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Universal Basic Income Will Likely Increase Social Cohesion

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Re: Universal Basic Income Will Likely Increase Social Cohesion

#31

Post by meric »

jacquesm wrote: post #20
ericd wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the norm in China, and it seems to have benefits, especially if you have children of your own.

As an economic entity China has a ton of submerged problems and I don't think their 'solutions' to any problem will easily transplant to the rest of the world without accepting a bunch of their other problems into the package as well.

It happens also in Hong Kong as well and is an intentional policy of the government. There is also a small HKD$1000 per month and is only intended as a subsidy. I note Hong Kong has one of the lowest personal income tax rates in the world.

Re: Universal Basic Income Will Likely Increase Social Cohesion

#33

Post by msandford »

paulsutter wrote: post #22
JackFr wrote: post #7

If I read it correctly, in all of the case studies referenced in the article, the basic income provided was exogenous. That is, the basic income going to the villagers, was not coming from the villagers. So it's not surprising that everyone got chummy when the money flowed in. However a complete picture would show how the people paying felt about it.

The money for basic income will come from automation driven productivity improvements. Many of the people who are "paying for it" (ie, putting in the thousands of man-years to create those technologies) have exactly that intent, to free people from drudgery. EDIT: pvnick, yes the consensus is measured in decades. Some think fewer, some think more, but yes and thanks.

Right, but those don't exist in a vacuum. There are people who funded that research and think that they should own the fruits of the labor as per the contracts that they executed with the people they paid to perform the work.

If you want to do away with various kinds of property rights that's a valid argument to make. But you don't get to pretend that it isn't a new, different way.

Ultimately you're going to take some things from some people in order to give it to other people.

Maybe that's smart, maybe it's not. But no matter how you slice it, it's not manna from heaven.

Re: Universal Basic Income Will Likely Increase Social Cohesion

#34

Post by lambdapie »

Basic income is just classical economics rebranded, and basic income is not drastically different from welfare systems that are simple, rule based, and have minimal compliance monitoring, for example Australia's.

Most of the arguments for basic income apply just as well to a welfare system like Australia's. The ones that to not are the worst ones. E.g. it's said that basic income avoids disincentivizing work. And yet as an accounting identity, all redistribution schemes must disincentive work for some people. Welfare systems place a greater disincentive to work on the poorest, which to me makes sense as many of these people have a lower intrinsic incentive to work in the first place. In any case, the lower marginal effective tax rate for the poor under basic income, is only possible because of a higher marginal effective tax rate for the middle class.

Re: Universal Basic Income Will Likely Increase Social Cohesion

#35

Post by Turing_Machine »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #30
philipov wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are happy to say that because you don't currently have far, far more than everyone else, and so in your mind, "I get a lot more money, but I have to pay some of it back" sounds like a nice bargain. However, the people who already have far, far more wealth than everyone else have nothing to gain from that way of thinking, as they already have most of the wealth without having to pay UBI. So why would they allow it…

> However, the people who already have far, far more wealth than everyone else have nothing to gain from that way of thinking, as they already have most of the wealth without having to pay UBI. So why would they allow it? That sounds less like a problem with the idea and more like an obstacle to implementation. Also, what do the rich have to gain by not helping make UBI happen? Probably starvation, unrest and war as…

Probably starvation, unrest and war as automation puts the lower ends of the economy out of jobs and destabilizes the society.

Yes. We're definitely headed toward a world where significant percentage of the population have no skill or talent that anyone will willingly pay them money to perform.

There are ways of papering this over, but most of them are pretty unappealing. For instance, bringing back a servant, or even less appetizingly, a slave, class. You can probably think of others. They're all ugly.

The ugliest option, where we just leave people to starve, is a non-starter, both from a moral perspective and a practical one (as you say, if you get enough starving people, property rights are going to go out the window).

Re: Universal Basic Income Will Likely Increase Social Cohesion

#36

Post by lambdapie »

chrispeel wrote: post #25
JackFr wrote: post #7

If I read it correctly, in all of the case studies referenced in the article, the basic income provided was exogenous. That is, the basic income going to the villagers, was not coming from the villagers. So it's not surprising that everyone got chummy when the money flowed in. However a complete picture would show how the people paying felt about it.

The 'unconditional' I take to mean that everyone, rich and poor, would get the same money. So even though the people with high income are paying more in taxes to cover this, they're also getting the same amount paid to them in a separate check. So yes, they're paying more in taxes, but they're also getting the same benefit as everyone else, and this will take some of the sting off. UBI is an excellent libertarian/sma…

UBI might be a great policy, but your argument makes no sense from an accounting point of view.

Every kind of redistribution must sum to zero across all people. Basic income is no different in this regard. So to say that basic income is different because the right and poor both receive it is pure sophistry.

Re: Universal Basic Income Will Likely Increase Social Cohesion

#37

Post by pmalynin »

Turing_Machine wrote: post #28
lmz wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Note that the areas where this is true are precisely the ones with catastrophically high birth rates, and the areas where there are pensions, social programs, etc. are precisely the ones where population is stable, or even falling. And then those countries with pensions and falling population are mentioned as ones who need to import immigrants in order to keep their pension pyramid scheme working...

Well, you could do other things to encourage more births. It's been done before, with significant success.

A la Mussolini-esque pro-family propaganda?

Re: Universal Basic Income Will Likely Increase Social Cohesion

#38

Post by pvnick »

paulsutter wrote: post #22
JackFr wrote: post #7

If I read it correctly, in all of the case studies referenced in the article, the basic income provided was exogenous. That is, the basic income going to the villagers, was not coming from the villagers. So it's not surprising that everyone got chummy when the money flowed in. However a complete picture would show how the people paying felt about it.

The money for basic income will come from automation driven productivity improvements. Many of the people who are "paying for it" (ie, putting in the thousands of man-years to create those technologies) have exactly that intent, to free people from drudgery. EDIT: pvnick, yes the consensus is measured in decades. Some think fewer, some think more, but yes and thanks.

A $10,000 basic income, perhaps the bare minimum to prevent starvation and homelessness in the most rural parts of the country, for everyone in the United States over the age of 18 involves roughly 2.5 trillion dollars in payouts per year, about 10% GDP for the country (about twice the GDP accounted for by social security). Increasing basic income to $20,000 per year doubles that to about 5 trillion, and that is still starvation wages in big cities. I am curious as to how automation pays that kind of cash. That's a big freaking number.

Your suggestion about automation providing the wealth for basic income is the only argument that makes sense, because wealth redistribution from the nebulous "rich" just would not work on such a massive scale. Personally I don't think we're there yet, but maybe in a couple decades when we have strong AI and automation is more pronounced and self-improving.

Re: Universal Basic Income Will Likely Increase Social Cohesion

#39

Post by Turing_Machine »

pmalynin wrote: post #37
Turing_Machine wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, you could do other things to encourage more births. It's been done before, with significant success.

A la Mussolini-esque pro-family propaganda?

Propaganda, increased tax credits (or even outright subsidies) for having children, tax penalties for not having children...

Re: Universal Basic Income Will Likely Increase Social Cohesion

#40

Post by vlunkr »

chrispeel wrote: post #25
JackFr wrote: post #7

If I read it correctly, in all of the case studies referenced in the article, the basic income provided was exogenous. That is, the basic income going to the villagers, was not coming from the villagers. So it's not surprising that everyone got chummy when the money flowed in. However a complete picture would show how the people paying felt about it.

The 'unconditional' I take to mean that everyone, rich and poor, would get the same money. So even though the people with high income are paying more in taxes to cover this, they're also getting the same amount paid to them in a separate check. So yes, they're paying more in taxes, but they're also getting the same benefit as everyone else, and this will take some of the sting off. UBI is an excellent libertarian/sma…

It's still a net loss for them. Yes they're getting some too, but it's just their money coming back to them. You'd be foolish to feel comforted by that.

Also, UBI is far from libertarianism. Libertarians want to be in control of their own money.

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