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Comment by mrleinad | Hacker News Reader

Why don't we just cover everyone's basic needs and be done with it?

This is a pointless discussion. Just give everyone enough food, shelter, and free access to medicine. It'll create a society where we don't stress over losing a job because we don't know how we're going to get our food tomorrow.

The reason that some people think this "disincentiveces" people to work is that they'd have to pay higher wages and wouldn't be able to exploit human beings, as all capitalist systems do. That's it. That's their whole argument. The rest is just dressing it up with empty moral questions about "giving away the fish instead of teaching how to fish".

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Because giving people money is a better way of doing the same thing while matching people's preferences.

For instance, food: Handing people a government decided food basket will not optimize for what people want to eat, or know how to prepare. Give them enough money to feed themselves, and we spend the same amount and we have happier people and less distortions. Same thing with shelter: Money means that we let people make their own choices, instead of recreating a new version of the projects. The one place where the market tends to fail is medicine, but that's because people's preferences there are a lot less valuable, as all people really want is someone to help them get healthy when they are sick. And even then, there are cases where giving people choices is better: The US' end of life care is so expensive and so dismal in part because what is covered and what isn't is decided by third parties: Often people prefer to end their life comfortably than to do many of the uncomfortable, but somewhat life extending things that we do to them.

That's the ultimate argument for money: Maximizing people's choices in how to go around getting the basic necessities of life. The trick is that the amount of money we give people would have to be modified to make sure said necessities can be met.

I couldn't agree more with your point. Mine was just basic needs should be covered for everyone. How? That's up to debate, but giving people money increases demand for goods, which activates the economy, so I'm all in for this program.

Let's back to basics. How do we cover the needs of one person? Better, how do we cover only the need for food? You need to produce rice, beans and meat. How do you produce all that? A lot of ways ... but you need to produce. And that word alone is the problem here.

The moment someone stops producing, he is a burden. He must be carried on by someones else production. The government does not produce anything. The moment he starts handing over cash to people who do not produce, he is transferring the production of someone who works hard to someone who does not.

You want to help those people? Pay them to study, get some skills. Pay then to clean the streets or the public bathrooms.

But for God sake, do not pay them to do nothing. It's unfair with the rest of those who actually work really hard for this handed cash.

People out of work is not that way because they're lazy.

They're that way because the only jobs they can get are jobs that will have them work all day long for a pay that won't even cover their basic needs.

Human exploitation in several forms is all too real and happening right next to each one of us, and almost no one seems to recognize it.

Do you want to give them jobs? Fine. But don't provide minimum wage that will make them have to work 70 hours a week just to make ends meet, and want to kill themselves afterwards.

You /might/ replace 'unfair' with 'immoral'. Lots of things in life are unfair and are just a part of life, so there's a mentality that unfairness is just a part of life. Hopefully those who wish to take from those who work can see that this is theft and theft is immoral.

Productivity per worker-hour goes up as technology progresses. It's okay to take some of that increase away and use it on other people. It's a mutually beneficial setup between you and society.

The problem with your thinking is that it ignores that it takes "work" to get people those basic necessities you refer to. So there absolutely is a danger in disincentivizing people to work, if people contribute nothing, but consume even these basic needs.

I'm not against basic income, but there absolutely is risk to society.

Worth noting that less than 100 people on Earth have the net worth of half of Earth's population; half of the world's population is 3.5 billion people.

Notable source: https://theguardian.com/business/2016/jan/18/richest-62-bill...

Do less than 100 people on Earth have taxable monthly income (which can be used for UBI) same as half of world's population? Or same income as UBI for half of world's population? Net worth is irrelevant.

It's far from irrelevant. It's the core of the problem.

I don't give a cp about taxable income. They should not have that much power. Period. Take it away from them and put it to good use.

The incentive system you mention only exists under the assumption that everyone needs to work. My understanding is that with the productivity gains of the digital age, those that are working are able to produce enough to cover those that are not working. We have an abundance of wealth, more than enough to ensure everyone's most basic needs are taken care of. It's just at odds with a capitalist economy.

The amount of work to produce our basic necessities has fallen decade after decade for over a century.

We are wringing our hands over the perceived threat of "lazy" people when the cure for this alleged disease causes so much misery for so many people already. It's not a fear founded on empirical evidence.

The fear of lazy people is not founded on empirical evidence just as much as the idea that people can be encouraged to contribute nothing without detriment is founded on empirical evidence.

Once again, I'm not sure about how the reality would play out on a large scale, but obviously there is risk.

So, you're saying that giving people the basic needs for living creates more jobs?

There, you just solved the problem. Put money into creating this structure and it'll sustain itself.

Everybody has a different idea of a risk/reward ratio he wants in his life. Some people just want stability with basic needs met, and have no ambition for more; you would actually find a lot of them in modern russians who want Soviet Union back. But other people are quite OK with a risk of being sick and homeless as long as they keep their freedom to make their own destiny. And the notion that they have to pay a lot of money to some organization just to pay for other people's mistakes is completely alien to them.

I'm not trying to convince you that their worldview is better. But if you're talking about state-wide things, you have to take those people in consideration, too.

I agree with you in principle. But I am extremely dubious of using the state to accomplish this. I would rather see a cultural shift where we all agree we don't need state coercion to get us to help one another. Anything the state does IMO will be inefficient and involve pay offs to a few select chosen corporations.

Do we need force to do this? Do we need cronyism? Do we need corruption?

Corruption exists in corporations as well. Who do you think pays bribes to state officials?

The state can be efficient too, regardless of it being a monopoly. It just needs the same thing an efficient company does: overseers and the right push to be efficient (a.k.a. an informed and well educated population that knows when they're being scammed and demands better services for their taxes)

The US Federal Government can't deliver a fully socialized healthcare system despite spending more money per head than many other developed nations that manage to provide full coverage. What makes you think they could possibly efficiently administer UBI?

What possible overseers can a government have? Authority begins and ends with them. It has token overseers sure, the same way a dictatorship to china might point to its token elections. But that is all.

The problem with US healthcare is not the government, is the health industry and their overpriced services.

Well, there needs to be an actor that has enough influence and power to actually make it all work. UBI isn't going to work if it's ultimately a volunteer based system. We already have lots of voluntary donations ($ and time) in our present day.

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