Basic income

Youse guyses takes on this?:

https://blog.ycombinator.com/moving-forward-on-basic-income

I view UBI as a both/and plank in the post-neoliberal platform. Universal health care and the systematic redress of institutional racism are also important things to accomplish. UBI in the form of cancelling the existing US safety net and cutting everyone a check is not the point (or isn't my point, and isn't e.g. S+W's point in Inventing the Future which for better or worse is my manifesto on this topic). I view UBI as an important policy effort because mandatory participation in the market for labor is a shitty kind of freedom, and in developed countries the going rate for labor is approaching zero.

I think the ycombinator project has a good chance of setting the political momentum behind UBI back by a decade when it blows up.

That might get the tech bubble crowd to move on to more useful and practical efforts like the robust welfare system discussed above, but it also might make them flounce off and resume the usual neo-feudalist bullshit

in developed countries the going rate for labor is approaching zero.

― Sean, let me be clear (silby), Wednesday, June 1, 2016 1:53 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

what?

i don't really get the experiment. what do you expect to learn from it? giving people money for a few months or even years, see if they quit their jobs, we've done that and not too much happens. but that's not really what a ubi is. it's the permanent and universal parts of it that make it interesting.

in developed countries the going rate for labor is approaching zero.

― Sean, let me be clear (silby), Wednesday, June 1, 2016 1:53 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

what?

― de l'asshole (flopson), Wednesday, June 1, 2016 10:58 AM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

like, capital is going to stop having a use for people who are new to the world of work and don't happen to have whatever the skill du jour is. Uber has a billion-dollar valuation because speculators think they can avoid getting regulated into oblivion long enough for self-driving cars to drive their labor costs down. Every fancy new factory being built in the US is heavily automated. Being "able and willing to work", to use a familiar canard, is increasingly less likely to be enough to ensure a person an autonomous, stable, and healthy life. (It never was sufficient, but it's what people seem to be talking about when they talk about the postwar period.)

It is weird that you had to explain that

my progress toward death is not going fast enough to outlast my economic independence.

Mass unemployment may be the inevitable result of market economics but it's not, in itself, inevitable. The infrastructure of the U.S. is crumbling around your ears but there is no political will to invest in large-scale public works that could bring millions into employment with the right training. An ageing population is going to require millions of carers and nurses, whether it is profitable or not. At the moment, most countries seem to be assuming that an endless supply of migrant labour will fill that gap but there is no reason why, with proper investment in education and decent rates of compensation, domestic workers couldn't meet those needs. Barring an unprecedented level of automation, people will still be required to do stuff. There needs to be a strong safety net but the idea that 'full employment' is no longer a realistic goal to fight towards doesn't seem like something to give in to.

like, capital is going to stop having a use for people who are new to the world of work and don't happen to have whatever the skill du jour is. Uber has a billion-dollar valuation because speculators think they can avoid getting regulated into oblivion long enough for self-driving cars to drive their labor costs down. Every fancy new factory being built in the US is heavily automated. Being "able and willing to work", to use a familiar canard, is increasingly less likely to be enough to ensure a person an autonomous, stable, and healthy life. (It never was sufficient, but it's what people seem to be talking about when they talk about the postwar period.)

― Sean, let me be clear (silby), Wednesday, June 1, 2016 2:13 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

It is weird that you had to explain that

― El Tomboto, Wednesday, June 1, 2016 2:17 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it's weirder to believe it imo. 200 years of technological unemployment fears being wrong doesn't give you pause?

if any of that that actually happens UBI will be a shoe-in... but in the same way marxism would have been a shoe in had wages never risen above subsistence and the profit rate tended to zero

200 years of technological unemployment fears being wrong doesn't give you pause?

not what anybody is actually talking about! Developed economies are exporting "labor" jobs in a race to the bottom and even knowledge work that has traditionally required years of formal training and education is being cost controlled by similar globalized outsourcing, by pushing temporary work visas to their very limit and by turning education systems into more and more "focused" (read: restricted) vocational gymnasiums. Technological unemployment fears are not what anybody is talking about when discussing the income inequality problem, it's the fact that working is now a subsistence activity and less and less a means to upward mobility.

There needs to be a strong safety net but the idea that 'full employment' is no longer a realistic goal to fight towards doesn't seem like something to give in to.

I don't disagree but the work opportunities you point out are seasonal-ish; there's not always a necessary demand gap for useful work that needs publicly funded intervention to solve.

a better welfare system and jobs programs are great though I'm not trying to argue with any of that

that all seems wrong. sounds like the story ppl infer that Trump supporters believe or something. i'm not really down with the style of Left nationalism, generally think more people should be given work visas and/or allowed to immigrate. i know there is a lot of pain and rancor about outsourcing but do you have any evidence that it/globalisation is causing permanent net unemployment in developed countries?

(xp times two)

imo SV libertarian types want a basic income because they think there's a finite amount of economic power in the system and more people drawing a basic income means less protest about the automation and outsourcing or well-paying jobs.

the difference between UBI and a job's current market rate would be money in the tech overlord's pocket

flopson, the net unemployed is the rural/semi-rural worker base Trump has as part of his target audience!

'some rural and semi-rural people lost their jobs' is a far cry from 'it's weird that we have to explain why wages will go to zero in the developed world'

OK, I'll give you that I didn't take "cost of labor approaching zero" literally because, uh, that would bring back all the jobs instantly, and even the robots can't compete with free

if you have some stats to prove that the middle class is doing just fine in first world economies please share

*posts utubue to built to spills perfect from now on*

so the swiss vote on sunday

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-swiss-are-about-to-vote-no-on-basic-income/

Tombot: most of the damage from trade to middle-class jobs has been done, reversing PNTR now wouldn't bring the jobs back. middle class not doing well = incomes stagnating, not falling. middle class incomes would have to fall precipitously for significant portion of the current middle class to be net-receivers of UBI money. a UBI large enough to eliminate poverty is not a middle class program because most of the middle class will pay more into it than they receive. the argument for is that you need to exploit a cognitive bias where people are happy to be getting money and don't notice that they are paying more for it, i.e, social security is popular even among rich old people who paid way more into it throughout their lives than they will ever get back.

imo SV libertarian types want a basic income because they think there's a finite amount of economic power in the system and more people drawing a basic income means less protest about the automation and outsourcing or well-paying jobs.

For me, as an SV-type who supports a UBI, it has nothing to do with these shitty, self-serving motives (although I'm not a libertarian!). I think it's that we all watched Star Trek, read Iain M. Banks, and are in a hurry to get to one of those utopias where people don't have to work if they don't want to.

isn't Star Trek a post-scarcity society and relatively money-free, with some cultures holding on to currency policy fetishistically?

I had to google SV there, thought you were accusing ShariVari of being a libertarian!

sorry, there's a little cross-pollination between this thread and the silicon valley ideas thread

I feel like UBI right now is very necessary right now as a cure to the broken welfare system, which is in some ways the opposite of the motivations espoused by people trying to realize egalitarian future visions

Seems like potentially a bridge/first step toward those futures, though, right?

if you are taking Star Trek as inspiration, basic income would be a distraction, not a bridge, to abolishing money.

I disagree. You put a UBI in-place, and then when enough jobs disappear/become automated that most people are living on a UBI, you take the step of moving to a post-scarcity-type system. I mean, it's not the only way to get there, but seems like A way.

To run an essentially planned economy you need to build the kind of bureaucratic infrastructure that can wisely allocate resources (even in Star Trek there are so many ships that can be built, so many slots for incoming freshmen at the academy, so many lots of vineyards for Picard's family to make merlot), and basic income runs opposite to that -- "we gave you money so how about let's dismantle everything that stands in the way of free markets"

Maybe UBI should be tied to GDP rebranded as "product-sharing". Alaska-style. Like all citizens are entitled to their fare share of what we collectively earn as a nation.

with low wages, which could be supplemented by a basic income, there is no incentive to automate those jobs. things like harvesting fruit and certain vegetables (but not grain plants and cotton) is highly labor intensive but very difficult to automate. that's just one example -- with support for people at the lowest rung of earnings and no economic incentive to make their jobs easier...

I guess maybe I'm thinking that UBI could bring us a Star-Trek-style world (where one is free to pursue one's interests without having the constant burden of working to survive), but with a more realistic structure than a utopian, wisely-planned command economy.

However, it sounds like what UBI is more about (at least in some circles) is destroying the welfare state and imposing a libertarian UBI that sounds more like a choose-your-own-benefits deal. Not sure how down I am with that. In one sense, it would probably mean more competition and lower prices for benefits, but I'm sure it would also be accompanied by the usual casino-capitalist crap (HSAs, for example) that already plagues us.

I guess I want a UBI + a welfare state. I'm a communist?

Yeah. The trick/hard part of the UBI as a counter-hegemonic political goal is to not sell it out to the false compromise of replacing all other welfare and entitlement programs with it. For me at least the premise is "one should not have to work to have a stable, healthy, autonomous life" and if a version of UBI gets us closer to that I support it, and if it gets us further from that I oppose it.

This is why as I think I've said upthread I see the $15 min wage movement as a wedge and not a distraction. My political project (as far as labor goes) is that work isn't virtuous, and the USian idea that citizens can be reasonably expected to work as much as they are able for whatever they can get in order to merit consideration or assistance can be dismantled. I'd rather get to UBI slowly, through attainable victories decoupling survival further from labor, than all at once by striking a corrupt bargain with the neoliberal establishment and declaring success.

I just want lagoon to have plenty of time to post pictures of beers and coffees to ilx and not worry about a job

For me at least the premise is "one should not have to work to have a stable, healthy, autonomous life"

how do you justify that? we're part of a community. it is only by working (defined broadly, as providing value to others) that we contribute to the health, happiness & success of the whole. if no one works, the community dies.

therefore, this isn't a question into which "should" enters. the community requires work in order to sustain itself. we shoulder that burden in order to be of use & value to others, to be not just nominal but functional parts of the collective. anything that makes us useful & valuable is our work, but the value of that work remains for others to determine.

i don't see any grounds for the argument that one should not have to work, unless it's based on the idea that we've somehow literally rendered work obsolete.

SONIA. What can we do? We must live our lives. [A pause] Yes, we shall
live, Uncle Vanya. We shall live through the long procession of days
before us, and through the long evenings; we shall patiently bear the
trials that fate imposes on us; we shall work for others without rest,
both now and when we are old; and when our last hour comes we shall
meet it humbly, and there, beyond the grave, we shall say that we have
suffered and wept, that our life was bitter, and God will have pity on
us. Ah, then dear, dear Uncle, we shall see that bright and beautiful
life; we shall rejoice and look back upon our sorrow here; a tender
smile--and--we shall rest. I have faith, Uncle, fervent, passionate
faith. [SONIA kneels down before her uncle and lays her head on his
hands. She speaks in a weary voice] We shall rest. [TELEGIN plays softly
on the guitar] We shall rest. We shall hear the angels. We shall see
heaven shining like a jewel. We shall see all evil and all our pain sink
away in the great compassion that shall enfold the world. Our life will
be as peaceful and tender and sweet as a caress. I have faith; I have
faith. [She wipes away her tears] My poor, poor Uncle Vanya, you are
crying! [Weeping] You have never known what happiness was, but wait,
Uncle Vanya, wait! We shall rest. [She embraces him] We shall rest. [The
WATCHMAN'S rattle is heard in the garden; TELEGIN plays softly; MME.
VOITSKAYA writes something on the margin of her pamphlet; MARINA knits
her stocking] We shall rest.

The curtain slowly falls.

comments on the WSJ article? I just lurk ITT and don't really have the economic background to contribute but my skim-take on it was "most people use way more than $3K of Medicare a year and this article doesn't say anything about fixing health care" but I may have missed the part where the author just assumed that would happen.

i.e. what schwantz said

Tracer otm

the community requires work in order to sustain itself

There's 'work' and there's involuntarily giving away a third of one's waking hours - at a bare minimum - to someone else to do something very probably boring, irritating, outside of one's interests and of doubtful benefit to the community.

Is there not a risk that, in the absence of full automation (or full communism), the irritating, unpleasant work would just increasingly fall to immigrants who, through the necessity of their labour to the functioning of the system, would be kept in perpetual limbo - forever denied citizenship that would give them equal access to basic income?

How would we ever value 'benefit to the community' eh

As ShariVari indicates some people may define 'community' more narrowly than others.

Switzerland seems to have voted against it by a margin of four to one.

comments on the WSJ article? I just lurk ITT and don't really have the economic background to contribute but my skim-take on it was "most people use way more than $3K of Medicare a year and this article doesn't say anything about fixing health care" but I may have missed the part where the author just assumed that would happen.

Give the author is the racist crackpot libertarian Charles Murray, of Bell Curve fame, and has spent his entire career trying to find ways to destroy the welfare state I wouldn't assume he intends to fix anything.

Ah, that makes sense. Thanks.

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jun/05/john-mcdonnell-labour-universal-basic-income-welfare-benefits-compass-report

A personal essay from the interior, amongst people not finding work at any price

https://morecrows.wordpress.com/2016/05/10/unnecessariat/