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Basic income plan clearly rejected by Swiss voters

swissinfo.ch

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Re: Basic income plan clearly rejected by Swiss voters

#41

Post by MikeNomad »

tgb wrote: post #16
greendesk wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is that basic income can only be "unconditional." If there are conditions attached to it, what might be they?

While that's how I read it, perhaps the condition would be citizenship. I.e. they don't want to simultaneously allow more people into their country and also give everyone in their country a lot of money for fairly obvious reasons. However, the article doesn't give translations of the actual measures so it's hard to say.

That is exactly what I had in mind re: my original comment. Seeing from other comments there would be an earnings threshold. That, to me, is not "unconditional."

I'm probably running afoul of language/translation shear...

Re: Basic income plan clearly rejected by Swiss voters

#42

Post by _nalply »

_nalply wrote: post #3

It's too early to say that. The urban cantons did not finish counting, especially Zurich, Basel, Bern and Geneva. I'd expect that there will be 30% yes votes, but of course there are always surprises.

Now it's definitive. The cantonal majority says no, which kills the referendum.

Re: Basic income plan clearly rejected by Swiss voters

#43

Post by raverbashing »

DrNuke wrote: post #31

It is premature but inevitable: automation, stagnant growth, migrations and deflation are all pushing towards universal basic income. Not 2k euros/month but enough to allow surviving and decency.

Welfare without limits is incompatible with Open Borders

Remains to be seen who will want to actually do the (needed) jobs when staying at home is enough

I am in favour of Basic Income, but it's not such clear cut

Re: Basic income plan clearly rejected by Swiss voters

#44

Post by stickac »

s3nnyy wrote: post #37

Switzerland is the only country in the world that implements direct democracy. You can really feel the difference to the rest of Europe. Swiss more often than not stand behind decisions made by their government. When talking about their politicians, the Swiss say "WE decided that ..." whereas e.g., Germans say: "THEY decided that ..." If you look for a coding job in Europe, Zurich is a great place to live and is the…

You are completely ignoring the fact that the cost of living is much higher in Zurich than the rest of Europe. (For example, the rent is around 10 times higher than in Prague). But after-all, you are a recruiter, why would anyone expect you to provide unbiased information, right?

Re: Basic income plan clearly rejected by Swiss voters

#46

Post by k__ »

chongli wrote: post #33
Zarkonnen wrote: post #24

Coming from Switzerland, this is not at all surprising. No one expected this initiative to pass. It was really more of an attempt to get a conversation started, and it's succeeded in that. As a (tentative) supporter of basic income, I'm already quite happy that something like a fifth to a quarter of voters went for it.

Doesn't the fact that the margin on the no vote was so high put a damper on the enthusiasm for supporters? Or do the Swiss routinely vote over and over again on rewordings of the same idea?

Well, it was 2500 bucks.

Maybe 1500 would get more people to vote for it, or something else chagned, etc.

Re: Basic income plan clearly rejected by Swiss voters

#47

Post by chongli »

Zarkonnen wrote: post #39
chongli wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't the fact that the margin on the no vote was so high put a damper on the enthusiasm for supporters? Or do the Swiss routinely vote over and over again on rewordings of the same idea?

It does put a damper on things, but yeah, it's not uncommon for more or less the same thing to come up every decade or two. Evergreen topics include immigration reform, nuclear power, and whether Switzerland needs an army.

Ahhh. Well, it will be interesting to see how the economy evolves over the next decade and how that might affect a future vote. If tons of Swiss middle class lose their jobs and move down to low class it could be a dramatic reversal.

Re: Basic income plan clearly rejected by Swiss voters

#48

Post by notahacker »

_nalply wrote: post #7
elcapitan wrote: post #4

I wish I would live in a country where essential political decisions like that are made by the people and not by some professional political elite in a far away capital.

The downside are populistic decisions like the Swiss minaret referendum. Now we have the sentence «The construction of minarets is prohibited.» in the constitution. ( https://www.admin.ch/opc/en/classified-compilation/19995395/... ) I think such regulations should be decreed as a law and not as a constitution norm if at all. But if everybody has a say you get bikeshedding in the constitution.

From a Brit perspective (where we tend to have fewer referenda on bigger issues) the other downside appears the sheer, incredible nastiness of referendum campaigns when instead of campaigning to convince people they're a competent government, the campaign leaders (usually the same elites) are prepared to say literally anything to frighten people into voting a particular direction. Not to mention of course the first casualty of any referendum campaign on anything remotely complex is the truth.

I mean, currently the UK referendum on EU withdrawal arguments seem to have peaked around "leaving the EU will knock £62000 off the value of your house and please Putin and ISIS" vs "women will be at risk of sex attacks from foreigners if we don't leave"[1]. I'm not familiar with the Swiss situation but doubt the constitutional changes around minarets were fought over the merits of Islamic architecture or nuanced arguments about zoning.

[1] There are slightly subtler arguments being used, but virtually none of them are based on fact either.

Re: Basic income plan clearly rejected by Swiss voters

#49

Post by tdkl »

_nalply wrote: post #32
tdkl wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The majority of population isn't in place to make honest, rational choices unaffected by feelings, culture, religion (I wanted to state educated, but education doesn't necessarily mean that the choice would be on the rational side) and media influence.

And do you think Switzerland is different?

No I don't need to, they've shown they're different.

Can I turn the question around : do you think this would work in USA, India and Brazil (random countries, nothing specific)?

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