not to mention, in combination with the other stuff being passed by the swiss
there country can have some major problems coming up here.

------
SCAQTony
If they did that in America 50% of the population would quit working and
prices would quickly shoot up to MARS!

Less workers, higher wages, more money in circulation... What an inflationary
mess that would be.

~~~
astrange
> If they did that in America 50% of the population would quit working

And do startups!

> What an inflationary mess that would be.

The US could use some more inflation. There's no reason this would cause an
increase in the money supply though.

~~~
dinkumthinkum
You think they would quit working and do startups ... You know our community
is a sheltered bubble right? ... Ok just going to assume you're joking. :)

------
ivoras
For those in the EU, there is currently an official (run by the European
Comission) on-line petition in which EU citizens can vote for encouraging the
application of the Basic Income idea at [https://ec.europa.eu/citizens-
initiative/REQ-ECI-2012-000028...](https://ec.europa.eu/citizens-
initiative/REQ-ECI-2012-000028/public/index.do?lang=en) .

This is not a "let's apply this now!" thing, but a petition to study the ways
and means of how it could be applied.

~~~
agilebyte
Just to add to that, these are the countries with the highest amount of
_statements of support_ (out of threshold level needed to be reached):

    
    
      Slovenia - 79.95%
      Croatia - 56.12%
      Belgium - 37.32%
      Hungary - 31.04%
      Netherlands - 26.85%
      Austria - 25.33%
      France - 25.3%
      Germany - 24.39%
      Spain - 22.41%

------
transfire
It's a good idea, but that's too high. You want to keep people from starving
and living on the streets; not keep them from doing something productive with
their lives.

------
AndrewDucker
I'd imagine that for most people this would make little difference - you can
adjust income tax and remove the basic allowance so that it balances out
somewhere near the median wage.

The main thing it would do is to remove the welfare trap - whereby you can
earn less from starting work. Suddenly, every Franc you earn adds something
onto your income. And you get rid of a whole tranche of bureaucracy at the
same time.

------
habosa
Economic question: won't this just eventually result in a rise in prices to
reflect the fact that everyone has more money? I guess imported goods will
remain about the same price, but things produced locally would almost
definitely go up in price. If I knew all of my customers had $2500/month more,
I'd raise prices.

~~~
marcosdumay
And I'd undercut you by selling at the older price, increasing my total
profits... Except that I'd lose market too, because somebody would use the
newly achieved scale to save costs and undercut me too.

Distributing money does not make capitalism go away.

------
k-mcgrady
I like this idea and think it's something that's going to become more common.
As more and more jobs are automated it makes sense that governments would
eventually generate money through automating societies least popular jobs and
use the money generated through that to pay citizens a basic salary.

------
frank_boyd
Switzerland has twice the amount of asylum seekers per capita, compared to the
EU average.

That seems to be the result of a fairly open asylum policy. Some people find
it's too open and complain about that.

With the concept of a basic income like this, I suppose their asylum policy
would have to become more restrictive.

~~~
sschueller
The problem isn't necessarily the asylum count but the free flow of people
from the EU.

They can just come and if they get a job they can stay. Many recruiters are
getting jobs for people from the EU before they even move.

On the other side, with a growing economy there aren't enough well educated
Swiss to full the open positions.

------
znowi
_A separate proposal to limit monthly executive pay to no more than what the
company 's lowest-paid staff earn in a year, the so-called 1:12 initiative,
faces a popular vote on November 24._

This is a peculiar initiative. Surely, a plot by the commies, or is it not?

------
namlem
Can someone explain how they are going to pay such a large amount? Isn't this
more than their entire national budget? I punched the numbers into wolfram
alpha and they don't add up. Am I misunderstanding something?

------
tpainton
I have to chuckle at the thought of forcing the wealthy to pay other wealthy a
minimum income. Or is the 'wealthy' excluded from the definition of 'every
adult'. What a complete waste of time and paper.

------
sebilasse
2'500 CHF is about the budget for a student life-style in Zurich. I expect a
lot of young Swiss going on long holidays to cheaper places like south-east
asia or eastern europe.

------
varelse
Purple Wage anyone?

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riders_of_the_Purple_Wage](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riders_of_the_Purple_Wage)

------
danbmil99
I'll be on the lookout for lots of great Swiss bands to hit the scene around
2017 (if this gets passed).

Also lots of alternative art shows, post-feminist poetry readings, etc.

Should be fun

------
marcamillion
If this passes, I suspect that Switzerland would see a MAJOR, MAJOR spike in
inbound immigration requests.

I would love to see what that spike would look like.

~~~
angularly
Not to talk about an enormous spike in unemployment rate, just like in all
other countries where you get paid money for not doing anything. I.e. in
Denmark where I come from, we have 400.000 people - out of a population of
6mill - who gain nothing or very little from working, to a point where it
don't make sense to work at all, compared to just receiving unemployment pay.
And logically people opt to just not work.

~~~
scbrg
The difference is that in Denmark (I assume) you trade unemployment benefits
when not working to a roughly equivalent salary when you start working. So no,
you don't gain anything. With the proposed Swiss system, any salary you earned
would be in addition to the basic salary, so there would still be an incentive
to work. It's just that it's not strictly necessary to survive.

I think the proposed system makes better, as the economical margin effect of
working is not negligible, as it is when you just have unemployment benefits.

NB: I live in Sweden, and I'm assuming your system is similar to ours. It's a
problem I have observed here and I suspect the same applies to you. I may be
wrong if it works differently.

------
stretchwithme
Any petition getting enough signatures can place something on the ballot in
Switzerland.

They've even voted on whether to abolish the military.

~~~
Kliment
I don't see how that's unreasonable.

~~~
claudius
They couldn’t accidentally invade Liechtenstein any more…

------
jes
Are the taxes to pay for this voluntary in Switzerland?

------
known
Very much desirable to prevent wage slavery in globalization

------
LekkoscPiwa
So what happens if everyone in Switzerland is given 1,000,000 Francs? You
really think they all will end up being millionaires? LOL, you will jut create
a lot of inflation that's all. Amazing how economically illiterate leftists
usually are.

------
notdrunkatall
Free money for everyone, what could go wrong?

/s

------
rickjames28
go for it. and let's see the extrapolation to a economic juggernaut like the
U.S. It's always the "norway" argument. If Norway (pop 4 million or so) can do
it so can the U.S.

Yes, I guess Los Angeles could do something like that, but..

~~~
unsigner
4 million AND oil-rich.

~~~
e12e
Like North Dakota?

------
avty
Basic income is a basic human right.

