Germany begins 3-year universal-basic-income trial • Hacker News Board

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

#201

Post by mrow84 » Wed, Aug 19, 2020, 9:17 PM UTC

chordalkeyboard wrote: post #174

mrow84 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?".

because the stuff they get for existing has to come from someone else.

> Fairness is not about everyone getting the same amount just for existing, for that in itself is not fair.

> because the stuff they get for existing has to come from someone else.

Your statement doesn't hold unless we assume "it is unfair for one person to provide for the needs of another (unless it is reciprocated)", and it isn't at all clear that we can take that axiomatically.

Even setting to one side the more obvious cases of parents providing for children etc., if we were to assume that one person could, through their labour, provide for the needs of everyone else, why does it obviously follow that it is "unfair" for everyone to survive solely that person's labour?

More generally, it really isn't clear to me that these questions have such simplistic answers.

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

#202

Post by balfirevic » Wed, Aug 19, 2020, 9:18 PM UTC

koonsolo wrote: post #178

Last time I asked this question here, I got downvoted without any answers. So here is my second try, this time specifically for Germany: Show me the calculation of where the government will get the money for paying their entire adult population this amount. And let's assume everyone will keep working at their current job. (Which they won't since at a "Basic Income" pricepoint, lots of people would prefer spending mor…

> Show me the calculation of where the government will get the money for paying their entire adult population this amount.

The plan is obviously not that everyone gets UBI-amount more money per month than they do now.

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

#203

Post by mkoubaa » Wed, Aug 19, 2020, 9:20 PM UTC

kpsnow wrote: post #198

I don’t have a very good grasp of economics, but can anyone explain why it makes sense to give someone $1000 to do nothing when you can pay them $1000 to do something productive, like build a road? Ideas like negative income tax, government supplemented minimum wages, or increasing EITC makes more sense to me.

it's not either or. give everyone money AND pay for useful programs

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

#204

Post by mrow84 » Wed, Aug 19, 2020, 9:20 PM UTC

ghostwriter wrote: post #173

mrow84 wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I presume you are aiming this at me, and if so it doesn't apply - I was simply asking for a rationale for the original claim that "Fairness is not about everyone getting the same amount just for existing, for that in itself is not fair." I would suggest that your retort, presuming that is what it is, is mere posturing; either you have a substantive answer to the question or not - so far you have not provided one.

Because no one owes you nothing by their unalienable right to be in charge of their own life, and you only get what you deserve by your actions. That's the fundamental moral principle of fairness. If your actions oriented towards creation then you get to hold your earnings by the right of your productive work. If your actions oriented towards extorting the value from those who create it, you deserve to be ostracized.

> Because no one owes you nothing by their unalienable right to be in charge of their own life

The question isn't whether people are obliged to provide for others, but whether or not it is necessarily unfair for them to do so. Your statement only addresses the former case, not the latter (irrespective of whether it is labelled "the fundamental moral principle of fairness").

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

#205

Post by garmaine » Wed, Aug 19, 2020, 9:22 PM UTC

throwaway_kufu wrote: post #62

garmaine wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lol, no. Just no. The capitalism experiment is everything that has happened from the industrial revolution (really, earlier) forward. Compare with the 19th, 18th, or 17th century, and you’ll find today’s wealth gap is smaller, people live more prosperous lives, happiness indices improved, etc. Not to mention the literally billions of lives that wouldn’t otherwise exist at all.

The old billions wouldn’t even be alive but for capitalism. Well if capitalism is responsible for all the good it must be responsible for all the bad, like industrial warfare like WWI and WWII.

Because war didn’t exist before capitalism /s

Per-capita violence has been in steady decline for this time period.

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

#206

Post by brazzy » Wed, Aug 19, 2020, 9:23 PM UTC

sdenton4 wrote: post #182

skybrian wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any UBI could be entirely reversed by an equal and opposite tax. Of course this would be pointless, but it shows that there are many possibilities, depending on what sort of taxes you combine it with, and some of them are certainly feasible because the net effect is small. UBI is largely about symbolic equality, the kindergarten-level fairness of everyone getting the same amount. That’s important because symbols of e…

It's not about fairness at all: it's about poverty traps, and getting people out of them. With the learned understanding that if you give things to the poor, you also have to give them to the rich, because the rich are unable to look at any pie they can't have a slice of without wanting to destroy it.

I always saw the "also giving it to the rich" as much more about avoiding the bureaucratic overhead, social stigma and other associated downsides of trying to ensure that only the poor get it.

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

#207

Post by anchpop » Wed, Aug 19, 2020, 9:24 PM UTC

sdenton4 wrote: post #182

skybrian wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any UBI could be entirely reversed by an equal and opposite tax. Of course this would be pointless, but it shows that there are many possibilities, depending on what sort of taxes you combine it with, and some of them are certainly feasible because the net effect is small. UBI is largely about symbolic equality, the kindergarten-level fairness of everyone getting the same amount. That’s important because symbols of e…

It's not about fairness at all: it's about poverty traps, and getting people out of them. With the learned understanding that if you give things to the poor, you also have to give them to the rich, because the rich are unable to look at any pie they can't have a slice of without wanting to destroy it.

I would extend that last bit to every group in America, not just the rich

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

#208

Post by acituan » Wed, Aug 19, 2020, 9:28 PM UTC

baconandeggs wrote: post #64

skybrian wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any UBI could be entirely reversed by an equal and opposite tax. Of course this would be pointless, but it shows that there are many possibilities, depending on what sort of taxes you combine it with, and some of them are certainly feasible because the net effect is small. UBI is largely about symbolic equality, the kindergarten-level fairness of everyone getting the same amount. That’s important because symbols of e…

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 is everyone playing against the same rules and being treated the same under the law.

That is symmetry, not fairness. By your definition someone born with a disability should not be accommodated (because everyone has to be treated the same by your notion) and possibly left to suffer?

Or is it fair that you are enjoying products made in countries by workers that never had have the same rules and treatment you had? What did you deserve to get that, other than sheer luck of being born in the current circumstances?

Doesn't familial conditions differ so hugely that no one is really playing against the same rules and treated the same in the formative years of their lives, effects of which amplify for the rest of their lives?

No one gets to define "real fairness" without expanding what their normativity is about. And your notion is about symmetry for a subsection of civil life, not about the complexity and entirety of real human lives. I guarantee you if you were born into different circumstances you would have a very different sense of what is fair.

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

#209

Post by ghostwriter » Wed, Aug 19, 2020, 9:30 PM UTC

mrow84 wrote: post #204

ghostwriter wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because no one owes you nothing by their unalienable right to be in charge of their own life, and you only get what you deserve by your actions. That's the fundamental moral principle of fairness. If your actions oriented towards creation then you get to hold your earnings by the right of your productive work. If your actions oriented towards extorting the value from those who create it, you deserve to be ostracized.

> Because no one owes you nothing by their unalienable right to be in charge of their own life The question isn't whether people are obliged to provide for others, but whether or not it is necessarily unfair for them to do so. Your statement only addresses the former case, not the latter (irrespective of whether it is labelled "the fundamental moral principle of fairness").

> The question isn't whether people are obliged to provide for others, but whether or not it is necessarily unfair for them to do so.

sure, let's take a practical exercise and see how you feel about spending your days at cotton fields working for free. Doesn't have to be forever, just a few years, to get a meaningful conclusion about the level of that "necessarily" that you doubt about.

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

#210

Post by rabidrat » Wed, Aug 19, 2020, 9:35 PM UTC

kpsnow wrote: post #198

I don’t have a very good grasp of economics, but can anyone explain why it makes sense to give someone $1000 to do nothing when you can pay them $1000 to do something productive, like build a road? Ideas like negative income tax, government supplemented minimum wages, or increasing EITC makes more sense to me.

It's not $1000 to do "nothing", it's $1000 so they can do whatever they want. If they're building some useless road (and many of the public works projects of the past whose aim was to provide "full employment", were busy-work projects moving rocks from one pile to another), then they don't have the time/energy to work on something else that they deem more fulfilling or productive.