121–130 of 235 posts
Not to be overly cynical, but could that create a surge of people claiming to be artists, given the lack of means testing?
If it's anything like the way Tories designed universal credit to be in the UK it'll end up disqualifying real artists and qualifying people who learn how to game the system.
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Art and cultural heritage may have worth outside that represented by short-term supply and demand?
I mean, OK, but one could also argue that the reason a given artist is struggling is because their work is not highly valued in the first place. Maybe the artist is making under-appreciated contributions, or maybe their work is just not good. It's subjective, which means criticism is subjective too, but it seems a poor place to start with any UBI scheme executed in good faith. I would think it would have more value a…
But that's precisely the point of the subsidy. Society as a whole already expresses value judgements, every day, through money. If an artist is valued, he is successful and accumulates money, so he doesn't need subsidies; but the fact that an artist is valued or not-valued today, we know, is a poor indication of their overall value in the long run. Maybe their art will explode in value after death, maybe he will start a movement that will generate better artists and designers...
The point of universal income, surely, is exactly to remove the immediate value judgement from the equation. UBI is supposed to pay everyone, regardless of what they choose to do (except for raping and murdering, I guess; but ironically, convicts are among the first to actually "enjoy" an UBI of sorts already, although to the price of their liberty). In this sense, starting from art actually makes the most sense.
> it would have more value as an experiment to start with some of the poorest people in a society and then measure their quality of life and economic contribution
The minute you start measuring economic contribution, you are not really in UBI territory anymore - you are just subsidising the market at its fringes. That's already done in social democracies, in practice, through various means.
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I've never really looked too closely at the idea of UBI, although I like the concept. I always assumed that any money you earn would then be deducted from future payments. With completely arbitrary numbers, let's say UBI was 1000€/month and I earned 500€ in a particular month, then next month my UBI payment would be reduced by that amount. If I earned 1500€ my next UBI payment would be zero, but the excess 500€ would…
I believe most implementations do not do that. That could lead to a disincentive for work, since you would need to make the entire amount of the ubi payment before your labor is benefiting you. It is usually a flat rate for everyone, no matter the income. If you want more money, you sell your labor like normal
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Welfare traps are a policy feature for company owners who employ a lot of people. It's a strong disincentive for employees who are trapped to ask for a raise. Nonetheless when they appear their presence is typically (naively) chalked up to simple incompetence.
>Welfare traps are a policy feature for company owners who employ a lot of people. It's simpler than that. There's not even a need to speculate about outside meddling. No bureaucrat or appointee ever got a promotion or got more resources at their disposal for getting people off of government services and shrinking the relevance of the program. If you start with the program serving 10k people budget negotiations, gett…
This isnt complicated.
>No bureaucrat or appointee ever got a promotion or got more resources at their disposal for getting people off of government services and shrinking the relevance of the program.
I can remember a number of such examples where there were incentives this being just one: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/nov/30/cruel-...
If business runs government then it's in their interests to keep benefits systems stingy, capricious, hard to navigate and unpredictable as it makes people more reliant on their employers.
Removing it altogether would probably trigger riots but the frog can certainly be boiled.
Wow this is so naive… how are they gonna define who is an artist and who is not? Why taxpayers (who may not care about art at all) should pay for this? Why a government can define that this specific group of people should get some grants, but not for example teachers or Uber drivers? Utopia
> how are they gonna define who is an artist and who is not?
They won't.
> Why taxpayers (who may not care about art at all) should pay for this?
Who would? Would you?
> Why a government can define that this specific group of people should get some grants
Because that's what governments do.
> but not for example teachers
Teachers have regular incomes.
> or Uber drivers?
The hurdles to be a taxi driver and an Uber driver are mostly the same, so we mostly don't have Uber drivers. We have taxi drivers instead, who also answer Uber calls when they want to get exploited while they enrich someone else.
We have basic income programs for the elderly (state pensions). For children (child care money). For students. For veterans. And for unemployed people. The only people not receiving anything are the employed. And for those people we have tax thresholds, minimum wages, sick leave, etc.
Basic income doesn't have to be that complicated. Most countries end up choosing to not let people starve on the streets. That means that there's a minimum cost per individual that is covered one way or another. In most countries that means a combination of free health care, food stamps, housing and typically at least some benefits (though usually with lots of strings attached) for the most poor in society and a lot of complex programs for everybody else. Of course some countries really do dump their problems on the street, which creates its own set of problems in terms of crime, poverty, etc.
If you just accept that there's an X cost per citizen in terms of them not starving, having shelter, etc. there are multiple ways of getting organized on that front. The way most countries ended up doing that (i.e. with a lot of bureaucracy, tax complexity, and a very hard to navigate program of benefits, rules and exceptions) is not cheap.
The main issue with basic income is not that it is hard but that it is controversial. Basically, it flows from a value system that dictates that people must pretend to be useful (by having a job). Never mind that many of those jobs are bullshit and make people miserable. Even though everybody ultimately gets what they need, we'd like to have lots of strings attached to that privilege. When you hear unemployment statistics that are ridiculously low (like 4%), just think for a second which people are not part of those statistics. That's a rather large group. In many countries that is close to or actually more than half of the population. It's not a problem. These people are being taken care off already. We don't call it basic income but these people are not working and they are definitely not poor.
Basic income just formalizes that status quo.
So, we have degrading social nets, public education and public health. But we should fund people for "doing what they love" because it has "positive externalities" (left undefined). I am a doctor and I hate it. Please fund my passion, so I can stop doing that and bring positive externalities to society.
This is a false dilemma. We obviously should do both.
As someone who lives in Ireland and who pays taxes a lot of people on HN would say are outrageous, I support this wholeheartedly and would gladly pay even more taxes if such a program were extended and become truly universal.
I would, of course, continue to do what I do because I love it.
As others have mentioned this is mostly marketing and not UBI for many reasons but one thing that irks me particularly with this initiative is selecting candidates based on occupation. The *whole point* is to *not* select based on who is more or less deserving, that exists already and is called welfare.
1. $12k / year to everyone
2. 50% flat tax (on non-UBI income)
3. Small federal land value tax on non-wilderness properties
4. Tax on non-resident property owners
5. UBI for citizens only (to mitigate people traveling here just to not work)
But try passing that ^ in any major democracy. You can't. The reason is that the winners of the current system (most seniors, top half of wage earners, the international elite) are the ones that either vote, or set political agendas. They like being able to hire [personal helpers, maids, warehouse workers] for $12 an hour.
For a true UBI we need to raise taxes and prices a lot and that will have downsides (at least in the short term) for probably 50 to 60% of the population. We will lose workers. Real output will fall. Taxes will have to go up and we will lose some people to other job markets.
So instead people nibble around the policy edges.
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Art produces huge positive externalities. This is the reason artists are the pioneers of gentrified neighbourhoods. They arrive when rent is low (all they can afford) and their product increases the desirability of the area. The artists themselves capture none of this value and often have to leave when rents go up.
Is that sarcasm? This is a positive externality for landlords and a negative one for tenant. It's a zero-sum game between the two groups. And rent-seeking is a net negative for society.
Even for tenants, it's not as simple as you suggest; most renters would rather live in a gentrified area than a run-down, crime-ridden one (which is exactly why rents are higher). Arguably the only category of people who definitely lose out are long-term, low-income renters with no protections, but they are relatively rare in Ireland.
Gentrification has its problems for sure but I know several people who grew up in formerly run-down areas that are now gentrified, and they would never want to go back to the way things were.
Well that's not really universal by any metric (you have to be an artist, there can't be too many applicants or you'll get subjected to lottery) but I'm still enthusiastic. It's always nice seeing countries look to support their artists in building their cultural heritage. These feel more like government artist in residence grants.
> It's always nice seeing countries look to support their artists in building their cultural heritage. But, at the end of the day it's still worth close to nothing, right? I enjoy art and music as much as anyone else but the reason those professions are so poorly paid is because the supply outstrips the demand considerably[1]. What value is there in asking taxpayers to pay for an increase the supply when there's alre…
When "taxpayers" refuse to subsidize non-taxpayers, they run the risk of those non-taxpayers murdering them; the "value" is that it directly prevents death and revolt.
Some people just simply don't agree that people should have to die simply because there are too many people, either because they're (directly or indirectly) worried about revolt or because they're "good people" who think people have a right to life, dignity, and happiness.
But some people don't: either because they lie to themselves about what the ramifications of their decisions will be (or are simply ignorant to it), or because they believe in destiny -- that god, for example, wants some people to live and others to die.