I would be happy to give up half my income if I knew it was being used to support students trying to learn engineering or new technology, or help a small family through a rough time, or pay for some fresh grad to get a broken bone set--especially if I knew that that safety net existed for me as well.
It's time to start embracing the fact that as a civilization we've come beyond the point where we're scrabbling like mad to shake loose the resources for existence, and instead we can now start actually trying to make people, everyone, safer and happier and more actualized.
What if it were used to support students trying to learn intersectional gender theory, or help a small family replace their year-old phones, or pay for some fresh grad to sit on their couch and play videogames?
I'm not trying to be provocative, it's just that you're thinking about this in the wrong way. You can't associate it with any uses that you may think beneficial or worthwhile. You need to accept that it's no-strings-attached money, otherwise you're just going to be disappointed.
If they want to learn intersectional gender theory, more power to them--after a time, I imagine they'll tire and move onto other, more useful pursuits. Ditto videogames and phone replacement...you can only be a consumer whore for so long before you start to feel that there's something else out there.
I don't mind that it's no-strings-attached money, because I might myself want to blow my allotment on a fleeting pleasure someday.
We need to give up this "keeping up with the Joneses nonsense".
I've met plenty of people who have been happily sitting around, smoking weed and playing video games all the time, and showing no sign of stopping as they barrel into their 40s.
Ok, so let's go with your assessment, that life-long slackers are indeed quite few. What happens when being a life-long slacker becomes acceptable in the culture (or as it might start out, in some subculture)? If slacking makes its way into culture, and becomes more accessible, isn't that potentially quite a big threat to the prosperity of future generations?
Legal and funded does not mean acceptable in the culture. It's legal to go about naked in many places, but it's not often done, because it's not acceptable in the culture.
Welfare already exists and while the lazy scrounger stereotype definitely exists, I feel it's worth that overhead to take care of vulnerable people and those in hard times.
Why would it be a threat? We've multiplied individual worker productivity by fantastical amounts. I think it's vastly more likely that we will have more people who want to work than meaningful jobs in which to employ them.
And why shouldn't they be able to do so? With a guaranteed income they would still be actively participating in the economy and whatever work niche they had inhabited before would be freed up for more motivated individuals to perform.
Win win.
Most assuredly some will, that's to be expected. If given a similar option I'd mothball my career over the course of six months and spend $n years engaging in unprofitable creative pursuits and maybe travel.
But they wouldn't actually be participating, they'd just be a middle man that takes a small cut to support their own life without providing anything useful in return (aka a parasite)...
The good part is that it looks like most people wouldn't just do nothing all day long, they would contribute in one way or another...
Until we have an easy/efficient way of identifying such folk though (those who are truly capable vs those who are disabled/incapable) the most efficient solution is probably something like a minimum basic income.
Is there a lot of demand at the registrar's office for intersectional gender theory courses? I haven't heard of strong demand in that subject, but I normally avoid administration buildings.
So why don't you give up half of your income to a family or group of students who are struggling?
Do you feel more confident that a government entity would do a better job at picking a family or students? Or would you only want to do it if everyone at your income bracket was also doing it?
The genius of the minimum guaranteed income, and the reason that it could possibly appeal to both liberals and libertarians is because in this case it does precisely the opposite of what you're afraid of: the government doesn't pick anything.
They give it to everybody. If you think that the government does a poor job of allocating the absolutely colossal amounts of money currently spent by social programs, or you recognize that trying to "do a good job" and prevent fraud, and all the other social engineering requires a vast, wasteful bureaucracy, then this is an interesting option.
This is a program that eliminates extreme poverty, but requires almost no infrastructure. You'd only need to verify that recipients are citizens and that they file their taxes. Since you can abolish Social Security, a stripped down social security bureaucracy, which already prevents people who haven't paid into social security from receiving benefits, could take over that task.
It could allow one of the largest and most sweeping reductions in the size of government in our lifetimes.
And if you believe in freedom, but also want to live in a country where people don't have to beg for food, then this is your best bet. You trust people to make their own decisions about what benefits them and their family. You don't discourage work or enterprise.
I think it's a political long shot of epic proportions, but also a great idea.
Agreed, and it could effectively counter the increasing concentration of wealth that increasing automation in a pure capitalistic society would inevitably bring.
The fact is, our .gov is doing a pretty shitty job as far as social contracts go, and the incentives for playing nice only exist once you've bought into the thing wholesale and are doing quite well for yourself.
Given the way we treat felons, the poor, and the ill I'm rather surprised things aren't boiling over sooner.
The linked article mentions cuts in other social welfare programs as one of the risks of a guaranteed basic income. Many who promote guaranteed basic income do not think it should replace our existing programs.
> Many who promote guaranteed basic income do not think it should replace our existing programs.
I have never seen anyone advocate for UBI who expressed any position other than support for using it to replace, at a minimum, means-tested poverty support programs, and generally they want it to replace many other targeted social benefit programs that currently provide services, direct subsidies for selected purchases of goods and services, or indirect subsidies through tax credits and deductions for purchases.
The usual argument for UBI is that it eliminates the most of the administrative overhead and duplication of function in the multiple programs it would replace, as well as replacing the perverse incentives that occur with means-testing.
Can you cite any BI proponents who explicitly say that it shouldn't replace existing benefits programmes? Speaking for myself -- and every other BI activist I've ever read or heard of -- I certainly think that it should replace the vast majority of existing benefits, as well as minimum wage.
If there is no safety net, I can't really give away my money, because I'm worried about what will happen in the future if for some reason I'm unable to work. Or if my brother is unable to work, or if my parents have severe problems. If I pay taxes in a social market economy, on the other hand, I can be confident that I'm also covered, and so are they, like everyone else is. Therefore there is no need to hoard piles of money for yourself and family (modest savings are still prudent).
And in any case, I don't think a handful of people donating to charity is a serious systemic solution to inequality and poverty. For one thing, it fails to give a guarantee of a safety net, which is what's needed to give people a believable backstop. For another thing, there's a bit of an adverse selection problem: people who get rich retroactively decide they have no need for the existence of a safety net, and don't want to pay for one, because poorer people are lazy/stupid/etc.
I did move from California to Denmark, which is in a way putting my money towards what I'd like to see more of (due to visas/citizenship/etc. this is not equally easy for everyone). I now pay more taxes, and in return I am part of a more social-democratic system.
>I did move from California to Denmark, which is in a way putting my money towards what I'd like to see more of (due to visas/citizenship/etc. this is not equally easy for everyone). I now pay more taxes, and in return I am part of a more social-democratic system.
And, IIRC, Denmark rates much, much higher on social mobility than the US.
Presumably, he is interested in a solution to the class of problems, not to an individual instance of the problem. Giving up half your income in taxes in his method is a proposed solution to the class of problems. Giving up half your income when no one else is is a proposed solution to a single instance of the problem.
And with universal basic income, recall that there is no 'picking' performed.
To me the first-order effect is much less valuable than the second-order effect of living in a society where everyone knows a safety net exists (e.g. reduced crime).
If your going to talk about a socialist country you may have a point. But unfortunately I think your going to find you dont have as much evidence as you thought you did, should you do some research.
The most productive level of intellectual growth in the history of mankind has consistently come out of groups of people who have been 'freed' from the burden of worrying about their 'next meal' so to speak. From renaissance era patronage through to the modern trends you see with the flow of capital in California.
Socialized != Socialist.
A centrally planed socialist economy has no place for entrepreneurship at all, ergo it will be suppressed and not flourish. A socialized economy is one where all citizens are invested into the social fabric of society, for instance I have a level of free health care here in Australia, but I choose to work and pay for a higher level of medical care and I am free to do so. This is a socialized system, a socialist one would deny my right to chose a higher standard via some logical argument about the higher standard I want to pay for being excess capacity that should be redistributed to all.
I hope this brief illustration helps clarify some things to anyone else that might be having trouble seeing a clear difference between socialist and socialized.
> Or would you only want to do it if everyone at your income bracket was also doing it?
I think this is general answer to this question (at lest it's mine). It's similar to prisoner dillema: I am happy to agree to rules forcing cooperation but in absence of those I won't cooperate that happily (reasons I think are easy to imagine and I've just seen that one poster did great job explaining those).
It's not "I want to give away half my money", it's, "I want to live in a society where all people give away half of their money, and of course I am willing to be subject to that rule myself."
The purpose of government, if it can be said to have a purpose at all, is to cover those items where we're better off doing them but they wouldn't happen on their own due to various game theory considerations or just plain transaction costs.
> I would be happy to give up half my income if I knew it was being used to support students trying to learn engineering or new technology, or help a small family through a rough time, or pay for some fresh grad to get a broken bone set--especially if I knew that that safety net existed for me as well.
You can do this right now, without having to set up any controversial and potentially corruptible political programs, and have a greater certainty that the funds you supply are actually going to the purposes you support.
I don't understand the mindset that these goals should only be pursued through coercive politics.
It's time to start embracing the fact that as a civilization we've come beyond the point where we're scrabbling like mad to shake loose the resources for existence, and instead we can now start actually trying to make people, everyone, safer and happier and more actualized.