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Comment by marknutter | Hacker News Reader

I see it differently. If people are receiving a basic income their performance at a job becomes much less important. Why care if you do a good job if losing it doesn't really impact you that negatively?

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In two words: Maslow's hierarchy. [1]

The best places I know have people who are working from higher-layer motivations, and corporate cultures that encourage that by treating people as adults, supporting them, giving them wide latitude to get things done, et cetera.

The worse are the opposite. The people there are desperate for money to survive. The corporate cultures are disempowering, controlling, contemptuous.

It's commonly thought in the US that these are just two different sorts of people, the high-class creatives who should be given latitude, and the low-class proles who must be controlled like surly teens if they are to get anything done.

But that's not true. For example, Toyota's great success comes mainly from treating factory workers with deep respect. [2] And it works here, too. This American Life tells the story [3] of Toyota turning GM's worst plant into one of the best. Same people, just a different culture.

So if people are receiving a basic income, jobs will have to shift toward the model that motivates people through the higher end of Maslow's hierarchy. Money will be part of why people show up, but it would not longer be the only reason.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs [2] Liker's Toyota Kata is a great book on this. [3] http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/403/n...

Because you will still have to compete for desirable jobs.

For menial labor, most of it can/will be automated.

For undesirable jobs that can't be automated away, employers will have to make the jobs desirable. One way to do that will be to increase the pay, but, that is not the only means for doing so. There are many things employers can do to make employment more desirable that have a low or zero net cost. I'd even argue that some of those things would save money/resources in varying amounts even absent the pressure to do so.

One very good and interesting effect that I predict is that individuals whose employment places them in ethical dilemmas will no longer have as much pressure for compliance with potentially unethical demands, since the entirety of their livelihood no longer depends upon compliance.

He says people will have less motivation to improve performance because they can afford losing the job, you disagree. Then you go on and say that people will have less pressure to comply with unethical demands because they can afford losing the job...

Yes, when your sole motivation to work isn't to provide for the necessity of survival, you can use your influence in more egalitarian ways.

Presumably, people would adjust their way of living to incorporate the extra income from their job so losing the job would affect their way of life. Many people today can't "afford" to change to a lower paying job because their use to the lifestyle their current job affords them. For example, leaving industry to do a PhD can be difficult, even though the pay for a PhD student should cover basic expenses.

It would impact you negatively, it just won't lead to utter ruin and homelessness.

I think i read somewhere that money isn't the best motivator to get people to do the best work they can. And in general even with children they say positive enforcement should be preferred to punishment. So maybe someone doing a job cause they want to, to make more money and have a better standard of living, will get the job done better than someone being forced to do it cause otherwise he will be living on the streets. In my experience the main predictor of the quality of a job is weather the person wants to do it, or has to. The job is the same, it's the perception that's different.

hn commenter on job satisfaction threads: I'm motivated by challenges and working with similar minded people, not money.

hn commenter on minimum wage threads: everyone work for minimal sustenance.

hn commenters: Look at all the world problems us tech folks can solve!

bay area employees: Look how good we are at pushing ads on people!

If you're less concerned about supporting yourself, you can spend time on problems that are important but aren't profitable.

> Why care if you do a good job if losing it doesn't really impact you that negatively?

That statement says a lot about how you think; everyone is not like you. Many people take pride in what they do and do it well regardless of compensation, it's not about the money, it's about the fulfillment one gets from a job well done.

Yes in some cases, like software, I agree that positive motivation naturally exists. Negative motivation may also naturally exist. For example, if you enjoy your work, and the work is desirable, you'll be anxious about losing it. However, I wonder whether it's quixotic to think this applies to all types of work.

I would love to see a small country like Switzerland incubate this policy.

It's not about the work, it's about the people. People can take pride in doing things well despite it being boring or menial. Not everyone does shit for effort just because they don't like the task. I've done all kinds of work, from door to door sales to dishwasher to soldier to police officer to irrigating cotton to programming; everywhere I go I've met lazy bums who half ass everything and proud people who do good work regardless of the task, it's the people, not the job.

I think this shows you are disconnected from how the world really is outside of fairly small bubble, just being honest.

Recognizing reality does not mean that you personally have some fundamental flaw in how to view work.

My friend, you're in the bubble.

How am I in a bubble? You've got to be kidding me. I mean what you're suggesting is ludicrous idealism. You think everyone views work the same as you. I suppose you think everyone also shares the common HN view of a total lackl of interest in money for anything other than the most basic needs.

If you believe this utter nonsense then you have not seen much of the world.

I do not mindlessly ascribe my value system to the rest world, you have to take the world for what it is and not what your quixotic idealism would have you believe.

Show me where I said everyone! Now take your foot out of your mouth, learn to comprehend what you read and not put words in my mouth I didn't say, and act like an adult. Your rant has no connection to anything I actually said.

Let's presume you have a job, rather than being freelance or a founder: Would you continue to do well at it if it was, say, 60% of your income rather than all of it?

I think that the less the job income affected my bottom line, the less I would care about performing well at it. If it was 10% of my income I would care even less. After all, I'd rather be working on my own ideas than someone else's.

If you are a freelancer doing one job a month, each one accounts for less than 10% of your income. Where do you draw the line? Do you do a shitty job for a few of them?

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