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Universal Basic Income
mindatrisk
Veteran
Arguments for and arguments against...
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Comments
I'm open to the idea. On the one hand it would reduce bureaucratic costs and giving individuals the ability to more freely decide where to spend the money creates greater efficiency. On the other hand I worry if the number of people who would be disincentivized from contributing constructively to society would rise to a level that would become too burdensome for the rest of us.
Also, it isn't really Universal basic income, its more like National basic income. I can't imagine a scenario where developed nations would decide to let that amount of money flow out to the developing world.
I remember reading about, I think it was Finland's, experimental UBI program. They decided it didn't work as well as they hoped and started a Universal Credit program experiment to see how that worked.
I suppose the idea of UBI is to meet the needs of the individual not the wants, so if people want more than their needs then they will still go to work to earn extra money. I also wonder if it would free certain people up to focus on developing their talents resulting in greater quality of produce. For example, it seems that an artist who has all day to work on their craft would ultimately produce better quality work than someone who works on their craft in their spare hours outside of work. Maybe this greater volume of quality would boost the economy?
Those are some good other potential upsides, it would certainly be a benefit to many creative people. And modern economies are heavily dependent on innovation. How many artists and musicians can a society support though?
I think it ultimately needs to be judged by its overall effect, does the benefit to the creative process outweigh the drag created by those opting out?
My brother says he made 12,000 last year. If he had 1,000 a month I'm certain he would stay home and play video games most of the time. He might step out occasionally to earn a little more but he mostly just lives for now and lowers the standards of what he thinks he needs rather than being productive. I'm just saying these people exist and there will be a negative impact on society from giving them no strings attached money that does need to be included in the calculations.
How old is your brother, out of interest? I think you are correct, but I think it would be a short-term problem. I think most people broaden their horizons as they mature and start to look to how to live a richer, more meaningful life. I can't imagine their are too many people who would be satisfied to just play games their whole life. That would mean that they have no others interests, nothing else that they are passionate about to pursue, when they have all the freedom they could want to pursue them.
I don't think society would end up supporting artists etc. People with specific talents and passions who might take advantage of a UBI to develop their craft would likely produce work in the long term that is of more value than £12,000 a year... at least on average. I think artists would not only pay their way, but add value to the economy... perhaps a tremendous amount. Also, culture is a very important part of a nations 'soft power'. The UK, incidentally, is frequently ranked in the top three of worldwide 'soft power', because of our cultural output.
it would certainly free a lot of people to do what they want, rather than what they are forced to do. I think people would be happier.
But you do need a certain number of people to do work that nobody wants to do, like picking fruit during the harvest or collecting garbage.
Immigrants!
I'm joking. It's a good point. I think if people with talent had more time and space to develop that talent then we'd see great technological improvements. Automation of many jobs is already occurring at a rapid rate, and I'd envisage that more focus would be put on automating as many roles as possible. It seems likely that some roles could not be automated, and there's a few solutions I can think of... 1. Perhaps not everyone has a talent or passion that they wish to develop, and are maybe happy doing menial manual work. 2. UBI would meet needs not wants. If you want more then you have to work, in which case certain roles could be filled. 3. If not either of these two then, in a society where everyone is free to do as they wish, maybe a small amount of community service to perform certain roles would be agreeable.
Those jobs could pay more than others people tend to enjoy doing.
I'm pro UBI as a stepping stone to something better than capitalism. Here are some thoughts about it from 2012 as a means to alleviate the economic pains of working people after the 2008 financial crisis: https://leavesintheforest.blogspot.com/2012/08/jumpin-on-ubi-bandwagon.html
Honestly, I think most of the criticisms against it are nonsense and are revolve around the narrative that giving people money would make them lazy, a narrative reinforced by the wealthy (who can literally just make money from sitting and letting their money be used to make more money) and the conditioning of hyper-individualism and the Protestant work ethic. But from what I've seen from most people getting extra money is that it's either spent (consumed), helping the economy, used to pay off debt, or saved for emergencies/big purchases like homes. And if someone is just a super terrible, lazy person who would half-ass it and be crap at whatever job they have, do you we really want them in the workforce to begin with?
And if the work is really necessary to society, then it should be paid a decent, living wage, so there's more of an incentive to pay people more if they're not being forced into essential but low paying jobs due to their basic needs already being met by a UBI.
Great points. I've been thinking about this for a long time but you've actually introduced me to some new arguments! Thank you!
I don't believe that money is a good motivator at all, nor that people who have money somehow become lazy. I mean, Bill Gates still works, right? The fact is that passion supersedes financial concerns almost every time. There are many, many people more than happy to sacrifice finances to dedicate themselves to their passion so long as their needs are met. And if we look back through history, all of the truly great science, great art, great thinking, great deeds have been achieved through passion with little to no financial incentive. Think of how many all-time famous scientists, artists, musicians and philosophers died penniless. And then when we look at financially motivated art, science, thought and deeds, it's invariably utter crap and of detriment to our culture.
I think if we changed our education system such that children from the earliest age were being encouraged to identify what they enjoy and what they are good at, and then the education system nurtures that over their development, then we'd have a proliferation of quality and advancement within a single generation. Imagine everyone contributing what they are good at? Imagine everyone waking up every day to do what they love? It would be a transformative shift, and to what cost? What is the downside? Maybe the rich lose out on cheap labour, but the with the huge advancements they could begin to automate everything anyway. And isn't the point of being rich to be able to enjoy the finest things in life? Therefore, wouldn't it make sense to support a system of living that proliferates fine things?
I more or less agree. Education in the US seems designed to get people ready for the job market that exists rather than really growing them as people and foster the creative elements. People often get criticized for getting liberal arts degrees and focusing on things like art, history, philosophy, etc. because "how are you going to get a real job with that?" And many of the jobs out there are bullshit jobs that could be eliminated, freeing up people and time so that we could reduce work weeks and give people more free time. If we could achieve universal healthcare here in the US, that would include a huge chunk of the insurance industry, which are mainly a bunch of paper-pushing jobs and people looking for technicalities to deny coverage.
There's no good reason people should have to work as long as hard as they do with the amount of labour and labour-saving technology out there. And there's no good reason why human beings should suffer privation when a handful of people own enough wealth to single-handedly end poverty 7 times over. Our system is currently great at creating wealth, but not terribly good at sharing it with those who need it most. And I hope that one day we can move past the narrative that the rich are smart and industrious and deserve to horde the wealth others create, and that those suffering from things like poverty are lazy parasites, especially when many work long hours at low paying jobs to support themselves and their families and a rich person can literally sit in their mansion while their money makes them more money without them having to produce a damn thing.
And just think of how much it could help those who wanted to pursue a more monastic, contemplative lifestyle.
And then what they could contribute to society in terms of wisdom in their later years. It really is a dream solution. It's just not one as yet fully fleshed out. It's going to take some convincing, but I am certain that it is inevitable, and when that time comes and it is established, we'll find it hard to believe that we ever lived in any other way. I think the benefits are so profound that in the course of a few generations we'd witness the greatest shift in humanity that has ever occurred.
The argument that society should support people to do what they love comes across to me as selfish. I don't think of myself as a collectivist but I think people need to put their productive efforts not towards what they deem as fulfilling but rather on what others value.
I like the idea of trying to do what you love. I don't know when that became something that people thought they were owed. It's not about what society can do for you, but what you can do for society.
When conceptualizing the economy its so complex that I end up thinking of a simpler sustenance economy. People in that society need to be putting most of their productivity towards things that sustain the community not towards their own pleasure. There is still a lot of fairly unpleasant work that needs to get done to make society function.
Frankly I'm not that industrious of a person but I know several people who are. What I notice most is that all their stuff works well, things are clean and the environment is pleasant to be in. It motivates me to do more with my free time.
I appreciate the desire to support individuals. I think it shouldn't come at the detriment to society as a whole. So if UBI genuine improves the overall society then I'm on board, if the cost and incentive structure weaken society overall even if it means the least among us are benefited then I'd want to look elsewhere for reforms.
I find it interesting that you perceive the idea that the vast amount of wealth produced by the whole of society being somehow distributed in such a way as to help relieve the suffering experienced by privation and allow people to spend more time/have more resources to do what they enjoy as a selfish one.
Moreover, it's not like the people getting the UBI are somehow outside of society, because it is, by definition, universal. It's society supporting all members of society do what they love more so than they're able to now — as opposed to a few having all the time and money they need to enjoy themselves while the rest struggle — which doesn't seem selfish to me at all. Rather, it kind of seems like the point (at least ideally) of society.
It should also be noted that things like a UBI and a reduced work week don't mean that people can't or won't spend at least some of their time doing things that benefit society and fill the desires/needs of others (i.e., work, as how many people conceive of the term). But the idea that people should spend most of their time working for a wage or doing what others demand of them seems more like slavery and less like living to me, as well as unnecessary considering the large number or working people (esp. factoring in those who are unemployed and working bullshit jobs) and the increasing technological advancements in areas such as production and automation.
The question for me really boils down to, what kind of society do we want to live in? A society in which one's time working is maximized and their free time limited, or a society in which one's time working is limited as much as possible and their free time maximized? Personally, I'd definitely choose the latter.
The way it appears to my mind is that people are asking to be given support for what they want rather than asking what society is asking for. I can see if you come at it from the aspect of society it is about giving and generosity though. And I'm speaking in generalities, I'm not opposed to redistribution to alleve privation. I don't like the idea of redistribution to support personal wants and interests, especially if those wants and interests don't serve society.
Yes, working isn't living. What can I say, I don't think we have life on autopilot. Entropy is an inevitable force on the world and I can imagine a more prosperous world still. I want to see a better world, I think maybe we have different ideas what that world is and what it takes to get there.
I'll go back to my earlier example from my life about the productive people I know. I see their lives as being more bountiful, better cared for, more organized. My understanding of personality research shows that people who score high in the Big 5 trait of conscientiousness, of which industriousness is an aspect, on average have happier, more stable careers, relationships and other positive life outcomes. I guess that's the kind of society I'd like to live in.
Lately I've been considering what the moral value of productivity is. I haven't looked into it at all, but it seems to me that the more stuff that gets done the more stuff there is to go around.
Rather than explaining why I think UBI would be a huge net benefit to society as well as the individual, how do you think it could be a net benefit to society if you were to think about it? What would be good for wider society about UBI? I ask just because in you considering it from a fresh, unbiased perspective, you might have insights that I haven't considered, thus making my position stronger, thus making it easier to DEFEAT YOU mwahahahaha! I'm joking. But I'm serious. What do you think might be the benefits to society of UBI?
Yes, we do seem to have different ideas about what a better world is. My idea doesn't revolve around the current obsession with productivity, which under the current logic of capitalism necessitates people working longer and harder in order to produce more surplus value for owners and shareholders and not for the general well-being and happiness of the mass of working people themselves. There is some benefit, I'd agree, but I'd argue that most if it goes to those currently getting rich while the rest of society is struggling to get by. And while I also think industriousness itself is good, a society that is geared towards people being forced to labour more than necessary is not a good in my book.
In my first post I mentioned that I thought UBI reduces bureaucratic costs and that allowing the recipients greater freedom in making their own choices about where it goes creates greater efficiency. And I agreed with you that supporting creatives might lead to greater innovation. I could add that a major obstacle to people setting out on their own and creating a business is the issue of financial security when doing so, which something like UBI, as well as universal healthcare, could go to addressing.
My overall view is that when making a decision like this it is important to do your best to list all the potential pros with the potential cons and then to prototype and test the idea to see what you might have missed before implementing it widescale.
What I see is that people have often made up their mind already and only list the pros for the new idea and the cons against the current system. If I were on a conservative leaning forum I would no doubt be bringing up more of the potential upsides.
From your perspective, how do the pros and cons weigh up? 50/50? 75/25 pro or con? Because most things in life have cons... marriage, children, raspberries, almost everything. But then the pro is strong enough then we work through the cons. Do you think the pros are strong enough in UBI to make the effort to overcome the cons?
I really don't know. In general my attitude is an incremental one. I think there are almost always unintended consequences so I prefer following a precautionary principle. In developing most consumer products prototypes are first developed and tested for unseen flaws before being released. So I can see I have a more cautious attitude towards large scale changes than you might. Along with that I think a bias that favors the current way is justified by the fact that it has been tried and while often not perfect isn't a disaster, there are more ways for things to go wrong than ther are for them to go right.
Finland's experiment led them to scrap it and try a universal credit system instead.
Less arguments?
That will be the day I argue for ...
Donations to:
Save the lobster :x:
I think that would rather lose a lot of the intended benefits. Having to pay stuff back means maintaining debt accounts, so administration, a time scheme, mental pressure on people to repay, I don’t like it much.
Me neither. There is something fundamentally amiss if we still need a carrot-on-a-stick motivational tactic in order to grow as a species. A species that is more and more becoming a global society.
Working together for the good of our collective growth is a much sounder foundation than the consumer driven pursuit of happiness.
"There is no path to happiness, happiness is the path."
I can't get over this.
"he mostly just lives for now and lowers the standards of what he thinks he needs rather than being productive"
On a site literally all about Buddhism, you said this like it's a bad thing.
Fair enough, let me qualify it by adding, then complaining that he doesn't have enough. It's a choice he makes and honestly I make it too, if I really wanted to I could work more and increase my income by 30-40% but I don't because I follow a similar strategy. I do however, also plan for potential futures so when expenses inevitably come I am prepared (paying for health insurance being self employed, saving for a low end condo to build wealth etc.) Of course not everyone is in a position to be able to do those things, but he is... or had the opportunity and support to be but chose otherwise.
@Linc 's challenge, for whatever reason, brought to my mind an idea I am more supportive of, baby bonds. For those unfamiliar whenever a new child is born a trust is set up for them that they can access once they turn 18. They are generally proposed on a sliding scale from around $10,000 - $50,000.
What is the general feeling from people about this program?