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Comment by aerocapture | Hacker News Reader

Instead of asking ourselves which particular jobs are "bullshit" and which are not, maybe we should ask why we need or want "jobs" at all. If every citizen received some minimum universal basic income, what might we do with our time instead of going to jobs we hate?

I think the point might be that we've reached a state of technological progress where many of the functions of a modern civilization can be handled by a very few people. Maybe it's time to redefine what we mean by "work" and why we do it.

https://contributoria.com/issue/2014-12/543d1c2487628e9a6500...

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>"If every citizen received some minimum universal basic income, what might we do with our time instead of going to jobs we hate?"

I think you need to quantify what you mean by that. It seems that every time I hear this UBI idea being defended with a sentence similar to the one you made, the tone set implies that something "beneficial" will happen that does not because they go do jobs they "hate".

I.e. If we free ourselves from going to work we will... And then insert anything from "do art", "be creative", "come up with novel ways to improve the world", or something of the like.

(Feel free to correct me there, but that seems to be the implicit argument/idea behind that sentence you made)

Yes. If everyone had the privilege to laze around like I do, I can guarantee there would be more startups / art / culture.

> If every citizen received some minimum universal basic income, what might we do with our time instead of going to jobs we hate?

We might do amazing things. Then again, we might have a world where nobody scrubs toilets and lots of people make lousy paintings.

"What do I want to make/do?" and "what produces value for others?" are not always in sync. Having to sell your labor means there must be at least some link between supply and demand.

Perhaps we will just find that the wages paid for scrubbing toilets will increase, till we find that people are indeed willing to scrub toilets. Why shouldn't a job of that sort be well-compensated?

Universal basic income doesn't intrinsically mean less work being done. It just means different leverage in the negotiation process.

But it does mean that it's much easier for a person not to do anything that benefits others. There would certainly be people who say "I can get drinking money without working" and do nothing but drink. If you need to work to eat, it gives you some incentive to sober up.

I think people have a natural need to work and contribute things, but we also have laziness tugging at us. Enabling someone to waste their life is not doing them a favor; it impoverishes them in a way that lacking money alone cannot.

Wouldn't a UBI simply be inflationary? That is, rather than making 0 you make 1500 (say). But since everybody is making 1500, then it would be the same as making 0 again.

So unless we have strict blocks on pricing things, UBI seems nonsensical.

I've heard this argument several times before, but I've never understood the reasoning behind it. No matter how you look at it, a basic income is redistribution of wealth. If we finance a basic income by just printing money, then yes it would be inflationary, and the value of the basic income, along with the currency as a whole, would depreciate. But it certainly wouldn't be eliminated, and wealth would have been redistributed.

Printing money isn't the only way to finance a basic income, however. A much more sane approach is through effectivization, by eliminating bullshit jobs and (most) existing means-tested benefits, as well as increased taxation. There's nothing inflationary about this approach.

At the very least, it skews peoples' motivations for work. I.e. Do nothing and get 1500, or work as a low-wage say woodcutter/garbage man, and get 1600. You're effectively doing a shitty 9-5 job so you can get 100 (or whatever $X) more than the guy next door doing nothing all day.

People say that's liberating and "equality" for all, buy I say it's completely the opposite and directly unfair to a lot of people.

And now that I re-read your post about it being an inflationary scenario, it makes more sense. All of a sudden, you have a reduction in individuals willing to do hard/hateful labor for a small amount more than basic income. This reduces their supply, and thus the salaries go up. Essentially, it sounds like it would make 1500 the new 0 as you put it. Not sure where to follow that train of thought further, though.

Anyone care to continue it from there?

Yes, shitty jobs would actually pay well. That's hardly unfair is it? The labour market would become an actual free market, where prices are properly determined by supply and demand, not by "motivation for work", more aptly known as wage slavery.

There is some reduction in incentive to work, but the idea is that most people will still want more money so they'll keep working.

Also you're assuming people have the right incentives today. Is working two minimum wage jobs to make ends meet really what you want people to do?

This is really about changing the relative negotiating power between employers and employees. Having some fallback income makes it easier to take time off to go to school, start a business, or find a better job. Also it goes right back into the economy as revenue for some business, so it's hard to see how it can be bad for business.

The point of a universal income is that everybody gets it, employed or not. It's not an unemployment benefit. The garbage man brings in 3100.

It doesn't work that way. How could it possibly work that way? That would mean that the first item you buy each pay period would cost $1500 + its old price, and all other items were normally priced. Perhaps prices for all goods would rise, but you're still able to buy things, unlike the "making 0" scenario.

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