Scrap the Welfare State and Give People Free Money • Hacker News Board

Re: Scrap the Welfare State and Give People Free Money

#121

Post by nova » Wed, Nov 27, 2013, 5:38 PM UTC

Although I am not entirely convinced (what to do with immigrants, in particular) I believe this could be a good idea.

We should judge this from a pragmatic, not ideological, viewpoint. It may not be the ideal libertarian society, but it could easily be better than the current one, where we are already paying an insanely high amount of taxes which are in great part wasted.

But I don't see its application without some huge political change, as politicians would be most unwilling to give up the power they now yield. Let me share a well known Spanish saying:

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/quien_parte_y_reparte_se_lleva...

Re: Scrap the Welfare State and Give People Free Money

#122

Post by dragonwriter » Wed, Nov 27, 2013, 5:39 PM UTC

rwl wrote: post #111

carbocation wrote: post #39

How would minimum basic income free us from a welfare state? What happens when your $50,000 in medical bills is greater than your $27,000 in annual income (or whatever it happens to be), and you elected not to purchase insurance with your money? Serious question, not meant at a dig against this proposal, because I am genuinely curious as to how it would be handled.

Yes, I have a similar question. One of the major reasons to have social programs that buy things like health insurance is that governments have a lot more bargaining power than individuals (up to and including the legal authority to set price caps). In the case of healthcare, governments can get the same coverage and care much cheaper per capita than individuals could if they purchased it on their own. Giving individ…

Consider the ACA model (even minus the subsidy aspect), which uses (1) purchase mandates, (2) minimum standards, and (3) state exchanges through which private insurance can be purchased.

This applies most of the the large-purchaser effect of a social program, but isn't a traditional social benefit program (sure, the actual ACA, which has subsidies for some purchasers, includes a traditional social benefit program as a component, but there is no reason that the rest couldn't be maintained with similar benefits without the subsidy in a BI system.)

Re: Scrap the Welfare State and Give People Free Money

#123

Post by calibraxis » Wed, Nov 27, 2013, 5:39 PM UTC

ctdonath wrote: post #99

pinaceae wrote: post #60

As a European we are bit further down that path than the US. I assume most of the readers here are "wealthy", would not need basic guaranteed income. So let me explain why this is a good idea from a rich man's perspective. You give poor people a basic sum of money so they don't climb over the fence and kill you in your sleep. That's it. Behind all the nice language this is what it boils down to. It is paying off poor…

You give poor people a basic sum of money so they don't climb over the fence and kill you in your sleep. Once you've established a "protection money" system, establishing their "right" to your money & property, they are now incentivized to demand - and take - more. Panem et circenses is the last stage of polite society; the cost eventually becomes unbearable as fewer work and more expect comfort & leisure for nothing…

Enlightened wealthy elites read from authors like like Adam Smith, who said, "Till there be property there can be no government, the very end of which is to secure wealth, and to defend the rich from the poor." (http://oll.libertyfund.org/?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=s...) Pretty much what the previous poster explained.

After all, "your money & property" are purely social relations requiring a state. The state literally prints money, and enforces "rights to property" using people with sticks.

Re: Scrap the Welfare State and Give People Free Money

#124

Post by AsymetricCom » Wed, Nov 27, 2013, 5:43 PM UTC

ctdonath wrote: post #99

pinaceae wrote: post #60

As a European we are bit further down that path than the US. I assume most of the readers here are "wealthy", would not need basic guaranteed income. So let me explain why this is a good idea from a rich man's perspective. You give poor people a basic sum of money so they don't climb over the fence and kill you in your sleep. That's it. Behind all the nice language this is what it boils down to. It is paying off poor…

You give poor people a basic sum of money so they don't climb over the fence and kill you in your sleep. Once you've established a "protection money" system, establishing their "right" to your money & property, they are now incentivized to demand - and take - more. Panem et circenses is the last stage of polite society; the cost eventually becomes unbearable as fewer work and more expect comfort & leisure for nothing…

If you think about it though, you're absolutely right. Not killing me is just something you should do by default. I shouldn't have to pay you to do that. If I do pay to not kill me, does that mean you can justify killing me if I stop paying you? After all, you're desperate and hungry.

Oh wait, what if you waste your stipend on drugs or "loose it" or someone steals it from you because you weren't being responsible with what was basically free money? Do you get more money to waste, or do you get to kill me now for food?

Re: Scrap the Welfare State and Give People Free Money

#125

Post by MBlume » Wed, Nov 27, 2013, 5:43 PM UTC

jasonlfunk wrote: post #115

carbocation wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the optimist's view, think how many people whose lives are being spent working at Walmart or McDonald's who could instead be at home developing skills they are actually interested in (which school does a poor job of teaching), such as programming or sculpture, etc. Imagine the entrepreneurs who might feel freed to give business a chance, rather than feeling that they can't quit their day jobs? It would be a gran…

From the pessimistic point of view, why would anyone choose to work a crappy job at Walmart or McDonalds when the government would give them the same money without having to do anything. Walmart and McDonalds (and everyone else) would therefore either go out of business or raise their wages. Raising their wages would increase the price of their goods. Increasing prices of goods would increase the cost of living which…

This is my primary concern with the proposal, but if Walmart and McDonalds were deprived of that cheap workforce, how many of those jobs would they finally figure out how to automate?

Re: Scrap the Welfare State and Give People Free Money

#126

Post by fiatmoney » Wed, Nov 27, 2013, 5:44 PM UTC

jasonlfunk wrote: post #115

carbocation wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the optimist's view, think how many people whose lives are being spent working at Walmart or McDonald's who could instead be at home developing skills they are actually interested in (which school does a poor job of teaching), such as programming or sculpture, etc. Imagine the entrepreneurs who might feel freed to give business a chance, rather than feeling that they can't quit their day jobs? It would be a gran…

From the pessimistic point of view, why would anyone choose to work a crappy job at Walmart or McDonalds when the government would give them the same money without having to do anything. Walmart and McDonalds (and everyone else) would therefore either go out of business or raise their wages. Raising their wages would increase the price of their goods. Increasing prices of goods would increase the cost of living which…

You have precisely no reason for believing that the growth pattern is exponential or an open-ended cycle. In fact the cardinal rule of economics ("things go on until they can't") suggests they will arrive in a steady state.

In order to figure out a likely steady state you'd have to look at the composition of spending and employment by people around or under the proposed income, and try to estimate shifts if there was an effective employer-of-last-resort in the form of a basic income. It gets complicated fast if you want to do a good job. Hand-waving about inflationary spirals is, on the other hand, easy.

Re: Scrap the Welfare State and Give People Free Money

#127

Post by streptomycin » Wed, Nov 27, 2013, 5:44 PM UTC

Roboprog wrote: post #120

venomsnake wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Be careful. You are moving into Keynes heresy territory. The imperial inquisition (aka the very serious people) may want to have a word with you.

Am I the only one who caught the part about the regressive tax on the middle class ($25 - $50 K income range) to pay for the hand out??? Gotta love uncle Milty (Friedman) and his boys.

Probably. Friedman's negative income tax proposal was the opposite of regressive.

Re: Scrap the Welfare State and Give People Free Money

#128

Post by phamilton » Wed, Nov 27, 2013, 5:45 PM UTC

As someone who lived on $800/month (rent was $235 for my share), I'm wondering what would have happened if all of us had 3x that amount to live on each month. I imagine rent would have gone up substantially as would other expenses if it was understood that we could afford double or triple that amount.

My guess is that the people barely making ends meet on a minimum wage job would barely make ends meet on a basic income + minimum wage job, regardless of actual amounts. Is anyone familiar enough with the economists arguments to explain this?

Re: Scrap the Welfare State and Give People Free Money

#129

Post by barrkel » Wed, Nov 27, 2013, 5:45 PM UTC

ctdonath wrote: post #99

pinaceae wrote: post #60

As a European we are bit further down that path than the US. I assume most of the readers here are "wealthy", would not need basic guaranteed income. So let me explain why this is a good idea from a rich man's perspective. You give poor people a basic sum of money so they don't climb over the fence and kill you in your sleep. That's it. Behind all the nice language this is what it boils down to. It is paying off poor…

You give poor people a basic sum of money so they don't climb over the fence and kill you in your sleep. Once you've established a "protection money" system, establishing their "right" to your money & property, they are now incentivized to demand - and take - more. Panem et circenses is the last stage of polite society; the cost eventually becomes unbearable as fewer work and more expect comfort & leisure for nothing…

Ideological response: Police are the thugs that rich people buy to defend themselves from the poor.

Actually, basic income / negative income tax is a very good idea, much better than welfare schemes of almost all kinds - it has almost no administration overhead. Charity, like you advocate, has huge amounts of overhead. Milton Friedman was an advocate, for example, and he was hardly a socialist.

And the idea that charity comes from goodness? That is utter bullshit. It's 95% social signalling. Altruism doesn't exist.

Re: Scrap the Welfare State and Give People Free Money

#130

Post by yummyfajitas » Wed, Nov 27, 2013, 5:45 PM UTC

adekok wrote: post #36

peterdundi wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Give people the freedom to make their own economic decisions" Why should they be free to make their own decision about how they spend MY money?

This seems to me a typical US response. Let me give you a perspective from the rest of the world. I've lived for years in multiple countries on multiple continents, so I'm not just talking out my backside. In the rest of the world, the poor people vote for health care, welfare, and unemployment insurance. This is because they want that safety for themselves if something goes wrong. They recognize that these programs…

These programs are not largely insurance. People don't pay into them proportionally to their actuarial costs.

I.e., the guy who drifts between jobs, getting fired every few months doesn't pay more for unemployment insurance than the guy who has been stably employed for the past 10 years.

The disparity between rich and poor in the US has grown enormously in the past 20 years. And it's all because the average joe has bought a line

Nope. The disparity in the US has moved more or less lockstep with the disparity in the rest of the world (with one exception in 1986 when a change in tax law caused income to be shifted from corporate to individual returns). If policy caused it, it's a policy that basically every nation has adopted.

http://www.scottwinship.com/1/post/2011/03/what-would-it-mea...