Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Basic income would not reduce people’s willingness to work

universiteitleiden.nl

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

551–560 of 786 posts

Re: Basic income would not reduce people’s willingness to work

#551

Post by ipaddr »

noogle wrote: post #488
mjburgess wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends if you just end up paying people not to work. Money doesnt just have some "value" you can share like a pie. The value in money is just the productive capacity of an economy. If you're paying large numbers to do nothing, the value of that money plummets and people will starve. Recall: 50% of the country make less than the median wage... UBI is going to have to be way below this to preserve the very wealth w…

> Money doesnt just have some "value" you can share like a pie. The trillions of dollars printed by the Federal Reserve in the past two years beg to differ. Honestly, if the country is going into deficit, you might as well give it directly to people instead of injecting it via financial institutes. Society in general may greatly benefit from having people not HAVING to work.

Prices inflate like they have recently and will continue until prices absorbs any increases and the lack of production will put a greater strain.

Re: Basic income would not reduce people’s willingness to work

#552

Post by godelski »

ajuc wrote: post #451
godelski wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i.e. > just with the quality of the result and with who reaped the rewards. Maybe we should leave terms like capitalism and socialism out of the discussion because no one can agree on their meanings so they just become fighting words and their usefulness to the conversations are less than meaningless.

That's why I specified unlimited IP laws. Basically who licences the robots and AIs - owns the world.

Then I'm confused what you are meaningfully adding to the conversation with your comment? The parent to your comment already suggested what you are stating.

Re: Basic income would not reduce people’s willingness to work

#553

Post by betwixthewires »

OK, well let's look at the stimulus effects in the US. We have a real world example of a short term experiment like UBI.

It shook up the labor market and now you've got worker shortages. People aren't working unless they have to. Everyone has to offer more money.

I'm.happy about all this BTW. But it certainly goes against the claim in this article.

Re: Basic income would not reduce people’s willingness to work

#554

Post by ipaddr »

pc86 wrote: post #75
jacobn wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those who work and thereby pay for the UBI may feel that freeriding is actually unjust, and not the hallmark of a glorious new post-scarcity society?

I'm sure some will. Some won't. So what? I'm not trying to be dismissive, but this strikes me as a "but some people will be upset!" argument, which seems irrelevant to whether the policy achieves its stated goals or not.

Would those people have extra means to influence political laws to be more in their favor?

Re: Basic income would not reduce people’s willingness to work

#555

Post by godelski »

manicdee wrote: post #446
godelski wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Guaranteed income (GI) would at least buffer some of the anxiety. I could also see businesses knowing it existed would cut worker hours to part-time. But if part-time plus GI was enough then the worker has the power. This is the biggest advantage I see, and shows why you wouldn't even need a living wage. You need a sufficient amount of money so that if a worker is being abused they can say "fuck it, I quit" and be…

How can they afford to quit if they aren’t earning enough to live on in the first place? You have that luxury because of savings.

Even a small amount of income gives breathing room. That's the idea here. A full UBI would mean there's no chance of suffocating. I'm saying that we can dip our toes in first and we should still see effects. It isn't an all or nothing scenario as many put forward.

Re: Basic income would not reduce people’s willingness to work

#556

Post by ipaddr »

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #145
jacobn wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those who work and thereby pay for the UBI may feel that freeriding is actually unjust, and not the hallmark of a glorious new post-scarcity society?

As more jobs become automated, UBI will become a necessity to prevent the collapse of civilization. Imagine something as simple as burger flipping became completely automated. There would be a million fast food workers suddenly unemployed. Add making espresso to the mix and half a million baristas lose their job. There won't be a million new jobs created to maintain the automation to pick up the slack.

Why not welfare increases? Why give to the richest?

Re: Basic income would not reduce people’s willingness to work

#557

Post by laserlight »

kukx wrote: post #526
jakelazaroff wrote: post #471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In that scenario, you’d still need to work. Basic income increases workers’ bargaining power because they can quit without losing their entire income.

And their income will grow on trees. It will fail unless the government gets easy money from eg producing oil like Emirates. Otherwise someone needs to produce stuff. We already have a big inflation problem that is directly related to policies that rain money on those not working. Let's not make things even worse, please.

Do you think that inflation is worse than wage slavery?

Re: Basic income would not reduce people’s willingness to work

#558

Post by labrador »

teakettle42 wrote: post #518
labrador wrote: post #498

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one says you have to work even harder. If you reduce your consumption and live according to your most basic needs, you can achieve a level of self-suffiency that allows you to actually support yourself with your hobbies. Live simply, plant a garden, buy your clothes at thrift stores and shop at discount grocery stores. What ever it takes to follow your passion. Live like a starving artist and make something great.…

I was replying in the context of implementing UBI, but to take the broader view: If I recall correctly, the per-capita share of the US budget individuals are responsible for, if we split it evenly between every US resident of age, is (very) roughly $10k a year. I currently pay above $100k/year in federal taxes; about 10x my share. How much does the person “following their passion” pay? Are you really self-sufficient…

You're assuming that people following their passions add no value and such people are getting a free ride. Take roads: corporations need them to move their products around, workers need them to get to their jobs. Yes, I get to use them for free, but say I keep bees and harvest organic honey. It's not a money making business (say a net neutral), but people who work at corporations are happy I have produced organic honey for their enjoyment. Or I'm a muscician who likes to play at restaurants at night. I get paid the very little, just the cost of gas basically, but I enjoy it. Am I mooching off your 100K?

Re: Basic income would not reduce people’s willingness to work

#560

Post by CraigJPerry »

thegrimmest wrote: post #486
zozbot234 wrote: post #476

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who picks strawberries today in high-income countries/locations, where strawberry pickers have all sorts of alternatives available? There's your answer. It tends to cost more, but not much more. And the increased cost is offset to a large extent by improved specialization in those lines of work, and the ensuing productivity.

Migrant labourers mostly, and in places where these are not available (like Japan), strawberries cost a lot more , making them a "special occasion" treat for middle classes, and putting them mostly out of reach of poorer people.

So less strawberries but you get to bin US healthcare and replace it with Japanese style healthcare instead?

That’s an easy yes.

Post reply on HN