Interesting how artists don't make enough money from their creations, so our solution is to make certain information illegal to share, rather than give them a universal basic income.
You can debate the merits of some work, you can debate the amount people are compensated for that work. But what is absolutely not debatable is that we actually need people to do work for us to contribute to function as a society. Some of that work that's absolutely necessary is both dangerous and nigh impossible to automate. Do we need another Starbucks? No, absolutely not. But we will still need places to be built, and infrastructure maintained. There's really no escaping that.
That's why it's a basic income. Enough to keep you housed, clothed and fed. Your clothes might be thrifted, your apartment small, and your diet mostly instant ramen, but your basic needs will be covered. Plenty of people would still work hard to get more than the basics.
Guaranteed housing, guaranteed food, guaranteed clothing. No work required. I agree with you, I think most people will still work with all of that taken care of. Because it's just basic.
That's what a universal basic income does. It's way simpler and more likely to succeed than a hundred different programs for everything people need. Studies show that poor people, when given money, don't misuse it, like some would have you believe. They use it on things they need, but otherwise couldn't afford, like housing, healthcare, car repairs, things like that. It's even good for the economy
I'm sure there are already answers to this question l, but wouldn't a basic universal income lead to some inflation/price rises?
I live in the most expensive city in my country and rent is insane. It's not about finding a cheaper apartment or a smaller one because there are none or you won't get them. They are not taking in a family of three into less than a three room apartment and sometimes even three room apartments are considered too small for a family with one little kid. And to be clear, if you are long term unemployed, the government pays for your housing. Theoretically. You still have to find a suitable apartment and there.are.none.
I would much rather have someone provide me guaranteed housing for free than to fear that my basic universal income will at some point not even be enough to cover my rent, even if it is just "basic". But to me, "basic" in this sense would equal survival. It would mean housing, food, healthcare. I much rather take these things directly than make use of a small amount of money that will always be too little and end up having to choose between the cheapest cereal or the cheapest bread because I cannot afford both this month. Money and freedom to spend it as you wish is great, but I just cannot imagine how this would work. Apartments won't magically keep their prices or appear out of thin air.
I'm sorry if this comment is too focused on housing, it is just the most anxiety evoking example I have. (And also we are moving in two weeks so maybe I am a bit preoccupied.)
It would lead to increased demand for goods poor people consume, and decreased demand for goods rich people consume. It’s a continual wealth transfer down the hierarchy.
In the short run the increased demand would probably lead to increased prices. In the longer run it would lead to more market investment, more production, more innovation, and by those two factors, lower prices.
Now if your basic income takes the form of newly printed money, that’s a whole new thing and would suck a lot.
It can be good, and there are parts of the developed world where public housing is not only abundant, but decent. And it has a cooling effect on the housing market, making all housing more affordable for everyone.
If we provide, decent, low cost housing to enough, everyone that needs housing prices to come down benefit.
That’s the crux of the matter. It’s easy to say “there’s no reason it has to turn out that way”, but there actually are some reasons for that to be the case. There’s a theory about how that works and that theory’s predictions hold up pretty good in reality.
More importantly than the theory (which involves modeling people as responding to incentives), imo, is the basic understanding that the world is far more complex than any person understands. This means that statements of the form “There is no X” aren’t very well founded.
Saying “There’s no reason that it has to be” is one of those statements, which asserts the non-existence of a thing, as if the entire space where that thing might exist has been thoroughly explored and mapped.
The way politics and society are presented in school, it’s often like a empty room. One could say “is there a chair in this room”? You look around the room. Potted plant, small rug, bicycle, no chair. Done.
But reality is more like a room of unknown size that’s absolutely full of stuff. You can’t see very far, you can’t inventory the room without massive undertaking to move all the stuff.
Saying “there’s no chair in this room” is less well-founded in that second room. It’s less wise to say that in that second room, where you can’t see everything.
Well, society is ultra complex. Group behavior is ultra complex. Construction projects are ultra complex. Politics is ultra complex. You shouldn’t just glance over all that complexity and say “nothing in there that behaves like X, no sir”.
So (a) some people think there are very concrete and predictable reasons why it has to be bad, and (b) others don’t know what reasons are operating, and accept that it’s beyond their comprehension, but look at the outcomes so far, and it certainly looks like there’s a reason it has to be.
The reason UBI is better than that is it still allows market forces to operate on those goods, improving them over time due to competition and innovation.
Also if someone wants to use their housing money for extra clothes instead and just couch surf, they should be allowed to do that. Granting money provides freedom of choice with it.
Who says the market can't operate there? Providing a basic version of anything doesn't mean an organization can't compete. They just have to compete with basic. Most people will want something better.
It'll increase demand, which should in theory increase wages for those jobs. A universal basic income is "basic" in the sense that it's the minimum to survive in society. There will still be plenty of people who want more and are therefore willing to do those jobs.
Except that people will only pay so much for a cup of coffee. So how much do you need to pay a retail employee to come back to work over what ubi pays and how much will the products rise in cost to off set that
Sounds like you just identified a business that shouldn't exist. If a company can't afford to pay people what they need to survive, and still make a profit, the company needs to change, or shut down. That's supposed to be the essence of the free market
And now think of the ripple effect of all the jobs lost when places like Starbucks go out of business and restaurants go out of business. Then construction sites and so on.
Yes people would want to still do those things. But how many people would want to wait on those people.
While thinking of that. Think of how much a waiter would want to get paid to do such a job when thier bill are already paid ? How about the cooks ? How about the people delivering the food to the restaurants, the bus Boys and so on. Then what does that do to the final bill and how many peoplenwill fund that palatable.
how much do you need to pay a retail employee to come back to work
Probably a lot less than you'd think. With UBI there's no need for a minimum wage so if you're offering a great work environment you could pay next to nothing for labor. If the job that needs done is inherently shitty you might have to pay more, but that's already how it is for quite a few things.
This, and also working part time would become a lot more feasible. I would imagine there would be quite a bit of pressure to improve working conditions as well, which wouldn't exactly be a bad thing. A lot more hours would be spent on things people consider meaningful, and bullshit jobs would have to be compensated appropriately, which to me feels like a win for society collectively.
One caveat though is that for abolishing minimum wages to be safe the UBI has to be high enough to be actually livable, and would likely be a target of constant politicking. A model I've been thinking about would be to set the level of UBI as a percentage of GDP, distributed evenly across the population, which to me would feel fair but may have practical issues I don't see. It would create a sense of everyone benefiting from collective success, which appeals to me.
I think you will find that people will leave low end jobs in mass. Those willing to stay will ask for salaries that are extremely high and then those on ubi will be able to afford even less than before it existed
Probably someone who sees a causal connection between unpleasant work and pleasant outcomes later.
I mean if work was an end unto itself it doesn’t make much sense to go do things you don’t feel like doing. But once you connect the present moment of facing unpleasantness to the future payoff of the work, it makes more sense.
Most office work for company conglomerate X? Completely useless to society. The whole of Wall Street? Completely useless to society. In fact, most jobs in any field which isn't STEM R&D are largely superfluous. So, what was your point again?
People will still work. UBI is enough that you're not on the street, not enough that you're living the high life.
Some people will go to school instead of working, and that's good. They'll get even better jobs than they would have otherwise, and give back way more to society in productivity and taxes.
Some people might be fine living the basic life that UBI affords, and who cares. Let them live their basic life. We can afford it.
Well when the store loses its workers, itll close. When the trucker stops trucking, food won't make it to the store. When the farmer doesn't farm, there will be no food.
You clearly haven’t. People don’t just sit at home and collect UBI. People are clearly addicted to consumerism, and that requires having a job. People also enjoy working.
You don’t have a critical mind and you aren’t discussing this in good faith because you clearly think if UBI was enacted that people would all become lazy and sit and home and do nothing. That you think this way shows everyone that you HAVENT done any research or reading on UBI.
Most wouldnt, but a significant percentage would. I think enough that you cant discount those people from any discussion on UBI.
In Australia we have social security and I know people who are 3rd generation jobless and they dont usually supplement their social security with a casual job, its usually drug dealing or other crime.
Im all for a realistic discussion on UBI but you have to examine how its going to impact all strata of society. Including the ones who will use the lack of any meaningful motivation to do better or be better people.
I promise you that if it comes down to having to sacrifice some work getting done as a result of there being UBI, the market is not going to trim “food production” from the set of projects getting done. It’ll be more like “pumpkin spice ASMR videos” that get the axe.
Like, you agree the market is a medium that transmits needs between people allowing them to negotiate effort ratios for different projects, no?
So given a market and a bunch of people who need to eat, how does that result in food not getting produced? It doesn’t make sense. Hunger is a motivating force. Hunger is an incentive.
Receiving UBI doesn’t remove the incentive to eat. And if there’s a food shortage then there’s profit to be made off producing food. The market still operates with UBI involved.
I'm not going to waste my time jumping on google and citing stufies that have showed that it isnt some magical cure all for the worlds Ills because you arent going to read them, or take my opinion onboard because its easier to claim that my sources are biased, I'm wrong and you're still right.
This video goes over multiple studies and meta analyses that show that, in every single case where it's been tried, social spending, including UBI, always pays for itself in the long run, and UBI specifically never leads to people just not working. It leads to people finding jobs more their style. And y'know something? The "undesirable" jobs still get done, because there are genuinely people that want to do them.
Have you met people? Get out of your bubble. Fucking hell, thats the daftest thing Ive ever heard, and I got an A in gender studies. (It was an elective, and I wanted to challenge my view that gender studies was bullshit, sue me)
Yeah. Most that I've met work hard to improve their lot, even the few I know who were born rich enough that they don't have to. Just because you'd be a lazy sack of shit if you could get away with it doesn't mean everyone else would.
UBI desn't mean that you stop working, it's just that everyone receives a share of money, at least enough so that you don't end up on the street if you end up without a job. Easier to bounce back. The rest is additional income on top of UBI.
Personally I'd get bored shitless if I didn't work, I need some fulfillment, a purpose. If having UBI gives more people a fair chance at achieving their life goals then I'm all for it.
The people you're thinking of, in terms of laziness are always going to exist no matter what. You know who else doesn't work and leeches of society? The oligarchs. The exact same people that are scared of UBI and will lobby as hard as possible to stop that from happening.
Also like, our society already does provide free food and shelter to people. All it asks is some basic niceties like “quiet after 11pm” or “don’t poop in the shower”.
I know. I’ve been homeless, been very well fed and very well protected from the elements, and well-clothed too, entirely for free.
People act like our society just lets people drop and that’s not true. We’ve got free resources out the wazoo for people.
But there are a lot of people for whom availability of resources isn’t the problem.
This is my way of saying that, even with UBI, there will be homeless people.
And conservatives will say “we give that guy $1000 a month and he sits there and shoots heroin in the park all day … I’m not giving him any more” and liberals will say “You know $1000 a month isn’t that much money and we should be offering free counseling”.
Then a decade later there will be that guy who shits on the park bench and rips smelly farts in his counseling sessions and doesn’t do the work.
As a society we’ve basically solved the problems that can be solved with free food and housing because … well because we have that as a feature of our society already,
One thing that makes UBI better than what we have now, is the fact it’s not a perverse incentive structure.
Right now all the free shit we give people is based on them “demonstrating need”. This means if they want to rise out of poverty, they need to go through a weird, unnatural zone on their work-to-benefit curve that’s flat, They do more work, and see no benefit.
Or if the program is really badly designed, it’s not just level it slopes down. Like you get a $200/mo raise, it puts you over a threshold, and you lose your $500/mo EBT benefits.
That kind of thing is toxic and evil. That’s like pushing crack on kids. Except instead of little identifiable crystals it’s at least easy to conceptualize saying “no” to, the dopamine-ruining substance is ethereal and takes the form of tables showing income thresholds in little pamphlets in government offices. Instead of a 10-second timeframe where you either hit that pipe or not, the game a person has to play with our welfare system has rounds lasting months at a time. It’s insidious and evil.
And if you’re in a position to receive this welfare, everyone on your side is encouraging you to take it.
And UBI doesn’t suffer from that mental-health-destroying, prefrontal-cortex-shrinking pattern. It’s giving with a truly open hand. It’s a ladder that doesn’t extract a price in bone density for each rung you climb.
Let's say you're a scummy piece of shit landlord. It's a bit redundant I know but just bear with me.
You're a scummy piece of shit landlord (SPOSL) and you know for a fact that every single one of your tenants suddenly can afford 2000 extra dollars per month. You're probably not going to get away with taking all of that, but you're a SPOSL, you're definitely going to try to get some.
You also know that housing is being treated as a commodity so your tenants don't have anywhere else to go, and that because all landlords are SPOSLs, you know they'll all be doing the same thing.
Suddenly rent goes up across the board. They only people safe are the people in fixed rate mortgages.
But they're only safe from that one particular kind of price gouging.
Unless you're on a very fixed contact, everything you pay monthly for suddenly got more expensive over night. Your Internet will be going up, your phone bill will be going up, maybe not immediately, but when you renew.
Any common household item built down to a price, basically anything that can shrinkflate, when everyone has more money, will inflate instead. Because they know that consumers have more to spend, and won't look at the price as closely as they used to.
Basically everyone, simultaneously, moves up on the doesn't spendability side. And so prices move to adjust accordingly.
UBI works in small scale experiments because small scale experiments don't have this effect. No one knows who's getting more money and the market can't adjust. But the market will adjust where it can.
I know it sounds nice, but it's not the golden ticket it's being made out to be.
Address healthcare, address housing, do it all independently of UBI so that hopefully it never becomes required.
To be clear I have absolutely no problem with guaranteeing basic needs are met, I think that's a great idea. UBI does not do that.
Another issue is that housing is perceived as an investment. There would have to be some policies to be put in place to avoid abuse for sure.
For example, have a public registry that lists the rental price history of each apartment.
Have a tenant board managed by the government, that handles disputes between the landlords and tenants.
Maximum raise allowed per year, indexed to the inflation, with some exemption if there is a major renovation that was done (with proper documentation)
If the landlord isn't fixing a major issue within reasonable time, the rent can be deposited into a bank account controlled by the tenant board and held until the repairs are considered as acceptable by the board.
Have the government provide monetary incentives to build more low-income apartments, and mandate that xx% of new construction is dedicated to those per year l, depending on the availability.
How about this as an alternative. Housing is guaranteed. Full stop. The only way to really do that is to build an assload government housing, and anyone who wants to live there, can. No questions asked. In fact it's assumed everyone will want the free apartment. One per family. Might be a lot of excess apartments going unused but I don't see that as a problem.
Food, also guaranteed. And not just cheese but meals full of good nutrients. You want it, just show up and collect it. Is it good, no maybe not. But it's available and no one is going hungry.
Healthcare, universally covered. No one is going in to debt to get their basic healthcare needs met. Cosmetics aren't but basic healthcare needs are.
No need for cash, because it's all taken care of. It's not going to be enough for most, no. But it's not like work won't still be available to anyone that wants it. Hell, wages probably go up as people who don't want to work no longer have to.
Eh... with how it is now.. people would just start claiming that the birth mark on their face makes them want to kill themselves and now magically it's a medically needed surgery for mental stability. It's the same logic used for gender affirming care in many places. You can't limit by no "cosmetic" surgeries.
Everyone doesn’t have more spending power under UBI; some people would be paying more in taxes than they’re getting back from the pool.
But yeah, if you give everyone in a certain group more money to spend, that’s more demand and hence higher prices assuming fixed supply.
So really, to avoid that issue with housing, you’d need to reduce friction to increasing supply. Maybe that means letting people build higher density housing without having to wait for the government to re-zone from low to high density. Or removing the minimum size on apartments, whatever.
Point is your market will adapt to the newly-super-profitable endeavor of landlording, by providing more housing.
Because as long as there’s any vacant housing, landlords are not free to price fix however they see fit. I mean they could if they were all in cahoots, but they’re not. They’re in competition.
Do we really need them more than doctors, plumbers, teachers, etc. though? While I'm for a UBI, I'm against it being enough to fully live off of for exactly this reason. The world doesn't need a bunch more popsicle stick art.
Not really. Basic income is - just that. Basic. It'll cover your necessities and put a roof over your head, but not much else
Id much rather continue working so that I can afford luxury items (my hobbies are as expensive as they are time consuming). I'd imagine most would feel the same.
Opponents of UBI all seem to have this bizarre notion that most people would be willing to take a big step down lifestyle wise to not have to work, but that doesn't mesh with how most people treat money.
How many people deliberately underemploy themselves just to have more free time, even if they could easily be making more money? Very few. And I'd wager that most in that category have lucrative enough careers that their "underemployed" is still making most people's normal income
That really just furthers the point that we need UBI in my mind.
The people who are making today more or less the same as what the UBI would be would have their income doubled overnight. And yeah, some will say fuck it and quit their jobs to just lounge around (though I imagine many will go back, ask anyone whose been out of work for a long time, it gets boring quicker than you might think), but I'd wager most will take that double income and run with it. Twice your takehome would be life changing for just about everybody. Hell, those who continue to work will probably wind up with more than double, because demand for those jobs will go up.
Jobs that are unpleasant or difficult will basically start actually getting paid what they're worth, because no one will be stuck in a "I have to do this or starve" situation.
And yes, the overall GDP probably will take a hit, because we won't be working our population to death, but productivity has skyrocketed over the last century, it's about time we start putting that fact to work for the actual people, instead of using it to extract record profits for the top 1%.
TL;DR - People will still work because working will still mean more money. Some won't, but that's fine. If jobs are having a hard time being filled, then employers will simply have to pay more to get them done, or explore ways to automate the parts people don't want to do
UBI is a separate concern from copyright being a dumb way of rewarding intellectual property.
Everyone should get UBI to reduce poverty and houselessness.
And separately, artists should get paid for their work, when it's valuable, regardless of whether or not UBI is in place.
And sometimes that value is immediately recognized at the time by the masses and can be measured in clicks and streams.
Sometimes it's only recognized by professional contemporaries and critics in how it influences the industry.
Sometimes it's not recognized until long after them and their contemporaries are dead.
Given computers and the internet, there is no technical reason that every single individual on the planet couldn't have access to all digital art at all times.
All of these things can be true, and their sum total makes copyright look like an asinine system for rewarding artists. It's literally spending billions of dollars and countless countless useless hours in business deals, legal arguments, and software drm and walled gardens, all just to create a system of artificial scarcity, when all of those billions could instead be paying people to do literally anything else, including producing art.
Hell, paying all those lawyers 80k a year to produce shitty art and live a comfortable life would be a better use of societal resources then paying them 280k a year to deprive people of access to it.
The biggest issue with UBI is that it will never work, the math just doesn't add up.
Where does the money come from? The government only really has one source of money and that is taxes, so to pay UBI it would either need to raise taxes or massive cut on other expanses.
Should a solution be found for 1) and everyone (universal means that everyone will automatically qualify for it, no questions asked) will be paid UBI then the prices for housing, food and all the other basic things will skyrocket because a) of the higher demand and b) because of the higher amount of money in circulation creating inflation.
The higher prices will mean that the amount of UBI money must be raised, which means we are back at 1)
Where does the money come from? The government only really has one source of money and that is taxes, so to pay UBI it would either need to raise taxes or massive cut on other expanses.
Debt is not a reliable money source, in the long run it is a huge money sink with payments and interests.
So yes, the only money source for governments are taxes.
Tax doesn't finance spending. That national debt is owed to no one. Money is created out of thin air, my friend, and always has been since fiat money was introduced. When the government spends, they just adjust the number on their account; they've come right out and admitted this.
"We can't afford that" is a lie. They can afford absolutely anything, because they own the money, and they own the debt in that money - it's a constructed fiction.
Printing large amounts of money out of thin air is a great way to turn a valuable currency into worthless Monopoly® money via inflation.
That is basic economics.
There are lots of examples for that in history.
Yes, but I did in the text that you answered too.
By the law of inference your answer was about printing money too, because my whole text was about that printing money out of thin air will create inflation.
I like the idea of a "Citizen's Dividend" funded from taxes on pollution, carbon Emmissions, etc. We can throw a wealth tax for billionaires in there too.
Taxes on pollution, carbon emissions etc. would raise the costs of living and would therefore mean that the UBI would need to be higher to accommodate for the higher costs.
Which means that a huge part of these taxes would be payed in proxy by the government.
Rendering it useless as a method to fund the UBI.
The costs for a UBI are just so enormous, and all on the shoulders of the working class, because those are the majority of tax payers.
If you have a million people, old, young, in between, and a working rate of 60% (because the other 40% are too old or too young or can't/doesn' t want to work) and pay everyone 1000$ as UBI.
That would mean that a billion dollars has to be payed by 600.000 people, so every working citizen has to pay 1667$ to receive 1000$ in return.
This means that working people don't get a UBI because they have to pay more then they get.
And those 1667$ taxes would only be for the UBI, meaning that the taxes would be much higher to pay for all the other costs that the state has.
This is a vast oversimplification. A UBI could replace a vast amount of existing welfare programs in a much more efficient way which would have a fraction of the overhead. There are tons of other proposals to fund a UBI such as a negative interest rate. Likely there would be many sources of funding, including money which now goes to existing wasteful welfare spending.
Ok, negativ interest rate sounds interesting and maybe doable.
It is something I have to read more about, I see a few issues but have not enough information yet.