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Germany begins 3-year universal-basic-income trial

businessinsider.com

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Re: Germany begins 3-year universal-basic-income trial

#121

Post by wutwutwutwut »

Fargren wrote: post #79
baconandeggs wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that is why it will fail. Fairness is not about everyone getting the same amount just for existing, for that in itself is not fair. Real fairness is everyone playing against the same rules and being treated the same under the law. Sadly governments and politicians are too corrupt to implement real fairness and have decided instead for the populist way out while keeping their insane advantage intact.

Real fairness under that definition can't exist as long as there are inheritances. People who are born in wealthier families are not playing under the same rules (just imagine if a person playing Monopoly started with ten times the initial amount of money). I prefer a definition of fairness that is actually achievable[1]: everyone has at least the bare minimum, regardless of fitness and deserving. You can quibble abo…

Why do you prefer a definition that is achievable?

What you describe is of course good, but maybe we could just call that a welfare society or some other words. Giving people the bare minimum won't automatically make their lives fair.

Re: Germany begins 3-year universal-basic-income trial

#122

Post by DoreenMichele »

I'm not even going to bother to read this article. I'm not a fan of UBI and I think this is an admission that we don't have real solutions for the pandemic and we aren't even going to try to come up with real solutions, like helping people get into remote work and creating germ control solutions (like Little Caesar's pizza portal) for things where remote work is not an option.

I mean, glad to see they don't want their people to just starve. Three years is maybe a good time frame for helping people come up with real solutions.

The problem is that if you aren't explicitly stating up front that we are giving you three years to adjust to the new reality and we need you working on solutions, then those three years are going to fly by without people working on solutions and then the checks will stop coming and then what? You are just delaying disaster, not resolving anything.

Re: Germany begins 3-year universal-basic-income trial

#123

Post by TigeriusKirk »

thisisbrians wrote: post #42
OneGuy123 wrote: post #4

Based on how most jobs will get automated some form of an UBI will be required sooner or later. Now the only question is: how to you phase in UBI while still rewarding extra productive people to keep creating/innovating? Some will say "those people will innovate out of love". This is not always the case, many people are good at what they do and create many awesome things but given the chance they would rather do some…

Isn't this like saying that the invention of agriculture will mean society has to start feeding hunter gatherers for free? That's not how it went. People find new ways to create value all the time, and yet every time we invent anything new people keep saying "all the jobs are going away." It has yet to happen in spite of the agricultural, industrial, and now tech revolutions.

Which new way of creating value will be immune to automation?

Re: Germany begins 3-year universal-basic-income trial

#124

Post by dragonwriter »

slg wrote: post #65
thelean12 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that anything besides regulated capitalism with some social features built in has utterly failed. And when it fails, it fails HARD. So implementing something so drastic without knowing if it'll work is extremely risky.

>The problem is that anything besides regulated capitalism with some social features built in has utterly failed. And when it fails, it fails HARD. Would you say that every country on the planet is either "capitalism with some social features built in" or is currently failing hard? And if all those systems are capitalistic, what specifically pushes UBI over the edge into being something that isn't capitalism? From an…

> Would you say that every country on the planet is either "capitalism with some social features built in" or is currently failing hard?

Yes, if by the overcomplicated first description you mean modern mixed economies (which are more accurately descended from capitalism than actual capitalism), and those groups overlap, too.

> And if all those systems are capitalistic, what specifically pushes UBI over the edge into being something that isn't capitalism?

Nothing, it's well-within the broad outline of the modern mixed economy.

> From an implementation perspective, UBI is simply an adjustment of the income tax rate including allowing that rate to be negative. It has nothing to do with ownership, markets, or many of the other mainstays of capitalism.

I think it's debatable whether downward redistributive taxation/spending does or does not conflict with mainstays of capitalism (I think it doesz in a good way), but in any case that's a feature of modern mixed economies generally, and UBI isn't really a difference in kind. Where UBI perhaps is more at odds with capitalism than traditional mixed economy welfare programs is in weakening the divide between the chronically excluded and the working class (the lumpenproletariat and the proletariat, to use the Marxist terms), which I think is arguably an important feature of capitalism that is underappreciated specifically because Marxist-inspired socialists don't usually directly address it, especially in a transitional rather than revolutionary concept, because they viee empowering the lumpenproletariat as dangerous because they view that class as prone to recruitment as paid agents, though not actual class allies, of the bourgeoisie while not being effectively organizable against the bourgeoisie.

Re: Germany begins 3-year universal-basic-income trial

#125

Post by aeternum »

mrow84 wrote: post #96
baconandeggs wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that is why it will fail. Fairness is not about everyone getting the same amount just for existing, for that in itself is not fair. Real fairness is everyone playing against the same rules and being treated the same under the law. Sadly governments and politicians are too corrupt to implement real fairness and have decided instead for the populist way out while keeping their insane advantage intact.

> Fairness is not about everyone getting the same amount just for existing, for that in itself is not fair. Can you explain why? And if your answer amounts to "because people provide different amounts of [effort|value] to society" how would you reply to "so what?".

As a society we should increase the standard of living for everyone. In order to do that, people need to be motivated to contribute.

Re: Germany begins 3-year universal-basic-income trial

#126

Post by zestyping »

tuna-piano wrote: post #107

Am I the only one who hates both the term, the idea and frequent discussions of "Universal Basic Income"? -The term feels like just a rebranding of slightly-modified concepts that have been around forever -The term also says "income" when it's really just "Forced Redistribution (FR)". ... why does the term focus on the money people receive and not the money people pay? -The discussions in favor of UBI/FR generally re…

Forced redistribution already happens. It's called taxes.

The salient difference between the current system and UBI is on the receiving end: some of the taxes are paid back out directly as a basic income.

That's why FR isn't a useful name. "Universal basic income" describes what the real change would be.

Re: Germany begins 3-year universal-basic-income trial

#127

Post by pizza234 »

OneGuy123 wrote: post #66
pizza234 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Based on how most jobs will get automated some form of an UBI will be required sooner or later. > Now the only question is: ... "Most jobs will get automated" is actually very questionable. It's called "Lump of labour fallacy", although (I suppose) either not everybody subscribes to it, or it's something that tends to go unnoticed.

Fair point, but for example if trucks get fully automated: the USA has 3.5 million truck drivers. Where are they gonna find a job? My fear is that little by little people will be running out of jobs to find and the middle class will shrink more and more because of this. At which point will the "automation tipping point" happen where the society acknowledges that it's simply not possible to find meaningful employment…

I think that the consequences of automation should be separated into short and long term.

Definitely, I agree that "automation jumps" do create a short-term problem, if it's not handled by the government. And I think it's a hard problem.

What I disagree with, and think it's a fallacy, it's that it constitutes a long term problem. I stress that long term is beyond the work life of an individual, so the argument "what does person X if they lose their job" doesn't apply, rather, what's the size of the workforce (= employed people).

People who think that the work pool is fixed, typically don't realize that automation (the robots are coming!) is not a modern phenomenon. Automation in a modern sense started centuries ago, so the arguments shouldn't take today as starting point - they should take the 18th century instead; if the argument was true, we would all be unemployed right now.

Nobody can say what what will be the new jobs in the future, as much as 20 years ago, nobody could imagine, say, the position of the SEO expert.

Re: Germany begins 3-year universal-basic-income trial

#129

Post by zestyping »

michannne wrote: post #34
traviswingo wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're making the hard assumption that, by distributing a UBI, people will just sit around and do nothing. There is no data to back this statement up, and it's very likely that people will actually work more while on UBI. UBI is designed to provide _choice_ for workers, not force them to do something they don't want to do. For all we know, UBI could lead to solving some of the worlds biggest problems by giving people…

I find it interesting that even after a worldwide pandemic has proved that the majority of humans will prefer to act selfishly to maintain their own comfort level, you still somehow hold out hope that given literally free money, that the majority wouldn't also use this money selfishly to maintain their comfort level.

Having purpose and fulfillment is self-serving. Most people would find it depressing to sit around and do nothing.

Re: Germany begins 3-year universal-basic-income trial

#130

Post by baconandeggs »

searchableguy wrote: post #102
baconandeggs wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that is why it will fail. Fairness is not about everyone getting the same amount just for existing, for that in itself is not fair. Real fairness is everyone playing against the same rules and being treated the same under the law. Sadly governments and politicians are too corrupt to implement real fairness and have decided instead for the populist way out while keeping their insane advantage intact.

Fairness is leveling the playground. It's not equality. By birth, you are unequal. Would you say we should have the same measures for people with physical disabilities from birth and healthy athletes? No. That's why we have separate categories or measures. That is fair. And that is not treating everyone equally.

As sad as it is, I say we have to accept reality, and that means that a person with disabilities will not be able to do certain things, which does not mean he/she has nothing to do. Maybe he won't be an athlete but he can of course be a novelist.

But we first have to accept the real world and get off this childish notion we are all born equal because as you pointed out, we sadly are not.

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