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Basic income would not reduce people’s willingness to work

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

#581

Post by Kim_Bruning »

thegrimmest wrote: post #444
zozbot234 wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Material things would become scarce again due to the artificially inflated cost of labour. A UBI would be more efficient than the extensive patch-work of policies and regulations that we use today to artificially redistribute income. There would be a lot more work happening on material things, not less - especially when adjusted for productivity. Minimum wage work today is some of the least productive.

> There would be a lot more work happening on material things, not less Who will do all the hard, unpleasant work then? Who will pick strawberries, work retail, or do hard labour, for anything less than a fortune? What substitute to the current "don't starve/end up homeless" incentive structure will motivate people to do these jobs? Productivity improvements aren't universal, they're specific. We've not improved prod…

If you make human labor more expensive, those jobs get replaced by machines.

(see in broad lines eg. US North (machines) vs South (slavery) in first half of 19th century)

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

#582

Post by Kim_Bruning »

tremon wrote: post #367
thegrimmest wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Believe it or not, poor people generally don't buy football tickets. If their TVs were made by UBI workers, then they wouldn't be able to afford those either. Material things would become scarce again due to the artificially inflated cost of labour. You're basically rewinding all of the gains in productivity we've made by imposing a high floor. CEOs aren't paid a lot because the assume risk, they're paid a lot becaus…

Then we'll need a new word for "company" as it's meant today Already ahead of you: a one-person company is called a ZZP'er here in NL. ZZP = zelfstandige zonder personeel == self-employed without employees.

If you want to be the CEO of your own corporation, nothing beats DGA (Directeur-Grootaandeelhouder). The grandest title of them all!

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

#583

Post by zozbot234 »

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.

UBI incents more people to work compared to current policies, because it smooths out any disincentives that occur from clawing back existing subsidies. It's precisely because "someone needs to produce stuff" that we should be rewarding people for their increased productivity. The increased "bargaining power for workers" that results from UBI is entirely consistent with this goal.

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

#584

Post by Dylan16807 »

ChrisLomont wrote: post #549
Dylan16807 wrote: post #514

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The problem, apparently, is that you want to force the latter into the former lifestyle. No I don't. If I was in charge then for step one I wouldn't change the amount of money those people make at all, I'd try to claw back any productivity gains from the last few decades that aren't going to workers and see how much UBI that can turn into. If I did want to tax someone with 5x income more, it wouldn't be that much m…

>I'd try to claw back any productivity gains from the last few decades If productivity gains come from capital, not from labor, then trying to take that from rewarding capital will also hurt labor. Over the past few decades a significant amount of productivity gains are from capital investment. Your average worker isn't simply turning out 2x or 3x the goods with the same effort. They have been given a productivity mu…

I don't think all that much capital is going to stop investing in companies even if taxes increase, especially if increases are over many areas.

Also, any business that already exists under this setup has the necessary equipment, and any new business should be budgeting for the necessary equipment. Not much should be stuck in a place where they have lots of inefficient employees and can't afford to upgrade and can't secure a loan.

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

#585

Post by wizzwizz4 »

rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote: post #579
ajuc wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Automation is good. Automation in a capitalist society with unlimited IP laws results in dystopia.

Capitalistic societies still have taxes. Any realistic UBI proposal would have to funnel some of the efficiency gains from automation toward constructing a strong social safety net.

For a one-sentence policy proposal, that sounds almost perfect… but how do you quantify “efficiency gains from automation”?

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

#586

Post by Kim_Bruning »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #86
bryanlarsen wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UBI might cover your food and rent, but it won't cover much past that. So if you want some beer money or a new videogame or whatever, you'll need to work. And since after UBI every dollar after taxes goes to luxuries, a low income provides a lot more luxuries than it does before UBI, so it's actually a lot more appealing to work -- you see the benefits directly.

Are you saying you'd be more encouraged to work to buy a video game than to not be homeless? Why wouldn't regular minimum wage workers just be homeless and spend their money on luxuries if this was the case?

If you're not stuck in a fight for survival, you have a lot more energy left over for other things, both less and more frivolous (like charity or games)

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

#587

Post by inglor_cz »

glogla wrote: post #538
inglor_cz wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Customer facing jobs are precisely the ones that are shitty. Some people are really entitled and awful. But you can basically only get rid of them by automating the process and disconnecting human workers from complaintants. How well does it work? Ask anyone who lost a YouTube channel without learning the real reasons and has no path to appeal to a human. HN hates whenever this happens.

So you're basically arguing that abuse and exploitation is necessary.

As long as the general public contains a certain % of assholes, there will be someone who needs to deal with them and tired of their shit. Not necessarily an IT support person. Perhaps a nurse, a hotel receptionist, a security guard etc.

Maybe there is a financial limit of compensation after which dealing with them stops being a problem - I would certainly personally tolerate an onslaught of assholes for a million dollar salary, at least for a few years - but that limit of compensation may be unrealistic to reach.

I am not sure how an utopia where people stop being assholes to one another could be achieved.

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

#588

Post by Kim_Bruning »

notahacker wrote: post #454
Aunche wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The closest analogue to true UBI goes on in the oil-rich Gulf nations. Citizens are basically guarenteed a job where they don't even need to show up, which is basically an inefficient form of UBI. Some, like Saudi Arabia are transitioning to true UBI. The result of this is that these nations are completely reliant on foreign labor. Both skilled on unskilled work is dominated by foreigners. The latter have enough leve…

And the closest Western equivalent is the pension system. Also not a perfect comparison since pensioners are obviously older and have more assets on average, and some have large private payouts at the time state pensions kick in. But few people carry on working full time, and the system relies almost entirely on the labour of people who are not entitled to pensions to sustain it, to the point pensionable ages are nee…

I've seen enough of my elders get their pensions to know what happens. Suddenly their schedule gets MUCH busier. Just because they're not necessarily doing paid work, doesn't mean that they're not doing useful things in society.
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