So that if they are happier then that IS success. Job or no job is irrelevant.
Also slacking (I am half a slacker on the way to ~zero) is toxic on the long run.
I always thought of universal income as way to allow me to grow without a burden. Learning, helping, producing (whether art, tools, ...).
It's supposed to help strengthen the social tissue.
but I think we agree, the goal is to reduce faux-slavery due to the need for basics necessities
When you consider that the group was selected from those receiving long term unemployment benefits (Finland has different types) and were by large unemployable, them staying healthier is important result.
That money isn't just pulled from the ether. Another citizen worked to produce that value which is distributed through UBI.
One happy person at the expense of someone else is not success.
That is your opinion, and to some degree it’s an opinion I agree with.
That doesn’t mean the opinion has any basis in reality however.
I highly doubt that’s the case, but I have an open mind and I’d be delighted to be proven wrong.
As I understand it, most societal benefit and technological advancement has come from humans acting selfishly. You develop an idea while seeking profit — not necessarily money; this behaviour far predates money — and society benefits as a side effect (if the development of that idea is in some way beneficial).
That's not what I claiming at all.
What I'm saying is if you want to produce value then go ahead keep producing value for whatever reason, it could be purely for selfish reason for all i care.
But You still have to pay tax for your income though, thats for allowing you to do business.
Of course if you produce value you will be a lot more richer than people who don't produce value, thats an advantage for you.
And for people who can't or won't produce value, fine, here is basic income for you so that you can still fulfil your basic needs.
So its not one happy person at the expense of someone else.
I don’t think “allowing you to do business” is the arbitrary motivator for taxes. Societies deem it more efficient to pool resources for common needs we all have. This is taxes.
Conventional welfare also provides for a person’s “basic needs”, usually with the condition that that person is actively searching for an opportunity to add value.
People need to add value for societies to prosper. Wealth doesn’t just appear. Bear in mind that the only reason, e.g., Sweden can spend so much on welfare is after long periods of wealth creation through Capitalism.
If enough people are on free money with no incentive to work, there isn’t enough wealth generated to pay for the people living on free money.
> And for people who can't or won't produce value, fine, here is basic income for you so that you can still fulfil your basic needs.
Who gets to decide what a basic need is, anyway? Since I’m paying for it through taxes, I would deem your basic needs as shelter, food, and water. Warmth? Luxury. Television? Luxury.
> So its not one happy person at the expense of someone else.
It really is though. There’s no other way to put it. It’s the consumption of wealth on the back of someone else’s labour.
Is not an issue because one of the main reason for basic income in the first place is the increasing prevalence and advancement of AI and automation. Means we are needing less and less people to work.
>Conventional welfare also provides for a person’s “basic needs”, usually with the condition that that person is actively searching for an opportunity to add value.
What often happen is welfare incentives discourage work. Because entering the labor force or working more hours can lead to a loss in benefits.
>Who gets to decide what a basic need is, anyway?
Government. Of course it's based on research to determine the actual dollar amount.
>It really is though. There’s no other way to put it. It’s the consumption of wealth on the back of someone else’s labour.
Sure, but the thing is no once is forcing you to work, if you think its unfair or you think its better for you not to do work then fine don't work then. Other people will.
This seems a reductionist perspective. The government is made up of people like you and me. It is not an omnipotent entity.
The way I'm interpreting what you've written, you could swap out Government for God.
Like any other moral question, there is no one true answer to a question like "how many dollars/facilities constitutes basic need?". That's why there are different political parties, opposing views, debates.
> Sure, but the thing is no once is forcing you to work, if you think its unfair or you think its better for you not to do work then fine don't work then. Other people will.
…But everyone is forced to pay taxes. If I choose not to work, the government still takes your money by force and gives it to me.
> Other people will.
This vague "other people" somehow stands at the core of every argument for Socialism.
Yes there are no true answer, its open for debate. Andrew Yang, 2020 candidate, for example propose $12000 a year. Its a start.
>…But everyone is forced to pay taxes.
Not if you are not working. No income (other than basic income) -> no tax.
>If I choose not to work, the government still takes your money by force and gives it to me.
sure, fine by me. I'll just treat the tax as cost of doing business. I still get to make more money.
> Other people will.
For example me, I will still continue to work even if basic income enough to cover my needs. Why? because I enjoy it and fulfilling or maybe I just simply want to earn more money for luxury or whatever.
I think you've completely missed my point here.
> For example me, I will still continue to work even if basic income enough to cover my needs. Why? because I enjoy it and fulfilling or maybe I just simply want to earn more money for luxury or whatever.
You comprise but a single datum — not enough upon which to base societal economic policy.
So can you reiterate your point?
>You comprise but a single datum — not enough upon which to base societal economic policy.
I'm just giving you one concrete example of why people would still want to work.
A central point of UBI as a replacement for means-tested welfare is that people without employment always have a financial incentive to work, because they keep the additional income from work rather than having sharp, sometimes more than 100% when aggregated across multiple programs, offsetting reduction in benefits.
It's true that UBI at a poverty support levels can be said to remove economic coercion that can exist to work without welfare (e.g., due to time limited benefits or qualifications besides means testing), but it does not result in people having no incentive to work.
> Conventional welfare also provides for a person’s “basic needs”, usually with the condition that that person is actively searching for an opportunity to add value.
Conventional means-tested welfare has massive inefficient bureaucracy because it works at cross purposes with itself, with means-testing creating a financial disincentive to added work (and duplicating bureaucratic functions already present in the tax system), which it then tries to counteract with behavior testing (which adds another set of layers of bureaucratic functions whose entire purpose is to provide coercion to counteract the work disincentives created by means testing.)0
Jobs are literally necessary for our society to function.
If everyone was jobless but 'happy', they wouldn't be happy when the food runs out. Or houses start to get old. Or iphones stop being built and websites are taken offline.
Economics are more important than a single individuals happiness, its our survival.
EDIT: Don't shoot the messenger. Fun ideas are not reality.
Lots of these topics have different outcomes when you start to assume sci-fi tech. I won't argue about what life should be like when we build fusion reactors or figure out nuclear 3D printing.