The pope just proposed a universal basic income | Hacker News Reader

The pope just proposed a universal basic income

americamagazine.org

83 pointssdegutis72 comments

Ahem: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rerum_novarum

> The richer class have many ways of shielding themselves, and stand less in need of help from the State; whereas the mass of the poor have no resources of their own to fall back upon, and must chiefly depend upon the assistance of the State. And it is for this reason that wage-earners, since they mostly belong in the mass of the needy, should be specially cared for and protected by the government.

This isn’t new!

A beautiful document. Fans of G.K. Chesterton (Chesterton's Fence, etc.) might be interested to know that Rerum novarum profoundly affected the man's life, and there is a fascinating outworking from it, misleadingly named "Distributism" that would see a society with the maximal number of small businesses in the hands of as many friends and families as possible, along with a return to the guild system and 'localism' in as many places as possible (not just food) [1].

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributism

I agree, it's a lousy name. Unfortunately, many people, upon hearing of it for the first time, assume that it entails forced redistribution of wealth -- take from the rich to give to the poor.

But that's not what distributism is about. It's a "third way" economic system that advocates for widespread ownership of productive property. Whereas in laissez-faire capitalism, the ownership of such property becomes concentrated in the hands of a relatively small number of wealthy business people, and in socialism the ownership falls into the hands of the state, controlled by a relatively small number of politicians and bureaucrats, distributists argue that society works best when ownership of productive property is not concentrated, but diffuse.

But to achieve that end by seizing and redistributing property would go against the point of distributism, which is not socialism under another name.

At most, distributists argue for a climate in which such a system can flourish.

Cooperative business structures are a great example of what distributism advocates for. And we know that co-ops can be really beneficial, as long as they're not disadvantaged under the law.

Though Belloc (one of his well known collaborators) did advocate state seizure of goods in order to bring it about.

While this is very much in line with Rerum Novarum's call for state assistance for the poor, the way Francis presents this indicates that he understands it as a call for trying something distinctly new. Otherwise, he would simply talk about buttressing the welfare state, as the church often does. Instead, he's talking about the need for considering a different approach.

An interesting bit of trivia, but this idea is very old, and geographically close to the Pope (though the practice predates state sponsored Christianity).

In antiquity, the Roman Empire practiced a flavor of UBI, in that the city of Rome provided free wheat (later, bread) to its poorer citizens. This was no trivial matter, as importing and distributing (to 200k citizens, at its zenith) were complicated and expensive. This was a stable arrangement for centuries. After the loss of North Africa, the wheat stopped flowing so regularly, and it grew increasingly expensive to support this benefit, but giving it up was politically impossible. Rome collapsed, and the experiment ended.

Across the world, Lao Tzu said the wise lead by emptying hearts and filling bellies. There’s also some famous saying “Civilization is always four square meals away from collapse”.

What can we learn from this? UBI makes sense when times are good, when there is surplus and trade. But it’s very hard to revoke what a people are used to receiving for free. It might be more efficient to teach a human to fish, than to feed him fish “for free” every day.

I think you are missing the point of the Left - that owners of capital tend to put up fences, set guards so that other people cannot fish in "their" water.

And additionally knowing how to fish is SOL when we over fish our resources because market signals are ineffective at large scale directed action.

And I get itchy each time someone says if only we were all free it would be such a better world because soon someone says I shall make them free.

We need "The State" as a form of insurance for risks that don't occur often enough for actuaries to profitably price, or occur too often and actuaries cannot change all of our behaviour all at once

I pretty much agree with everything you're saying.

IMO, the role of the government is to make it safe to be fishers and teachers of fishers. That means shutting down the people who would murder you for your fish, and shutting down the companies that would monopolize the bodies of water.

But, should the government catch your fish for you? It seems that we feel like the answer to that question is "it depends", since not everyone can fish. But then again, this is why we have division of labor, and geographic mobility. If you can't fish in Arkansas, maybe you can farm in Montana.

Some people are in need of special help, but should that come from the government? In the past, it's come from communities. What about the people shunned from communities? It's a rabbit hole.

My point is, it's hard to draw a line that doesn't lead to "let the government do it". But the government isn't particularly effective at most things it has attempted to do: I generally feel like, for most problems we turn to the government for, there's usually a better way (and by that, I do not simply "if we were all freer"), but it does seems to be found more often an emergent property of liberal societies than a prescriptive form to fill out.

In case it isn't clear, I don't hold very strong views here, I'm sorry if that they might have itched you, just thinking out loud :)

I worry when I hear "community" as a support mechanism. Community can "rally round" in times of crisis - that's great. but mostly they are terrible. Communities have abused minorities, locked away the different and the challenging, starved, beaten, exiled and ignored.

Governments do this too - but the thing about democratic governments is we can find out and force corrections. And governments can afford to employ experts to do the daily boring work of looking after those in need - community interest tends to wane as well.

It's not perfect- and I disagree with "feeding people for the rest of their lives". I, without any good evidence, feel the Chesterton style Distrubitism cited downthread is most likely to have good community outcomes and still allow government to fill in the gaps.

Overall - in my view, how governments assist the needy is a policy choice. Whether they assist is a fundamental duty.

Edit: I understand you are agreeing, I am not trying to spark a fight, just want to be careful about the idea that community can solve much these days.

(Mafia: Organised Crime, Government: Organised Community)?

Rome needed continual conquests to fund this benefit for its citizens. Margaret Thatcher said it well for governments that try to do this, "eventually you run out of other people's money."

You got it! :)

The difference is that we're dealing here with something that's more abstract than material goods (dollar signs and zeroes). In my view, this makes it possible, though exceedingly difficult, and I'm not sure how sustainable it would be over long periods of time. However, if the Romans could pull it off with grain over several centuries, who's to say we can't do it with money (which, in spite of its complexities, is much less fickle than grain)?

With that, the only addendum I'd propose is "unless you're very clever."

I'm not sure if we're clever enough, yet. But the Federal Reserve and the global financial system have come very far within our lifetimes, so it's not unfeasible to imagine us getting there one day.

Rome was also before the industrial revolution turned farming into a 1% of the population thing.

Whether we're before or after the point every human could be supported such they are happy and healthy, with more or less organization and/or equality, I don't know.

But I think it's a tremendous error to think that that point can not exist (is technologically and societally infeasible on a planet we'd recognize).

That's an interesting bit of history, but bread for the poor is welfare, not UBI.

It's not universal, and it's not really income in the sense of something that the holder can easily exchange as they see fit. That limits how much we can learn from societies having traditional welfare when it comes to UBI.

I agree that this isn't UBI. I still think that it holds lessons that carry weight in a UBI discussion.

To be clear, the point I was trying to make was that the "free $STUFF", where peoples' lives depended on $STUFF, worked great while the times were great. But it didn't work so well when times were not so great, and $STUFF was hard to come by. I think that, even with STUFF=money, we would face similar challenges, and need to be prepared for those challenges, with answers.

I think that the "I" part makes it better, since at least that gives us monetary tools, and we might be mature enough at this point to be able to manipulate to our advantage. It's much easier to make money grow in Washington than it is to make wheat grow in climates it wasn't built for.

Welfare is not UBI. UBI is for everyone (universal).

It's not new. But it's also not common. Francis (see top-level comment) has had an unprecedented focus on poverty and the poor.

Some years back, after hearing from often unlikely sources "I like this pope", I did some ... very nonscientific ... research into the papacy and references to the poor or poverty, based on Wikipedia entries, going back about 200 years.

Even heavily discounting Wikipedia's extreme recency bias, Pope Francis's focus on the poor and on economic injustice seems utterly remarkable.

https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/258gq1/francis...

Very naive question here. I am not an economist. I'm all for normalizing distances between haves and have nots. But why is this solution to give money? Why not universal basic housing, universal basic food, universal basic internet, etc? It seems odd to propose equalization of needs with something that is so ethereal and arbitrary and easily games as money.

If the goal is normalization, why not just wage caps instead of minimum wages?

Well said, you can't buy smartphones and videogames with food coupons.

To many poor people a smartphone is a necessity. It is their only computer and their only connection to jobs and job boards and communication with potential employers.

Who are you to say a smartphone isn't the best thing a needy person can buy?

The money spent on smartphones and videogames results in revenue for companies and paychecks for employees. So yeah, some people are going to spend their UBI irresponsibly. But that spending directly and immediately stimulates the economy.

In contrast, we currently are dumping vast amounts of money onto corporations, banks, and investors to try prop up the economy. That money just ends up bidding up stocks, bonds, and real estate prices. The stimulative impact is minimal, and mostly results in inflating asset prices.

Broken window fallacy. If one has money for vieogames, one has money for basic needs and needs no UBI.

Qualified and means-tested solutions impose what we feel others need upon them. Yet, if you just provided money, they could fill the gaps they know they need and markets would emerge to satisfy those needs. For example, one may see a "smart phone" as not a necessity, but, for many it's the only computer they have and the connection to their economic world. Who are we to say that a smart phone isn't a necessity? To a worker who is on their feet all day, a very expensive pair of boots that will last years may also be a necessity. Who are we to know people's needs?

The problem is that the most in need are often the leas concientious and responsible with money.

Only an anecdote but where I live in Quebec welfare is almost $1K a month, there are flats for $400, electricity is subsidized.

There are dudes who live on the street and use the money for crack. Many.

Now, I have no idea if this is any kind of plurality, probably not, but it's common enough.

Yes 'money' is always part of the problem, but at the lower levels, it's a huge mess of social deviance, real mental issues, medical-grade psychological problems, anti-social behavior. And if you dig up just a little bit of 'the past' it's full of abuse, neglect. Now throw in the availability of drugs and alcohol and then you have some serious malaise.

So for the 'working poor', it's a different story, it's hard to tell what UBI would mean.

BUT - there's another way. Land reform.

The avg. home price in Canada last year, increased in value literally more than the average wage. That is unsustainable and crazy. Basically it's a 'class war' between the middle class making their money from leverage, while the working poor make jack.

'Rent' and 'Mortgage' is our most gigantic expense and yet it's a 'nonproductive asset! Yes, it costs money to 'build homes' but the other bit, real-estate is a mess.

Net-net-net - there should be no material gains from this.

It's economically feasible to create a situation wherein 'rent is free' for everyone, and to still have the same amount of economic productivity and growth.

Low-interest rates have exacerbated this problem.

FYI this 'land reform' is one of the massive differences between North America and Europe: North Americans were given 'free land' to tend and owned their farms, in contrast to the serfdom they had in Europe.

Another reform in the 20th century was the push to get the plebes to own their homes through mortgages.

But now the weirdness of the economy has made real problems in the cost of education and homes.

I think re-thinking the economics of property without going Marxist would go further than UBI which is a kind of indirect thing.

Not quite the same thing but this well-regarded nonprofit gives cash instead of alternatives, and their about page talks a bit (with some citations for you to read more) about why this is more effective than alternatives: https://www.givedirectly.org/about/

I think you are on the right track. Give everybody some discretionary amount, but also the ‘universal basics’ as you described.

So, everybody has a food account, an internet account, a housing account, a healthcare account, and a ‘fun’ account for whatever. Funds cannot be intermingled, nor spent on out of category items/services.

That sounds like a lot of effort and money that will have to go into developing and enforcing that. Also it's more "nannying" than just giving people enough more to live on, and then it's up to them how they use it.

Right, so if they blow it all on chocolate or Steam games, and they become ill, should they just be forced to be sick and homeless?

Depends on how healthcare and housing are handled.

In most developed countries they would end up in a homeless shelter or social housing and be covered by national healthcare.

Price ceilings have a very bad history. People invent things like furnished apartments with crazy costs to make up for the lost rent increases or worse. NYC has a good history as record of how price fixing can go south.

Giving people vouchers for goods and services creates a lot of bloat for politicians to then run against and remove entirely.

I’m for UBI because I’ve seen time and time again the market fail far too many people to be relied upon exclusively. But I don’t think it’s a wise priority right now.

The first and top priority is for people to get off their butts and do their civic duties. Learn your political economic history. Learn the systems and political institutions at play. Then contribute at all levels of government: locally through to nation wide. Until that happens we’re going to be stuck with two parties that are essentially the same thing with superficial differences - or worse.

Edit-oh and stop throwing your hands up anytime an outrage or corruption is revealed. It’s not acceptable for politicians to be corrupt anymore than it’s acceptable for individuals to shirk their civic duties. The one thrives on the other. And fatalism is just ridiculously destructive.

We've discovered that central planning is inefficient, as it's hard for the planner to collect information about what is optimal for each person. Giving money distributes the decision-making to the people with the best capacity to make decisions on how to allocate resources.

The parallel in software is management buying terrible products on others' behalf. If you want good software, you ask the users to define requirements. Imagine telling the users, "We purchased SAP, because it checks all the boxes. You might prefer something else, but we know what's best for the company. You're welcome."

Equally important is a culture which very highly values the rights of people to make non-optimal decisions for themselves.

And the ability to compare results from different stochastic processes.

Money is unreasonably effective at letting people aquire what they need. maybe one person doesn’t want shelter but wants to save up to start a business. Everyone wants different things.

People don't become billionaires from wages, so wage caps wouldn't do anything to address inequality.

Over the years, we've found the people are better at allocating their money to serve their own needs better than the government.

Wage caps just encourage hoarding capital, and accrual of wealth thru capital gains instead of wages.

Money is all of these things you've mentioned. It is a token that has no value on its own but can exchange for values most pertinent to the perceived need of whoever that has it.

> But why is this solution to give money? Why not universal basic housing, universal basic food, universal basic internet, etc?

This is a good question but contains a false dichotomy. It's perfectly possible to provide both.

Basic income is not incompatible with many existing tax-paid services and subsidized goods.

Money is intrinsically related to debt and ability to pay one's debts. This has several meanings when you look at different scales of money.

An individual's debts are related to near-term life needs: making rent, putting food on the table, paying bills, paying for an education, and paying to assist friends and loved ones with each of those same things.

A local government has to use taxation and debt to take on major infrastructure projects and provide ongoing public services. The money represents some mix of the will of the taxpayers and creditors, plus any private interests brought on to finance a project.

At an international level, money represents the trade and economic competitiveness of the nation and is a mode of diplomatic influence and trust in the nation's stability and internal control. A country that wishes to import more goods will seek a stronger currency; one that wishes to pay off debts will probably inflate their way out. The spending of the nation is reflective of the size of the government relative to the private market, and so high public spending may "crowd out" private, but it can also bolster markets by giving them confidence in demand for goods or availability of labor.

And at each scale you can make cases for earmarking some things, pushing them up or down a level, or letting them be resolved through a general fund. That's the incentivization that drives the specifics of an economy. Most countries now agree that fire protection should be financed as a public good, for example, rather than having each resident contract for fire services. But with health care there is disagreement, with employment benefits there are disagreements, with education there are disagreements and so on.

Basically, UBI is a statement that some amount of the public trust should be redistributed as money rather than as a specific good. This puts a lot of flexibility into the hands of the taxpayer. The arguments against whether UBI at all tend to be either "save the little people from themselves" (while wealthy investors get a pass), or "we cannot afford it" (while larger organizations are bailed out on the regular) - and topics at this scale get entangled with national character too.

If in the USA one would ultimately want to evaluate the idea of UBI according to the Constitutional Framers' "life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness." Life - yes. Pursuit of happiness - yes. Liberty - up to interpretation, given the "money is debt" premise. In another country other principles would structure the test.

The article talks about UBI meaning getting money "just for being alive". But in the actual source[1], Pope Francis says:

> This may be the time to consider a universal basic wage which would acknowledge and dignify the noble, essential tasks you carry out. It would ensure and concretely achieve the ideal, at once so human and so Christian, of no worker without rights.

This is talking about a dignified, minimum living wage for doing the essential jobs humanity needs.

[1] https://movimientospopulares.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/...

Thanks for the link. It's an impressive sermon. Pope Francis says that "technocratic paradigms (whether state-centred or market-driven) are not enough to address this crisis or the other great problems affecting humankind." He's expressly talking to "you who are informal, working on your own or in the grassroots economy." I think Nathan's interpretation is correct, Pope Francis is not talking about raising the minimum wage, he's talking about a fundamental restructuring of our society.

Article author here. I don't get the sense that he's just talking about a living wage for marginal workers. That is a longstanding demand from the church, but the language here is different. To speak of "universal" and "basic" here is a clear nod to UBI of some sort, as are the references throughout to care work and activist work, which are never going to earn a wage in the labor market.

+1 on the point about hedging against technocratic solutions, however. He expands on that language a lot in Laudato Si. I should have highlighted that in the article. Unlike many Silicon Valley UBI advocates, he does not see this as a simple, algorithmic fix, but his emphasis is on the way it could help bring about cultural change, transforming what kind of work we value and orienting the economy toward a recognition of universal human dignity.

Will check back to chat more. Fun to see this show up in my HN feed!

NB: I'm getting intermittent cerst error on the domain. Working now, failed ~15 minutes ago.

Oh I didn’t realize this is the same America Magazine which Fr. James Martin is “editor at large” of. I’ve been wanting to ask him about the many points at https://www.churchmilitant.com/main/generic/fr.-james-martin... but haven’t found a way to contact him. They all seem valid and thus the magazine’s doctrinal position seems compromised, if it is in fact edited at the highest level by someone who dissents from immutable Catholic teachings. But I am a big fan of giving people a chance to explain or defend themselves, having many times been on the other side of misunderstandings myself.

His link to the actual letter of the Pope is very clear that he refers to laborers and wages and a Universal Basic Wage, not a Universal Basic Income given to all, including the idle. His criticism of your article is on point and warranted. Your response is not adequate, you merely restate your case that he has disproven using original documents.

It's possible that the Pope also supports UBI for the idle. His letter here does not support that claim though.

> It's possible that the Pope also supports UBI for the idle.

For the sick or those who otherwise can't work despite being willing to, sure. For those who willingly don't work, no. The Bible is super clear about this: "if a man does not work, let him not eat."

Man, there will be some weird pro-life stances on people should start getting paid...

"Why does not the pope, whose wealth is today greater than the wealth of the richest Crassus, build this one basilica of St. Peter with his own money rather than with the money of poor believers?"

- Martin Luther

Perhaps if companies actually paid taxes we could afford something like UBI ...

And churches!

My little company pays Corporation tax at 19% and obviously we hand on VAT at the relevant rate. We also do PAYE as needed etc.

What's your problem and how may I assist your UBI dream?

We have good news for you. You know that bigger rival company, who somehow make a similar product, and charge more for it, yet somehow don't pay any Corporation tax? Maybe they're paying interest on a "debt" to a company with a suspiciously similar name located somewhere sunny that seems to arbitrarily set the interest on the debt to exactly what might otherwise be their annual profit, resulting in zero tax... or they have to "license" their brand name from a company that somehow only owns that brand name, and only employs one accountant and a secretary in a tiny principality in Europe?

We'd like them to be on a level playing field with you. We can't guarantee this'll mean you win, but maybe them paying the same taxes you do (which will make a huge difference to the affordability of projects like UBI) would help you.

You are going against the entire human history of governments and taxation. Governments use tax incentives to (charitably) encourage desired behavior and (pragmatically) reward supporters. A clean tax code without these deductions takes significant power away from the government. It is extremely unlikely to every happen.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberation_theology#Towards_...

I value my freedom above any form of UBI. It just smells too much of 1984 to me.

I’d love to hear you detail what you see the connection between these two things is.

There's some recent SF touching on the subject; e.g.: "Proposition 23" by Efe Tobunko. Basically, the populace becomes dependent on such governmental support, and the threat of its withdrawal is used to stifle dissent and ensure conformity.

Wouldn't market prices reflect that everyone is now starting off on n amount of money?

Also, you're going quickly run into many of the problems current redistribution programs face. One of the big ones is how to deal with people that spend money irresponsibly.

Easier access to bankruptcy.

The main 'irresponsible spending' is interest and fees on loans, fines, 24 month contracts for unneeded stuff, etc.

Make the bankruptcy system far easier to use and take away the downsides, and then anyone with money trouble can go to a court, and walk out a free person, keeping their job and basic income, which should be sufficient to pay rental on a basic house and car.

Not much except for certain things (notably, land & housing among them) unless markets don’t actually work to increase supply in the presence of higher demand like they’re supposed to.

Probably we’d need Georgist policies or similar to keep all the money from just going to landlords, yes.

I they spend it irresponsibly then that's up to them. The aim should be that no-one has to live without food or shelter,etc from something other than their own choice. If everyone is getting the same money then there's less need to police people on spending it irresponsibly, because it's not taking money from tax payers and giving it to non tax payers to waste. The tax payers are also getting it.

What's the difference between UBI and a dividend?

A dividend isn't guaranteed. A dividend depends on the success of the underlying company. A dividend isn't a right. Just off the top of my head.

Laborem Execrens (1981) is another descendant encyclical of Rerum Novarum. It’s excellent reading.

John Paul II knew a lot about the failings of socialism and capitalism both, and oh boy was he interested in a yet more excellent way.

http://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/encyclicals/do...

Would those in the USA accept a tax where all income above $10,000 / year (around the global mean) was taken to enable global redistribution?

I don’t think anyone is suggesting that. It would probably just be another tax for high earners?

my point is that all citizens of US are high earners from a global perspective. Taxing USA-standard "high earners" wouldn't generate nearly enough funds for a global UBI (it probably wouldn't for a USA UBI either).

True but I think he meant each country does it’s own ubi.

He thinks places in Africa like the Congo should stay the same because there's no one rich there? No. That wouldn't make sense.

Incentives matter, abolish minimum wages, pay it as negative income tax to an employer, you still have to work for it. Wealthy kids a smart enough to look after themselves.

Fine, I'll employ myself.

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