"Because this time, incentives won't play out the way they have every time variations on this experiment have been tried throughout history"
or
"Let's make earning a living optional, and funded by the productive members of society, and see how that pans out".
I'll grant you it'll be easier and cheaper to implement than other versions of a taxpayer funded welfare state, but I imagine the outcomes will be the same, and the (im)morality is no different.
Yes. And if you read to the end of that section, you (a) discover that the changes were minimal "working hours dropping one percent for men, three percent for married women, and five percent for unmarried women" and (b) discover that the reason was "Mothers spent more time rearing newborns, and the educational impacts are regarded as a success. Students in these families showed higher test scores and lower dropout rates. There was also an increase in adults continuing education"
A reduction in working hours does not equate to a reduction in productivity. We should be striving to minimize time spent working while maximizing productivity as a basic goal of capitalistic society.
Also this old argument about reduced work incentives is becoming increasingly invalid as an expansion in permanent structural unemployment due to automation, hyperefficiency, and globalized labor markets is spelling the end of industrial labor to begin with. Meaning that there simply are not enough jobs to go around, regardless of incentive. It's one thing to chalk unemployment up to laziness in an era of abundant opportunity, it's quite another in a post-industrial era of labor scarcity.
I've never seen a better post for the old quote about the future already being here, just unevenly distributed. Web frontend devs with ivy degrees living in SV don't have much permanent structural unemployment, well at least until they get older. Its a bit more of a current issue for the other 7.3 billion people in the world.
I used to work in a job that I don't think was very amenable to automation. It was a terrible job and I don't miss it one bit. I doubt anyone would want to work it if they didn't actually need money.
Sure, maybe we can live without windows or something, I just don't know how many such products there are. Money isn't everything, after all--there has to be something you can actually buy with that money. And if nobody or almost nobody is willing to make those things any more, what then?
That's the part that scares me. I'm sure we can print enough money for everyone. I'm not sure how much of anything there will be to buy with it. And all the arguments for this are "it's the right thing to do" rather than "we know we can make this work because..."
Slow down a little bit. If people can't afford windows, they don't reasonably have enough money (where money is access to the economy rather than pieces of paper).
A simple thing to do to limit the unexpected economic consequences is to limit the size of the basic income. For example, give everyone $5 and you are unlikely to see any effects at all. Of course then the outcome isn't very interesting, but the basic mechanism isn't necessarily going to implode the economy.
Right, it's clearly a matter of degree and the thing is I don't hear economists talking about this, only the general public, who has some sort of warm fuzzy feeling about the idea of free money, but little actual talk about what's going to happen.
My feeling is that it will either be too low to be meaningful or too high and it'll lower the production of useful things to buy, such that we're actually poorer in some sense in spite of it. I certainly agree with you about the fact that the production of the things we buy with money being more important than the rectangular pieces of paper, though.
So I actually think it can work out for a country like Norway, that's small and rich and which imports plenty of physical goods from elsewhere with oil money, and therefore where it honestly doesn't change much of anything. It's what happens when everybody does it that I wonder about.
But maybe I'm wrong and it will just end up outsourcing all the labor to China / Mexico / SE Asia / wherever with a manageable inflation and we'll muddle through somehow. I don't really know, which is why I'm disturbed that I see so few people who seem to have any good idea about the actual effects talking about it.
I don't understand why people wouldn't be willing to make windows—to take your example—in exchange for pay, just as they do now. I might expect the prices of things to go up a little because the typical laborer's bargaining position would be closer (but still inferior) to that of the typical employer[1], but why would people stop wanting more money than they have/are getting?
[1] Specifically, their worst-case outcome in negotiating employment terms (i.e. failing to agree on terms and not getting the job, then not managing to get another offer fast enough) might improve from catastrophic to merely quite bad.
> I don't understand why people wouldn't be willing to make windows—to take your example—in exchange for pay, just as they do now.
Two reasons:
[1] There might not be much to buy with that money due to effects like this / inflation now that everyone has more money but there's only the same amount (or less) of stuff to buy with that money.
[2] The actual job is horrible.
Some of the aspects of the job can be mitigated. Others, not so much. There's a big tempering furnace that's really hot. There's really no way to avoid being uncomfortably hot around the quench, even with the nearby air conditioned room. It's running at almost 800F all day.
Glass is inherently dangerous. I know of people who have been killed on the job, in spite of lots of safety gear, etc. I personally treated some very serious injuries (e.g. cuts to the wrist causing permanent damage and massive blood loss).
There's a lot of grunt work that can't be very easily automated. It's boring as hell. It's very tiring work. I have lots of other complaints, but in theory, a different employer could at least fix some of those and they would presumably have to.
> [1] There might not be much to buy with that money due to effects like this / inflation now that everyone has more money but there's only the same amount (or less) of stuff to buy with that money.
If an employer raises wages, is that (in a small way) inflationary? Does average wage have a causal relationship with inflation (I wouldn't think so, but perhaps it does, serious question)? If not, why would basic income be inflationary per se ?
> [2] The actual job is horrible.
Jobs that are horrible might have to pay more, but probably not much more. I'd hope "do it or join the homeless" isn't a necessary stick for our economic system to function, but "do it or barely have enough money to survive" would suffice. If so, it's more awful than I'd already estimated. Hell, complete destitution isn't even really the stick now, since welfare is a thing, especially in OECD states that aren't the U.S.
I guess I don't find it clear how "only have basic income to live on" is a less effective motivator than "be on welfare" (in the broad sense of "welfare"). And since we already know modern economies function OK with the latter—some of which can include cash assistance—what substantial difference does the former represent?
[1] Because there's more money and the same amount (or less) of things to buy. Think of it a bit like someone issuing stock: yes, that dilutes your shares.
[2] It's not just pay. You CANNOT pay me to do that job again. I'm sick of being cut by glass. I don't like dealing with horrific bloody injuries, though I'm incredibly conflicted there--I mean, I did volunteer for it and I don't regret doing it and helping people. And I'm glad to be able to do it and that I was able to help people and I'd even volunteer again... but it's a horrible thing to have to do and I don't wand more of it.
Basic income is just welfare on steroids. The effect should be something that depends on the scale of how much money and how many people have their 'stake' diluted by how much. The scale of this is bigger than before (everyone gets money) according to what's planned--I don't seriously think anyone will implement it as $5 for everybody and if they did, it shouldn't have any meaningful effect.
Due to more money being issued, there should be more inflation caused by it, as we can't all suddenly start producing more windows and whatnot just because we're paid more. People are also likely to start charging more because everything costs them more and people have more money to spend now.
Now, all that said, maybe it could work as a replacement for welfare. I'm not sure about that, but it doesn't seem terribly unreasonable. Maybe everyone has an ID card and they can charge $X a month for food/rent/clothing, especially with the theory that people who don't actually need it might not use it. As I said, the main issue is the scale. If you get to the "work is optional" state that everyone seems to want, that's where I worry about the effects. But, there's obviously a long continuum between it being 0% optional and 100% optional and I honestly don't know what things happen where.
> [1] Because there's more money and the same amount (or less) of things to buy. Think of it a bit like someone issuing stock: yes, that dilutes your shares.
Why would there (necessarily) be more money?
> People are also likely to start charging more because everything costs them more and people have more money to spend now
It seems like all of this would work equally well as an argument for a policy of depressing wages as a way to makes everyone better off. If you wouldn't support that, why the concern about guaranteed income? Or, what is the difference, in terms of effect on the money and labor supplies? How would lowering wages not be the inverse of this, and (under this line of reasoning) be good for us? Unless you believe we're at some sort of maxima for the ideal share of money flowing to the bottom of the economic pyramid, and that sending more that way will make collectively less well-off. It's also possible I'm just not following what you mean.
Where else could the money come from, exactly? Anyhow, money creation is fairly normal, which is why I would tend to expect that if such a thing were implemented: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_creation
But people have to be willing to exchange things for money, so if you create tons of it, it becomes toilet paper. We already know this can break down due to direct, empirical observation. Just look up past examples of hyperinflation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperinflation
And this is the sort of thing that worries me. All the past examples had to drop their own currency, which they could no longer be trusted with, and become dependent on a foreign power. All the past examples were governments that though the government's funds were simply unlimited and many were Socialist governments that wanted to tax from the rich and give to the poor.
That said, don't get me wrong. If I could actually believe that none of us had to work and robots would do everything, I'd love it. But having worked a crappy ass job, I know that some work can only get done out of necessity at present. I really hate that, and I don't wish it on anyone, but I don't know how to fix it either. I wish I could be convinced that some of the fine, caring people putting out these proposals had thought them through, but they've mostly helped me understand that they know less than I do, and I know almost nothing :/
Remember also that a well-known limitation of economic measurements of GDP, productivity, etc. is that it doesn't account for personal work when no money changes hands. For example, a man who works full time and spends 100% of his salary on a nanny gets counted in GDP. But if he quits his job and takes care of the kid and the nanny takes his old job, then GDP and productivity have been reduced. Nothing has been changed about the amount of work done, but you've replaced two people working for money with only one working for money, so the accounting systems show it as less.
If part of the effect of minimum income is for people to spend more time with their kids, then this would show up as less work, in part, because less of the work being done would be for money.
Let's say someone gets a PhD - that takes ~5 years. So instead of entering the workforce at 22, they enter the workforce at 27. If they retire at 70, then their working hours went down from 48 years of work to 43 years of work, or ~10%.
Do you consider the ~10% loss in working hours a major disadvantage?
I could definitely see more people getting advanced degrees in a "MINCOME" society. For example, I have a family member that really wants to do a masters, but had to work through school and isn't sure they can swing it for a masters too.
Perhaps you could reflect upon why you allowed this subject to deprive you of basic logic skills and make you rather confrontational. Andrew highlighted the areas where the policy had an effect on work. I would suggest that if you cannot dispassionately handle simple logic in a non inflammatory comment that your views may be rather clouded.
Leaving aside the fact that his summary was entirely at odds with the facts in the article (which he later mentioned) - yes, this topic does get my blood boiling.
I think that compulsory taxation is as wrong in principle as slavery, and that socialism and the welfare state risk destroying society in the long run. They certainly have destroyed subsets of society already.
It really surprises and dismays me to find so much support for such a socialist idea on HN, too, which is usually relatively supportive of capitalism. My inner cynic wonders if it's because people would like to cash in on such an idea on the way to Ramen profitability.
To my knowledge, what you've said is just as incorrect as what the parties you oppose said. There haven't actually been that many studies, all considered, and the studies there have been weren't conclusive.
I think Finland would be better off testing the idea (e.g. in a single city, eligible population fixed at the start) before committing to it. There would doubtless be problems with the test, but it would give a better idea of what to expect.
The article didn't mention it, but my understanding is Kela is planning to do a pilot phase where they give 550 €/month to a group of people selected by lottery across the nation.
What would an unemployed Finn do currently in that situation? Is their some sort of more generous housing assistance that would be replaced? It seems like the 800 Euro allotment would be enough for 2+ roommates or a couple to afford housing and minimal other expenses.
It's a good time to own property in Finland. If I was a landlord there, say I have about 20% vacancy over the year. After this change, I should expect to have a larger pool of applicants because whether they work or not people now have an extra 800 Euros per month that can go directly to a nicer apartment, or at least to one with 2 roommates instead of 4. Joke's on them, though, I just raise my rent cost across the board by 800 Euros per month (probably less as everyone else will want to try and capture this, including other landlords who I'm competing against) and change it around if it's too high until I get back to my acceptable vacancy numbers but with a bigger profit.
Indeed food is another thing whose price will rise. Meaning that because the supply pipeline is relatively fixed, when the demand goes up (due to more people with disposable income) things will either sell out more quickly or the price will go up resulting in a drop in demand to match the previous levels but now more money is in the hands of the suppliers. Only if an increased demand looks very sustainable will a company increase its supply output ahead of schedule.
The point of a universal wage is not to stop people from working though and not living in a big city removes almost any chance of working in most European countries.
A quick Wikipedia check [1] says that there are other towns in Finland, I would expect them to grow a bit. I would also expect people to take a bit of time to decide what kind of work they could do within the new system.
Morality is relative, but I don't understand your views on it. If a society is rich enough to give a good life to all their members, is it immoral to do it?
What about keeping a big part of the population afraid of how are they going to pay the rent tomorrow so you have cheap and available workers? is that moral? specially when we live in the richest societies of history?
People that believe in the overwhelmed goodness of markets should investigate a little more history. For instance:
the ten hours bill in the UK (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factories_Act_1847) and how the "laissez faire" crow of the time opposed to "restrict the working hours of women and young persons (13-18) in textile mills to 10 hours per day" because its immorality.
Depends on your definition of "good life", but mine is making sure you don't have to worry about shelter, food, or vital medical care. And every industrialized nation can afford that, easily.
That's true. So why do we feel the need to coerce people into paying into such systems? The more I investigate it the more I think it's because of the power such systems grant the coercers. Consider the uproar over Zuckerberg having the temerity to spend his money on charity in the way he pleases, instead of the State getting to choose.
I believe the reason we need to coerce people into paying is because economically if you don't let people volunteer to pay, it just doesn't work. Excuse me if I don't have the sources for this as it was my Econ PhD friend who explained it to me.
I wonder if the argument against it is something like this: imagine for every person, they have some amount they are willing to contribute to said scheme. However, unless the total amount needed to fund such a project is small, if you don't force everyone to contribute then the cost will be significantly higher per person. Then, because it's higher than what some people want to pay, they choose not to pay although they would have otherwise. After that happens, the price increases more, and this effect continues.
I don't have any problem with people who want to support a minimum basic income with their own money. The moral issue begins when you force others to financially support your scheme.
I'll upvote you because I think you have a valid opinion, and you shouldn't be downvoted because your opinions differ from others. We need other opinions to have a healthy discussion after all.
I just want to say that first of all, you can certainly be productive without generating an income. All the people who contribute to OSS projects are certainly productive despite not being paid to do so for example.
Also, the idea that if you don't need to make a living, you will be lazier or less likely to work is actually incorrect, at least according to this: http://economics.mit.edu/files/10861
I'll be honest in admitting I haven't gotten around to reading it, I've only read the conclusion and intro, so please do correct me if I was wrong.
Finally, and this is more personal, I really do believe that most people will do better work if they are not pressured to make a living. For example, if university professors didn't have to earn a living, I imagine they would spend all their time doing research instead of using most of their time now doing administrative tasks. I can't imagine anyone became a professor thinking they wanted to go to meetings; certainly all the people I've met who wanted to become professors did it in spite of the fact they knew they would have to deal with a lot of nonsense because they could not imagine doing anything besides research.
How many PhD students in CS end up in industry because the academic environment is awful? I suppose you could argue that by joining industry they are more productive but I'd argue that both are productive, but an individual would be more productive working where their passions align.
I think most people here would not be doing what their job requires but instead contribute to OSS, and honestly we probably have better software as a result.
I am in complete agreement that people can be productive and positive to their society without working. My girlfriend and I are both STEM graduates, but if income hadn't stagnated for the last 30 years and my earnings could support the two of us, she would be a housewife in a heartbeat, and it would also greatly benefit my utility, such as gaining an extra 40 minutes a day at minimum from being dropped off at work instead of walking to and from the employee parking lot. The additional time, energy, and mental health could help boost my work performance and increase my chances of raises and promotions.
We often wonder what Western society lost when the private sector discovered that feminism was profitable.
I'll be interested to see how this plays out because it sounds like the current "welfare" in Finland is similar to that in the states, where getting a job equates to taking a paycut (because you no longer qualify) so why work (which is a constant argument).
I like the idea of a system that still has incentives for people to work but doesn't leave them hanging if they can't find a job.
I think consumerism is the incentive to work, even with a basic income. If your state provides you with enough for food, shelter, clothing, and a little discretionary cash, it'll show. The friends who work and can afford nicer houses, tastier food, and newer clothing will notice. So will the people you take on dates.
Ultimately, I think people will want to work. It gives them something to do and the money to afford things they want but don't need. If everyone followed Keynes, we would be happy with working ten hours a week to maintain a 1930s standard of living.
Although I agree with you I'm not sure how it would play out in practice.
I played MMORPGs a long time ago on french speaking servers and the amount of unemployed people playing that game and that had zero incentive or motivation to go work was incredible.
Of course this is an example but not everyone want's to be a productive member of society.
Why should they? I like my work even though I don't like working. I think it's depressing to think that a technologically utopian humanity would insist on work as a requirement to live.
From a public policy standpoint, paying people to essentially stay at home and be passive consumers can be quite beneficial. They aren't supporting themselves through crime and they're placated to the degree that they won't want to protest the establishment. And if they want anything more out of life than the basics, they'll have to work for it. Living on welfare alone (even if it's nationally guaranteed) doesn't sound like attractive mate material to me.
Exception: could result in poorly handled out of wedlock births. Possible mitigation by increasing benefits to incentivize birth control?
As a kid, when my Dad was laid off I got discounted school lunch by buying and redeeming colored plastic tokens. Took me a while to figure out the other kids saw using them as a social stigma.
So, yes, kids and adults will still be able to associate higher cost goods with higher social status. But changing benefits to cash instead of alternative, restricted currencies like food stamps will lessen the opportunities to identify and stigmatize those who are struggling financially.
I agree. The "welfare queen" or "SNAP for steaks" stereotypes are assisted by their immediate visual presence, enough to make even one encounter turn people off of the welfare scheme, especially if they see it as freeloaders on their paycheck. If the theme is less "makers and takers" and more "we're all in it together," we may find ourselves looking at our fellow citizens in a more egalitarian light, knowing that the minimum is not one to be feared, but avoided, if possible, and desired.
Considering a public policy perspective, I would be hell of a lot less interested in the ongoing class war if I knew at any time I could go and live out in the woods with my girlfriend and neither of us would have to worry about being hauled into debtors prison for student loans.
I've read about that before I think it was a good idea but maybe not perfect.
These days quite a few people work only to get on EI they use it as income then work under the table for cash.
If a guaranteed minimum income were to be the same amount as EI + cash that could work but there is no way to police under the table cash work.
One problem I can imagine is in some areas with really low cost of living there may be no incentive to work. You are thinking "But how can someone live on (800 Euros) $1,173 month?". Quite a few people in the countryside of where I live will survive on $5,000 per year that's $416 per month. They get their cheap beer or bootleg beer, bootleg cigarettes or buy it in bulk, grow a garden, fish and hunt. It's a subsistence lifestyle many are used to living.
how about Finland pays people to work instead of this? If you can't find a job, Finland pays you 800 a month to get to work on infrastructure projects.
In early Colonial America everyone had to help out in some way, or else they were denied food. I don't know why we never extended that idea.
Minor correction: Not 10 years after you leave, but for 10 years after walking into a US embassy and relinquishing citizenship. Only then, you have the privilege to pay tax to a state you no longer are a citizen of for the next 10 years. For all other US citizens working overseas, you owe uncle sam a tax return every year no matter if it's for 5 years or 50. Only two nations in the world tax their citizens who live abroad. The other one is an African dictatorship.
> Minor correction: Not 10 years after you leave, but for 10 years after walking into a US embassy and relinquishing citizenship
What specifically are you guys referring to? I can't find any reference to a 10-year tax obligation after renouncing US citizenshp. Is this part of the post 2008 expatriation tax?
Presumably the long arm of the US judicial system. I doubt they'd send drones after you in a non-extradition country, but short of that there's a lot they could potentially do to make your life very unpleasant.
Under the assumption that everything you have and get is just and fair I agree. It is a strong assumption though, and It deserves to be examined.
Externalities: Do you contribute to pollution? If so should you not then pay a fair price in compensation to us all for that privilege?
Rule of law: Do you derive rent, or benefits, from property? Are you not dependent on society to define those property rights, and enforce them? Should you not pay a fair price in compensation for that privilege?
Because big employers are against it. Because it gives more leverage to labour, diminishes labour competition and raises the overall cost of labour, i.e. wages. And of course big employers have lots of political power.
What big employers rather prefer is EITC which is a rather blatant way of getting the tax payer to subsidize their cost of labour.
And these days governments are forbidden from doing anything in house. They are forced to contract everything to the lowest bidder in the private sector because the logic goes that it's cheaper that way.
I don't think returning to state indentured slavery is in any way a good thing.
If the state wants to build a road, it should pay qualified people the market rate to build a road, not use a pool of people hard on their luck.
Basic Income allows people to manage their own life in a more cost effective way than the welfare and other social programs we already provide, plus it provides incentive and opportunity to better their position through work/school.
Does it really? Students in high school could easily take the lazy approach of believing that education doesn't matter because they will always have the basic income anyway. Noble people will better themselves under either system. Does a basic income system increase or decrease the number of people who aspire to better themselves?
I suppose it depends where you come from in terms of whether or not you believe the poor are mooching and lazy or simply disadvantaged.
Presented with the ability to continue education without needing to worry about putting food on the table, most people do in fact continue their education. Basic income is "basic" by nature. Very few will aspire to be a basic income earner for their lives. Even better though, even if they DO choose this path, they can choose otherwise at a later date and correct that mistake. That's the beauty of the system.
>In early Colonial America everyone had to help out in some way, or else they were denied food. I don't know why we never extended that idea.
I will believe that you believe in your argument when you volunteer to give up all of your assets and live on whatever work you can get. I imagine you might find yourself forming arguments about it limiting your own efficiency and output.
I would imagine back then a lot of work was unspecialised, and anyone could do it. If you're building a wooden bridge across a stream, even dummies who aren't carpenters can help carry logs.
These days you have engineers and cranes using special materials.
I like the idea of a basic income. It gets rid of the poverty trap and the negative effects seen in the studies so far don't look too bad. I look forward to seing the results of these experiment.
If you make a change like this though, I think a lot of other adjustments logically follow. Adjusting the previous benefits and tax system is a no-brainer. The cost has to be funded somehow. Beyond that though, there are a lot of other regulations and laws that would need to be reconsidered. There doesn't seem any sense having a minimum wage for example if you already have a basic income. It would also seem reasonable to relax some job protection legislation to create a more flexible labour market. In the UK if you quit your job you are not entitled to unemployment benefits, but that disadvantage would be gone. It would be easier for workers to go on strike because they'd still get the basic income. I think it would be reasonable in exchange to reduce the costs to employers making redundancies.
With a guaranteed income to fall back on, it would be much easier for jobs to rely on market forces for wage-setting, and not need a minimum wage. After all, potential employees would have a better choice.
True, but you do have to be careful of companies taking advantage of the state - think Walmart in the US and how many of their employees still rely on public assistance. Zero minimum wage had the potential to set up a near zero cost workforce if the minimum wage isn't actually enough to be picky with employment.
Walmart isn't known for being a great place to work. If people can live at minimum without having to work, Walmart can kiss its artificially cheap workforce goodbye.
Yeah why work at a crappy McJob when you could instead do what you find interesting, making weird pottery and selling it on Etsy while relying on the minimum income to cover your rent and food?
I think a significant result of these sort of minimum income ideas would be an explosion in the amount of people that opt for risky entrepreneurial ventures (eg. a startup) instead of working bad jobs for the basic necessities. I think many people would rather make art or pursue other risky, generally low income, creative careers than do low skill, uninteresting work.
A result could be that companies offering low skill, minimum wage jobs could have to raise wages or improve their jobs in other ways in order to attract workers.
Most likely those jobs will be aggressively automated, with more investment that would be previously to make up for the higher cost of labor. Just as Uber openly wants to eventually get rid of their drivers, I don't see why fast food chains wouldn't want to have a fully automated drive through restaurant in 100 years. Either that or they will have to differentiate to produce more value by having a friendlier and higher quality staff, like one might see at Chick-fil-A
People don't think nearly aggressively enough about what "automated" means. In the 18th century, farmers were 90% of the labor force. By the end of the 19th, they were less than 40%. Now, they're around 2%.
Automation is not a new thing. Imagine if the people who built the pyramids had trucks.
I agree, but I am skeptical of the information age's ability to guarantee employment for a large proportion of the population relative to agriculture (when everyone had to work for there to be enough food) and industrialization (where industry required a large human labor force).
There was a commenter on HN who said once: "When cars replaced carriages, did the horses get new jobs?"
I'm curious how low that workforce could be paid, though.
I mean, lets pretend you get $400/w from the government, and you are okay living on that. Now lets assume you decide you want a new toy, or some general spending money. Your base government income has your rent and food paid for, but you want fun money.
How much time is that fun money worth? Would you work a whole week for $50? What about $200?
I also wonder if there's a bit of a mental incentive to push you to better yourself. If you're working a week for $200, maybe you consider it a waste of your time. So, you fight for a better job, maybe through training or education. Now you've got plenty of fun money, but you also start to raise your base lifestyle (and income requirements).
I don't think any of these are absolutes of course, i'm just curious what would happen in these sort of environments. Everything i say here is a question, not an answer.
I believe most people want to do something valuable with their time. But valuable doesn't always translate 1:1 to fungible with money. Raising a child is work. Ministry is work. Volunteering is work. Art is mostly just hard work.
There's this concept throughout American politics, and I don't think it's at all true, that most people are just lazy thieves, and would happily sit on their butts watching reruns all day if they could sponge off others to do it. Of course, no one putting this theory forth thinks it applies to them - they want to work hard for the sheer pride of it.
I do, however, think there's a massive tradeoff of doing a dayjob that you hate to keep a roof over your head, versus doing something you love that won't really generate cash. I'd go farther and say many of the best-paying jobs pay well not because they're high-skilled, but rather because they're low-morality. If you're willing to do unethical things to people, you can make a lot of money, legally.
At any rate, if people want a better than minimum standard of living, they'll get a job. If they have an alternative, they're more likely to do a job they love. And a lot of people would do stuff they love for no "job" at all, if it was a choice.
> There's this concept throughout American politics, and I don't think it's at all true, that most people are just lazy thieves, and would happily sit on their butts watching reruns all day if they could sponge off others to do it. Of course, no one putting this theory forth thinks it applies to them - they want to work hard for the sheer pride of it.
What people will tell you about other people is much more reliable than what they'll tell you about themselves.
It'll be interesting if people can choose jobs freely and wages are purely determined by supply and demand, then those jobs people love to do tend to pay lower, while menial jobs people don't want to do tend to pay higher.
I have a lot of friends who are professional artists - musicians, actors, painters, etc. They are all very talented, hardworking, professional-minded people who could have much more lucrative jobs in the mainstream workforce.
That's norm. What's more interesting is that, if everybody gets choice, will some of blue-collar jobs such as janitors actually gets paid a lot more? Somebody has to do it, after all. (I'm not disgracing those jobs; as Prof. Maguire told Will in "Good Will Hunting", there's honor in it. But is it the case that their wage kept low because they're taken advantage of, having no other choices?)
One place to look for an answer is kids who live at home. They also have unconditional support from the family in terms of rent and food. But plenty of them are happy to flip burgers for some extra cash. There are of course many different situations they find themselves in, and it would be interesting to see how closely they decide things compared to adults on an unconditional grant.
Since most are looking at this from 1 direction (giving the poor additional money) you should consider the question from the other direction (having the wealthy pay more). Will the wealthy stop working as hard, earning less money or retire altogether?
There's no inherent morality to the corporate bottom line (one of the biggest flaws in "free market" thinking is that if a theory is beautiful, it must also be moral). If corporations can get the government to help subsidize employment, they'll do so.
The only solution to exploitation is to make "do nothing" a viable alternative. Right now, in America at least, welfare is a difficult and humiliating process. Employment is the only way to have any dignity at all, and employers exploit that - they underpay for awful jobs, and force employees to rely on welfare anyway. And this isn't even considering all those whom, for whatever reason, aren't really able to work. Physical or mental health, family needs, and more can all impair the ability to do a job even if one is available, and the government supported alternatives are, again, difficult and humiliating.
If employers were forced to compete not against humiliation, but rather against choice, they'd have to make the jobs suck less and pay more. Even burger-flipping would need to start getting decent treatment, the kind those of us in high demand jobs have come to expect.
>> The only solution to exploitation is to make "do nothing" a viable alternative.
Yes. I've been leaning toward that idea. Retired people need to be able to do nothing, and why not most people? If you want to live in a small house and grow your own food, why should that be prevented? Property taxes need to be zero for people, and cost of living needs to be as close to zero as possible. Then you don't need higher wages or welfare for people to get by. Instead we give tax breaks to companies and tax the heck out of people. Then wonder how to support those who can't work, or don't have in-demand skills. Speaking of skills, how about low cost education instead of government backed free for all in tuition costs?
>There's no inherent morality to the corporate bottom line (one of the biggest flaws in "free market" thinking is that if a theory is beautiful, it must also be moral)
Actually they think something even more naive, that the individual immoralities and egoisms at play (maximizing individual profit) work out for the benefit of all in the end.
Generally speaking people make the argument that maximizing individual profit is inevitable. Socialist systems simply make the group of people that maximize individual profit very small.
In reality the difference between capitalism and communism has nothing to do with money, it is about control. In capitalism those with money (who made previously successful economic decisions) mostly decide. In communism the government (who are people too) decide directly.
The problem with government decisions/communism is that people always seem to refuse to accept reality in some way. Something must keep existing, and damn the economic impact. Then the impact becomes significant compared to the size of the economy, and the system dies.
Capitalism forces governments to accept the confines of reality (mostly), communism does not. This is unfortunately exactly the problem most socialist thinkers have with it. For example, climate change might be unsolvable under capitalism. What you don't realize is that this is a good thing, not a bad thing, as the only alternative is to expend all resources we have in a failed attempt at achieving that. The only thing that would happen if we did that, of course, is the collapse of our society. (just using this as an example, I'm not saying preventing climate change is unachievable)
>After all, potential employees would have a better choice.
And I would think employers who are looking for more motivated employees would benefit as well. And I hope the opposite is true for employers who are just looking for bodies at a low cost as the sole factor.
I'm interested to see how things will be a couple months after the program is in full bloom.
I think a lot of bad stuff gets done by employers when they reach such a state. It's very analogous to website owners who just want to create a volume of views, regardless of quality. Or to game companies that want to extract as much money from their players, regardless of the experience they are producing.
Or academia where people think that just because they can get a post-doc (doesn't matter what country), research assistant, volunteer, etc to do work of marginal value (yes, most papers and "research" out there wont move respective field forward at all) just because they have the skills. I think our societies are filled with this level of rot and the more/faster ways people put a flame thrower to such, the better.
This touches on Taylorism ("scientific management"), one of the more horrible things that has happened to human society. Fredrick Winslow Taylor was the favorite industrial theorist of both the Harvard Business School and Josef Stalin, which should set off all alarms right there.
In Taylorism, "skills" are replaced with "processes". Employees are taught to do small, simple, repeatable, and thoroughly documented processes, without understanding of how the whole system works. This covers huge swaths of manual labor today - both factory labor and service jobs like fast food tend to be heavily Taylorized.
The value of Taylorism isn't that it's more efficient than relying on skilled workers. It's less efficient, and unashamedly so. But it has the side effect of disempowering the worker. Employees are now replaceable cogs, to be fired on a whim and replaced by the next warm body who can be taught the steps (and punished even for improving on them). Taylorism shifts the balance of power between employer and employee strongly in the employer's favor.
The only "safe" jobs in a Taylorized society are those that demand skills immune to Taylorizing, like engineering (and that's mostly because any job I do that can be replaced with a dumb human process can also be replaced with a program).
In principal I like the idea of a basic income as well, but I too wonder about what services/assistance it will replace. For example SNAPS/food stamps would seem to be a prime candidate.
But I wonder (and this is an honest question) are we, as a society, really (practically, politically, and philosophically) going to take a hard line with someone that lost their check at the local casino - and tell them "tough luck, sounds like a hungry few weeks ahead"?
What we choose as a society doesn't have to be carried out by government. In a basic income system you are still free to start a charity that focuses on helping people with gambling addiction. In fact, it will be easier now because you will have your own basic income to lean on as you get the charity started.
Agreed that private parties can choose to do what they like - but my question is whether the gov't position on a go forward basis would be "you got your check - we have no further obligation"I think that position would be hard to carry out politically + the risk of moral hazard should that in fact not be the case.
I'm not a Basic Income expert, but radically simplifying government welfare seems to be a major selling point whenever I read about it. I too always wonder what exactly that means. How much would actually get cut? Will there still be trade tariffs? Farm subsidies? Student loans? etc., etc.
I think the actual goal should be to have government programs that provide an acceptable standard of living without money. Basic income is both a necessary patch for problems too individual to solve this way, and the single most straightforward way to get started, but it's not a panacea that removes the need for all other programs.
If you make a change like this though, I think a lot of other adjustments logically follow.
Yes, that's the tricky part.
I seem to be politically moderate on this issue, in that I am in favour of some form of social security safety net for the essentials, but I also think any government aid beyond that needs to be limited so those who do more also see more benefit in return. A guaranteed basic income seems like an interesting idea that could work as part of a wider reform of our social security framework.
Perhaps it could be combined with some form of public service requirement for those who want to claim it, so it would be more like a guaranteed job available to as many people as need it than a hand-out. This could be used to support useful activities that aren't run commercially, such as looking after local neighbourhood amenities, or helping at your kid's school if you have useful skills to share, or even going abroad to help with aid work after a natural disaster. Instead of the state social security apparatus concentrating on who qualifies or doesn't qualify for which benefits, with sometimes controversial or unfair results, maybe it could concentrate on recognising valuable activities and helping those otherwise without a job to contribute to them.
Next you have the issue of private and public sector employment. Maybe set a statutory minimum wage for employing someone full-time that is a modest but noticeable amount above the basic income level? Tax any form of income above that level, adjust in some reasonable way for people who are working part-time, and adjust in reasonable ways to support those who have other genuine responsibilities or disabilities, and this seems like the basis for a system where work does pay but if you're ever the unlucky one for a while then you aren't getting punched when you're down. Maybe it could even support a different kind of lifestyle for the type of person who likes contributing to their community in practical ways and doesn't much value material things or financial wealth.
I also wonder whether, given the shifting population patterns and increasing debt particularly among the young that we have in the West today, we should place a lot more emphasis on social housing, even if that just means a modest dorm-style room and some basic communal facilities so everyone can have somewhere to eat, sleep and wash. It seems to me that this would be a natural fit with the idea of giving everyone a basic safety net and an opportunity to move up to enjoy things beyond the essentials in exchange for taking on better paid work.
Note there's no marginal disincentive to work. Marginal. You get the money no matter what, so you're not faced with the take-this-job-or-stay-on-benefits problem that often comes with modern welfare systems.
Yeah, that's the main change here, and I think probably a positive. The Nordic countries already have close to a universalist welfare system, where you're more or less guaranteed an income sufficient to live on. So the change here isn't about whether you should be able to live without working: that's basically already true, and has been for decades. The change is about whether to pay out a basic income unconditionally rather than via the traditional welfare system, which excludes employed people, people with assets, etc.
I'm less familiar with the specifics of Finland's system, but in Denmark, if you run out of savings and eligibility for other sources of support (unemployment benefits, etc.), you fall back on a last-line "cash assistance" (kontanthjælp) which is something like $1500/mo, and can be received indefinitely. But you lose it if you get a job, so it can provide a disincentive to work in some cases, especially if your only job options are low-paying ones. Just paying out a basic income unconditionally wouldn't have the same issue, since any employment income would be in addition to the basic income, vs. the current scheme where your job income replaces the cash assistance.
I feel like a lot of the universal income would be lost to rent increases that seem likely to happen. It's really hard to predict the actual outcome though.
The alternative result could be construction in very cheap housing given the predictable price floor for 100% of the population. If you can be sure your tenants will pay rent then you will want them at your building. The low-medium quality housing stock may suffer as the people on minimum income could be priced out while those who work may want fancier digs.
> If you can be sure your tenants will pay rent then you will want them at your building.
And this would be true, if the basic income program provided a way for your landlord to receive your basic income on your behalf, garnish it, and turn it over to you. I've never heard that proposed, and don't expect to.
I never suggested anything like this. What I meant to illustrate was a condition where a landlord could predict the amount of rent they could charge given the cost of living and expected minimum income. If a tenant was getting minimum income and wasting it on booze and such and came up short for rent, you could kick them out, knowing that a more responsible tenant could fill the space (unless you have like 0% vacancy)
If there is a greater demand for units than supply, price is set by the top N buyers. If you boost everyone's spending power above that price without increasing supply, market forces will tend to raise the price until it's affordable only to the top N again.
In housing, this means that you can boost people's spending power to help them afford rent, but you also need to build more units or you're just going to fuck everything up.
Just to clarify, Finland is NOT going to give every citizen €800 per month. It is NOT going to implementing basic income.
People read what they want to read, if it fits their political narrative.
A tiny administrative section in Finland is trialling it, but it's only being pushed by a minority left-wing, and it has no chance of being implemented in reality.
This story can be filed along with the "Sweden implements 6-hour working day", which was also arrant nonsense.
Your statements in the 3rd paragraph are incorrect.
There is no ongoing trial, just a plan to have a trial start in about a year. The parameters (e.g. location, the monetary sums, exactly which existing social security mechanisms it replaces) are still undecided. But it seems very unlikely that they'd run the test in just a single location like you're suggesting.
It is also not being pushed by a left-wing minority, but by the most conservative government Finland has had in decades (consisting of the conservative party, the centre party and the nationalist party). At least right now the idea appears to have very broad support in the polls, though that could of course change once there's a concrete proposal.
I'd rather say that the support is not uniform. The most left wing party supports unrealistically generous basic income plan, some people in the (right wing) government parties support a much more modest plan (that might actually end up downscaling current system or not) or at least support running this planned test. However, no one has any idea if they have a majority support in the government parties, and there's also opposition to "giving everybody free money", "it will bankrupt the state".
I understand that the greens also have their own, different basic income plan.
The moderate left wing party (social democrats, in opposition) and the unions oppose all basic income projects; they built the current welfare system.
There is a key component missing from this proposal: what benefits will be cut? As written in the article: "this national basic income would replace all other benefit payments"
There are many cases where unequal benefits payments are considered politically, morally and ethically acceptable by the majority of society. E.g. the blind, the handicapped, war veterans, orphans, victims of crime, volunteers...
For example in the US, the blind may deduct expenses from their income before taxes that others may not. This is an unequal benefit that we collectively accept.
In Finland's proposal, what will happen to benefits for special cases?
Finland has been in a depression for a while. Their GDP is still 6pc below its previous peak. [1]
If this is a last desperate ploy to prevent secular stagnation one has to wonder how effective this will be, and how "temporary" - for now this is sold as temporary but the moment it is withdrawn their economy would truly crater.
Thanks for the link. I had read another rendition of this, but it was heavily flavored with hysteria wusing terms like "helicopter money."
This looks more like a work-around attempt to correct their economy after major commodities slump, Nokia problems, etc. Being in the Euro camp, they are unable to devalue their currency, as a country might normally choose to do...
This is a good topic to discuss, but terrible article. They are planning on running a test on some basic income schemes[1]. Finland is going through austerity measures and I don't think basic income fits in to current political landscape.
Ok, we added "testing". "Considering testing giving" is terrible English but amusingly reflective of the contortions headline writers subject stories to.
I will try to comment in E-prime, the sliced bread of HN today :D.
In Finland, a welfare state indeed, you can quite easily slack off on the social benefits already. If you take up unemployment insurance, you can basically get 18 months of 70% of your salary after you get fired or quit. The insurance (or union membership) costs around 100 EUR a year. A lot of people I know count on this, or already take advantage of it. I see that as a quite big thing, it must drain a lot of money from somewhere if you think about big companies letting people go by big numbers, plus people in 20s or 30s going for one-year backpacking trips.
The 800 EUR probably just makes it more simple for the social system to distribute the benefits. Plus some innovation karma for Finland, yay!
edit: I fogot my main point: even though it feels somehow discouraging to pass money to slackers, I still don't mind paying the high taxes - I haven't found any other reason that makes Finland so nice place to live!
Leftist politicians have blocked this at several points, alas, although it is probably the most humane and effective method of delivering help to the poor. It also has the advantage of getting more people to, you know, actually file tax returns.
I can imagine that control of how people spent the money (food stamps versus cash) would be a problem in the US. Programs versus direct payment does tend to show up as an issue.
Look at the ND gaming compact with the tribes. The casino money can go into social service programs but not direct payments. I'll leave it to the reader to figure out how that has gone.
DOesn't look like you really know why, but you're just asserting
I think it's fiscal conservatives who are against it, and many Democrats as well. The "left" doesn't really exist politically in the US.. what you have remaining now is the non-rightists (mostly corporatist Dems).
No, I know why. I spent a bit of time in the 90's doing the whole political thing. Programs and no-direct money were very important to the left (for the US definition).
The right has its own issues with the concept of a lot of the programs.
This isn't Wikipedia. I'm sorry I offended your worldview of what a person on the left's representatives believe, but that's my observation and experience. The ND Tribal Gaming Compact is probably as good as an example as possible, or maybe the paradox you can buy a burrito at a gas station with EBT but not use the microwave to cook it.
I once thought it was fun to put in footnotes and huge lists of references[1], but that's just work, and frankly, just stopped being joyful. Hell, after getting down voted for actually showing the reference + quote on why a certain religion has the name it does and what one of the words mean, I realized it was for the best. In another thread, I thought about doing the work last night because I cannot believe someone would actually think a particular way[2].
1) I think my best was 12 in a thread with someone who was putting an equal amount of effort - that was fun, informative, and respectful
2) living on a rez will give a nice overview of all the ways the US government tried to kill the Native Americans
> Programs and no-direct money were very important to the left (for the US definition).
As someone who also spent a "bit of time in the 1990s doing the whole political thing", that seems distorted. To the extent that was true of the party usually associated with "the left (for the US definition)" -- i.e., the Democratic Party -- it was largely because much of the Democratic Party was in a mode of strategic political "triangulation" by which it sought to mitigate traditional right-wing objections by presenting policies that could be sold out the gate as compromises, and also in part due to the fact -- especially after 1994 -- of resurgent Republican dominance which made it difficult, preference for triangulation aside, to get any traction for benefit program changes -- especially new programs or benefit increases -- that couldn't be sold as somehow instituting new limits or controls on the duration, kinds of people eligible, use of benefits, etc.
The desire of the Democrats I ran into was control over how the money was spent since you couldn't trust the people to spend it wisely without a program or law. It really soured me towards them, particularly the corruption and death that followed not allowing tribes in ND to pay their members (the casino owners) direct dividends because they didn't trust the members to spend it properly.
> The "left" doesn't really exist politically in the US.. what you have remaining now is the non-rightists (mostly corporatist Dems).
The left does exist in the US, but the US center is so far to the right that the parties look a like a center-right party and a far-right party most of the time, by international standards.
OTOH, on the NIT, pure NITs have never reached any significant stage of the policy debate in the US, from either major party, so "leftist politicians" haven't shot it down (unless you define "leftist" so unusually as to include most of both major US parties.) Variations on NIT (which, certainly, compromise some of its key features, in each case) have been proposed by politicians of both major parties (including a form that passed as the Earned Income Tax Credit) -- and also several minor parties (a negative income tax was, e.g., part of the 2010 Green Party platform.)
As a policy proposal, it is packaged with eliminating highly moderated welfare systems. That is, welfare systems that allow gov't policy to exert a lot of control over vendors, how/when/where aid is administered, and so forth. That and the fact that bureaucrats in Washington in charge of administering welfare aren't required anymore when it becomes merely a monetary transfer.
It makes a lot more sense if you view the goal of leftist governments as paying leftist government workers, rather than actually helping the people allegedly being helped.
> I thought basic income and negative income tax were two different concepts?
Unconditional basic income in a progressive tax system is equivalent to a form of negative income tax system. You can achieve exactly the results of the UBI as an NIT, if you set the parameters correctly.
NIT looks income conditional (since additional income will reduce the tax subsidy by some proportion), but that's no different than additional income being taxable in a UBI system.
(Though many NIT proposals, including, IIRC, Friedman's original, reduce the incentive to work compared to a simple UBI on top of the existing tax system because the effective tax rate on the first effective "bracket" of income on top of the UBI is very high -- 50% in Friedman's proposal -- which retains some of the seen-as-adverse effects of means-tested social benefit programs that NIT/UBIs are usually proposed as an alternative to.)
> Leftist politicians have blocked this at several points
That's at best misleading and at worst flat-out false; a pure NIT has rarely reached the point of even a serious proposal, both left and right groups have proposed kinda-sorta-NITs, some of which have passed, some of which haven't, and the failures have been sometimes resulted from opposition from the right, sometimes to opposition from the left, and sometimes from opposition that is neither purely left or right (and sometimes to extraneous political reasons not directly and specifically tied to the NIT-related proposal itself.)
It's worth noting that very close to the same time Friedman started promoting the idea, so did scholars from the liberal Brookings Institute.
The institution of a basic income was a primary factor in the downfall of the Roman Empire. Once people grew accustomed to it, they supported any politician who increased it, regardless of any other factors.
"Already long ago, from when we sold our vote to no man, the People have abdicated our duties; for the People who once upon a time handed out military command, high civil office, legions — everything, now restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two things: bread and circuses."
-Juvenal
It would probably be politically untenable to have your voting rights tied to if you are taking the money or not. A modern version of land owners getting to vote and no others.
On top of that being an irresponsibly reductionist approach to the downfall of an enormous pre-industrial empire that not only had to defend vast borders but also deal with the economic crippling of having its olive groves in North Africa torched (which take 5 years to bear fruit and were among the biggest sources of Roman revenue), your comment seems to ignore the nature of technology in society today. Advances like self-driving cars could ultimately put entire human industries like trucking and the many towns that support them out of business, even if it makes things much cheaper. Ditto for, say, 3D printing. Would all those unemployed truck drivers and factory workers (not to mention their hairdressers, store clerks, prostitutes, etc.) cause no disruption to society? It is sometimes cheaper to placate people than to let them suffer.
First you need to ask the question: "why was a basic income instituted?"
It was instituted to buy votes, of course. But why were people's votes for sale so cheaply?
During Rome's ascendancy, the citizen-soldier institution sent hundreds of thousands of Roman men out into the world on military campaigns. As their successes grew, so did their terms of military service.
In turn, this lead to the collapse of the farms that these men used to work in order to provide for themselves and their family. These farms were purchased by the patrician class, and worked by slaves.
Within a few generations, wealth inequality in Rome was so bad that most of the households that had previously been small landholders were reduced to urban poverty.
Some Roman politicians did attempt to address this stifling inequality (such as the Gracchi brothers). After the Senate repeatedly murdered such "class traitors", the compromise of bread and circuses became the Senatorial (and later, Imperial) solution to the problems that the Senatorial classes had themselves caused.
Universal income in Rome was a symptom of a completely dysfunctional society. Rome collapsed because its working classes ceased to work, but its working classes ceased to work because its ruling classes ceased to rule for the benefit of the many. Rome was brought down by its wealthy elite.
If modern Western societies really are analogous to Rome (which they probably aren't), then universal income may herald the collapse. However, if it does, then this collapse will have been ultimately precipitated by the aggregation of power in the hands of the wealthy.
In any case, pointing the finger at the Roman poor is a historical trend that was conjured by Rome's ruling classes to justify their own positions (think of all the howling about the "welfare poor" by the well-off in North American society today) and later by conservative British historians to justify the lopsided distribution of wealth and power in their own society. Rome's poor built the Roman Empire.
You missed my point in your eagerness to put out the Marxist version of Roman history. The reasons why the basic income was instituted in Rome are indeed fascinating, but not the point here.
The point is: once a basic income was instituted -- for whatever reasons -- the vast majority of the populace ceased to care about ALL other factors in politics. Thenceforth, they only cared about who would increase the basic income.
This is a very dangerous situation for any society to be in.
Incidentally, the world today is in a very analogous situation. Whereas in Rome the work formerly done by the poor was taken by unpaid slaves, today the work formerly done by the poor is taken by unpaid machines -- just like slaves in most respects, except without the annoying moral quandary attached.
Out of curiosity, are there any other theories you'd advance, outside of the "decline of virtue" theory?
In any case, your point is a good one, although what keeps it from being completely locked in is that this is correlation, not causation. Did "bread and circuses" truly bring down Rome, or was it a symptom of the collapse of Rome?
What does the counterfactual look like? Let's say everything else stays the same, but the Aediles are incorruptible, leaving a large, mass of hungry Romans with nothing to do. Isn't this the recipe for insurrection and civil war? Wouldn't the Senate decide that the best solution to this would be ... bread and circuses?
It still seems to me that the situation that had developed in Rome produced only two outcomes: either the inhabitants of Rome keep voting themselves bread and circuses, or they rise up in rebellion until someone gives them bread and circuses.
Basically, I don't see a "third way" that solves this problem. Absent that, it seems like the origins of Roman collapse need to be traced back farther. Bringing this back to the point of universal income, if universal income creates a culture of dependency like the one described, the analogy implies that this is a symptom of the conditions that created a need for universal income.
tl;dr: if this is true, society had already collapsed. Bread and circuses only prolonged the patient's suffering.
Certainly is refreshing to see a significant reduction in bureaucracy in an EU state. If the public generally supports this, then I guess we'll just have to see how it turns out.
I don't think there's much else to say but good luck.
What about people who already have a significant income per month?
Doesn't it seem wasteful to give them more money each month, rather than say, working on the homeless problem directly with this money, or increasing the amount given, but reducing the scope of people it is given to?
If someone has a very high marginal tax rate, then it would have a very small impact on their income and on govt spending?
If it isn't received above some income level, but is received entirely below that income level, then there would be a disincentive of that given amount against going a little bit above that income level. And, maybe that's fine? But if it is why not just incorporate that into taxes?
If there is a sharp threshold, it seems like trying to make that threshold as low as possible would be dangerous, because it might cause a personally significant disincentive against working, or getting a job that pays more. But if it was significantly higher than the apparent lowest possible safe value, that would seem unfair for the same reason? So, if instead of a sharp cut-off, there could be a gradual cutoff?
That seems pretty similar to the basic income or negative income tax ideas though. But not necessarily identical, just of the same form.
ok so if f(x) is the amount of taxes minus the amount of govt income that one must pay (so, negative numbers would be net receiving money from the government) , and x is other income, then,
f(0)<0, uh...
I forget where I was going with that. d/dx (x-f(x)) > 0 seems reasonable to expect? I suppose it could be <0 at a small area where it wouldn't have much impact, (or have a discontinuity, but same thing basically. ) but I'm not sure what the advantages of having that would be.
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"Let's make earning a living optional, and funded by the productive members of society, and see how that pans out".
I'll grant you it'll be easier and cheaper to implement than other versions of a taxpayer funded welfare state, but I imagine the outcomes will be the same, and the (im)morality is no different.
i.e. it shouldn't reduce work, except in kids staying in school longer and women taking longer time off to look after babies.
"The results showed an impact on labor markets"
Which is how I described it in my comment.
You're just okay with the reasons for that reduction, which is quite a different thing to claiming there was no reduction.
Also this old argument about reduced work incentives is becoming increasingly invalid as an expansion in permanent structural unemployment due to automation, hyperefficiency, and globalized labor markets is spelling the end of industrial labor to begin with. Meaning that there simply are not enough jobs to go around, regardless of incentive. It's one thing to chalk unemployment up to laziness in an era of abundant opportunity, it's quite another in a post-industrial era of labor scarcity.
I used to work in a job that I don't think was very amenable to automation. It was a terrible job and I don't miss it one bit. I doubt anyone would want to work it if they didn't actually need money.
Sure, maybe we can live without windows or something, I just don't know how many such products there are. Money isn't everything, after all--there has to be something you can actually buy with that money. And if nobody or almost nobody is willing to make those things any more, what then?
That's the part that scares me. I'm sure we can print enough money for everyone. I'm not sure how much of anything there will be to buy with it. And all the arguments for this are "it's the right thing to do" rather than "we know we can make this work because..."
A simple thing to do to limit the unexpected economic consequences is to limit the size of the basic income. For example, give everyone $5 and you are unlikely to see any effects at all. Of course then the outcome isn't very interesting, but the basic mechanism isn't necessarily going to implode the economy.
My feeling is that it will either be too low to be meaningful or too high and it'll lower the production of useful things to buy, such that we're actually poorer in some sense in spite of it. I certainly agree with you about the fact that the production of the things we buy with money being more important than the rectangular pieces of paper, though.
So I actually think it can work out for a country like Norway, that's small and rich and which imports plenty of physical goods from elsewhere with oil money, and therefore where it honestly doesn't change much of anything. It's what happens when everybody does it that I wonder about.
But maybe I'm wrong and it will just end up outsourcing all the labor to China / Mexico / SE Asia / wherever with a manageable inflation and we'll muddle through somehow. I don't really know, which is why I'm disturbed that I see so few people who seem to have any good idea about the actual effects talking about it.
[1] Specifically, their worst-case outcome in negotiating employment terms (i.e. failing to agree on terms and not getting the job, then not managing to get another offer fast enough) might improve from catastrophic to merely quite bad.
Two reasons:
[1] There might not be much to buy with that money due to effects like this / inflation now that everyone has more money but there's only the same amount (or less) of stuff to buy with that money.
[2] The actual job is horrible.
Some of the aspects of the job can be mitigated. Others, not so much. There's a big tempering furnace that's really hot. There's really no way to avoid being uncomfortably hot around the quench, even with the nearby air conditioned room. It's running at almost 800F all day.
Glass is inherently dangerous. I know of people who have been killed on the job, in spite of lots of safety gear, etc. I personally treated some very serious injuries (e.g. cuts to the wrist causing permanent damage and massive blood loss).
There's a lot of grunt work that can't be very easily automated. It's boring as hell. It's very tiring work. I have lots of other complaints, but in theory, a different employer could at least fix some of those and they would presumably have to.
If an employer raises wages, is that (in a small way) inflationary? Does average wage have a causal relationship with inflation (I wouldn't think so, but perhaps it does, serious question)? If not, why would basic income be inflationary per se ?
> [2] The actual job is horrible.
Jobs that are horrible might have to pay more, but probably not much more. I'd hope "do it or join the homeless" isn't a necessary stick for our economic system to function, but "do it or barely have enough money to survive" would suffice. If so, it's more awful than I'd already estimated. Hell, complete destitution isn't even really the stick now, since welfare is a thing, especially in OECD states that aren't the U.S.
I guess I don't find it clear how "only have basic income to live on" is a less effective motivator than "be on welfare" (in the broad sense of "welfare"). And since we already know modern economies function OK with the latter—some of which can include cash assistance—what substantial difference does the former represent?
[2] It's not just pay. You CANNOT pay me to do that job again. I'm sick of being cut by glass. I don't like dealing with horrific bloody injuries, though I'm incredibly conflicted there--I mean, I did volunteer for it and I don't regret doing it and helping people. And I'm glad to be able to do it and that I was able to help people and I'd even volunteer again... but it's a horrible thing to have to do and I don't wand more of it.
Basic income is just welfare on steroids. The effect should be something that depends on the scale of how much money and how many people have their 'stake' diluted by how much. The scale of this is bigger than before (everyone gets money) according to what's planned--I don't seriously think anyone will implement it as $5 for everybody and if they did, it shouldn't have any meaningful effect.
Due to more money being issued, there should be more inflation caused by it, as we can't all suddenly start producing more windows and whatnot just because we're paid more. People are also likely to start charging more because everything costs them more and people have more money to spend now.
Now, all that said, maybe it could work as a replacement for welfare. I'm not sure about that, but it doesn't seem terribly unreasonable. Maybe everyone has an ID card and they can charge $X a month for food/rent/clothing, especially with the theory that people who don't actually need it might not use it. As I said, the main issue is the scale. If you get to the "work is optional" state that everyone seems to want, that's where I worry about the effects. But, there's obviously a long continuum between it being 0% optional and 100% optional and I honestly don't know what things happen where.
Why would there (necessarily) be more money?
> People are also likely to start charging more because everything costs them more and people have more money to spend now
It seems like all of this would work equally well as an argument for a policy of depressing wages as a way to makes everyone better off. If you wouldn't support that, why the concern about guaranteed income? Or, what is the difference, in terms of effect on the money and labor supplies? How would lowering wages not be the inverse of this, and (under this line of reasoning) be good for us? Unless you believe we're at some sort of maxima for the ideal share of money flowing to the bottom of the economic pyramid, and that sending more that way will make collectively less well-off. It's also possible I'm just not following what you mean.
But people have to be willing to exchange things for money, so if you create tons of it, it becomes toilet paper. We already know this can break down due to direct, empirical observation. Just look up past examples of hyperinflation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperinflation
And this is the sort of thing that worries me. All the past examples had to drop their own currency, which they could no longer be trusted with, and become dependent on a foreign power. All the past examples were governments that though the government's funds were simply unlimited and many were Socialist governments that wanted to tax from the rich and give to the poor.
That said, don't get me wrong. If I could actually believe that none of us had to work and robots would do everything, I'd love it. But having worked a crappy ass job, I know that some work can only get done out of necessity at present. I really hate that, and I don't wish it on anyone, but I don't know how to fix it either. I wish I could be convinced that some of the fine, caring people putting out these proposals had thought them through, but they've mostly helped me understand that they know less than I do, and I know almost nothing :/
If part of the effect of minimum income is for people to spend more time with their kids, then this would show up as less work, in part, because less of the work being done would be for money.
Do you consider the ~10% loss in working hours a major disadvantage?
I could definitely see more people getting advanced degrees in a "MINCOME" society. For example, I have a family member that really wants to do a masters, but had to work through school and isn't sure they can swing it for a masters too.
I think that compulsory taxation is as wrong in principle as slavery, and that socialism and the welfare state risk destroying society in the long run. They certainly have destroyed subsets of society already.
It really surprises and dismays me to find so much support for such a socialist idea on HN, too, which is usually relatively supportive of capitalism. My inner cynic wonders if it's because people would like to cash in on such an idea on the way to Ramen profitability.
I think Finland would be better off testing the idea (e.g. in a single city, eligible population fixed at the start) before committing to it. There would doubtless be problems with the test, but it would give a better idea of what to expect.
Once you stop forcing people to prove that they are looking for work then you can spread them around the country a bit more.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finland#Urbanization
Morality is relative, but I don't understand your views on it. If a society is rich enough to give a good life to all their members, is it immoral to do it?
What about keeping a big part of the population afraid of how are they going to pay the rent tomorrow so you have cheap and available workers? is that moral? specially when we live in the richest societies of history?
People that believe in the overwhelmed goodness of markets should investigate a little more history. For instance: the ten hours bill in the UK (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factories_Act_1847) and how the "laissez faire" crow of the time opposed to "restrict the working hours of women and young persons (13-18) in textile mills to 10 hours per day" because its immorality.
Do we have the infrastructure (or can we build it) and the knowledge or not?
I wonder if the argument against it is something like this: imagine for every person, they have some amount they are willing to contribute to said scheme. However, unless the total amount needed to fund such a project is small, if you don't force everyone to contribute then the cost will be significantly higher per person. Then, because it's higher than what some people want to pay, they choose not to pay although they would have otherwise. After that happens, the price increases more, and this effect continues.
But the question to ask is: does that justify the use of coercion to secure funding? I.e., does efficiency justify the use of force?
$40k * 300M = $1.2 * 10^13, or the whole GDP of the US
Okay maybe that's too luxurious for the common people. Let's say only 20k per year, and to only 200M people.
$20k * 200M = $4 * 10^12, or about the total federal spending for 2015.
So how exactly is the 'richest' nation in the world able to afford this, easily?
Also, this would presumably replace Social Security and other welfare costs (or retirees would be excluded).
And finally, people would still be working. I'm sure the taxes I pay would more than cover the cost for giving it to me.
Do you mean that there is no fact of the matter as to whether an act in a context is moral? Because if that is your claim, I disagree.
Regarding the morality of it, there's a good argument to be had from the position that it's fair compensation for the allocation of property. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geolibertarianism
I just want to say that first of all, you can certainly be productive without generating an income. All the people who contribute to OSS projects are certainly productive despite not being paid to do so for example.
Also, the idea that if you don't need to make a living, you will be lazier or less likely to work is actually incorrect, at least according to this: http://economics.mit.edu/files/10861
I'll be honest in admitting I haven't gotten around to reading it, I've only read the conclusion and intro, so please do correct me if I was wrong.
Finally, and this is more personal, I really do believe that most people will do better work if they are not pressured to make a living. For example, if university professors didn't have to earn a living, I imagine they would spend all their time doing research instead of using most of their time now doing administrative tasks. I can't imagine anyone became a professor thinking they wanted to go to meetings; certainly all the people I've met who wanted to become professors did it in spite of the fact they knew they would have to deal with a lot of nonsense because they could not imagine doing anything besides research.
How many PhD students in CS end up in industry because the academic environment is awful? I suppose you could argue that by joining industry they are more productive but I'd argue that both are productive, but an individual would be more productive working where their passions align.
I think most people here would not be doing what their job requires but instead contribute to OSS, and honestly we probably have better software as a result.
We often wonder what Western society lost when the private sector discovered that feminism was profitable.
I like the idea of a system that still has incentives for people to work but doesn't leave them hanging if they can't find a job.
Ultimately, I think people will want to work. It gives them something to do and the money to afford things they want but don't need. If everyone followed Keynes, we would be happy with working ten hours a week to maintain a 1930s standard of living.
I played MMORPGs a long time ago on french speaking servers and the amount of unemployed people playing that game and that had zero incentive or motivation to go work was incredible.
Of course this is an example but not everyone want's to be a productive member of society.
From a public policy standpoint, paying people to essentially stay at home and be passive consumers can be quite beneficial. They aren't supporting themselves through crime and they're placated to the degree that they won't want to protest the establishment. And if they want anything more out of life than the basics, they'll have to work for it. Living on welfare alone (even if it's nationally guaranteed) doesn't sound like attractive mate material to me.
Exception: could result in poorly handled out of wedlock births. Possible mitigation by increasing benefits to incentivize birth control?
So, yes, kids and adults will still be able to associate higher cost goods with higher social status. But changing benefits to cash instead of alternative, restricted currencies like food stamps will lessen the opportunities to identify and stigmatize those who are struggling financially.
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2014/12/23/mincome-in-dauphin-m...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MINCOME
These days quite a few people work only to get on EI they use it as income then work under the table for cash.
If a guaranteed minimum income were to be the same amount as EI + cash that could work but there is no way to police under the table cash work.
One problem I can imagine is in some areas with really low cost of living there may be no incentive to work. You are thinking "But how can someone live on (800 Euros) $1,173 month?". Quite a few people in the countryside of where I live will survive on $5,000 per year that's $416 per month. They get their cheap beer or bootleg beer, bootleg cigarettes or buy it in bulk, grow a garden, fish and hunt. It's a subsistence lifestyle many are used to living.
In early Colonial America everyone had to help out in some way, or else they were denied food. I don't know why we never extended that idea.
What specifically are you guys referring to? I can't find any reference to a 10-year tax obligation after renouncing US citizenshp. Is this part of the post 2008 expatriation tax?
http://www.forbes.com/2010/03/23/expatriation-exit-tax-limba...
http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood/2015/02/11/thousands-...
https://www.irs.gov/Individuals/International-Taxpayers/Expa...
* Pay up to the state
* Get thrown in jail
* Go in exile
Or option 4 (by far the most popular) - emigrate to another area.
Externalities: Do you contribute to pollution? If so should you not then pay a fair price in compensation to us all for that privilege?
Rule of law: Do you derive rent, or benefits, from property? Are you not dependent on society to define those property rights, and enforce them? Should you not pay a fair price in compensation for that privilege?
What big employers rather prefer is EITC which is a rather blatant way of getting the tax payer to subsidize their cost of labour.
And these days governments are forbidden from doing anything in house. They are forced to contract everything to the lowest bidder in the private sector because the logic goes that it's cheaper that way.
If the state wants to build a road, it should pay qualified people the market rate to build a road, not use a pool of people hard on their luck.
Basic Income allows people to manage their own life in a more cost effective way than the welfare and other social programs we already provide, plus it provides incentive and opportunity to better their position through work/school.
800 for 20h/week is not illegal.
Presented with the ability to continue education without needing to worry about putting food on the table, most people do in fact continue their education. Basic income is "basic" by nature. Very few will aspire to be a basic income earner for their lives. Even better though, even if they DO choose this path, they can choose otherwise at a later date and correct that mistake. That's the beauty of the system.
BTW, this is borne out by the data: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MINCOME
No true scotsman.
I will believe that you believe in your argument when you volunteer to give up all of your assets and live on whatever work you can get. I imagine you might find yourself forming arguments about it limiting your own efficiency and output.
These days you have engineers and cranes using special materials.
If you make a change like this though, I think a lot of other adjustments logically follow. Adjusting the previous benefits and tax system is a no-brainer. The cost has to be funded somehow. Beyond that though, there are a lot of other regulations and laws that would need to be reconsidered. There doesn't seem any sense having a minimum wage for example if you already have a basic income. It would also seem reasonable to relax some job protection legislation to create a more flexible labour market. In the UK if you quit your job you are not entitled to unemployment benefits, but that disadvantage would be gone. It would be easier for workers to go on strike because they'd still get the basic income. I think it would be reasonable in exchange to reduce the costs to employers making redundancies.
I think a significant result of these sort of minimum income ideas would be an explosion in the amount of people that opt for risky entrepreneurial ventures (eg. a startup) instead of working bad jobs for the basic necessities. I think many people would rather make art or pursue other risky, generally low income, creative careers than do low skill, uninteresting work.
A result could be that companies offering low skill, minimum wage jobs could have to raise wages or improve their jobs in other ways in order to attract workers.
Automation is not a new thing. Imagine if the people who built the pyramids had trucks.
There was a commenter on HN who said once: "When cars replaced carriages, did the horses get new jobs?"
I mean, lets pretend you get $400/w from the government, and you are okay living on that. Now lets assume you decide you want a new toy, or some general spending money. Your base government income has your rent and food paid for, but you want fun money.
How much time is that fun money worth? Would you work a whole week for $50? What about $200?
I also wonder if there's a bit of a mental incentive to push you to better yourself. If you're working a week for $200, maybe you consider it a waste of your time. So, you fight for a better job, maybe through training or education. Now you've got plenty of fun money, but you also start to raise your base lifestyle (and income requirements).
I don't think any of these are absolutes of course, i'm just curious what would happen in these sort of environments. Everything i say here is a question, not an answer.
There's this concept throughout American politics, and I don't think it's at all true, that most people are just lazy thieves, and would happily sit on their butts watching reruns all day if they could sponge off others to do it. Of course, no one putting this theory forth thinks it applies to them - they want to work hard for the sheer pride of it.
I do, however, think there's a massive tradeoff of doing a dayjob that you hate to keep a roof over your head, versus doing something you love that won't really generate cash. I'd go farther and say many of the best-paying jobs pay well not because they're high-skilled, but rather because they're low-morality. If you're willing to do unethical things to people, you can make a lot of money, legally.
At any rate, if people want a better than minimum standard of living, they'll get a job. If they have an alternative, they're more likely to do a job they love. And a lot of people would do stuff they love for no "job" at all, if it was a choice.
What people will tell you about other people is much more reliable than what they'll tell you about themselves.
The only solution to exploitation is to make "do nothing" a viable alternative. Right now, in America at least, welfare is a difficult and humiliating process. Employment is the only way to have any dignity at all, and employers exploit that - they underpay for awful jobs, and force employees to rely on welfare anyway. And this isn't even considering all those whom, for whatever reason, aren't really able to work. Physical or mental health, family needs, and more can all impair the ability to do a job even if one is available, and the government supported alternatives are, again, difficult and humiliating.
If employers were forced to compete not against humiliation, but rather against choice, they'd have to make the jobs suck less and pay more. Even burger-flipping would need to start getting decent treatment, the kind those of us in high demand jobs have come to expect.
Yes. I've been leaning toward that idea. Retired people need to be able to do nothing, and why not most people? If you want to live in a small house and grow your own food, why should that be prevented? Property taxes need to be zero for people, and cost of living needs to be as close to zero as possible. Then you don't need higher wages or welfare for people to get by. Instead we give tax breaks to companies and tax the heck out of people. Then wonder how to support those who can't work, or don't have in-demand skills. Speaking of skills, how about low cost education instead of government backed free for all in tuition costs?
Actually they think something even more naive, that the individual immoralities and egoisms at play (maximizing individual profit) work out for the benefit of all in the end.
In reality the difference between capitalism and communism has nothing to do with money, it is about control. In capitalism those with money (who made previously successful economic decisions) mostly decide. In communism the government (who are people too) decide directly.
The problem with government decisions/communism is that people always seem to refuse to accept reality in some way. Something must keep existing, and damn the economic impact. Then the impact becomes significant compared to the size of the economy, and the system dies.
Capitalism forces governments to accept the confines of reality (mostly), communism does not. This is unfortunately exactly the problem most socialist thinkers have with it. For example, climate change might be unsolvable under capitalism. What you don't realize is that this is a good thing, not a bad thing, as the only alternative is to expend all resources we have in a failed attempt at achieving that. The only thing that would happen if we did that, of course, is the collapse of our society. (just using this as an example, I'm not saying preventing climate change is unachievable)
And I would think employers who are looking for more motivated employees would benefit as well. And I hope the opposite is true for employers who are just looking for bodies at a low cost as the sole factor.
I'm interested to see how things will be a couple months after the program is in full bloom.
I think a lot of bad stuff gets done by employers when they reach such a state. It's very analogous to website owners who just want to create a volume of views, regardless of quality. Or to game companies that want to extract as much money from their players, regardless of the experience they are producing.
In Taylorism, "skills" are replaced with "processes". Employees are taught to do small, simple, repeatable, and thoroughly documented processes, without understanding of how the whole system works. This covers huge swaths of manual labor today - both factory labor and service jobs like fast food tend to be heavily Taylorized.
The value of Taylorism isn't that it's more efficient than relying on skilled workers. It's less efficient, and unashamedly so. But it has the side effect of disempowering the worker. Employees are now replaceable cogs, to be fired on a whim and replaced by the next warm body who can be taught the steps (and punished even for improving on them). Taylorism shifts the balance of power between employer and employee strongly in the employer's favor.
The only "safe" jobs in a Taylorized society are those that demand skills immune to Taylorizing, like engineering (and that's mostly because any job I do that can be replaced with a dumb human process can also be replaced with a program).
But I wonder (and this is an honest question) are we, as a society, really (practically, politically, and philosophically) going to take a hard line with someone that lost their check at the local casino - and tell them "tough luck, sounds like a hungry few weeks ahead"?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10522880
Yes, that's the tricky part.
I seem to be politically moderate on this issue, in that I am in favour of some form of social security safety net for the essentials, but I also think any government aid beyond that needs to be limited so those who do more also see more benefit in return. A guaranteed basic income seems like an interesting idea that could work as part of a wider reform of our social security framework.
Perhaps it could be combined with some form of public service requirement for those who want to claim it, so it would be more like a guaranteed job available to as many people as need it than a hand-out. This could be used to support useful activities that aren't run commercially, such as looking after local neighbourhood amenities, or helping at your kid's school if you have useful skills to share, or even going abroad to help with aid work after a natural disaster. Instead of the state social security apparatus concentrating on who qualifies or doesn't qualify for which benefits, with sometimes controversial or unfair results, maybe it could concentrate on recognising valuable activities and helping those otherwise without a job to contribute to them.
Next you have the issue of private and public sector employment. Maybe set a statutory minimum wage for employing someone full-time that is a modest but noticeable amount above the basic income level? Tax any form of income above that level, adjust in some reasonable way for people who are working part-time, and adjust in reasonable ways to support those who have other genuine responsibilities or disabilities, and this seems like the basis for a system where work does pay but if you're ever the unlucky one for a while then you aren't getting punched when you're down. Maybe it could even support a different kind of lifestyle for the type of person who likes contributing to their community in practical ways and doesn't much value material things or financial wealth.
I also wonder whether, given the shifting population patterns and increasing debt particularly among the young that we have in the West today, we should place a lot more emphasis on social housing, even if that just means a modest dorm-style room and some basic communal facilities so everyone can have somewhere to eat, sleep and wash. It seems to me that this would be a natural fit with the idea of giving everyone a basic safety net and an opportunity to move up to enjoy things beyond the essentials in exchange for taking on better paid work.
I'm less familiar with the specifics of Finland's system, but in Denmark, if you run out of savings and eligibility for other sources of support (unemployment benefits, etc.), you fall back on a last-line "cash assistance" (kontanthjælp) which is something like $1500/mo, and can be received indefinitely. But you lose it if you get a job, so it can provide a disincentive to work in some cases, especially if your only job options are low-paying ones. Just paying out a basic income unconditionally wouldn't have the same issue, since any employment income would be in addition to the basic income, vs. the current scheme where your job income replaces the cash assistance.
Would be an interesting experiment.
And this would be true, if the basic income program provided a way for your landlord to receive your basic income on your behalf, garnish it, and turn it over to you. I've never heard that proposed, and don't expect to.
The rent is actually somewhat controlled in Denmark as well.
In housing, this means that you can boost people's spending power to help them afford rent, but you also need to build more units or you're just going to fuck everything up.
People read what they want to read, if it fits their political narrative.
A tiny administrative section in Finland is trialling it, but it's only being pushed by a minority left-wing, and it has no chance of being implemented in reality.
This story can be filed along with the "Sweden implements 6-hour working day", which was also arrant nonsense.
There is no ongoing trial, just a plan to have a trial start in about a year. The parameters (e.g. location, the monetary sums, exactly which existing social security mechanisms it replaces) are still undecided. But it seems very unlikely that they'd run the test in just a single location like you're suggesting.
It is also not being pushed by a left-wing minority, but by the most conservative government Finland has had in decades (consisting of the conservative party, the centre party and the nationalist party). At least right now the idea appears to have very broad support in the polls, though that could of course change once there's a concrete proposal.
I understand that the greens also have their own, different basic income plan.
The moderate left wing party (social democrats, in opposition) and the unions oppose all basic income projects; they built the current welfare system.
There are many cases where unequal benefits payments are considered politically, morally and ethically acceptable by the majority of society. E.g. the blind, the handicapped, war veterans, orphans, victims of crime, volunteers...
For example in the US, the blind may deduct expenses from their income before taxes that others may not. This is an unequal benefit that we collectively accept.
In Finland's proposal, what will happen to benefits for special cases?
If this is a last desperate ploy to prevent secular stagnation one has to wonder how effective this will be, and how "temporary" - for now this is sold as temporary but the moment it is withdrawn their economy would truly crater.
[1] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/12001895/Finlands-depress...
This looks more like a work-around attempt to correct their economy after major commodities slump, Nokia problems, etc. Being in the Euro camp, they are unable to devalue their currency, as a country might normally choose to do...
[1]http://blogi.kansanelakelaitos.fi/arkisto/2842
In Finland, a welfare state indeed, you can quite easily slack off on the social benefits already. If you take up unemployment insurance, you can basically get 18 months of 70% of your salary after you get fired or quit. The insurance (or union membership) costs around 100 EUR a year. A lot of people I know count on this, or already take advantage of it. I see that as a quite big thing, it must drain a lot of money from somewhere if you think about big companies letting people go by big numbers, plus people in 20s or 30s going for one-year backpacking trips.
The 800 EUR probably just makes it more simple for the social system to distribute the benefits. Plus some innovation karma for Finland, yay!
edit: I fogot my main point: even though it feels somehow discouraging to pass money to slackers, I still don't mind paying the high taxes - I haven't found any other reason that makes Finland so nice place to live!
Leftist politicians have blocked this at several points, alas, although it is probably the most humane and effective method of delivering help to the poor. It also has the advantage of getting more people to, you know, actually file tax returns.
What was the rationale? It seems like a leftist issue to me.
Look at the ND gaming compact with the tribes. The casino money can go into social service programs but not direct payments. I'll leave it to the reader to figure out how that has gone.
I think it's fiscal conservatives who are against it, and many Democrats as well. The "left" doesn't really exist politically in the US.. what you have remaining now is the non-rightists (mostly corporatist Dems).
The right has its own issues with the concept of a lot of the programs.
I once thought it was fun to put in footnotes and huge lists of references[1], but that's just work, and frankly, just stopped being joyful. Hell, after getting down voted for actually showing the reference + quote on why a certain religion has the name it does and what one of the words mean, I realized it was for the best. In another thread, I thought about doing the work last night because I cannot believe someone would actually think a particular way[2].
1) I think my best was 12 in a thread with someone who was putting an equal amount of effort - that was fun, informative, and respectful
2) living on a rez will give a nice overview of all the ways the US government tried to kill the Native Americans
As someone who also spent a "bit of time in the 1990s doing the whole political thing", that seems distorted. To the extent that was true of the party usually associated with "the left (for the US definition)" -- i.e., the Democratic Party -- it was largely because much of the Democratic Party was in a mode of strategic political "triangulation" by which it sought to mitigate traditional right-wing objections by presenting policies that could be sold out the gate as compromises, and also in part due to the fact -- especially after 1994 -- of resurgent Republican dominance which made it difficult, preference for triangulation aside, to get any traction for benefit program changes -- especially new programs or benefit increases -- that couldn't be sold as somehow instituting new limits or controls on the duration, kinds of people eligible, use of benefits, etc.
The left does exist in the US, but the US center is so far to the right that the parties look a like a center-right party and a far-right party most of the time, by international standards.
OTOH, on the NIT, pure NITs have never reached any significant stage of the policy debate in the US, from either major party, so "leftist politicians" haven't shot it down (unless you define "leftist" so unusually as to include most of both major US parties.) Variations on NIT (which, certainly, compromise some of its key features, in each case) have been proposed by politicians of both major parties (including a form that passed as the Earned Income Tax Credit) -- and also several minor parties (a negative income tax was, e.g., part of the 2010 Green Party platform.)
Okay, that makes sense then, thanks.
Unconditional basic income in a progressive tax system is equivalent to a form of negative income tax system. You can achieve exactly the results of the UBI as an NIT, if you set the parameters correctly.
NIT looks income conditional (since additional income will reduce the tax subsidy by some proportion), but that's no different than additional income being taxable in a UBI system.
(Though many NIT proposals, including, IIRC, Friedman's original, reduce the incentive to work compared to a simple UBI on top of the existing tax system because the effective tax rate on the first effective "bracket" of income on top of the UBI is very high -- 50% in Friedman's proposal -- which retains some of the seen-as-adverse effects of means-tested social benefit programs that NIT/UBIs are usually proposed as an alternative to.)
That's at best misleading and at worst flat-out false; a pure NIT has rarely reached the point of even a serious proposal, both left and right groups have proposed kinda-sorta-NITs, some of which have passed, some of which haven't, and the failures have been sometimes resulted from opposition from the right, sometimes to opposition from the left, and sometimes from opposition that is neither purely left or right (and sometimes to extraneous political reasons not directly and specifically tied to the NIT-related proposal itself.)
It's worth noting that very close to the same time Friedman started promoting the idea, so did scholars from the liberal Brookings Institute.
http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc1/NegativeIncomeTax.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cura_Annonae
"Already long ago, from when we sold our vote to no man, the People have abdicated our duties; for the People who once upon a time handed out military command, high civil office, legions — everything, now restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two things: bread and circuses." -Juvenal
First you need to ask the question: "why was a basic income instituted?"
It was instituted to buy votes, of course. But why were people's votes for sale so cheaply?
During Rome's ascendancy, the citizen-soldier institution sent hundreds of thousands of Roman men out into the world on military campaigns. As their successes grew, so did their terms of military service.
In turn, this lead to the collapse of the farms that these men used to work in order to provide for themselves and their family. These farms were purchased by the patrician class, and worked by slaves.
Within a few generations, wealth inequality in Rome was so bad that most of the households that had previously been small landholders were reduced to urban poverty.
Some Roman politicians did attempt to address this stifling inequality (such as the Gracchi brothers). After the Senate repeatedly murdered such "class traitors", the compromise of bread and circuses became the Senatorial (and later, Imperial) solution to the problems that the Senatorial classes had themselves caused.
Universal income in Rome was a symptom of a completely dysfunctional society. Rome collapsed because its working classes ceased to work, but its working classes ceased to work because its ruling classes ceased to rule for the benefit of the many. Rome was brought down by its wealthy elite.
If modern Western societies really are analogous to Rome (which they probably aren't), then universal income may herald the collapse. However, if it does, then this collapse will have been ultimately precipitated by the aggregation of power in the hands of the wealthy.
In any case, pointing the finger at the Roman poor is a historical trend that was conjured by Rome's ruling classes to justify their own positions (think of all the howling about the "welfare poor" by the well-off in North American society today) and later by conservative British historians to justify the lopsided distribution of wealth and power in their own society. Rome's poor built the Roman Empire.
The point is: once a basic income was instituted -- for whatever reasons -- the vast majority of the populace ceased to care about ALL other factors in politics. Thenceforth, they only cared about who would increase the basic income.
This is a very dangerous situation for any society to be in.
Incidentally, the world today is in a very analogous situation. Whereas in Rome the work formerly done by the poor was taken by unpaid slaves, today the work formerly done by the poor is taken by unpaid machines -- just like slaves in most respects, except without the annoying moral quandary attached.
Out of curiosity, are there any other theories you'd advance, outside of the "decline of virtue" theory?
In any case, your point is a good one, although what keeps it from being completely locked in is that this is correlation, not causation. Did "bread and circuses" truly bring down Rome, or was it a symptom of the collapse of Rome?
What does the counterfactual look like? Let's say everything else stays the same, but the Aediles are incorruptible, leaving a large, mass of hungry Romans with nothing to do. Isn't this the recipe for insurrection and civil war? Wouldn't the Senate decide that the best solution to this would be ... bread and circuses?
It still seems to me that the situation that had developed in Rome produced only two outcomes: either the inhabitants of Rome keep voting themselves bread and circuses, or they rise up in rebellion until someone gives them bread and circuses.
Basically, I don't see a "third way" that solves this problem. Absent that, it seems like the origins of Roman collapse need to be traced back farther. Bringing this back to the point of universal income, if universal income creates a culture of dependency like the one described, the analogy implies that this is a symptom of the conditions that created a need for universal income.
tl;dr: if this is true, society had already collapsed. Bread and circuses only prolonged the patient's suffering.
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=U.S.+Population+%2F+U.S...
This means that every American who doesn't pay at least $4,000 in Federal Income Taxes is receiving money from the Government.
I don't think there's much else to say but good luck.
Doesn't it seem wasteful to give them more money each month, rather than say, working on the homeless problem directly with this money, or increasing the amount given, but reducing the scope of people it is given to?
Can someone explain the logic here?
If someone has a very high marginal tax rate, then it would have a very small impact on their income and on govt spending?
If it isn't received above some income level, but is received entirely below that income level, then there would be a disincentive of that given amount against going a little bit above that income level. And, maybe that's fine? But if it is why not just incorporate that into taxes?
If there is a sharp threshold, it seems like trying to make that threshold as low as possible would be dangerous, because it might cause a personally significant disincentive against working, or getting a job that pays more. But if it was significantly higher than the apparent lowest possible safe value, that would seem unfair for the same reason? So, if instead of a sharp cut-off, there could be a gradual cutoff?
That seems pretty similar to the basic income or negative income tax ideas though. But not necessarily identical, just of the same form.
ok so if f(x) is the amount of taxes minus the amount of govt income that one must pay (so, negative numbers would be net receiving money from the government) , and x is other income, then,
f(0)<0, uh...
I forget where I was going with that. d/dx (x-f(x)) > 0 seems reasonable to expect? I suppose it could be <0 at a small area where it wouldn't have much impact, (or have a discontinuity, but same thing basically. ) but I'm not sure what the advantages of having that would be.