Request For Research: Basic Income

Regarding startups and prosperity for everyone.

If "everyone" means "all US citizens" then startups can help increase transparency in government. It's much easier to figure out who to vote for when there's a clear picture of somebody's track record and who their political allies and funders are. Everybody should want this, regardless of political persuasion. If massive data gathering can't be stopped (and it looks that way) then the least we demand is real transparency. Without that there can be no accountability. Most political information people come into contact with is disinformation or shameless propaganda by some special interest. It is getting completely out of hand, but there's no obvious solution.

If "everyone" means "every person in the world", then we need startups to fight for sustainable energy and universal education. All scientific papers must be freely available to everybody in the world (few exceptions, e.g. how to manufacture anthrax can stay secret). Music and literature should be available to everybody, preferably at no cost. A single college textbook costs a month's salary in many parts of the world. That's just cruel.

There isn't much overlap between things that are super important for society and things that are profitable. The civil rights movement wouldn't work as a for-profit venture and future civil rights movements will be no exception. Often enough people who have contributed the greatest value to society never benefited from it personally. Duchesne or Flemming didn't get rich from their discovery of penicillin but the contribution to mankind is immense. In contrast the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation -- with their many billions -- struggle to make a huge impact. To really improve the quality of life across the globe a social revolution of some sort is needed.

I don't think this is equivalent to socialism and communism _at all_. Socialism and communism propose an alternate _structure_ for the economy - one of state-directed planning. This has been demonstrated to fail pretty spectacularly.

Basic income is an extension of the welfare state, which is itself a capitalist construct. It does not presuppose a state-planned economy or really threaten capital ownership or free exchange at all.

Yes, many communist countries have attempted some kind of unconditional income. Was this what sapped people's desire to work? Not really. What sapped their desire was a complete lack of a reward structure. A universal income doesn't destroy the reward structure; it destroys the penalty structure. The big question is whether or not the economy survives that.

On top of that, though, most communist economies imploded because decoupling production from market forces also destroyed incentives towards efficiency, innovation, and satisfying demand. Those are the biggest failures of the state economy and those are not related to universal income at all.

There are long term studies of unemployed in multiple countries that have social safety nets that would be worth reviewing (for example: http://amzn.to/1nosUtx Cultures of Unemployment: A Comparative Look at Long-Term Unemployment and Urban Poverty published by Amsterdam University press in 2006) For many the impact of unemployment (for instance following closure of UK coal mining and steel industries) its not just the loss of job in the economic sense, but the disconnect from the workplace, community, changes in sense of self-worth for individuals and long term cultural and regional impact. There are proven strategies that work and lots of examples that failed. Learning from these and seeing which opportunities map to actions that start-ups can effect through mobile, social and learning technologies might be a useful starting point.

I'd like to see this sort of research too...

I'd also like to see things like the tax system be used to make changes to income inequality - both in terms of like for like pay as well as to some extent evening up the pay professions each sex choose to go into. i.e. if you are a woman you get tax off up to a certain amount because society screws over your pay for getting pregnant.

I'd also love to see meat taxed on a trading system where by everyone would get a meat quota that was quite small - if you want to eat shitloads of meat great - go for it - but you have to pay someone else for their meat points.

You could set the level of everyone's meat tokens for the year at a level to raise people out of poverty/or alternatively just to reflect the costs to the environment.

I'll releasing more totally unworkable economic policies soon... :-)

Is there any evidence that shows that Basic Income (that you DON'T lose if you happen to find work, as in the USA system) will cause people to sit around idle?