Unemployment is _good_. Being poor is bad. They are only correlated because we decided that made sense in the past. It doesn't any more.
That said, it seems too much to say "Unemployment is good." It's hard to disentangle the effects of poverty versus unemployment, but there are pretty strong hints that having a (good) job is good for health--prolonged unemployment from solidly middle class jobs leads to depression, and people die at higher rates after retiring.
People need a purpose and outlet for their creativity, and a sense of order and direction for their lives: sitting at home all day playing video games would be disastrous, and encouraging automation (which a basic income will do) will make it even harder to get entry level positions. We've got to enable some kind of meaningful labor (market-compensated or not) that people still can engage in after the basic income is implemented.
Are there no charities, no community organizations, no sports teams? Why trade the forced labor of market compensation for forced labor of government compensation?
Meaningful labor already exists outside of market compensation. Anything the government would implement would just be beaurocracy soaking up funds that should be going towards the basic income.
I also think it's unlikely that people would spend all of their time playing video games. Sure, in today's overworked society all anyone wants to do when they get a free moment is zone out. But if people weren't so overworked, they'd likely seek out meaningful things of their own free will. No need for us to worry about them, humans have a natural inclination to seek interesting stimulation. Many people will get stuck on boring things, but many people will choose to get more out of life and as someone who would be in the latter category I want to live in a society where that is possible.
so, you get laid off and find yourself, first of all under stress because your financial situation is uncertain, but secondly wasting away as a person and frittering you newly abundant free time playing video games. i don't think that points to your deep need to toil, to be given work to do. it's evidence of a poorly developed ability to play, that is to find work to put yourself to.
as for me, i've had a few stints of unemployment and it's improved everything in my life, except my bank account. and when i got work again, everything became worse, again, except my bank account. now, like i said, this is just my own experience, but though i hear often enough that people have a real need to toil, i've never seen it in my actual experience. on the other hand i can see a real human need to play, which most people are deprived of. and, of course, a need for money, which is the only tangible thing people get from their toil.
You seem to be suggesting that people shouldn't have to be 'forced' to be employed (i.e. trade their personal skills for $$) but instead should receive an income from the government for simply existing. They could then do whatever they wanted in their free time.
This clearly doesn't work for everyone unless you are working under the assumption that the 'government' can just print money and everything will just work out.
So you seem to be suggesting that there should be two groups of people. Those who simply live on income given to them no strings attached by the government and another group of people who are doing something bad by being employed and are forced to give up some of their income/wealth to the government to be given to the group of people who opt out of that system.
This seems to be what you are advocating but I must be missing something.
BTW, I'm actually interested in a basic income mechanism as a more efficient way of delivering a social safety net to those who need some assistance but in my mind that presupposes that only a fraction of the people need assistance. I can't see how that works if the basic income is an attempt to provide a minimal viable income for everyone!
I think the difficulty in evaluating a basic income mechanism is in understanding how such a program would work with different amounts of basic income, $200/month, $500/month, $1000/month? Is it per person? per household? extra amounts per child? Is it adjusted geographically? Depending on how you answer those questions you get different incentives and different costs for the program.
While I don't have good answers to many of those questions I don't think a basic income program can work if it is construed as a way to enable anyone to simply quit their job, pursue their artistic or intellectual pursuits, and have 'the government' (i.e. other people) pay for that privilege. That type of an existence, while desirable, is not a 'right' to be supported by forcibly taking assets away from other people (taxing/redistribution of wealth).
Taxation is not "taking assets away". Everyone that lives and works in a Western country today is able to because of successive generations who have built this society. If you have a computer job today, it's thanks to the people who developed the first computers years ago. Who went to universities other people built, travelled on infrastructure the government built, and so on.
You know what a country without taxes looks like? The 3rd world. Dirt roads, no power or water, no police or emergency services. That's what life without taxes is. And no the private sector doesn't pick up the slack - they buy big trucks, haul away resources and live in a separate country, where nice things are paid for by the government through taxes.
The question shouldn't be "what's fair?". But "what sort of society do we want?".
If paying hipsters to do nothing but sip coffee all day builds a better society (who knows, maybe those bored hipsters will do something creative like start an app or something), we should be all for it. I'd rather sip coffee in Paris while paying 75% tax than live in Somalia paying no taxes.
I don't understand why you think that utilizing the wealth/knowledge/resources generated/developed by previous generations is something specific to 'Western' countries. You don't say so explicitly but you seem to be suggesting that those assets should be controlled by and available for distribution via the "government". You don't say why that should be true, but it implies to me an argument against private property rights since you are assuming all those assets are under the control (or should be under control) of "the government" I don't see any attempt to explain how or why the government should gain that control other than some handwaving about 'what do we want?' and some ever harder to understand handwaving about 'what is fair?' being an inappropriate question.
I'm not sure why you concluded that I was advocating for no taxes. But I will certainly advocate against taking my money and giving it to hipsters to do nothing but sip coffee because that is what 'society wants'.
Not to mention, it'll encourage going to school or starting a business as basic needs can be met in the event of failure.
The point at which earning extra money no longer brings utility/happiness is well beyond the income of most poor people...
(Of course fixing poorly structure programs is going to be easier than implementing a basic income)
I am not "fine with them living destitute", but if a person cannot get by with a reasonable income provided then clearly they need some sort of help beyond the financial. "Means tested free stuff" doesn't seem a very good fit.
I'm not sure what you mean by that. They need help, and that help will almost certainly cost money, regardless of whether you're giving them money, products, services, etc. Because the help will cost money, there will almost certainly need to be means testing.
That's exactly what it would do.
If, as in your hypothetical situation, someone spends their basic income too fast, they'll just have to wait until the next week/next month to get their next installment. If they can't manage that, then there are likely to be other contributing factors, such as drug addiction or mental illness, in which case you can offer alternative forms of support.
I'm advocating for flipping that position and seeing where it leads us.
I don't think that people would suddenly stop working entirely. I think there would be a redistribution from rich to poor. I think that's reasonable.
If you feel that the world would fall apart and people would stop doing anything useful if they weren't coerced, then I would ask the question - why do the wealthy work? They already have a basic income. What proportion of people who could retire permanently at say, age 40, actually do? I think the picture being painted of a bunch of feckless, consuming meatballs, is wildly off base.
There is also a huge difference between providing assistance to ease the efforts required and simply removing the need for effort entirely by providing 100% assistance (i.e. dependency).
Taking a 'basic job' in order to live seems like a reasonable trade-off and a starting point for something better. To assume that people should be able 'to live' in the absence of a basic job (i.e. to live as a dependent) just because they don't want to work is problematic.
For the purposes of this discussion, I'm assuming that 'basic job' is not something inherently hazardous, although I also think that individuals should have the freedom to make an informed decision about taking on personal risks. So even hazardous jobs should be available as long as the hazards are disclosed.
If I own 1000 acres of land and you own zero, I can coerce you into working for me. If I own 1000 and you own 10, we'll negotiate. Does that make sense?
It's not really about providing people amazing lives - it's more that free trade doesn't really work properly when one party is playing a completely different game.
Example - as a software developer I could choose a 30k PA job or a 90k PA job. I feel a pressure to take the latter, but it doesn't feel like coercion, I can actually make the choice.
If you're unskilled - and bear in mind that unskilled is a moving target which essentially means 'not required by society at the present time' - then it doesn't work that way. You take whatever you can get.
That's the problem with inequality. It's not about toys, size of house. it's about the extreme outcomes - the bottom level becoming interchangeable cogs and no longer human beings with free will.
There is an unsettling attitude on HN that there is something inherently wrong with unskilled labor or more generally work that doesn't require some sort of advanced study. Perhaps there is a future world where everyone is engaged in highly skilled labor that satisfies their every desire but until that time there are going to be many people who will be occupied in other types of work and there is nothing inherently wrong with that. Honest work of any kind that enables someone to be self-sufficient should be applauded, not disdained.
What is wrong with an unskilled worker taking the best available job and building from there? Isn't that generally how people acquire skills? If the argument is that a person can't sustain themselves that way, then I would suggest that developing programs to assist people who are already working is much easier than developing programs to assist people who aren't working at all.
Regarding 'inequality', I just don't find that very compelling mainly because the discussion seems to be all about how to take things away from rich people in order to give it to poor people, that is, redistribution schemes based on the mistaken notion that this is a zero-sum game. In many cases, the wealth is acquired by distortions in the market created by government intervention. Eliminating the market distortions would be a good first step towards a more vibrant economy that would benefit every one.
Even most NFL players aren't rich, only the stars, the others just make a decent living but then have to quit at a young age and live with concussions. The best collegiate wrestlers are athletes of the highest order and have no living from it. And so on and so on.
Regardless, these spectacles are barely productive or valuable really. They are mostly escapist distractions. The circus part of "bread and circuses". The idea that you can look at this completely unjust system and say "oh, the Gladiators deserve their fortunes though" is absurdly out of touch.
> because they lack the athleticism or artistic skill of the professionals
Your comment implies that we could have a functioning society if everyone were rock stars and athletes. That's absurd. The role of rock-star and athlete is a zero-sum game. We don't need a billion rock stars. If everyone were virtuoso musicians, then a few of them would still win the lottery as being the ones that make it over others, and nothing would be that different. We'd still be having the same discussions about economics etc.
> Your comment implies that we could have a functioning society if everyone were rock stars and athletes. That's absurd
I'm arguing the opposite, by highlighting this absurdity.
I have no issue with the rich.
I have a problem with the lack of negotiating power that the poor have.
The subsidy comment is intended to illustrate that it's not as simple as 'take money from the rich and give to the poor'. At the moment we have the reverse - the rich are able to give less because the market is not free - the poor are coerced into providing their services for a lower amount because they own nothing.
This! It's not about jealousy but augmenting the winner take all dynamics of uncontrolled economic system into something that feels humanely more fair without disincentivizing or creating pathological scenarios.
well, what about "have access to food and basic resources". It's not like all value in the world only comes from labor.
If you don't want to exchange your skills (physical or mental) for money, then you probably need to find a benefactor of some kind to sustain you and I don't think that is necessarily a bad thing if it is a mutually consenting relationship.
Note, there is a difference between not wanting to sustain yourself through your own effort and being incapable of doing so. There is plenty of room to talk about government assistance in latter case, not so much in the former case.
In other words, there was at one point fresh water and land and berries and such just available in the world. People had to labor to get them, but they were there. We've made far more value for society overall such that we have resources to support far more people, and it's mostly from a long evolution of technology and science.
There's tons of productive things to do to keep things going. But since we have an attitude of "you deserve your share of resources only if you labor" we have a ton of make-work bullshit that people do that can even be counter-productive. We're not all working on things that actually add value to society. People who skim off the system such as high-speed traders get a huge share of the resources while laboring in ways that create no value whatsoever.
So, we need to get rid of the "work to eat" idea because it leads people to do whatever to eat when they are desperate. We'd do better if we focus on promoting things that provide the most value, and we get that better if we provide other motivations than "do whatever it takes not to starve".
Did you overlook the group of people that has huge capital resources from accruing it from generation to generation and can simply sit on this wealth as the robots it purchases bring in even more wealth? Or do you consider that "being employed"?
And do you think that if someone cannot find employment because there are not enough jobs in the world that they should therefore have a shitty life in their one and only finite existence?
I think it is pretty clear from what I wrote: "delivering a social safety net to those who need some assistance" that I don't think that.
The jobs which actually need to be done in order for us to feed and clothes ourselves are increasingly done by machines. In some cases overseas labour is cheaper than automation, but we're still progressing there.
As a result, because we're clinging to the idea that a person shouldn't eat unless they perform labour, we have to invent more and more categories of employment which become less and less essential - basically, people work in luxury sectors.
I don't think we've quite reached the point at which the world can spin without unskilled labour, but I do think we can now afford to compensate it appropriately, and I think that giving the lower classes negotiation power via the basic income is the best way to achieve that.
I don't understand this way of phrasing the argument. Do people really "cling" to this idea? It sounds equivalent to saying "we're still clinging to the idea that a person shouldn't be in good physical shape unless they exercise and eat well." I don't think many people cling to these ideas in an ethical sense, as if it would be immoral to be healthy without exercising or wealthy without working [0]. The ideas are just reflections of the actual state of the world, even though it might suck. I'd certainly rather be healthy without exercising and wealthy without working, but I don't expect or demand a forceful restructuring of society to satisfy my wishes.
[0] Actually, now that I think of it, many people even in this thread do condemn people who become wealthy without working. It's perhaps somewhat ironic.
By contrast, eating well is, aside from in cases of poverty, completely a matter of free choice.
Working a job for an employer in order to live is not immutable, people do cling to it - if you think we can't change that, we have nothing further to discuss.
Doing nothing in your life sucks hard. Everyone gets depressed and suicidal in the long term.
My point is: Basic Income should be free from stipulation. Play video games, care for a sick mother in law, grow plants on your balcony and sing to them in Hindi -- none of the government's concern. While we're at it, eliminate the minimum wage and let the small businesses hire workers at whatever they can afford to pay. Let someone work at the local bakery if that makes them happy. Let's see what the people come up with when they don't have to worry about how they're going to eat.
These can be seen as synonymous for certain definitions of "unemployed". You are not "employed", unused, not applying yourself to anything. In that definition, if you are able to provide for yourself and have found meaning in allocating yout time, that is a form of employment -- even if it's not a job.
That said, my preferred definition of unemployment is "without job, seeking job". Likely, basic income would reduce the statistic by that definition.
Semantic discussions are interesting among us mere mortals, but if you're proposing that the government start making judgements about who is "employed" in the abstract sense or merely "doing nothing with their life," especially when it comes to allowing or disallowing that person to receive the Basic Income, I'll leave my BI check uncashed. BI should be a way to increase liberty, not create a way for the government to tell people how to live their lives.
As far as semantic discussions go, US government unemployment statistics make a distinction between people who are not working and who are looking for work vs those who are not working and not looking for work. The later are not "unemployed" for the purposes of unemployment statistics.
I agree that the goal should be provide a meaningful safety net while increasing (or maintaining liberty), and thus it should be Universal Basic Income: all citizens get it unconditionally.
The way I see it, the idea behind basic income in a largely capitalist society would be to make being poor a lot less bad. It'd still be bad, probably, as a lot of us like having nice stuff; we like living in desirable areas, and those things won't be available to people on basic income, assuming we continue to use markets to distribute those scarce goods.
Those of us who come from middle class families who maintain good family relationships often have a similar option; crashing with mom and dad for a while. It's not really something you want to do for any length of time, but it's nice to know that if things really go south, you aren't homeless, and you don't have to do anything truly repugnant.
But just like crashing with mom and dad, it's not really a desirable long-term option for most of us. Sure, sure, it's going to be better than the jobs that are the worst on the unpleasantness/compensation scale, and I predict would dramatically drive up wages in the least pleasant fields, (and I predict would lower the rates of the less remunerative forms of crime for money) but if you are a software developer or something, especially if you come from a middle-class family that you maintain ties to, a realistically-sized basic income isn't really going to change your motivation.
Point being, unemployment (as usually defined in statistics, meaning people who want work but can't get it) will remain a bad thing, and assuming a realistically sized basic income, most people who currently work are going to want to continue working.
And... this is important. We need people to continue working. The basic income choice is really, "do we want people to do really unpleasant jobs for not very much money?" and then "are we all willing to pay rather a lot to make it so that people don't have to do really unpleasant jobs for not very much money?"
The argument in favor is the idea that if a job really is that unpleasant, it ought to be compensated for that unpleasantness, and effort ought to be put into automating that job away. Making workers less desperate would make those things happen. Making workers less desperate would also decrease the workforce participation rate. More people wouldn't work, and more people would work part time.
The argument against is that this is going to be pretty expensive, both in terms of what we have to pay to get the difficult-to-automate unpleasant jobs done, and in terms of just the taxes that would be required to fund the scheme.
Unemployment is bad overall. Too much free-time and not enough money (basic income won't cover "fun") will have consequences regarding crime.
Look at Sweden. Even with free healthcare, education and living costs covered the suburbs are filled with crime and radicalisation.