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Trends that will create demand for an Unconditional Basic Income

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Re: Trends that will create demand for an Unconditional Basic Income

#601

Post by nkoren »

joshuaellinger wrote: post #597
nkoren wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Living on the dole is indeed terrible for people -- but it's terrible because it's a poverty trap. A poverty trap isn't created by supporting people who don't earn a wage: it's created by withdrawing support for people who do earn a wage (or engage in other forms of value-creation which the dole administrators disapprove of). Because a person on the dole is micro-managed in their activities, they are unable to volunt…

I don't like my proposal that much either. It has the flaws you mention, particularly if implemented by our current political class. I was being intentionally vague on the implementation and you assumed that current political forces turn it into a poverty trap. But current political forces also prevent an unconditional basic income. It really comes down to how much you trust people to find their own path. That clearl…

I think that any kind of micro-management of peoples' livelihoods create poverty traps. This isn't just a matter of current first-world political systems: it's also observable in developing-world charitable activities as well. Check out the evidence from GiveDirectly[1] to see how an Unconditional Basic Income works better in environments that are entirely unlike our first-world political environments.

Basically, I think that people are really good at finding their own paths. It's what people naturally do, providing that they aren't structurally prevented or disincentivised from doing so.

And yes, I've seen the miserable rich-kid phenomena first-hand, and agree with you that too much privilege can be a real handicap. That's why I think it's quite important that an unconditional basic income be genuinely basic: enough to survive on without any privation, but not enough to be decadent on.

I've found a neat mechanism for appropriately setting the level of a basic income: 50% of the mean individual income. Here in the UK, that would produce a basic income of roughly £12k/year -- a bit less than working a full-time job at minimum wage. Enough to live a fairly decent life in a (now) impoverished Welsh ex-mining village, or enough to barely scrape by with a bunch of flatmates in London. But not enough to be extravagant on, in either case.

The nice thing about pegging the amount of Unconditional Basic Income to the mean earned income is that it builds in an automatic self-correction mechanism. If too many people exit the workforce, the mean earned income would fall, and the UBI would fall exactly in sync with it. As the UBI falls, people would be increasingly incentivised to re-enter the workforce. As people re-enter the workforce and the mean income rises, UBI would increase along with the inevitable increases in inflation.

1: http://www.givedirectly.org/evidence.php

Re: Trends that will create demand for an Unconditional Basic Income

#602

Post by [deleted] »

joshuaellinger wrote: post #597
nkoren wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Living on the dole is indeed terrible for people -- but it's terrible because it's a poverty trap. A poverty trap isn't created by supporting people who don't earn a wage: it's created by withdrawing support for people who do earn a wage (or engage in other forms of value-creation which the dole administrators disapprove of). Because a person on the dole is micro-managed in their activities, they are unable to volunt…

I don't like my proposal that much either. It has the flaws you mention, particularly if implemented by our current political class. I was being intentionally vague on the implementation and you assumed that current political forces turn it into a poverty trap. But current political forces also prevent an unconditional basic income. It really comes down to how much you trust people to find their own path. That clearl…

[deleted]

Re: Trends that will create demand for an Unconditional Basic Income

#603

Post by dragonwriter »

ppereira wrote: post #552
dragonwriter wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So why tax by proxy and not wealth directly? If by "wealth" you mean "net worth", then because that is even harder to administer than income taxes. If by "wealth" you mean "income", we do that, but earning income through an entity with separate legal entity whose income is not taxed and retaining it in that entity becomes an effective tax dodge if it is permitted. Which is why corporate "income" tax (which is effec…

> If by "wealth" you mean "net worth", then because that is even harder to administer than income taxes. That is the standard argument, but countries have been taxing property a lot longer than they have been taxing income. Some even manage to tax property at current market prices (e.g. Canada).

> That is the standard argument, but countries have been taxing property a lot longer than they have been taxing income.

That countries have been taxing selected forms of property longer than they have been taxing income is in no way inconsistent with taxes on net worth being harder to administer than taxes on income (and even if they had been taxing net worth longer than income, it wouldn't be), so that's not even a counterargument.

Re: Trends that will create demand for an Unconditional Basic Income

#604

Post by dragonwriter »

ppereira wrote: post #536
dllthomas wrote: post #474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Put it in a structure where it doesn't take a simple majority vote to raise (real) BI. Let's say the US did it with a constitutional amendment, for instance.

A basic income is much more like a change in tax rates. In fact, the existing Earned Income Tax Credit is already much like a basic income for a certain segment of the population. Requiring a constitutional amendment would create much too high a barrier. One often needs a revolution to make a constitutional amendment. I don't think we want to go there.

> In fact, the existing Earned Income Tax Credit is already much like a basic income for a certain segment of the population.

It is impossible for something to be for a certain segment (defined in large part by income) of the population and for it also to be meaningfully like Basic Income.

EITC is a fairly standard limited-eligibility social welfare program, which is what BI is offered in opposition to.

> One often needs a revolution to make a constitutional amendment. I don't think we want to go there.

I don't think the facts justify that that is often the case, unless you mean "revolution" in some very loose sense that doesn't justify the "I don't think we want to go there" comment.

I mean, there are 17 amendments to the Constitution that weren't passed fairly contemporaneously with the original document: can you point to the "revolutions" which were necessary for these?

Re: Trends that will create demand for an Unconditional Basic Income

#605

Post by dragonwriter »

speeder wrote: post #542
comrade_ogilvy wrote: post #509

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, you could read Stephen Jay Gould's The Mis-measure of Man. Or you could read The Bell Curve. It is positing a small difference between "races", a difference so small that it is very minor compared to the expected range of deviation for a populace. The idea that there is a scientifically definable thing called "race" lacks data. That is your row to hoe if you believe other. Skeptics are not required to disprove…

I wonder then, what about the Melanesians that have 6% of DNA of a unique population? Or that asians and whites have wildly different reactions to milk. Or that some diseases only affect blacks, or whites, or whatever? This is not data? People use freely the same techniques to categorize humans, to categorize other animals with significant variations in their species, why only humans you must not use the word "race"…

> Or that asians and whites have wildly different reactions to milk.

Asians and whites don't have wildly different reactions to milk. Adult mammals are generally lactose intolerant. There is a mutation that, in humans, is found far more often in people with ancestry in Northern Europe (which isn't coextensive with "whites") than any other origin, but which is neither universally absent in all other people or universally present in people of that origin that results in lactose tolerance.

Most supposed "racial" differences (EDIT: that is, most that refer to anything that is actually a measurable difference between real human populations at all) are of this type -- things that are statistically more or less common in a population of a particular origin that is not coextensive with any of the usual "race" categories with which the supposed hard-and-fast difference is popularly associated.

Re: Trends that will create demand for an Unconditional Basic Income

#606

Post by dllthomas »

dragonwriter wrote: post #604
ppereira wrote: post #536

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A basic income is much more like a change in tax rates. In fact, the existing Earned Income Tax Credit is already much like a basic income for a certain segment of the population. Requiring a constitutional amendment would create much too high a barrier. One often needs a revolution to make a constitutional amendment. I don't think we want to go there.

> In fact, the existing Earned Income Tax Credit is already much like a basic income for a certain segment of the population. It is impossible for something to be for a certain segment (defined in large part by income) of the population and for it also to be meaningfully like Basic Income. EITC is a fairly standard limited-eligibility social welfare program, which is what BI is offered in opposition to. > One often n…

You could say the Civil War was a revolution necessary for the passage of the thirteenth amendment (and potentially the 14th and 15th).

Maybe the rise of organized crime under prohibition could be considered a revolution prompting the 21st amendment, but that seems quite a bit of a stretch...

Re: Trends that will create demand for an Unconditional Basic Income

#607

Post by kemofo »

Taxes reward those who don't produce and punish those who do produce. But, taxes are the price of living in an organized society. Also, there is no such thing as a free lunch.

Money isn't the problem, it's a lack of education about how money work that is the real problem. If you give poor or lazy people money it'll just find it's way back into the pockets of people who understand how money works (the rich). Even if we take everything from the rich, they'll just get it back because the average person, with no financial education, is incapable of preserving or creating wealth.

Re: Trends that will create demand for an Unconditional Basic Income

#608

Post by flyinRyan »

jerf wrote: post #482
dasil003 wrote: post #460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're overweighting the relative influence BI can exert. Introducing BI as a tiny fraction of GDP does not make existing financial power structures disappear. Existing wealth will still wield the same influence it always has. There will be plenty of lobbyists to push back against corporate tax hikes, there will still be the usual capitalist incentives to start a business and increase production, the American…

"Introducing BI as a tiny fraction of GDP" OK, yes, but what's going to keep it a tiny fraction of the GDP? The BI's natural "lobbying organzation" is the entire public ... not even the entire voting public, but the entire public. No current structures have that characteristic. For almost the entire population, $10,000 is a lot of money . Even people making $150,000/year are going to still appreciate $10,000, and we'…

>The BI's natural "lobbying organzation" is the entire public...

I think you're misunderstanding the nature of lobby and power in the United States. It doesn't matter the size of your lobby, only the size of their wallet. An entire public who are only getting BI are going to have virtually no financial power to wield.

Also, your speculation ignores the fact that the "red states" are also the largest benefactors of welfare. It wouldn't surprise me at all to see a large percentage of the public saying that they themselves should be getting less BI because it's "socialism" or some such nonsense.

Re: Trends that will create demand for an Unconditional Basic Income

#609

Post by flyinRyan »

agilebyte wrote: post #417
jerf wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is my biggest concern with the idea, which I don't see being addressed (checked the entire conversation on this post to date). I don't think having the vote and having the basic income is compatible with each other. Why aren't people going to vote themselves larger basic incomes every year? How can you both have the (modern conception of the) vote, and a basic income at the same time? Attempts to answer this que…

Agree with you. How does one enforce people hopping borders from places that have no universal income policy? How do we deal with sovereign states that are allowed to set their own tax policy and thus legally become an offshore tax haven?

This is always the fear that if we raise taxes 1% all the people with money will hop on a plane and leave us, but it hasn't happened. Where would they go exactly? There are places that are a lot cheaper, tax-wise than the US right now.

Re: Trends that will create demand for an Unconditional Basic Income

#610

Post by flyinRyan »

inflagranti wrote: post #592
jerf wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is my biggest concern with the idea, which I don't see being addressed (checked the entire conversation on this post to date). I don't think having the vote and having the basic income is compatible with each other. Why aren't people going to vote themselves larger basic incomes every year? How can you both have the (modern conception of the) vote, and a basic income at the same time? Attempts to answer this que…

"This is my biggest concern with the idea, which I don't see being addressed (checked the entire conversation on this post to date). I don't think having the vote and having the basic income is compatible with each other." If you have well-enough educated, hopefully reasonable people I don't think this will become an issue. Swiss recently voted down to get more holidays ( http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/eur…

>we also voted to ban minarets for instance, which definitely wasn't very rationally based

Of course it was. The law itself was stupid, but it highlighted a real issue. Notice that after that vote France, Sweden and a few others looked at the Muslim integration problem (i.e. a large portion of the Islamic community simply don't) as well.

There is an issue here that needs to be addressed, it was just the way they chose to do it was silly but the people didn't let that stop them from using it to voice their opinion.

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