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Universal Basic Income is Capitalism 2.0

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Re: Universal Basic Income is Capitalism 2.0

#411

Post by imron »

alexmingoia wrote: post #156
thephyber wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

“There would be some inflation” Which serves as a reason to regularly increase the amount. “UBI doesn't make people not want to work at all“ Speak for yourself. Work is a means to an end. I have no desire to work if basic income takes care of my basic necessities. I have no intrinsic desire to get up every day at the same time and do what my employer tells me to do. And to be clear, when I say work I mean the necessi…

> Which serves as a reason to regularly increase the amount.

Which serves to further increase inflation.

So you increase the amount more, and shortly thereafter inflation increases more again.

And so you increase the amount again, and so on, and so on until suddenly you have hyperinflation and your economy collapses, see for example the Weimar Republic, Zimbabwe, or any of a dozen other examples throughout history.

Re: Universal Basic Income is Capitalism 2.0

#413

Post by Zamicol »

maurys wrote: post #394

I haven't seen this discussed as much, but I am worried about population rises along with a UBI. Especially amongst poorer communities where extra children are viewed as financial stability. Already with free schooling and meals, there is a mindset that you can raise kids and let the state take care of them to some degree. But I guess UBI is far more likely to be implemented in places which don't have population prob…

This is my biggest concern and I never see it addressed.

Re: Universal Basic Income is Capitalism 2.0

#414

Post by djsumdog »

> However, this creates less wealth overall as work is no longer given to where it’s done most efficiently. This breaks the primary component of capitalism.

Does it bother anyone that many of these places where the production is 'efficient,' are often not bastions of democracy? One of the biggest players is obviously the Chinese Communist Party, which literally has reeducation (and possibly forced labour) camps for certain ethnic/cultural groups.

Re: Universal Basic Income is Capitalism 2.0

#415

Post by glerk »

But money does not create wealth. Money is just a tool of trade and a measure of the value of goods and services produced in an economy.

Airdropping money will not transform this world into a utopia where everyone is wealthy and can live without working. At the end of the day, we need plumbers, electricians, garbage men, software engineers, nurses, lawyers, etc. to maintain this civilization and this will not be changed from the top-down by inflating the money supply.

Re: Universal Basic Income is Capitalism 2.0

#416

Post by Shared404 »

dantheman wrote: post #402
Shared404 wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, there's me. I hate not working. I would appreciate a UBI, as it would let me get out of a not so great place, and let me focus on working on what I like to do, but I would definitely still be doing useful work.

If the work your going to be doing is useful, then why don't you do it? Or is it objectively not as useful as your current occupation? In general the market compensates based on how much it is wanted by others. It's amazing what an individual will think is useful when doing the work, vs what a customer who pay for.

> If the work your going to be doing is useful, then why don't you do it?

For me: I am doing/learning how to do it, but I don't have capability to monetize it right now.

In general: I have personally known many people who want to have a career in X, but can't because they are working three jobs to try to house and feed themselves.

> [I]s it objectively not as useful as your current occupation?

For me: It is objectively more useful then my current occupation. I can't explain more without revealing more of my private life than I am comfortable doing here.

In general: Regardless, something being less useful then something else doesn't make it not useful. 75% is less than 100%, but is still greater than 0%.

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Also, bonus argument for UBI.

Most (all?) propositions for UBI I have seen will cover only the bare minimum. Almost everyone wants more than this, and will be willing to work to get the extra money.

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Edit 0: Add less situational arguments.

Edit 1: Add bonus argument.

Edit 2: Move things around because I'm stupid and can't get formatting right the first 3 times.

Re: Universal Basic Income is Capitalism 2.0

#417

Post by irjustin »

alexmingoia wrote: post #82

Why 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…

It's literally cheaper to simply give everyone a $1,200 check than it is to try and create rules that exclude people based upon some criteria.

That is how the welfare program operates today. It's expensive to manage and at its current position not inclusive enough which then leaves a number of people worse off when you are just above the cut-off.

Re: Universal Basic Income is Capitalism 2.0

#418

Post by jokoon »

glerk wrote: post #415

But money does not create wealth. Money is just a tool of trade and a measure of the value of goods and services produced in an economy. Airdropping money will not transform this world into a utopia where everyone is wealthy and can live without working. At the end of the day, we need plumbers, electricians, garbage men, software engineers, nurses, lawyers, etc. to maintain this civilization and this will not be chan…

Those plumbers etc will be paid bonus money. That's pretty simple. At some point, unemployment can hurt the economy.

Re: Universal Basic Income is Capitalism 2.0

#419

Post by laingc »

alex_young wrote: post #114

A 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…

One of my best friends is an academic economist working in this space, so while I won’t pretend to be an expert, I have spent a goodly amount of time discussing this with one.

With no disrespect intended to you personally, this policy you propose makes no sense. Without putting words in your mouth, it looks to me like “two things I as a progressive like the idea of”, rather than a coherent economic policy.

Carbon taxes unquestionably fall hardest on the poor, as do consumption taxes generally. Everything from the products purchased by the poor to their modes of transport are more carbon-intensive than the rich.

With respect to UBI, the amount of revenue needed to sustain anything other than a token payment is orders of magnitude more than a carbon tax could ever hope to raise. It’s orders of magnitude more than could ever be raised by any realistic tax, actually, but that’s rather beside the point.

It’s fine to like UBI and it’s fine to like carbon taxes, but acting as though either of them would have a significant positive economic impact is completely unsupported by either theory or evidence, and there’s certainly no reason to link them as part of a single policy.

Re: Universal Basic Income is Capitalism 2.0

#420

Post by kyle_martin1 »

treyfitty wrote: post #272

There are a lot of people here dissenting on the idea of UBI on the premise that they find meaning in work, and to take the incentive to work away will lead others (themselves included) not to have meaning in life. I’ve taken a year off of work to start a business that failed and spent the past few months hanging out with my kids. At first, my stress levels were high because daycares were shut down and I was panickin…

This is called being comfortable with being lazy. You're allowed to do this but you should also be comfortable with the consequences too.
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