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Roderick

Basic income

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How did I only recently learn of the existence of the idea of Universal Basic Income? It's been around for ages and has been championed time and time again by Nobel winners, scientists and social reformers; always crashing on the shores of scared politicians. Here's the article that I read on it, it's fascinating:

 

https://decorrespondent.nl/541/why-we-should-give-free-money-to-everyone/31639050894-e44e2c00

 

The short of it is that it is a supremely good idea to give everyone a basic income as a human right. Extensive trials carried out in the US and Canada have shown people become happier, healthier and still continue to work. It would cut away the wildgrowth (in the Netherlands at least) of different social welfare programs and all the bureaucracy that goes along with it, replacing it with one elegant, fair system. It immediately erases poverty and its heavy toll on society. In the long run it saves money because people have less reason to resort to crime and are healthier ( = less medical costs), because they're less stressed about survival and have the means to take good care of themselves. It wouldn't really cost society much more in the short term either, it's simply a different allocation of resources.

 

It seems to me like a logical progression of our 21st century society, and a good step to back away from the increasingly cold and menacing 'every man for himself' culture that's been developing here; which widens the gap between rich and poor and cuts down welfare programs.

 

I read some more and found this EU citizen's petition, which prompted me to make this embarrassing topic here, to ask you (if you're a EU resident) to sign before it closed January 14th. The petition is far removed from the million signatures it needs, but my heart breaks when I think about such a utopian idea - backed with hard data that suggests its viability - not even tried because, again weirdly, this idea hasn't caught on in a big way yet.

 

Link to petition: http://basicincome2013.eu/

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Won't work. Here's why:

1) People are greedy power-hungry lazy assholes who don't want to carry responsibilities

2) see 1

 

I truly believe the world would be a better place if people would not have to worry about housing and food. (Screw money)

 

The Netherlands, and a lot of countries, already have a system of basic income. It's there. (in some cases you're better off not working and getting this "basic income"). The problem is that this basic income mechanism is costing more money than they are handing out due to the bureaucracy. Kill this bureaucracy and you get a actual basic income mechanism.

But there's still problem #1. People on this basic income want more, they feel they are entitled to more because they have become accustomed to the basic income and see people with more income having more.

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Won't work. Here's why:

1) People are greedy power-hungry lazy assholes who don't want to carry responsibilities

2) see 1

 

I truly believe the world would be a better place if people would not have to worry about housing and food. (Screw money)

 

The Netherlands, and a lot of countries, already have a system of basic income. It's there. (in some cases you're better off not working and getting this "basic income"). The problem is that this basic income mechanism is costing more money than they are handing out due to the bureaucracy. Kill this bureaucracy and you get a actual basic income mechanism.

But there's still problem #1. People on this basic income want more, they feel they are entitled to more because they have become accustomed to the basic income and see people with more income having more.

I don't understand what you are saying. Your point is that the basic income won't work because people will want more money? How is that a problem? It seems to me that people want more money even when there is no basic income. Money is useful for buying things. Is the problem that people with a basic income feel like they are entitled to more income? How is that a problem? I know a lot of people here in America (where there is no basic income) who also feel like they are entitled to more income. I don't see what's wrong with that or why it would be specific to a place with a basic income.

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It's not just the greed, there's also the other elements. But a large part is the is indeed the greed, wanting rewards without action. I think everybody should pull their weight. No freebies.

The Netherlands has a safety net, if you are unemployed you will get an income. When you are just fired you will earn a percentage of your last earned salary for a while. After that you will fall back to a basic income. Besides this basic income you can apply for additional breaks given your circumstances. This overcomplicated mechanism is so awesome that you can have a higher income by not working that you get when you have a low payed job. So at a certain point there is little incentive to contribute to society. This shitty system of rules exists, it has existed for a very long time, it has undergone many many many changes. Yet, the shitty overcomplicated rule system exists. It exists, because people earn a living by creating and maintaining this system.

 

My main issue is with "entitlement". You're not.

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This overcomplicated mechanism is so awesome that you can have a higher income by not working that you get when you have a low payed job.

That's amazing.

 

I see that as more a reason to reexamine minimum wage (or whatever equivalent) than a reason basic income wouldn't/shouldn't/doesn't work.

 

Also, regardless of the issues around deserving or not deserving the money, does it result in less poverty, less crime? Less sickness, less need for health care? Those are important things to examine (as Rodi did in his original post). Maybe even more important than some vague entitlement issue.

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It feels a bit as if this is a case of a logical idea based on the idea of creating a better society vs the pure gut instinct that most people (including myself) have about people having to earn their way.

As twig puts it: if a basic income creates a better society for everyone, does it matter if some people don't actively positively contribute to it?

I wonder though if a basic income wouldn't create inflationary pressure, but then again I'm sure smarter minds than me have thought long and hard about this sort of thing, so in the end it would be great to at least give it a limited trial and for once see if evidence supports dogma one way or another.

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That's amazing.

 

I see that as more a reason to reexamine minimum wage (or whatever equivalent) than a reason basic income wouldn't/shouldn't/doesn't work.

 

Also, regardless of the issues around deserving or not deserving the money, does it result in less poverty, less crime? Less sickness, less need for health care? Those are important things to examine (as Rodi did in his original post). Maybe even Absolutely more important than some vague entitlement issue.

FTFY

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In the Netherlands we have a social healthcare system. But what appears to be the case is that lower educated people make more claims than higher edicuated people. So there is a company that offers a health care plan for higher educated/employed people with a high discount on the basic coverage (I have my plan with them). Everybody in the Netherlands is required to get basic healthcare (and if you don't earn enough, you get a government rebate). So you pay at least 70 euro'ish per month on healthcare, and thus making it workable for all. Of course, if you don't earn a lot (i.e. below nominal) you get money back from the government. (There's a similar thing for rent, being a parent, etc. etc.)

 

But there are the figures, a health plan for highly educated people, who earn more, can be lower because they claim less. It's not like these highly educated people are actually healthier, they just complain less and only go to the GP when there's really something wrong.

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My main issue is with "entitlement". You're not.

I guess it seems odd to me that people aren't entitled to food and shelter and medicine and so on. Those seem like basic human rights to me. I can't imagine what someone would have to do to not deserve to be able to feed and house themselves - certainly being unable or unwilling to find a job isn't such a terrible crime that the punishment ought to be homelessness and starvation and no medical care and stuff like this.

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I guess it seems odd to me that people aren't entitled to food and shelter and medicine and so on. Those seem like basic human rights to me. I can't imagine what someone would have to do to not deserve to be able to feed and house themselves - certainly being unable or unwilling to find a job isn't such a terrible crime that the punishment ought to be homelessness and starvation and no medical care and stuff like this.

 

On reflection, I guess an argument against basic income is that people might blow any income you give them on things that are not food or shelter or health care and that a better alternative would be to provide those things more directly rather than just giving money.

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On reflection, I guess an argument against basic income is that people might blow any income you give them on things that are not food or shelter or health care and that a better alternative would be to provide those things more directly rather than just giving money.

 

This is the same hand-wringing about welfare in general, but at least in the US it's been more or less demonstrated that attempts to provide welfare "in kind" are inefficient at best. The best you can do is issue scrip like food stamps, but money takes less bureaucratic overhead and causes less waste.

 

At the end of the day, we might as well be worrying that people take home their "earned" salary from their minimum-wage job and buy an iPhone instead of food. I don't know, who really cares that much? The point is giving people the opportunity to live how they want.

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On reflection, I guess an argument against basic income is that people might blow any income you give them on things that are not food or shelter or health care and that a better alternative would be to provide those things more directly rather than just giving money.

 

AFAIK, current research indicates that at least when you give money to the extremely poor, they tend to spend it on the stuff they actually need. Considering the costs, ethical issues and poorer effectiveness of means-tested or in-kind welfare programs, I think a basic income is a much better solution.

 

"People want more money" is actually the best principle in favour of a basic income. People definitely want more money, so if you set the basic income at an appropriate level and structure your tax system properly, people will still be encouraged to work if they want to, alleviating the labour-supply problems that many people cite as a drawback of basic income programs.

 

There's also evidence that a basic income program would have knock-on effects for other sectors, particularly health care.

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This is more than just a good idea - it's an idea that will at some point become a necessity. We're increasingly automating production-oriented tasks, and the actual things we need are requiring less and less human beings to produce; instead of recognizing that that means we all shouldn't have to work as much, we're sticking with the paradigm of everyone working full time jobs. Increasingly we're employing people to do redundant busywork, simply because our economic system demands it. At some point, it's going to get so ridiculous that we'll have to realize how useless it all is, and just let people do other shit with their lives and still get the things they need to survive. Whether mincome is the answer, or another answer involving simply not involving money in the whole giving everyone food and shelter thing is a better solution, remains to be seen.

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At this point who cares. By the time it gets "passed" we'll be in a nigh post scarcity society anyway, robots will do everything for us (including sending us to the death camps!). With human work as a bottleneck out of the way we'll be able to mine the sea floor (70% of the world's resources trapped below there still, including a disproportionate amount of heavier elements like platinum, gold, iron, and etc.) as well as mars, the moon, and asteroids from the asteroid belt. We'll also be on solar and wind, if not a fusion alternative to stupid complex shit like a tokamak.

 

I'd love to try and come up with a traveling salesman like problem for a solution to the distribution of resources flow once humans don't have to work anymore. I'm not sure there's an actual "objective" solution, but something to do with individuals relative desire of various resources over time sounds like the right direction to go in. Either way I'm not worried about poverty, any solution other than "just have robots do it all" will probably take as long to implement as "just have robots do it all" at this point.

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The NHS is one of few things that will genuinely inspire national pride in many Brits of my generation.

However the argument we are starting to see in the UK a lot is that some people put significantly more strain on the health service by their life choices (be it smoking, obesity, drinking or whatever) than most, so because it cost a disproportionate amount of money to treat them we should consider limiting access to certain things if someone doesn't live a 'correct' lifestyle (as we already do to a limited extent with certain things like surgery).

So while in general I'm in favour of letting people live their lives as they see fit I can see the arguments of those who say that if those choices harm others by straining the limited resources we have, then perhaps we should do something to discourage them.

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Either way I'm not worried about poverty, any solution other than "just have robots do it all" will probably take as long to implement as "just have robots do it all" at this point.

This is straightforwardly false. Right now you can donate money to programs like the Against Malaria Foundation and the Schistosomiasis Control Initiative that have huge, measurable, fast, positive effects for people in extreme poverty. Clearly there are positions between "nothing" and "robots solve all problems."

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This is straightforwardly false. Right now you can donate money to programs like the Against Malaria Foundation and the Schistosomiasis Control Initiative that have huge, measurable, fast, positive effects for people in extreme poverty. Clearly there are positions between "nothing" and "robots solve all problems."

 

Oh certainly give to charity, maybe. Or invest in a new robotics company, that may have a chance to actually be more helpful to people overall, but not if it folds of course, so there's your risk.

 

I was just mentioning for the whole "basic income" idea. It's radical, it's new, it's not in the mainstream. It would probably take longer to pass than just having advanced AI. I'm not knocking a smart charity if that's what you want, just the timeline from going to Rodi's basic income for all compared to "well robots solved it all for us anyway."

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AFAIK, current research indicates that at least when you give money to the extremely poor, they tend to spend it on the stuff they actually need. Considering the costs, ethical issues and poorer effectiveness of means-tested or in-kind welfare programs, I think a basic income is a much better solution.

 

That's as may be, but don't you think it's possible that this could be down to a poorly designed and/or implemented system rather than an inherent flaw in the approach?

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It seems to me like a logical progression of our 21st century society, and a good step to back away from the increasingly cold and menacing 'every man for himself' culture that's been developing here; which widens the gap between rich and poor and cuts down welfare programs.

I don't think the United States will ever change. Too many people will grasp on to the selfish ideals that "founded this country" until they are dead in the ground. I could see this all happening in a more progressive nation though. Leading by example would be awesome.

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Here is a talk by Professor Evelyn Forget who is mentioned in the article linked in the OP. It's kinda slow, but I'm having a hard time reading anything of length this evening.

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Wow, this certainly stirred (BREENGRUB) a lot of thought!

 

One of the hypotheses I came up with when considering why this idea hadn't caught on yet, is that many people have been brought up with the following cocktail of ideas:

 

1) You have to 'earn your money'

2) People are lazy and would stop working/squander the money

3) It's unfair to give people money when some work and other don't

 

However, these thoughts are either based on assumptions, or are remedied instantly by a basic income!

 

1) The basic income is just that: a basic income, tied to the poverty line, that'll give you exactly what you need to provide in your most basic needs. Anything on the topic of luxury, you'd still have to work for. Consider also how good this system could be for employers, since they could lower salaries by the amount of the basic income! This isn't really about giving people more money, rather it's a reallocation of existing money in a better way.

2) If you read the article I linked, you'd understand this premise to be false. It's based on the entirely negative worldview that people are at their core evil, lazy, meanspirited and don't share. The trials and research point to the opposite direction. People continue to work, build up their lives in a better way, use the money extremely judiciously (look at the London experiment with vagrants!) and are then able to do more for their community. I would expect volunteer work to rise wih the advent of the basic income.

3) The beauty of the basic income is that it's fair. Everyone gets exactly the same. Rich, poor, no one left behind. That takes the sting out of a lot of the current misgivings people have about welfare programs, and again shortens the divide between the haves and havenots.

 

Synthetic, I feel your pain. I think this idea is a lot more ripe in Europe than in the US, as your culture is so strangely afraid of anything that reeks of socialism, taxation and welfare. In the Netherlands, we're already halfway there, and it's a logical progression. But we'll have to do it now, before we continue on the path of eroding our welfare system to the point of no return.

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That's as may be, but don't you think it's possible that this could be down to a poorly designed and/or implemented system rather than an inherent flaw in the approach?

 

From what I'm aware they've tried handing out large disbursements in both the US and Africa, with similar results. I recall one study that went to the dodgiest places they could find in the poorest country in Africa and handed out large slabs of cash to see what would happen, and they found that nearly everyone at least attempted to spend the money wisely. Essentially, the problem is that most of these systems have protections against abuse while the vast majority of the beneficiaries value the opportunity too much.

 

What does appear to matter, however, is the stability of the country. The money's spent effectively in countries like the US and Kenya, where poverty exists but money can be spent wisely, but in poorer countries where no-one has enough, it's much more expensive to pull out of poverty.

 

Most of the research I've heard of hands out single large disbursements, or annual disbursements. I don't recall seeing results of weekly or fortnightly payments.

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I guess, I'm just thinking that there are these institutions set up to prey on the poor (certain types of gambling, instant check cashing places etc.) and these kinds of businesses are successful now when their clientele has little money. I can't imagine that those businesses fare worse when you give people more money. At least, not in the short term. Although you'd hope people with more options eventually make better choices over time.

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