Comment by dasil003 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dasil003 | Hacker News Reader

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I think you're overweighting the relative influence BI can exert. Introducing BI as a tiny fraction of GDP does not make existing financial power structures disappear. Existing wealth will still wield the same influence it always has. There will be plenty of lobbyists to push back against corporate tax hikes, there will still be the usual capitalist incentives to start a business and increase production, the American people will still believe in upward mobility and the right of a business owner to make money. In short, I think you're imagining a slippery slope of a policy without any checks and balances where in fact there will be many. I could be wrong of course, but it's really rampant speculation on both our parts because humans don't really have an intuitive or historical understanding of how such a system would actually pan out in practice.

On balance it seems like a better risk than the current welfare and disability systems that dehumanize people and create a perverse incentive not to work in order to survive. If efficiency and automation trends continue some sort of wealth redistribution will become strictly necessary whether that is done through government policy, charity, or revolution. BI for its potential flaws doesn't look so bad compared to the alternatives.

"Introducing BI as a tiny fraction of GDP"

OK, yes, but what's going to keep it a tiny fraction of the GDP? The BI's natural "lobbying organzation" is the entire public... not even the entire voting public, but the entire public. No current structures have that characteristic. For almost the entire population, $10,000 is a lot of money. Even people making $150,000/year are going to still appreciate $10,000, and we're now talking well above median.

If there was a lobbying force large enough to actually countervail the entire public's interest in voting themselves more money, I'm pretty sure it would not be hard to drum up a mob against them.

As I understand it, Basic Income's distinguishing characteristic is that everybody gets it. You can't use our experiences with things that well less than half the population gets to judge the effect it will have on voting patterns.

You can't just think about the first year of Basic Income's implementation. You have to think about the second year. You have to think about the tenth year. You have to think about the 18th year, when people who have never lived in a regime other than having BI exist start voting themselves. Are they going to understand that it's a bad idea to listen to the politicians promising to make it larger? Because there will be such politicians. Probably all of them, honestly.

> OK, yes, but what's going to keep it a tiny fraction of the GDP? The BI's natural "lobbying organzation" is the entire public...

Er, no, its not. The natural lobbying organization is the people whose have an expected positive net utility from an increased BI. That's not the entire public, as both increased public debt and increased taxation have negative consequences for members of the public. (And as, empirically, its been shown that increased income has a declining, and beyond a certain point, immeasurably small contribution to experience utility.)

> You have to think about the 18th year, when people who have never lived in a regime other than having BI exist start voting themselves. Are they going to understand that it's a bad idea to listen to the politicians promising to make it larger?

Sure. They'll probably understand the effects of BI level changes a lot better than people in the first year do.

A BI is generally associated with a flat tax to pay for it. Aka everyone gets 10,000 a year tax free but after that all income is taxed at ~20% to pay for it pluss whatever else the government needs, net result increasing the BI costs everyone making over around 50k per year more money than they gain. However, the good thing is it's revenue neutral for the person near 50k. And adds 5k to someone making 25k per year so there is no disincentive to work a low paying job to like with the current social programs.

> The BI's natural "lobbying organzation" is the entire public... not even the entire voting public, but the entire public. Even people making $150,000/year are going to still appreciate $10,000, and we're now talking well above median.

Then why couldn't we get universal health care passed through decades and decades of attempts?

I think you are assessing the human psychology factor incorrectly. The US population is not a lobbying organization. Just because something is in their interests does not make people rally behind a cause. A lobbyist has an agenda, but the very existence of BI does not make it everyone's agenda to increase it. The person making $150k has better things to worry about than exerting pressure to increasing BI, and in fact, will likely be a business owner and someone that is very receptive to the argument that raising taxes will hurt production. Similarly, raising BI is not a cause that fuels people's competitive spirit and drive for meaning. Certainly there will be a socialist contingent that does have that agenda, but I don't see why you are so convinced that it will inevitably become a runaway train.

> You can't use our experiences with things that well less than half the population gets to judge the effect it will have on voting patterns.

Exactly what I said previously—we're both speculating.

Your argument underlie some implicit assumptions, which are that (a) a BI that increases over time has negative consequences, and (b) these consequences would be invisible to the people.

Those seem some pretty strong assumptions to me, and they deserve to be further justified.

Why do you actually think that making the BI larger is a bad idea? And why do you think that people will disagree / not add one and one together?

If you think that increasing the BI requires tax increases, well, there will be people complaining about the tax increases, and your argument goes poof.

If you think that increasing the BI causes higher inflation, then either people will decide that having a higher BI is worth it, or there will be people complaining about the higher inflation, and your argument goes poof.

>The BI's natural "lobbying organzation" is the entire public...

I think you're misunderstanding the nature of lobby and power in the United States. It doesn't matter the size of your lobby, only the size of their wallet. An entire public who are only getting BI are going to have virtually no financial power to wield.

Also, your speculation ignores the fact that the "red states" are also the largest benefactors of welfare. It wouldn't surprise me at all to see a large percentage of the public saying that they themselves should be getting less BI because it's "socialism" or some such nonsense.

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