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Comment by smokeyj | Hacker News Reader

The theory seems to be that when people have a safety net they'll better themselves with long term skills and grow the economy. I'm more inclined to have a more concrete social contract. For example, pay someone to learn a trade, and as long as they hit their requirements - they can live all expenses paid for.

For the cost of a college education we could give people a valuable trade and a small business loan. I think the reality is we have a cultural stigma against physical labor and hard work. Some of us aren't against the idea of "free money", but I want a guarantee it's being used for good.

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The thing is, a part of the point of universal basic income for me is that it would allow some people, who have no interest in working for wages, to survive and thrive doing all the things that we need in society that nobody will actually pay for. Community organising, caring for others, and basically acting as social "glue" is something we've lost as we have moved further towards a model of "100% of the population must be in full-time employment for wages" - this is actually a relatively new model, as prior to a certain time, women were not expected to work unless they absolutely had to. An accidental outcome of the feminism of the past century and the creation of equality under capitalism.

I'd argue that inserting companies into the positions where these people once were - asking companies to act as social glue - is where we've gone wrong in the past couple of decades.

While I'm personally not a fan of the outcome of Citizens United, the argument that a company is just a collection of people is not unreasonable to me. What makes an individual any better at acting as social glue than a collection of individuals? I'd argue a collection would serve much better, and really it's more the for-profit nature of most companies that is the issue. There's no reason a company has to "maximize the value for shareholders", and it seems more and more companies these days are challenging that notion.

As long as we call it a company, its raison d'etre is precisely to maximise the value for its shareholders. A non-profit has the freedom not to, and can focus on a core mission. As much as I'd love to believe in social entrepreneurship, if you define yourself as something which by base definition maximises value for shareholders, that's what you're gonna have to do when push comes to shove.

So sure - some kinds of organisation can and do provide social glue. The problem is, the capitalist notion of organisation doesn't support this. Not to imply I'm against capitalism - it has its benefits, but social glue is not it.

Ok, but what if they fail to hit their requirements? Either they lack the skill to hit the requirements, or maybe they don't put in the work.. what do you do then?

Do you cut them off and watch them starve? If you have any sort of criteria, SOME people will not meet the criteria and will have no resources. They will have no food or shelter. The fundamental question, then, is whether you believe there are some people who just deserve to starve and die, because they are either unable or unwilling to support themselves.

Lastly, you say you want some 'guarantee [the free money] is being used for good'. While this seems like a reasonable desire, how important is that? If data shows that you have to spend more money trying to catch people abusing the system than the money you would lose just paying people who abuse the system, is it worth spending more? This has happened before; they started drug testing welfare recepients in Florida, and they spent more money on the drug tests than they saved. Is it worth spending extra money to make sure no one 'gets a free ride'?

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/18/us/no-savings-found-in-flo...

How should hospitals distribute limited resources like vital organs? Or is that a dumb question because it's solved by Universal Basic Organs? I'm just going to take this one step further and pledge my support for Universal Beach Houses as well. Because what cruel monster would oppose free beach houses.

I don't see how your questions follow from my comment. No where am I trying to argue that resources aren't limited. I just said you will have to decide what to do with people who don't meet your requirements, and that you may spend more money checking that people are meeting requirements than you would save.

I also never said that letting people starve who can't or won't support themselves is morally indefensible. If you want to argue that it sucks but is a better alternative than what would happen if you tried to save everyone, it doesn't make you an immoral person. My only point was that you have to think about what you will do with the people who don't meet your requirements.

This is exactly where my argument ends up with anyone I discuss this with. The problem of people starving and dying won't be solved, it's going to happen in some capacity.

This is basically the intent of the existing means-tested systems. While they've got us this far, we can also see all the people who fall between the cracks; recently this was covered by people getting on disability benefits of one sort or another, but the constant pressure of " is this person deserving" erodes that.

If UBI is sustainable and grows the economy, is there a reason not to implement it at a more local level than federal?

In many other nations UBI would constitutionally be a federal concern.

And then there's also the whole 'universal' part.

I thought it was "universal" because it was meant to replace all social welfare programs with a basic income..

But what about it requires to be at the federal level? Is there a base number of participants that are required? Does that mean smaller governments can't have UBI? Or, is the idea just so big we can't be bothered to get into the technicalities of it all?

  > Is there a base number of participants that are required?

Well, the money has to come from somewhere. If you have a homogenous group, all with the same income/wealth, then UBI would do nothing. You'd give everyone the same money you took at tax time. No net change.

You need a group of people with diversified income/wealth. The wealthier contribute more than they get from UBI, the poorer contribute less (if any) than they get from UBI.

I like it mainly for the idea of replacing welfare with a much simpler system. But it will never happen in America, land of absurd tax code complexity. And certainly not with a name like Universal Basic Income. It would have to be called something else to avoid triggering people.

"Social Security for Everyone"? We could ease into that by changing the existing rules, which should be much easier than starting a new program.

> Well, the money has to come from somewhere.

Sort of.

> If you have a homogenous group, all with the same income/wealth, then UBI would do nothing.

True. In this scenario, demand is already as elastic as it's going to get. It would basically be impossible for the economy to be operating below full productive capacity. A basic income would either cause inflation or indirectly cause people's incomes do decrease by the same amount in some other way (e.g. taxes or monetary tightening).

> You need a group of people with diversified income/wealth.

Yes. In this case, basic income would actually benefit us because it can increase quantities demanded at current prices thereby incentivizing producers to produce more stuff for people.

> The wealthier contribute more than they get from UBI, the poorer contribute less (if any) than they get from UBI.

Hmm. Not really. I'm going to push back on you here a little bit. The value of a UBI does not come from people "contributing" to it. It comes from the capacity of the economy to produce more stuff in response to the additional spending.

I think you're talking about taxation here. But I don't think it's useful to think of basic income as being funded by taxes. The amount you tax does not have any direct effect on how much basic income you can afford to provide.

> But it will never happen in America, land of absurd tax code complexity. And certainly not with a name like Universal Basic Income. It would have to be called something else to avoid triggering people.

Yup. At least politically, taxes and government spending are hopelessly intertwined. But it doesn't have to be this way. And there's nothing stopping a startup from offering a basic income. I'm skeptical that Circles is the start up to do it, but I fully believe that it can be done.

> I thought it was "universal" because it was meant to replace all social welfare programs with a basic income..

No. Universal just means everyone gets it. In fact, the word "universal" is redundant in the term "universal basic income" because "basic income" is already an income that everybody receives. It forms a base upon which you can build further income.

Some people believe that basic income should replace existing welfare programs, but it doesn't have to. After we implement a high enough basic income, we certainly might discover that we don't need some of these other welfare programs anymore. But in my opinion, there's not really any reason to shut them down ahead of time.

> But what about it requires to be at the federal level?

It's hard to implement a basic income if you don't issue your own currency. Currency is issued at the federal level, so that makes it a natural choice.

If you tried to implement it at the local level, you'd probably have to raise taxes or something... or create some kind of local or alternative currency. It's not impossible, but it's certainly less efficient.

> Does that mean smaller governments can't have UBI?

In a way, yeah. You've got to have a stable currency in which to pay the basic income. The smaller the government, the harder it is to maintain a currency. Furthermore, the amount of the basic income is constrained by the productive capacity of the economy. There's a limit to how much spending the productive economy can absorb. So if your country has a very resource-rich economy, you might be able to get away with a higher basic income.

But it's a continuum. The most efficient basic income is probably a worldwide basic income. Since the United States controls the world's reserve currency, they could probably pay everyone in the world a basic income in dollars without causing inflation or anything. But a country like Mexico couldn't do something similar.

> The theory seems to be that when people have a safety net they'll better themselves with long term skills and grow the economy.

That's certainly a theory. It's not a theory I subscribe to. Teach a man to fish and he'll fish for a lifetime. Give him fish for a lifetime and he's free to do something useful with his time.

If our economic output is constrained by demand and you give people money, they can buy the stuff we're already capable of producing. It's as simple as that.

> Some of us aren't against the idea of "free money", but I want a guarantee it's being used for good.

It's not free if it comes with such a restriction. We don't need to force people to work. If we want people to work, we can always pay them.

I agree with you that people should use their money for good. But what is the ultimate good that we care about? We care about people's well-being and the prosperity of society, right? Using money for good means spending it on things that benefit you.

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