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Universal Basic Income is Capitalism 2.0
181–190 of 1001 posts
Re: Universal Basic Income is Capitalism 2.0
#182Why give free money to everyone? Clearly a rich person doesn’t need a monthly check from government... Milton Friedman long ago proposed a negative income tax to replace means-tested welfare programs. Essentially, people below a certain income threshold would receive money which scales to a maximum the closer their income approaches zero. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_income_tax I do think people radically…
The most likely implementation in the existing US federal government is a negative income tax. > I definitely would choose not to work or work less if that money came free from government. You aren't alone, so your $1200 would not go as far in that future as it does now. There would be some inflation (perhaps only localized increased costs to some industries), but I'd suspect that people working less would be a featu…
>Some people would move from industries which have lots of crappy manual jobs (like janitorial services)
That work still has to get done though. Somebody has to be the janitor. If you then increase the pay of a janitor then lots of people that would otherwise increase their skills to do with that requires more skills would end up as a janitor instead. This triggers a pay increase in those jobs too.
I don't see how you don't end up with just a lot of inflation. The money a job pays doesn't matter on a societal level. What matters is the products/service doing the job provides. No amount of money shuffling is going to make 2 apples turn into 3.
Re: Universal Basic Income is Capitalism 2.0
#183UBI is extremely dangerous as long as governments exist. Take what China is doing with their citizen score and it's not hard to imagine what could go wrong. "...imagine how easy it would be for such a government that was also providing a basic income to its citizens to manipulate their citizens based on that basic income that they depended on. If they can deny citizens access to things like public transportation base…
That’s literally the “universal” part of it. If you don’t have that, you don’t have UBI. The fact that the government has the physical power to withhold a hypothetical UBI might be an issue, of course, but every government has the physical power to do pretty much anything to any citizen, so there’s nothing unique there.
Until we are in a time where I can't find a disturbing number of people who are willing to deny someone UBI for saying the wrong things--and willing to vote for someone who will do that--then UBI should never be seriously considered.
Re: Universal Basic Income is Capitalism 2.0
#184Why give free money to everyone? Clearly a rich person doesn’t need a monthly check from government... Milton Friedman long ago proposed a negative income tax to replace means-tested welfare programs. Essentially, people below a certain income threshold would receive money which scales to a maximum the closer their income approaches zero. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_income_tax I do think people radically…
Why give free school to everyone, libraries? Clearly a rich person doesn't need those either? Public services should be public. There's extreme social value in equal access and you reduce an extreme amount of bureaucracy and debate in the process. >If I got free money I wouldn’t increase spending, I would reduce work. WE SHOULD ALL REDUCE WORK. Sorry for the caps but we need to collectively get into this mindset. We'…
We're more productive than ever with very little to show for it.
Agreed. "Indeed, in 2006, the top twenty per cent of earners were twice as likely to work more than fifty hours a week than the bottom twenty per cent, a reversal of historic conditions." [1]
1 - https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/you-really-dont...
Re: Universal Basic Income is Capitalism 2.0
#185Why give free money to everyone? Clearly a rich person doesn’t need a monthly check from government... Milton Friedman long ago proposed a negative income tax to replace means-tested welfare programs. Essentially, people below a certain income threshold would receive money which scales to a maximum the closer their income approaches zero. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_income_tax I do think people radically…
So I don't think a UBI should be anywhere near $1,200 a month.
But one of the features of a UBI is it causes people to drop out of the labor market. Especially for shitty low end unskilled labor jobs. And this is great because the reduction in supply will drive up labor rates and help inequality in a far more natural way than a minimum wage.
Re: Universal Basic Income is Capitalism 2.0
#186Why give free money to everyone? Clearly a rich person doesn’t need a monthly check from government... Milton Friedman long ago proposed a negative income tax to replace means-tested welfare programs. Essentially, people below a certain income threshold would receive money which scales to a maximum the closer their income approaches zero. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_income_tax I do think people radically…
Why give free school to everyone, libraries? Clearly a rich person doesn't need those either? Public services should be public. There's extreme social value in equal access and you reduce an extreme amount of bureaucracy and debate in the process. >If I got free money I wouldn’t increase spending, I would reduce work. WE SHOULD ALL REDUCE WORK. Sorry for the caps but we need to collectively get into this mindset. We'…
but think of all the child labor we took out of the workforce when we made education free and mandatory.
Re: Universal Basic Income is Capitalism 2.0
#187A UBI paid for with a carbon tax would both save us from the worst consequences of global warming and stimulate the economy. It's hard to find a rational excuse for not doing it. Planet Money did a great episode on this idea over 7 years ago: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2013/07/12/201502003/epis... They did a followup 5 years later: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2018/07/18/630267782/epis... It seems like…
> It's hard to find a rational excuse for not doing it.
Well the numbers being off by an order of magnitude is a good reason. The US tax revenue would have to double just to pay for anything that resembles UBI.
The carbon tax would have to be obscene to gather that amount of money (another $25k in taxes on a middle class US family). Even if people survive the initial shock, the rapid drop in demand for anything with a carbon tax now means that UBI has a budget shortfall and has to be cut.
It’s horrendously stupid to tie something we want to be dependable (UBI) to revenue from taxation on things we want to stop.
Re: Universal Basic Income is Capitalism 2.0
#188The elephants in the room are the extremely cheap labor that already undermines the legit goods and services: - extremely cheap prison labor - undocumented laborers who have (almost) no legal rights and who take difficult jobs - ex-cons who have to pay a portion of their wages to employers who are willing to hire them - jobs where wages must be subsidized by government programs (eg. WalMart encourages their lowest pa…
The market is also distorted by us humans' inelastic demand for food and housing, which means sometimes sellers can charge higher prices for things such as these that people cannot go without if they don't like the price.
I'm not sure if UBI would help reduce that distortion or not, but ideally it would be nice to have a consequence be that participation in markets and in transactions (such as housing) is more voluntary.
(Edit: a word)
Re: Universal Basic Income is Capitalism 2.0
#189Why give free money to everyone? Clearly a rich person doesn’t need a monthly check from government... Milton Friedman long ago proposed a negative income tax to replace means-tested welfare programs. Essentially, people below a certain income threshold would receive money which scales to a maximum the closer their income approaches zero. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_income_tax I do think people radically…
>I do think people radically underestimate the unforeseen consequences of a free guaranteed income, even if it was low.
But for every you, there's a me. I get satisfaction out of working. I had a job in college where I completed all of my work in the first week and did absolutely nothing for the next 6 months and I was MISERABLE. I needed a task to complete, a job to finish, to feel productive.
Furthermore I like having things - whether that be a boat, or a nice car or insert whatever. And that's not some "you've just succumbed to the capitalist monsters" - I buy things that I get enjoyment out of, I don't get enjoyment out of buying things. Quite frankly I feel disgusting anytime I buy something, so if it isn't something I enjoy I have borderline permanent remorse. The car I bought at 16 still hits a nerve because it was a pile of garbage I paid too much for.
I completely understand and respect and quite frankly envy people that don't want things, don't need to work to feel "complete" and can get by doing nothing all day. And with all of that said, the fact there's a you, and a me, tells me there's a very good chance UBI can work. People that don't care about having nice things can do fuck-all and get enough to survive, and people who want more can work until they have it.
Re: Universal Basic Income is Capitalism 2.0
#190I can’t help but think that UBI would distort job markets. Let’s pick an example of a “sucky job” (and I say this as just an example, I realize these guys work hard and are vital). A garbage man. He get’s paid $42k a year because they have to find people who would be willing to do this sucky job and need to pay higher than minimum wage to do so. At some point of income, people would be willing to accept the suckiness…
Or crappy jobs should have to pay more. Handling stinking garbage all day sounds like a job that should be high paying given how miserable it is. But due to desperation, people without other options are willing to accept very low amounts of money to do it. With UBI, the price of hiring a garbage collector would equal the price necessary to fairly compensate someone for having to pick up garbage.
I pay about $25 a month for my garbage pickup. How much of that is to compensate the garbage man who spends about 30 seconds at my house? If he makes $20 an hour, then it's about 17 cents or so. Let's double his wage to account for benefits, employer-paid payroll taxes, workers' comp, etc. Hell, let's say the all-in labor cost for each garbage truck driver is $50/hour. That's still $0.42 I'm paying as my share of his time. Roughly $2 a month. Let's triple-ish that to account for the other personnel at the landfill and transfer stations.
If my garbage bill goes up by another $5 each month, I'm way ahead with the UBI check.
Unless you can find 399 other things in daily life where wage increases will wipe out the UBI.
Of course a universal income will alter markets. Jobs that suck will have to pay more. That's a feature, not a bug. The alternative is that we enjoy low prices on ditches dug, because those doing the digging are desperate for the work. I'd rather live in a society that doesn't fight to preserve that dynamic.