221–230 of 252 posts
I used to think a universal basic income would make sense, especially in developed countries, only for the near future scenario of machines taking ever more jobs. We know that this has always happened in history, and new jobs were always created, but that doesn't mean that the rate of job creation vs destruction will remain the same, forever. What made me change my mind about UBI was to realize that a) human desires…
>But as things stand now, the owners of the machines get richer, and the displaced workers get significantly poorer. No they don't. We've had 200 years of massive automation fueled job destruction, and wages and the demand for labour are massively greater now than 200 years ago. The last 20 years in particular have overseen the most rapid wage growth in human history.
> No they don't. We've had 200 years of massive automation fueled job destruction, and wages and the demand for labour are massively greater now than 200 years ago. This is different. In the past, technology has been a multiplier for the productivity of workers. The confluence of robotics and AI will mean the eventual evaporation of low-skill and/or laborious jobs as they are completely replaced by automated agents.…
No it wasn't. One power loom with 10 operators replaced 2,000 people.
The same will be true when a cadre of intelligent robots, with one manager giving them daily instructions, replaces 5 wait staff and cooks at a restaurant.
>The confluence of robotics and AI will mean the eventual evaporation of low-skill and/or laborious jobs as they are completely replaced by automated agents.
Low-skill work is no more vulnerable to automation than high-skill work:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moravec's_paradox
Ultimately, we humans universally have and will continue to have a set of skills that cannot, for legal reasons, be automated. This gives human services a unique value proposition. Moreover, human labour cannot be mass-produced like machines, so it becomes increasingly scarce, which is why wages have increased 20 fold since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution
>These people do not have a unique skill set they can apply to something else.
Yes they do have valuable skills. They have a high-level understanding of society, people's intentions and needs, and the tools and technology that enables people to accomplish tasks.
A person living in 2017 isn't some empty slate that's indistinguishable from a human living in 1950. The modern person has knowledge about automation that makes them vastly more productive in the modern context. The modern person knows how to use modern tools like smart phones with applications like internet-accessible maps, to maximise productivity, and has unique knowledge about numerous domains that is not publicly available.
With respect to the last point: most of the collective knowledge of the economy is not in the public domain, as a public resource. It is mostly diffused throughout the population, as private knowledge. It is this knowledge that makes individuals increasingly productive, and their labour increasingly valuable.
>Globalization can only happen once.
Industrialization has happened continuously for 200 years. Wages have grown enormously over this time frame.
You're being pessimistic for the sake of being pessimistic. Maybe because you're looking to rationalize your universal welfare cheque.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Malthusian argument has never been tested for an extended period in a situation where resource usage has been decoupled from resource generation. From the brief experiment we've had with massive forcible income redistribution (social democracy), we've seen the following: * slow down in wage growth and improvements in life expectancy * slow down in productivity growth * explosion in the rate of single parenthood (…
> * explosion in the rate of single parenthood (perfectly in line with economic theory on how availability of resources affects child rearing choices) This has more to do with the evolution of freedom to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Any economic theory rooted in rational decision making is incomplete at best. We could lower this rate by going back in time when marriage was treated like a contract with…
I have no idea what that means.
> Any economic theory rooted in rational decision making is incomplete at best.
But your "evolution of freedom to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" is sound social science?
Honestly I don't have time for this level of ideological bias.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is undeniably true that the majority of UBI checks will be spent as "fast money". Nevertheless, the money is going to come from somewhere and that somewhere is taxes. It would be unreasonable to not calculate the total sum of taxes required for various levels of UBI funding, IMO.
It depends on how you phrase it. If you treat it like an expense, people will balk at the proposal as unreasonable. And while a lot of tax revenue ends up being wasted and becomes effectively an expense, 6 trillion taxed to maintain a $1500/month UBI for all adults is not going to slow the economy the way 500Bn for the military does. At worst, the wealthy are getting a fraction of their tax money back in their UBI ch…
If not, you need to plan spend less than double what you're currently spending.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>An ad-hoc process controlled by an individual? Of course I'd complain. Morally there's no difference. You just want the armed robbery to be done in a more organized and deliberative process. That doesn't change the moral quality of threatening you with violence to deprive you of your property, when you have not committed any offence to warrant such a violation of your rights. >Actions on behalf of a democratic syste…
>Property rights would ideally be enforced by the government, with common law, which is based on protecting people's human rights ..., determining who owns what. And how exactly do they determine that? What happens when people disagree about ownership? What makes the government's decisions more valid than the individuals'? >If the judgment is unjust, but resisting it with force leads to far more violence against the…
You want me to explain the entire body of common law? What is the point of this line of questioning? Are you trying to demonstrate that everything is subjective, and thus that justice doesn't exist in any objective sense, meaning it's okay for you to use violence against peaceful people to force them to act charitably?
>What happens when people disagree about ownership?
The same thing that happens now when people disagree with a legal ruling. What are you expecting me to offer as an alternative? Utopia? Perfect justice?
>So it's okay to ignore property rights if enforcing them would cause harm?
When did I say it's okay to ignore property rights? I said it's okay to not physically resist the legal ruling, given it will lead to civil strife, without providing the desired security of private property (given government is nearly impossible to resist by force).
>And what will this achieve? What mechanism is there for government to recognise and rectify its mistake?
I'm not talking about rectifying mistakes in specific rulings. I'm talking about rectifying mistakes in larger policy.
I'm talking about persuading society to abandon principles that legitimize robbing people of their essential human rights, like their private property and privacy rights, in the name of helping the poor, or achieving some other social objective.
I believe that most people share a common understanding of what legitimate property rights are, and share a belief that forcing someone to surrender their private property rights is wrong, and I believe that is is only the layers of ideological indoctrination that people are subjected to, and the obfuscating complexity of modern societies, that leads them to support government policy that endorses violating people's rights.
Consequently I believe explaining the injustice of said policies will lead to people dropping their support for the policies, and adopting positions that are in my opinion more just.
>As opposed to two wolves agreeing that they own the grass, and enforcing that until the sheep dies
This is not about a plot of land, that was there from before man's ascent. This is about two people engaging in a private trade, and a third party claiming ownership over a share of the movable property traded, on account of some contrived ideology that attempts to rationalize theft.
India is very special, traditionalist society. As person who have spent a considerable time living in North India, I would say that people will turn this free money into gold and garments and other status symbols, like mobiles, which in turn, will cause inflation and soaring of prices of gold and other assets. The analogy could be a land in the great plains of US. In San Francisco or New York the value and the price…
" ... which in turn, will cause inflation and soaring of prices of gold and other assets." Whether they do that or not, it is not likely to cause much inflation. Funding for the scheme is meant to be taken from other, existing, programs, so the total stimulus is zero or near zero. Even if it does boost the price of some luxury items, and I am skeptical that will do so to any significant degree, that would simply redu…
overall inflation will be determined by how the plan is funded.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Subsidies take that into account, the negative income tax does not." In my country there are both subsidies, and tax breaks for such situations. Is anything I said implying we abolish that? I would suggest it translates to more negative tax for such situations. "It's a far right idea that, if executed, would have horrific consequences for the poor." It is wealth redistribution. Which is not a far right idea. Any kin…
Radical wealth redistribution from the needy to the rich is a far right idea, and that's what the negative income tax will boil down to in practice. It's very simple. Not all people need the same amount of resources to live. A healthy college student needs very little, a sickly elderly person needs a lot. The complex social support system in place today attempts to redistribute the tax money allocated for social serv…
The term wealth redistribution is generally understood as wealth going from the rich to the poor and is a "left" idea[1]. And even it it is not, I cannot think of a (sane) negative income tax system that can be described as wealth going from the poor to the rich.
But you seem worried that a student is different from an elderly, and to give both negative income, the elderly will be worse off than in a system like today? All I can say is that nothing in what was described so far implies that. If you have special needs, you might be eligible to more negative income tax.
"there is not enough money to give every adult citizen the equivalent of social security"
Sure there is, because a 125[2] of the 240 have a job, those who earn little, might still get some money from tax, those who make medium pay a some tax, those who make a lot, pay a lot of tax. But it will imply more tax on the rich, both income and wealth. (Though nothing ridiculous.)
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redistribution_of_income_and_w... first line "Redistribution of income and redistribution of wealth are a concept of socialism"
[2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/192361/unadjusted-monthl...
Why I am in favor (of UBI or NIT)? I cannot be described as a right wing, nor as rich. And any reduced administrative overhead would be nice, but not a goal per se.
But giving more money to those without a job, or low income jobs, has a few advantages:
1. economically speaking, money to those who have little represents more wealth, and will be spend in the market
2. a shrinking economy, means even more pressure on low incomes jobs, and less who have an income at all, that shrinks the market, and shrinks the economy, NIT can work like a buffer
3. low income people have no power on the labor market, a NIT or UBI gives them more power, with room to switch jobs, or go back and study
And a last one, but this depends a bit per country/state, people are usually eligible for benefits or not. Some of those tests are income earned, or money in the bank. So when people are almost eligible, but have too much money saved, they buy an expensive car and become eligible. Or you refuse a job, because the pay is not that much more then their benefits, but suddenly they have to work 40 hours a week and commute, etc.
Especially a NIT makes sure that these things are always a line, never yes/no. Made some money? You get to keep that, and most of your NIT benefits.
People being able to exercise their right to freely contract and control their own private property is sickening? You'd prefer people being thrown in prison for refusing to surrender their private property rights, or for engaging in a voluntary economic interaction that some other party created a prohibition against? Please help me understand your preference for authoritarian violence against peaceful people.
> your preference for authoritarian violence
We've banned this account for egregious ideological flamewar and repeated incivility. Indeed, you've been using HN for almost nothing else. That's a serious abuse which destroys the culture we're hoping to build—thoughtful discussion—and stokes the flames the rest of us are working hard to damp down.
It's not a matter of the politics you espouse, much as it doesn't matter what brand of matches arsonists use. The patterns of flamewar are invariant across ideological flavor.
If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow HN's rules in the future.
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13595551 and marked it off-topic.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Radical wealth redistribution from the needy to the rich is a far right idea, and that's what the negative income tax will boil down to in practice. It's very simple. Not all people need the same amount of resources to live. A healthy college student needs very little, a sickly elderly person needs a lot. The complex social support system in place today attempts to redistribute the tax money allocated for social serv…
"Radical wealth redistribution from the needy to the rich is a far right idea, and that's what the negative income tax will boil down to in practice." The term wealth redistribution is generally understood as wealth going from the rich to the poor and is a "left" idea[1]. And even it it is not, I cannot think of a (sane) negative income tax system that can be described as wealth going from the poor to the rich. But y…
Neither can I, but that's because I think all plans are either (a) mathematically impossible or (b) intended to distribute wealth upwards by dismantling the social welfare state as we know it.
> Sure there is, because a 125[2] of the 240 have a job, those who earn little, might still get some money from tax, those who make medium pay a some tax, those who make a lot, pay a lot of tax. But it will imply more tax on the rich, both income and wealth. (Though nothing ridiculous.)
50% of full time workers in the US earn less than 30,000 a year, so their income would get supplemented to 30k, and they would not make any net tax contribution anymore.
There are 94 million US adults not in the labor force at all (40%), so they too are not contributing to the tax pool.
So out of the 60% remaining US workers 50% earn more than 30,000 a year, so that means 30% of US adults will have to carry the full tax burden, which will be many trillions of dollars larger than today.
NIT would be 7.2 trillion, non-welfare gov't spending is 5 trillion, so government spending would total 12.2 out of 17 trillion GDP = 71% of GDP. So for this to work taxes would have to go up massively (which I support, incidentally, but most people will balk at this).
Computers and horses don't have property rights or the means to exercise them. All of this automation is augmenting humans because we do. We've gone from 122 million people owning smartphones in 2007 to 2.5 billion people owning them at the beginning of 2017 for example.
We've also banned this account for seriously abusing HN, which you can read about here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13600908.