RealPerson: It's been attempted on a small scale many times; links in this thread give more detail on such attempts, or you can just work from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income_guarantee
The benefits of a basic income // much higher min wage
I'm actually in favor of smaller scale experiments with this. How about a small village with its own local currency. I think you'd need some small scale economy to make this work.
It doesn't work with a single service based company with 10 people.
All the beneficial side effects of lower real resource consumption would not affect the company. Nor would the money paid to the 10 people find their way back to the company naturally. If your single service becomes obsolete, or brings in less money, you don't benefit from a redistribution of money towards more productive ends. ...
You lose all the benefits of scale.
Basically, you cannot do this on an individual small scale level. You need scale.
You can't have a bee hive with a single bee. You would have one bee starving and freezing or losing its life with the first sting. 100 billion brain cells can do different things than 1 brain cell or 100 brain cells. You can't have an ecosystem with 1 species or 10. More is different in kind.
You can't break everything down to the individual part conceptually.
It doesn't work with a single service based company with 10 people.
All the beneficial side effects of lower real resource consumption would not affect the company. Nor would the money paid to the 10 people find their way back to the company naturally. If your single service becomes obsolete, or brings in less money, you don't benefit from a redistribution of money towards more productive ends. ...
You lose all the benefits of scale.
Basically, you cannot do this on an individual small scale level. You need scale.
You can't have a bee hive with a single bee. You would have one bee starving and freezing or losing its life with the first sting. 100 billion brain cells can do different things than 1 brain cell or 100 brain cells. You can't have an ecosystem with 1 species or 10. More is different in kind.
You can't break everything down to the individual part conceptually.
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secretwealth
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Likewise, there's currently (and probably always will be) a limit to how far you can scale a basic income.
The premise of a UBI, as far as I understand it, is that we've reached post-scarcity for certain essentials, and so these essentials can be provided to everyone. For some commodities (food most obviously), we're obviously in a post-scarcity situation in the U.S. In other countries, not so much.
So a UBI probably has an upward limit. It may work in the U.S. It'd almost certainly work in Scandinavia. Somalia (the libertarian paradise) or North Korea (the communist paradise) would probably not be as successful.
One could also make the argument that this is why Communism failed in the East--they hadn't reached the point of post-scarcity. I don't buy that, though (and it's why I fundamentally disagree with left-wing economics); I think some things will always have a premium value, whether that value is defined through fashion or some other arbitrary cause.
The premise of a UBI, as far as I understand it, is that we've reached post-scarcity for certain essentials, and so these essentials can be provided to everyone. For some commodities (food most obviously), we're obviously in a post-scarcity situation in the U.S. In other countries, not so much.
So a UBI probably has an upward limit. It may work in the U.S. It'd almost certainly work in Scandinavia. Somalia (the libertarian paradise) or North Korea (the communist paradise) would probably not be as successful.
One could also make the argument that this is why Communism failed in the East--they hadn't reached the point of post-scarcity. I don't buy that, though (and it's why I fundamentally disagree with left-wing economics); I think some things will always have a premium value, whether that value is defined through fashion or some other arbitrary cause.
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crosshairs
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@Felix and SW, thanks for giving some more information.
So when we say universal, it sounds like we mean universal in the global sense. Because that's the only way I see of avoiding the problems you cite (specifically, money not finding it's way back to the originating entity 'naturally', and ensuring resource consumption is lowered across the board).
If country X implements basic income, but country Y does not, then country Y has a huge competitive advantage over country X, in the form of lower manufacturing costs and lower prices for the consumption of resources (due to the lowered demand in country X.) So it seems like basic income would truly have to be implemented universally in order to have the desired effects while preventing the negative effects. Otherwise wouldn't you still have the same problem of resources being overconsumed by non-participating entities, and money gradually leaving the participating entities and flowing to the non-participating ones due to lower manufacturing costs?
So when we say universal, it sounds like we mean universal in the global sense. Because that's the only way I see of avoiding the problems you cite (specifically, money not finding it's way back to the originating entity 'naturally', and ensuring resource consumption is lowered across the board).
If country X implements basic income, but country Y does not, then country Y has a huge competitive advantage over country X, in the form of lower manufacturing costs and lower prices for the consumption of resources (due to the lowered demand in country X.) So it seems like basic income would truly have to be implemented universally in order to have the desired effects while preventing the negative effects. Otherwise wouldn't you still have the same problem of resources being overconsumed by non-participating entities, and money gradually leaving the participating entities and flowing to the non-participating ones due to lower manufacturing costs?
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secretwealth
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"If country X implements basic income, but country Y does not, then country Y has a huge competitive advantage over country X, in the form of lower manufacturing costs and lower prices for the consumption of resources (due to the lowered demand in country X.)"
The same applies when country X has a higher minimum wage, but we still find employers choosing X over Y in that situation in certain cases, because there are more considerations above and beyond the labor cost of production (and labor cost is becoming increasingly irrelevant, thanks to technology).
"Otherwise wouldn't you still have the same problem of resources being overconsumed by non-participating entities, and money gradually leaving the participating entities and flowing to the non-participating ones due to lower manufacturing costs?"
Plenty of that happens now. The question is whether UBI would aggravate or alleviate this problem. I'm not sure.
The same applies when country X has a higher minimum wage, but we still find employers choosing X over Y in that situation in certain cases, because there are more considerations above and beyond the labor cost of production (and labor cost is becoming increasingly irrelevant, thanks to technology).
"Otherwise wouldn't you still have the same problem of resources being overconsumed by non-participating entities, and money gradually leaving the participating entities and flowing to the non-participating ones due to lower manufacturing costs?"
Plenty of that happens now. The question is whether UBI would aggravate or alleviate this problem. I'm not sure.
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crosshairs
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"The same applies when country X has a higher minimum wage, but we still find employers choosing X over Y in that situation in certain cases, because there are more considerations above and beyond the labor cost of production (and labor cost is becoming increasingly irrelevant, thanks to technology)."
I was thinking along the same lines. I think the current minimum wage system makes doing business overseas more attractive, though there are obviously a lot of other factors at play. It seems a nationwide (rather than global) basic income would increase that attractiveness.
But I was more referring to a dollar exodus, rather than an employer exodus. I imagine that consumers in country X would (barring any unknown regulations) purchase goods from country Y rather than country X owing to country Y's lower cost of production, resulting in the situation Felix described above, where money does not find its way back (so to speak). So it seems like this would be a bad policy for country X (and after a certain point, unsustainable) unless it were implemented on a global scale?
I was thinking along the same lines. I think the current minimum wage system makes doing business overseas more attractive, though there are obviously a lot of other factors at play. It seems a nationwide (rather than global) basic income would increase that attractiveness.
But I was more referring to a dollar exodus, rather than an employer exodus. I imagine that consumers in country X would (barring any unknown regulations) purchase goods from country Y rather than country X owing to country Y's lower cost of production, resulting in the situation Felix described above, where money does not find its way back (so to speak). So it seems like this would be a bad policy for country X (and after a certain point, unsustainable) unless it were implemented on a global scale?
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secretwealth
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"So it seems like this would be a bad policy for country X (and after a certain point, unsustainable) unless it were implemented on a global scale?"
Countries compete in other ways besides low-cost labor. So, I guess a UBI could only work in a country with an extremely highly educated and attractive labor pool (USA, Sweden, Germany, Singapore). If it would work at all, which I'm still on the fence about.
Plus, some labor can't ever be exported, and as long as there will be people in a geography, there will be entrepreneurs trying to selling them stuff.
Countries compete in other ways besides low-cost labor. So, I guess a UBI could only work in a country with an extremely highly educated and attractive labor pool (USA, Sweden, Germany, Singapore). If it would work at all, which I'm still on the fence about.
Plus, some labor can't ever be exported, and as long as there will be people in a geography, there will be entrepreneurs trying to selling them stuff.
At least Andrew quoted Voltaire and motivation/engagement as a huge problem related to this idea.
I find it interesting these guys don't discuss the fact we've done this before. Technological change rapidly wiped out the majority of the country's lifestyle, valued different skillsets and yet after remaking the country, including education we still find as he called it, the "standard economic playbook", to be right.
This industry was as revolutionary as the robots and household manufacturing will be-
http://www.deere.com/wps/dcom/globalhom ... _home.page
Look at charts 4 and 5-
http://www.gipsa.usda.gov/Publications/ ... oering.htm
Going through that pain and dislocation, yet NOT giving up on the "Bills" who he implies just aren't smart enough to go to TED, set the stage for our country to make the breakthroughs we have since....thankfully we didn't listen to this same idea at the turn of the last century...
I find it interesting these guys don't discuss the fact we've done this before. Technological change rapidly wiped out the majority of the country's lifestyle, valued different skillsets and yet after remaking the country, including education we still find as he called it, the "standard economic playbook", to be right.
This industry was as revolutionary as the robots and household manufacturing will be-
http://www.deere.com/wps/dcom/globalhom ... _home.page
Look at charts 4 and 5-
http://www.gipsa.usda.gov/Publications/ ... oering.htm
Going through that pain and dislocation, yet NOT giving up on the "Bills" who he implies just aren't smart enough to go to TED, set the stage for our country to make the breakthroughs we have since....thankfully we didn't listen to this same idea at the turn of the last century...
TPS reports are no more a defining feature of the standard economic playbook than plowing a field by hand was. (LOL at the ins form reference) They are/were a dying activity nobody will lament the loss of as these sort of things are further automated.
We radically changed education in the US to give people industrial economy/culture indoc. We created marketing/consumerism as part of the answer to the engagement/motivation problem. These things were very intentional. TPS reports aside, it's also worth pointing out the radical success of these things, life after the industrial revolution is better for everyone.
We now need to change our "education" to match the next wave. We are also going to have to change cultural norms.
In some ways it will be going back to a farmer economy, where we are going to each need to be responsible for our own standard of living, and a wider set of skills is more valuable than a specialty. There is not going to be a corporate career where the company (or the government)takes care of you for life. We should all now understand these people are not out after our best interests. This internal locus of control should be liberating.
Pay them just enough money to shut up and stay home, or remake the system to engage them at something else productive that increases standard of living in the same incredible manner the industrial revolution did.
As an example, improved standard of living doesn't have to be more stuff...today part of the new brainwashing by the government and schools has been environmental awareness.
Another one of the trends technology has enabled I personally REALLY enjoy has been geographic decoupling.
We radically changed education in the US to give people industrial economy/culture indoc. We created marketing/consumerism as part of the answer to the engagement/motivation problem. These things were very intentional. TPS reports aside, it's also worth pointing out the radical success of these things, life after the industrial revolution is better for everyone.
We now need to change our "education" to match the next wave. We are also going to have to change cultural norms.
In some ways it will be going back to a farmer economy, where we are going to each need to be responsible for our own standard of living, and a wider set of skills is more valuable than a specialty. There is not going to be a corporate career where the company (or the government)takes care of you for life. We should all now understand these people are not out after our best interests. This internal locus of control should be liberating.
Pay them just enough money to shut up and stay home, or remake the system to engage them at something else productive that increases standard of living in the same incredible manner the industrial revolution did.
As an example, improved standard of living doesn't have to be more stuff...today part of the new brainwashing by the government and schools has been environmental awareness.
Another one of the trends technology has enabled I personally REALLY enjoy has been geographic decoupling.
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secretwealth
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"Another one of the trends technology has enabled I personally REALLY enjoy has been geographic decoupling."
Ditto. When I compare my lifestyle to that of my parents, the best improvement by far is the freedom to be where I want to be instead of where my employer wants to be. This is a freedom I'd like to see more people enjoy.
I agree that improved standard of living doesn't have to be more stuff--but it does have to be access to the same level of stuff. Health care is much more out of reach for me than my parents' generation, and while the hedonic thrill of moving around now is great, I imagine I will envy my parents' access to healthcare when I am older.
Ditto. When I compare my lifestyle to that of my parents, the best improvement by far is the freedom to be where I want to be instead of where my employer wants to be. This is a freedom I'd like to see more people enjoy.
I agree that improved standard of living doesn't have to be more stuff--but it does have to be access to the same level of stuff. Health care is much more out of reach for me than my parents' generation, and while the hedonic thrill of moving around now is great, I imagine I will envy my parents' access to healthcare when I am older.
Re: The benefits of a basic income // much higher min wage
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/news/finl ... me-796609/
I'll "reaserch" this in my free time.. or I'll simply forget about it...
I'll "reaserch" this in my free time.. or I'll simply forget about it...
Last edited by Stahlmann on Fri Apr 27, 2018 2:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Re: The benefits of a basic income // much higher min wage
To the great surprise of no logical person, paying people not to work may result in people not looking for work.
Re: The benefits of a basic income // much higher min wage
I'm a big supporter of investigations into basic income but it's very difficult to have conversations about it (online and off - I've not tried on this particular forum). So many people can't get past the complaint "but people won't work".
Of course basic income advocates have considered this: yes, some people will not work, or work less. You know what? This already happens in the existing welfare system. But it's valuable to gather data on the size of the effects. Basic income has a lot of appealing properties and even if it's not workable now, with increasing automation it may be in the future. It's a policy intervention that needs serious consideration and I'm glad some countries are looking at it.
Of course basic income advocates have considered this: yes, some people will not work, or work less. You know what? This already happens in the existing welfare system. But it's valuable to gather data on the size of the effects. Basic income has a lot of appealing properties and even if it's not workable now, with increasing automation it may be in the future. It's a policy intervention that needs serious consideration and I'm glad some countries are looking at it.
Re: The benefits of a basic income // much higher min wage
the money simply isn't there for UBI to amount to anything. $1000/mo for 300 million humans amounts to $3.6 trillion. that exceeds total federal revenues.
plus the political will to replace any existing programs with UBI (e.g. Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security) isn't there either. so any UBI would probably be an additional program, not a replacement program, meaning it would require more money instead of giving the promised efficiencies in redistribution.
maybe if/when productivity increases tenfold, humans can try again.
plus the political will to replace any existing programs with UBI (e.g. Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security) isn't there either. so any UBI would probably be an additional program, not a replacement program, meaning it would require more money instead of giving the promised efficiencies in redistribution.
maybe if/when productivity increases tenfold, humans can try again.
Re: The benefits of a basic income // much higher min wage
Isn't UBI generally implemented as a negative tax bracket, and higher rates for the brackets above? This ensures you are never in the position that you earn more money, but take home less. It is unlikely everyone in the USA is put out of work, so you aren't paying out $3.6 trillion, unless there simply is no need for work because robots literally do everything or we got Star Trek replicators?
Re: The benefits of a basic income // much higher min wage
is that how all UBI proponents imagine it is implemented? brute has heard about the negative income tax idea from Milton Friedman, but wasn't aware that UBI is generally imagined to work this way. maybe.
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ZAFCorrection
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Re: The benefits of a basic income // much higher min wage
@Solvent:
I'd say an additional issue in the debate is the tendency for there to be no upper bound on social justice-iness. "[insert whatever] is a basic human right" is, for some people, an unimpeachable invocation.
Incidentally, that article seems to indicate more that there is public opposition rather than it was concluded that UBI in this case was a failure.
I'd say an additional issue in the debate is the tendency for there to be no upper bound on social justice-iness. "[insert whatever] is a basic human right" is, for some people, an unimpeachable invocation.
Incidentally, that article seems to indicate more that there is public opposition rather than it was concluded that UBI in this case was a failure.