Basic income

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/

How Giving Free Money Actually Saves Money

https://medium.com/utopia-for-realists/why-do-the-poor-make-such-poor-decisions-f05d84c44f1a#.321hdio18

have we gotten this rolling yet

basic income is basic common sense at this late date in human habitat despoliation imho

lol this thread really brings it out, flopson jerking off to economic speculative fiction completely divorced from the real world suffering of the situation, tombot wanting ubi so he wont have to deal with incompetents who dare inhabit the same space as his genius

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

― μpright mammal (mh), Saturday, June 4, 2016 6:17 PM (1 month ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

thank u for yr support lol

icymi

"During the decades after World War II, wages went up hand in hand with productivity. Since the mid-1970s, as union membership has declined, that’s largely stopped happening. Instead, most of the increased wealth from productivity gains has been seized by the people at the top.

Even conservative calculations show that if wages had gone up in step with productivity, families with the median household income of around $52,000 per year would now be making about 25 percent more, or $65,000. Alternately, if we could take the increased productivity in time off, regular families could keep making $52,000 per year but only work four-fifths as much – e.g., people working 40 hours a week could work just 32 hours for the same pay.

So more and better unions would almost certainly translate directly into higher pay and better benefits for everyone, including people not in unions."

https://theintercept.com/2016/09/05/happy-labor-day-there-has-never-been-a-middle-class-without-strong-unions/

lol this thread really brings it out, flopson jerking off to economic speculative fiction completely divorced from the real world suffering of the situation, tombot wanting ubi so he wont have to deal with incompetents who dare inhabit the same space as his genius

― lag∞n, Wednesday, July 20, 2016 9:12 AM (one month ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

bring it bitch

he brought it a month ago but you weren't home, maybe if u look he left it in the mailbox or something

can u just.. not post

Still floppin

I'm the only good poster in this thread.

it's possible that you could schedule a redelivery from lagoon

My posts might not be good but I still deserve your basic attention

https://amp.businessinsider.com/givedirectly-basic-income-experiment-unexpected-trouble-2016-9

Basic income as charitable international aid is way more fraught than as a domestic policy for what I think are obvious reasons

There have already been countless RTCs with unconditional cash transfers, idg how this one is suddenly testing UBI, it's neither universal nor basic

otm

it's not like people turn down tax credits

the problem with ppl turning it down is it creates selection bias into treatment which is supposed to be random. but trust is a big problem with all these Development RCTs not unique to this one

also maybe I'm wrong Actually and maybe 1$ per day is basic

https://salon.thefamily.co/enough-with-this-basic-income-bullshit-a6bc92e8286b#.kj46ek8mv

Basic income is to the social state what the flat tax is to the tax system. It flatters the engineering mind with its apparent simplicity.