Hacker News Reader

Comment by pesfandiar | Hacker News Reader

I haven't given a lot of thought to basic income, but coming from a third-world country, I immediately think of how that can lead to corruption, nepotism, and unfairness in general. (e.g. who gets higher-valued real estate?)

View on HN

Also not a lot of thought, but my immediate reaction would be that none of the land that was "given away" (or provided to people) would be high value whatsoever. Basically just plots of land with viable homes, community space, no outright ownership.

Private land would remain private.

Of course, then you have "slums," essentially, and problems that come with that.

They are not slums when the people are not living in poverty.

Basic income would not lift people out of poverty.

What's the very definition of "poverty"? Having no money for even the basic necessities. By its very definition, basic income deals with that. Surely there are drug addicts etc. who would just be fucked no matter whether they have money or not. But if you genuinely believe that every poor man is like that, you're way too brainwashed by the rightist elitist BS justifications for their own wealth, my friend.

There will be people in poverty when they spend their basic income checks on drugs...

You're confusing two things together. There are drug addicts who have to be saved by means in addition to financial means for basic necessities. But the majority of poor people aren't like that. It's not to say poverty can be totally eliminated, but it will be massively improved upon at the very least.

I think you have not understood the meaning of "basic income". It means everyone is issued fiat currency sufficient to supply necessities, i.e. super-poverty housing, food, clothing, medical care. End of story. The money is just printed tokens anyhow, so it is inhumane to deny people in need if you can just print it. The down-sides are inflationary effects (but in the new normal, deflation is a problem, so that is actually good), and fear of damaging work-ethic (a moral hazard). I consider that if the work-ethic is obsolete, it is maladaptive, and needs to be put out of its misery.

It seems like a lot of people simply cannot grasp the idea of the UBI at all. Half the time when I talk to someone new about it, they think it's Soviet-style communism and a centralized planned economy! It's utterly bizarre. It's such a simple concept: everyone gets a check from the government for, say, $1500 per month (the actual amount isn't really important, just that it's enough to live in an apartment with a roommate basically and afford you food at the grocery store). Then I get questions like "but lots of people don't want to live like that!". Answer: "Well, they'll get a job, just like they do now....". "Then they'll lose their benefits..." Or, "why would anyone get a job when they can just collect $1500/month doing nothing?" Answer: "Maybe because they don't want to live like a pauper? The same reason lots of people get a job now instead of just living off welfare?" And these don't seem to be stupid people either; we see them right here on this forum, people with degrees in CS or whatever, and simply cannot grasp this concept at all. Maybe we really are just dump monkeys with slightly oversized brains.

I do believe, however, that UBI really needs single-payer healthcare for it all to work. If they supply enough UBI for health insurance, the costs are going to be astronomical, or they'll have to tax the working people to death (which will make lots of them just quit and live off the UBI, which will break down the system). Something has to be done to rein in medical costs like they do in European nations for this to work if it's going to include medical care, and really, medical insurance should mostly be eliminated.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com