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A Genealogy of the Idea of Universal Basic Income

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Re: A Genealogy of the Idea of Universal Basic Income

#41

Post by sxyuan »

gonational wrote: post #22

“Universal basic income” of any reasonable size in, e.g., the US, requires the creation of new money, because taxation is insufficient for its funding. New money derives its value, subtractively, from the value of existing money (“WEALTH”), which is held by individuals who earned that money (“WORKERS“). Some individuals decide not to work because of reasons OTHER THAN retirement, inheritance, disability, and child be…

Your first paragraph makes a good point, but given that in the US capital (i.e, being paid for owning wealth) is taxed at a much lower rate than income (i.e., being paid to work), I'd offer the following correction:

UBI intrinsically takes wealth from the wealthy, who are generally NOT "workers" but those who have earned or inherited a large amount of capital at some point (and thus are more appropriately labeled as "the lazys [sic]"), and distributes it to everyone, the vast majority of whom are indeed "workers".

In short, UBI can be correctly defined as "transfer payments from lazys to workers".

(This is an oversimplification, but I believe a tad bit more accurate than the original.)

Re: A Genealogy of the Idea of Universal Basic Income

#42

Post by mikedilger »

lostlogin wrote: post #15

Below is an article arguing that New Zealand has been testing a UBI for decades with its pension scheme which is available to everyone aged over 65. Be warned - Gareth Morgan has some interesting politics. http://morganfoundation.org.nz/already-ubi-nz-super/

UBI to people outside of the workforce is entirely different. My argument against UBI is that it erodes the desire to work, and we still need nearly everybody of working age to work... until the robots catch up (they still have a lot of catching up to do).

Re: A Genealogy of the Idea of Universal Basic Income

#43

Post by evolve2k »

rodolphoarruda wrote: post #38

Quick conceptual question from a noob in the subject: does the UBI entirely replace social security for elderly individuals or is it added on top of it?

UBI sets an income ‘watermark’ of basic income for all. I would say they interact. It would eliminate the pension where desired/planned pension funds were at a similar watermark.. if the pension needed to be more then it would supplement towards this.

Re: A Genealogy of the Idea of Universal Basic Income

#44

Post by mikedilger »

mikedilger wrote: post #40

I don't think there is any sort of unanimity regarding UBI. Being compensated for staying home is not UBI, because it is not ongoing. I'm against UBI for reasons that became apparent while playing MMORPGs. Stay with me here and I'll explain. Players of an RPG want a fun game. But they also want to succeed/win. These goals partially conflict. If they prioritize winning too highly, and pester customer support to make t…

If you downvote me because you disagree, PLEASE share your thoughts on this. I cannot understand why you disagree if you simply downvote.

Re: A Genealogy of the Idea of Universal Basic Income

#45

Post by karpierz »

jedberg wrote: post #26
0x8BADF00D wrote: post #12

I’m in favor of UBI, but let’s draw it from each congressman’s personal bank accounts. It’s easy to be generous with someone else’s money.

Most reasonable UBI proposals draw the funding primarily from a VAT and a reduction of benefits that it replaces (like food stamps and welfare). The beauty of a VAT is that while normally regressive, by redistributing the funds as a UBI, you essentially make it a tax on only upper-middle-class/rich people. For example if the VAT is 10% and you give people $1,000 a month, they would have to spend over $10,000 a month…

VAT+UBI is still regressive, you're just subtracting a constant factor. So instead of hitting the poor the hardest, you're hitting the middle class the hardest and creating a valley around where the break-even point is.

In addition, since VAT taxes don't apply to capital transactions (as there's nothing added when you buy or sell a stock), the vast majority of transactions conducted by the upper class won't be hit by this.

Re: A Genealogy of the Idea of Universal Basic Income

#46

Post by zozbot234 »

mikedilger wrote: post #42
lostlogin wrote: post #15

Below is an article arguing that New Zealand has been testing a UBI for decades with its pension scheme which is available to everyone aged over 65. Be warned - Gareth Morgan has some interesting politics. http://morganfoundation.org.nz/already-ubi-nz-super/

UBI to people outside of the workforce is entirely different. My argument against UBI is that it erodes the desire to work, and we still need nearly everybody of working age to work... until the robots catch up (they still have a lot of catching up to do).

The whole point of UBI is that it has lower disincentives against work than other kinds of social insurance. When you say that UBI discourages working, that's perhaps true compared w/ no social insurance at all but it's not a very meaningful comparison.

Re: A Genealogy of the Idea of Universal Basic Income

#47

Post by mikedilger »

zozbot234 wrote: post #46
mikedilger wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UBI to people outside of the workforce is entirely different. My argument against UBI is that it erodes the desire to work, and we still need nearly everybody of working age to work... until the robots catch up (they still have a lot of catching up to do).

The whole point of UBI is that it has lower disincentives against work than other kinds of social insurance. When you say that UBI discourages working, that's perhaps true compared w/ no social insurance at all but it's not a very meaningful comparison.

I've not heard this. Can you explain how? And are you also suggesting that UBI proponents support abolition of other kinds of social insurance, replacing them with (not augmenting them with) UBI?

Re: A Genealogy of the Idea of Universal Basic Income

#50

Post by ineedasername »

I think UBI as a single monolithic program for providing minimum resources to provide the basics of food/shelter etc can be much improved on by other means:

[0]Instead, I think a constellation of smaller, targeted programs (think best-of-breed) might be more effective and provide a more robust effect: If a society provides universal healthcare, comprehensive unemployment benefits that don't have absurdly low caps, housing & food subsidies for those close to the poverty level, comprehensive disability benefits, and probably a few other things I'm missing, then the need for a "universal" UBI is diminished: That too can be targeted towards people not otherwise covered by the above. The advantage is that each program can be highly tailored to the specific needs & nuances of those seeking that specific benefit, rather than just throwing a larger block of money at people.

[0]Note: I'm not particularly attached to this idea. I think is has merit, but my goal is to start a conversation about the idea, sort of pressure-test it, not proclaim it as the way to do things.

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