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Comment by teraflop | Hacker News Reader

> You have to fill in many papers, prove that you don’t have sufficient income or any valuable property, go through many humiliating and intrusive controls. If you want to earn (a small amount of) money without working, then you must endure it all. In most cases it is necessary to seek the help of a social worker to carry out the procedure in its entirety.

Funny how the article zeroes in on this as a criticism of basic income, even though it describes the biggest way France's system is totally different from what basic income advocates are talking about.

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This is exactly the reason I want basic income. I want nobody to feel like someone else is cheating the system. I hear a bunch of people (even old people who are on medicare and social security!) who will talk trash about "welfare queens".

It is not like we can't afford it. There will be short term pain, of course but I think we will have greater solidarity. This is good for the 0.01% as well because if you are doing really well, you want to keep the ship steady. (Well to be cynical, you could try to keep everyone else fighting amongst themselves but any arsonist will tell you that a fire once started won't spare the people who started it.)

And what happens in the very long term? What happens when kids are raised with the attitude that they are guaranteed to survive on basic income? What happens when their number grows? What happens when that large group feels that bare survival doesn't cut it any more and want more? What happens if the numbers actually don't pan out but scared politicians doon't want to give up power and cook the books for decades? Remember that after similar initiatives short and mid-term gains were huge, but in the long-term they lead to apathy, corruption and very uncompetitive economy.

There are two states in nature. You either grow or you shrink. You remove the incentive to grow and guess what happens next.

Or if you want to really start thinking hard, maybe you should ask yourself what happens when everybody has X in money and businesses raise their prices accordingly?

> What happens when kids are raised with the attitude that they are guaranteed to survive on basic income?

When kids are raised without the persistent threat of not surviving? They'll stand a better chance of flourishing and reaching their full potential, like many of us here on HN who have an affluent background.

> When kids are raised without the persistent threat of not surviving?

Having to contribute to society by keeping a job, and using the income of said job to finance your cost of living is far from being a life-risking enterprise.

You're trying to avoid the point by inventing absurd emotional examples.

You're ignoring the seemingly obvious threat of less job opportunities over time that provide a living, thriving wage. There's many people who have "a job" now who are barely getting by, enough to live but not thrive by any means. As efficiency increases over time because of tech, in combination with increasing reliance on cheap global labor and further stagnating wages locally, there will need to be some way to keep the local economy flowing beyond people just "keeping a job".

> You're ignoring the seemingly obvious threat of less job opportunities over time that provide a living, thriving wage.

That's your assumption, and a baseless one at that.

Back in reality, we're experiencing unprecedented economic development which includes the inception of a whole new economic sector.

You're essentially complaining that buggy whip artisans have less job opportunities in a world that's creating whole new jobs such as forum moderators, social media experts, and data scientists.

Today's economy even creates jobs playing video games, surfing, and talking about gourmet food.

The world's most developed economies are enjoying structural unemployment rates.

And you're here talking about "less job opportunities over time".

You need to separate facts from fiction, including your own baseless beliefs.

Violence is generally not a good motivator. Positive reinforcement is much better.

Your comment made me a bit sad because I read it as "What happens when those who struggle everyday to survive no longer have to?" - I understand your fear of entitlement etc... but I don't think things could get much worse than where we are now. For instance, "affluenza" is an acceptable excuse for killing a person in the US.

Hey glenda,

I wanted to congratulate you on your enduring politeness and civility while enduring exactly the opposite. I thank you for your tone and your contribution. While I may not agree with you, I applaud the manner in which you communicate.

It's people like you that really make HN a different place.

Thank you! This means a lot to me.

What happens when kids have rich parents?

What happens when kids know they don't have to steal or rob to survive?

What happens when kids know living for the good cause will never starve them to death?

What happens when kids know they can pursue their best interest without worrying about being starved?

> What happens when kids know living for the good cause will never starve them to death?

Can you point out exactly how many people starved to death in any western country? Because I vividly remember that there isn't any universal basic income program in effect, and somehow people manage to feed themselves just fine.

You can't expect to be taken seriously if all you can come up with are absurd emotional works of fiction.

>people manage to feed themselves just fine

http://www.feedingamerica.org/hunger-in-america/impact-of-hu...

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/sep/12/teens-americ...

>There are two states in nature. You either grow or you shrink.

There is also homeostasis. Perpetual growth is cancer.

>> It is not like we can't afford it.

Have you looked at the US Economy lately?

(Jan 2016) Why 2016 keeps getting uglier for US economy - http://www.cnbc.com/2016/01/29/why-2016-keeps-getting-uglier...

(April 2016) Americans' confidence in economy at 2016 low - http://money.cnn.com/2016/04/28/news/economy/us-economic-con...

(June 2016) The next recession is already here—and there isn't much the Fed can do - http://www.cnbc.com/2016/06/21/the-next-recession-is-already...

I'm all for a basic income for lower income families, but I'm not sure how routinely volatile our economy is, we really afford this long term. What happens when you put something like this in place, and then can't afford it? There's a long list of government programs already awash in waste and mismanagement. I'm not sure another program (which would have to take the place of other programs - WIC, TEFAP, HUD, etc) is really going to solve the problem.

The whole point of UBI is universal.

If it's just moving some bits into everyone's account monthly, entire layers of bureacracy, with their buildings, staff, forms, and fraud checking departments, can be removed. It should make it remarkably cheap to run, comparatively.

Make it lower income only and you have to bring all that back.

> It should make it remarkably cheap to run, comparatively.

You're assuming that it would be possible to simply eliminate government and state services and institutions, both politically and practically.

Instead, everyone working within an organization works to serve their own personal interests. This means that it's practically impossible for an elected official to eliminate all this state cruft, as every single person within the organization would fight tooth and nail to sabotage the project.

You're further reinforcing his point, that people in SV have no clue about politics and government. Ronald Reagan is supposed to have said that a government program is the closest thing to eternal life that we’ve ever seen on Earth. Government programs never die. Period.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/aug/28/government-p...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/even-in-an-era-of-bu...

I'm all for a basic income for lower income families

Universal basic income is a reform that satisfies both the left and right. My conservative brethren are totally on board. Not perfect, but good enough, and better than what we have now.

> Universal basic income is a reform that satisfies both the left and right. My conservative brethren are totally on board. Not perfect, but good enough, and better than what we have now.

Economists will undoubtedly turn up their noses when not so well learned people like me start explaining our position because it is clearly too stupid for them. If we have $100 available and three people: one who doesn't need any money, one who needs $20, and one who needs $50 to survive, clearly it is best to give nothing to the first person, #20 to the second person, and $50 to the third person. Look, we were economically efficient and now $30 can go towards maintaining the system! What I propose is that the $100 should be divided more like $33 each with just $1 going towards maintaining the project itself.

This came up before when talking about college education and whether the government should subsidize college education for the wealthy. My answer is yes! Of course, the government should pay for college for everyone, even if that person is Bill Gates' son. Similarly, should the government pay for Bill Gates' health care expenses under a single payer universal health care system? I say again Yes! We should not discriminate against the wealthy. Sure, it might result is less care for the poor but at the end of the day, I think it is better for everyone.

The US economy is certainly looking pretty dire, but it's not for a lack of resources: there's enough food, land, etc to support everyone. That's probably part of the problem. The economy is founded on an expectation of growth forever and there's nowhere left to grow within the US. The current output is likely enough to supply everyone with all the food, water and consumer gadgets they care to consume.

Another things I noticed is how it pointed out how France's system of basic income gave people less incentive to work and thus contributed to 10% unemployment. Isn't that also another reason many people advocate for basic income since with all our technological advancement it shouldn't actually be a requirement for everyone to work? Isn't that proof that basic income is having it's desired effect despite what appears to be a very mediocre implementation?

I only read through about half of the article, but I didn't really see any real reasons why basic income would be bad. Most of the arguments boiled down to "That's not how we do things now". I ended up coming away from this article with more faith in the potential for basic income than I did going into it as none of these arguments were very compelling.

how France's system of basic income gave people less incentive to work

As a regular reader of mondaynote.com (and so therefore an expert), I have the impression that France has many other obstacles to entrepreneurship. Like their labor laws.

It seems to me that universal basic income, alongside universal health care and other reforms, would greatly reduce the need for stultifying labor laws. More simply, employers could hire and fire as needed.

Interesting, I am not familiar with the job situation in France so I was basing the sentence on this quote from the article "Second, it has often been blamed for providing an incentive to give up looking for a job". It sounds like whether or not the statement is true as you mentioned basic income still provides an overall benefit.

UBI doesn't disincentivize work. If I told you that I would give you $10k/year unconditionally, would you quit your day job? What if you were currently unemployed, would you stop looking for a job? There is no reason to as my payment to you doesn't depend on if you get a job or not.

If you give everyone $1000 a month (to round the numbers) now the work of someone who makes $1200 a month is only worth $200 (as one can make $1000 just by idling). Would this person want to work for $200 a month?

This is a major disincentive of work.

So what? If the person has no reason to work, then they shouldn't. Humans are entrepreneurial by nature. Everybody has crazy dreams that have long forgotten because they needed to eat. I don't even want UBI so people don't starve, I'd like UBI so people can live comfortably without having to work. Everybody should feel "rich", the same way most silicon valley kids do/are.

You made an emotional argument that seems angry at a certain group ("Silicon Valley kids").

However, the work that will not be done by those people who can do it but don't want to will still need to be done. The solution will then be to hire people at higher wages.

But since these higher wages are not a result of increased productivity, the employers won't be able to sell more. The result is that prices will go up, generating price inflation. And we know inflation is the worst of all taxes, as it affects the poorest the most.

In the long run, the money received via BI won't be able to sustain the "comfortable living" that it was supposed to.

That's not how basic income is supposed to work. The person who worked would get $1000 basic income PLUS their $1200 wages = $2400.

Sure, above a certain level people's taxes would go up, so they pay back some of their basic income as tax. But that wouldn't kick in until people are earning rather more than $1200 a month.

Ignoring the magical thinking aspect of this (where will this money come from), this assumes that people will still want to work after receiving basic income.

This also has the inflationary consequences that I mentioned in another comment: you're effectively increasing wages without increasing productivity. This will cause prices to rise because employers will face higher taxes so that the state can support basic income, and demand will rise because people will have more money.

This will cause inflation, and in the long run purchase power will not increase, while society will be worse off with less people doing productive work.

Do you really think most people would prefer being poor to working and thus not being poor? Look at all the lengths people will go to to get money. Most people really, really, really like having money, and that doesn't stop just because they get a little bit of it.

Sure, some people won't work. But most of those would be people who either would have a hard time finding work, or who have some specific other thing they'd rather be doing.

Some people are not going to extra lengths to get more money now. Those people might be happy with their current income, however low it is. These people will prefer to stop working.

You are also confusing money with wealth. Basic income may give people more of the first, but its inflationary nature does nothing for the second.

UBI should be paid irrespective of other income. So that person earns 1200 and finishes the month with 2200.

What tasks do you consider "work"?

Child care? Elder care? Volunteering?

I think what you're trying to say is something like "people won't work anymore but they will be able to stay home and take care of their elders". Which I think is a valid point, but also one that is only true for a really small minority of the population, certainly not enough to justify putting the whole population on welfare.

Consider this scenario: you're taking care of you elders and you need to go out and buy some medicine. But the drugstores have all closed, since nobody wants to work there anymore (why would they? They're at home taking care of their elders too). Do you think this is not a realistic scenario in the long run? Why not?

Whilst some may be happy to survive on their low basic income, most will be motivated to work to achieve a higher standard of living.

I wrote the article. This is not my point. The French RMI was enacted in 1988 with wide bipartisan support and really resembled a UBI at the time.

Then, in the following decades, many people, notably on the right, started to hate it and, as a result, new, conservative rules made it more difficult to claim the benefit.

(Just like, for instance, Republican legislatures all around the US make it more complicated to vote, not because it's a necessary procedural evil, but because it's in the political interest of the Republican party.)

I think that the same fate awaits UBI if it were to be enacted (which I doubt, but that's another story).

As much as I disagree with the author, the reason why RMI is brought up is to highlight the next point of "Silicon Valley Hates / Ignores Politics". I think the difference in applicability is understood, otherwise this would be a really naively written article...

> So you could argue that the “RMI/RSA” is basic income, except maybe for the paperware frictions that it inflicts on those who are eligible and that could be removed thanks to technology. Accordingly, those in favor of basic income should pay attention to the “RMI/RSA” and draw appropriate lessons: it’s not simple (at all); it has adverse economic effects; and it is widely denounced, notably on the right, as “assistance” (assistanat) that deprives those who claim the benefit from any incentive to look for a job, thus making them live off the middle class taxpayers. If you know politics, you can guess where this is going. Unfortunately, politics is not Silicon Valley’s strong suit.

Then you didn't read and understand the article. His point is that this is how the system will eventually end up. When the people see their taxes go up substantially, they'll vote the UBI supporters out, bring in a means test and you end up with this bureaucracy.

As an example: see how quickly the Democrats lost control of both the houses once Obamacare was passed. And see how the Republicans are continuously trying to kill Obamacare.

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