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Comment by js8 | Hacker News Reader

"I don't think everyone except the extremely wealthy being on basic income is ideal or better than what we have now"

Seriously? One sixth of the U.S. population is food-insecure. You don't think that basic income would fix that?

By putting almost everyone else on basic income because they're jobs were automated? How much would that need to be? Even if it's enough for basic needs, you're relegating most of the population to a low class status with limited options for improving their situation.

Food insecurity could be fixed now if it wasn't a politically divisive issue. There's no reason to believe UBI won't be even more divisive.

I don't understand what you're saying. I agree that food insecurity could be fixed; it's a redistribution problem. UBI is a way to fix it.

But I don't see how we are forcing people to be low class with UBI (as opposed to having them unemployed or doing precarious work that doesn't pay even the basic needs).

How much UBI would be needed for most of the population to live comfortable middle class lives? UBI isn't going to be acceptable if it reduces the middle class to just above the poverty line. People want more than just having enough to eat.

So while it may solve the problem for people who are food insecure, it will create a problem for those who were better off with good paying jobs. You can't just reduce 95%+ of the population to simply meeting basic needs and not facing serious societal discontent.

The US GDP per capita is 94k a year. The average salary is 69k a year; this is a proxy for the price of labor. So you can easily have 20k UBI for everyone in the US, the country is rich enough.

The problem with UBI is that it's presuming the economic system mostly remains as it is (supply and demand -> buying and selling), but the suppliers will merely keep increasing their prices to maintain status quo. Unless costs are also heavily regulated, which is tangential to the implementation of UBI. In the end the only thing UBI does is delay the inevitable crash of the economic system. Maybe.

No, it's not a problem. The suppliers cannot keep increasing the prices to match UBI, because they will face increased competition from people who now have other options (more freedom) thanks to UBI.

For example, let's say I buy vegetables. With UBI, I might spend some time to grow my own. Or buy from a neighbor who expands his production.

It's true that price of labor might rise with UBI, but that can only rise to the share of labor as input. It will also force to replace labor-intensive products with capital-intensive (automation), which is a good thing.

Basic income sounds like welfare dressed up, where is the dignity of work, where is the independence from dependence? You shouldn't bite the hand that feeds you, sounds like less freedom to me, which is why I think the oligarchy is the one the earnest proposers of the idea

You should ask the billionaires about "dignity of work", they are the welfare queens. And also about "independence" on the people who work for them. What you're saying is just classist prejudice.

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