If you have someone in your family going through Alzheimer's or dementia, you suddenly realize that there is a spectrum of functionality as a human being.
There is no single point where there is changeover from human being who is "functional" and "not functional". There is no bright line where we can say "this person is still responsible for their actions" and "this person is no longer responsible for their actions and the someone must step in".
We, as modern societies, do NOT handle this with any amount of grace.
and whether that's BI or benefit makes little difference to that. You get the money and it's up to you what you spend it on, once you've spent it that's it, you don't get another dollop if you make unwise choices.
At least in England someone who becomes homeless through non-payment of rent (even as a result of alcoholism) is declared to have made themselves homeless, and they're not eligible for public housing. They might be able to get emergency accommodation in homeless shelters.
There are some slight complications if children are involved - a parent who causes the children to become homeless through alcoholism is going to find considerable child protection social services involvement in their life, but the presence of children may make emergency bed&breakfast housing available. Those are pretty terrible places. They're often not fit for human habitation, and are over crowded.
I think the point being made was, do we continue to provide other welfare services to an individual like this, or do we just cut them loose and let them fail?
Many people would argue we would still have to provide assistance to this individual... so then it begs the question, how is a BI any better than the slew of welfare programs we already run? At this point, wouldn't it be better (and probably cheaper long-term) for the government to just buy all the homes in the nation, and provide them free of cost to anyone? Perhaps food should be free as well.
Here are the types of "welfare" that habitual failures might have access to under BI:
- Budgeting advice - Free housing for the homeless - Free psychological consultations - In extreme cases, a controlled spending card (i.e.: an EFTPOS card that can't be used for drugs and gambling)
But we wouldn't give them more money, because they've made a habit of using it badly.
So there are private soup kitchens, food banks, etc. Someone who used up all their basic income would need to turn to friends, family, church, or these private charities.
There would obviously be many people who are benefitted by BI, but my question is more wondering what happens to the percentage of people that end up still needing extra help.
Presumably BI is taxed like any other income, but of course that means the amount of tax revenue collected will not balance the amount of money paid to citizens... unless we really raise the rates on "wealthy" people (who's definition may shift if everyone is provided a free "comfortable" standard of living). In which case this "BI" becomes a Robbin Hood tax on the nation's wealthy, job creators, innovators, etc.
Knowing several people personally that would be likely to only exist off of the BI (and not produce anything, or do anything with their free time), I have my doubts about a BI nation-wide leading to a boom in productivity. This may be a selection bias, but it seems to me as time goes on, we have more and more individuals content to not produce, leaving their days to just games and other "fun" activities.
But even now, while those people may not produce, they would certainly still have to consume. So there is some economic activity created. The question, of course, is whether it's enough to support the greater economy and if the incentives to do extra work are good enough.
Also, I sincerely doubt that these people you talk about are the norm. As mentioned in the article, there's certainly evidence that people may tend to get more education, act more creatively, and pursue productivity at a higher rate when they are removed from the fear of poverty – likely because basic needs are met and aren't a primary source of stress.
Well, kind of, but only enough to pay rent and eat.
But that's my point, individuals like this, who only work the bare minimum to just keep existing and have no drive or motivation to achieve more, are very likely to just not work anymore at all since their basic needs are now provided.
At the moment, they at least work somewhat. This helps keep local businesses running (even if just barely). With a BI, these folks stop all production and resort to their ideal lifestyle of not doing anything.
It's a little naive to think these individuals will suddenly change in light of all this new-found free time, and run out to create businesses or new things.
We can examine lottery jackpot winners for evidence of what many people would do if they didn't have to worry about money anymore (they do nothing in large part).
I just don't see any scenario where a BI leads to increased productivity like what is being claimed.
In contrast, I can foresee unemployment rates increasing, as fewer individuals participate in the workforce at all (to no determent of themselves, since their standard of living is provided free of cost). This will ultimately put strain on the system since not enough production is happening to offset this behavior, which will lead to drastic measures like dramatically increasing tax rates more and more.
I just don't buy the argument that giving someone a free living without any expectation of productivity in return will lead to a net increase in productivity.
And never mind "work" that requires more creativity and intelligence. Programming, writing, art, sales, marketing, policing, military, the list goes on and on. There's a reason that humans are at the top of the food chain, and that's our brains and adaptability. The idea that these traits will have no or limited value doesn't track with history.
The conflation of value and money is one of the worst things about our society. Money is, in many ways, units of suck. Jobs pay because no one would do them if they didn't pay.
Well, I'd love more time for my hobbies too, however it's not realistic to think more time spent doing pleasureful activities will yield more productivity in general. The world is filled with musicians and artists, but very few of them actually produce anything beneficial to society.
Art and music are important components of society, but the influential pieces come from a very small minority, and that's unlikely to change. The successful people are more closely paralleled with an entrepreneur than a typical street artist... they posses the drive and motivation to do what it takes to become great. This involves schooling/training, often more than 40 hour work-weeks, managing people and the business around your work, etc. Everyone else is a hobbyist, producing things for self-consumption in large-part, which does not contribute towards society in a meaningful way.
The people we're discussing here are the types that loathe and bemoan a 20 hour workweek, let alone a 60+ hour workweek the Jay-Z's of the world find routine.
> Jobs pay because no one would do them if they didn't pay.
I disagree. There are many types of occupations which do not pay (volunteer work comes to mind). Further, if there was no means to generate income, there wouldn't be a way to purchase goods, which in turn keeps others employed, etc. In a society where things are all totally provided for free, society will stop innovating (there's no reason to push the boundaries anymore).
We don't need more packaged food with the top ingredients being one or more of "HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP, MILK PROTEIN, SOYBEAN OIL". We don't need fashion that falls apart within one season. We don't need pay-to-win video games, or advertorials, or Buzzfeed. Neither do we need gold Apple Watches, $9000 pens, or palatial mansions. Scarcity of our environmental resources is real, but scarcity in manufactured products? Hardly! We can and should shift towards a quality-centric model - practical quality, not slapping gold leaf on everything.
What we have inherited is a way of seeing the world that is not really using our full potential, but is simply insistent that it is the climb to the top that produces the rewards, in spite of ample evidence to the contrary. BI is not the solution to all of that, but it will shift the demand profile towards quality in all sectors and allow consumers the option of choosing quality. If some of those consumers are "wasting their time" noodling on a guitar, so what? They aren't working at McDonald's.
And I wouldn't worry about society falling around our ears if the work ethic is replaced by a creative-energy ethic or something like that. I'd love to try it.
And this is hardly "a free living", £6000 pounds is $8550. The average monthly Social Security benefit per year is $16092.
For if production goes down, it becomes impossible to fund this entitlement. But if the entitlement is strictly tied to land rent (analogous to the citizen's dividend that Alaskans get for the extraction of natural resources), this can't completely disappear.
The good news is, the money that once went into their paycheck will now be used to fund their Basic Income, and they can find other lines of work.