Why a Universal Basic Income Would Be a Calamity

[Independent voter]

I know basic income has a lot of fans on this forum, this article points out some flaws with basic income. It uses Saudi Arabia as an example of basic income causing problems, the author says basic income has created people who are highly resistant to work. I can see that happening.

Many of America's tech leaders, Zuckerberg, Gates, etc have called for basic income recently.





http://luxlibertas.com/why-a-univers...be-a-calamity/

Leading voices in the tech industry—from Mark Zuckerberg to Sam Altman —are warning that increased automation risks leaving an unprecedented number of Americans permanently unemployed. In response, many concerned Silicon Valley luminaries have called for a universal basic income, or UBI. Guaranteed income from the government may seem like the easiest way to address long-term unemployment, but UBI fixes only the narrowest and most quantifiable problem joblessness causes: lack of a reliable income. It completely ignores, and may exacerbate, the larger complications of mass unemployment.'

Finland has been testing a basic income for 2,000 of its unemployed citizens since January, and UBI proponents say the Nordic country is providing an example for the U.S. It will be interesting to see the Finnish results, but Americans shouldn’t read too much into the outcome of a small-scale, early-stage trial. Look instead to Saudi Arabia, which for decades has attempted the wholesale replacement of work with government subsidies. Perhaps more than half of all Saudis are unemployed and not seeking work. They live off payments funded by the country’s oil wealth.

And what has Saudi Arabia’s de facto UBI created? A population deeply resistant to work. Efforts by the Saudi government to diversify the economy have been hamstrung by the difficulty of getting Saudis to trade in their free income willingly for paid labor. Regular citizens lack dignity while the royal family lives a life of luxury. The technocratic elite has embraced relatively liberal values at odds with much of the society’s conservatism. These divisions have made the country a fertile recruiting ground for extremists.

It’s true that Saudi Arabia has a host of other social problems. For one, it is ruled by a hereditary monarchy and a strictly enforced set of religious laws. Yet the widespread economic disempowerment of its population has made it that much harder for the kingdom to address its other issues. Don’t expect the U.S. to fare any better if divided into “productive” and “unproductive” classes.

At the heart of a functioning democratic society is a social contract built on the independence and equality of individuals. Casually accepting the mass unemployment of a large part of the country and viewing those people as burdens would undermine this social contract, as millions of Americans become dependent on the government and the taxpaying elite. It would also create a structural division of society that would destroy any pretense of equality.

UBI supporters would counter that their system would free people to pursue self-improvement and to take risks. America’s experience over the past couple of decades suggests that the opposite is more likely. Labor Department data show that at the end of June the U.S. had 6.2 million vacant jobs. Millions of skilled manufacturing and cybersecurity jobs will go unfilled in the coming years.

This problem stems from a lack of skilled workers. While better retraining programs are necessary, too many of the unemployed, or underemployed, lack the motivation to learn new skills. Increasingly, young unemployed men are perfectly content to stay at home playing videogames.

UBI would also weaken American democracy. How long before the well-educated, technocratic elites come to believe the unemployed underclass should no longer have the right to vote? Will the “useless class” react with gratitude for the handout and admiration for the increasingly divergent culture and values of the “productive class”? If Donald Trump’s election, and the elites’ reactions, are any indication, the opposite is likelier.

Rapid technological advancement is already presenting American workers with unprecedented difficulties. Facing this challenge is going to require creative approaches from the government and the private economy. UBI is a noble attempt. Perhaps it could work as only a supplement to earned income. But as currently envisioned, UBI addresses the material needs of citizens while undermining their aspirations.

In the same Harvard commencement speech in which Mr. Zuckerberg called for a basic income, he also spent significant time talking about the need for purpose. But purpose can’t be manufactured, nor can it be given out alongside a government subsidy. It comes from having deep-seated responsibility—to yourself, your family and society as a whole.
Silicon Valley’s leading innovators should understand this better than anybody. In an era when civic participation in all forms is falling, employment is for many the last great equalizer. It is worth preserving.

[Kelathos]

$1,000 per month, per person, is not a lot of money. It pads and makes up for joblessness, it does not replace the value of any good job. Also, robots are poised to make unemployment skyrocket. For the remainder of this century, millions of job positions (in the US alone) will be systematically eliminated each decade. UBI must happen. Without it we'll be jumping out of an airplane without a parachute.

[Doctor Amadeus]

Yeah Written by the guy who got his ass booted from for being an idiot right?

Well firstly basic income wouldn't be a calamity because in almost every modern nation it is almost virtually assured, although piecemeal the truth is we are already spending a certain amount towards everyone, the homeless and needy to those we place or house, feed and cloth in prison.

Holding out a fish for a man to lean to do fishing is bullshit, because it completely misses the point that the man fishing is going to have to eat at some point or die. It also assumed in error stupid shit like regardless to the facts of whatever intellect or low aims one might have or ability to achieve. Nobody means to be homeless, poor, or a criminal.

Those things happen through a serious of choices, but them stem from ones own ability to problem solve and have the over all capacity to learn and seek out more than one option.


This pretentious bullshit, written by a man who's all around perspective is unqualified and seriously flawed is laughable, especially in the face of reality. It also relies on the stupidity of people who are already convinced for the wrong reasons to be against this out of unrealistic fears.

[Taso]

I support the original concept of what the founding fathers wanted which is a meritocracy based country. You rise and fall based on skill. You work hard you get more, work less the reverse comes true. Middle class is shrinking simply because wealthy are marrying wealthy on the idea of wealth preservation and I don't blame them. If we could break the idea of wealth preservation and enable more open marriage of different classes, social mobility would actually work and then we would not need high taxes.

[nycnyc88]

Ah, socialism again.
This money would have to come from somewhere and there are only 2 choices:
1. Tax productive citizens (redistribution, because you cant tax those who dont produce anything which also makes laughable when public officials (such as police and countless "pant farters (as we used to say in the USSR) on all levels of federal, state and muni governments) say they also pay taxes. What they often forget is that their very salaries are paid from taxes that PRODUCTIVE people pay to fund the entire gig)
2. Print this money out of thin air (prices will simply rise due to inflation resulting from the influx of "money backed by nothing". and adjust at the higher level essentially making the extra money received worth nothing in purchasing power.

In the soviet USSR we had a great saying - the only thing free is cheese in a mousetrap.

[Ivanstone]

Perhaps more than half of all Saudis are unemployed and not seeking work. They live off payments funded by the country’s oil wealth.

Saudi Arabia does not have UBI. They have bribing the population to ignore the fact that their country is a shit hole. How do you think SA survived the Arab Spring?

This problem stems from a lack of skilled workers. While better retraining programs are necessary, too many of the unemployed, or underemployed, lack the motivation to learn new skills. Increasingly, young unemployed men are perfectly content to stay at home playing videogames.

Maybe if the US didn't have a major political party that either views education strictly as a commodity or outright despises it, then maybe there wouldn't be an issue with job training. Equal opportunity starts with a quality public education system.

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1. Tax productive citizens (redistribution, because you cant tax those who dont produce anything which also makes laughable when public officials (such as police) say they also pay taxes. What they often forget is that their very salaries are paid from taxes that PRODUCTIVE people pay to fund the entire gig)
.

And what do these unproductive poors do with their redistributed gains? Oh, that's right. They spend it. On food, shelter, clothing, maybe a little bit of entertainment. That money doesn't disappear, it immediately gets kicked back into the system.

[Lahis]

It will definitely be interesting to see what countries will do with the millions of unemployed when automation kills most jobs.

[StayTuned]

Hmm maybe this will be an interesting read....

It uses Saudi Arabia as an example

Well, I guess not.

[lokithor]

$1,000 per month, per person, is not a lot of money. It pads and makes up for joblessness, it does not replace the value of any good job. Also, robots are poised to make unemployment skyrocket. For the remainder of this century, millions of job positions (in the US alone) will be systematically eliminated each decade. UBI must happen. Without it we'll be jumping out of an airplane without a parachute.

you say 1k per person, and just where are we to get this magical 4 trillion dollars?

[Boricha]

I support the original concept of what the founding fathers wanted which is a meritocracy based country. You rise and fall based on skill. You work hard you get more, work less the reverse comes true. Middle class is shrinking simply because wealthy are marrying wealthy on the idea of wealth preservation and I don't blame them. If we could break the idea of wealth preservation and enable more open marriage of different classes, social mobility would actually work and then we would not need high taxes.

Supporting an impractical 300 year old ideology because it's nostalgic is not good politics. The founding fathers didn't consider AI that could perform any human job faster and more efficiently, or the extreme levels that capitalism could reach and block people from rising to the top. Basic income is an inevitable necessity in the coming decades for those who are not already very wealthy. In regards to the article, basic income doesn't inherently mean less people willing to work. It opens people up to pursue paths that they would otherwise be unable to do in fields that the current economy may not support. UBI is still in it's infancy, so there are going to be countries who implement it horribly and watch it fail, but we either figure it out or do away with currency all together.

[nycnyc88]

And what do these unproductive poors do with their redistributed gains? Oh, that's right. They spend it. On food, shelter, clothing, maybe a little bit of entertainment. That money doesn't disappear, it immediately gets kicked back into the system.

Economics 101, how basic inflation works. Lets define scarce as something that requires "positive energy input" to produce (such as skill, materials, labor)

When 3 people with 1 dollar each chase a scarce good, the price of good becomes $1.
When 3 people with 3 dollar each chase a scarce good, the price of good becomes $3.

While each person feels like he became $2 richer, in reality what really happened is that the money simply became more diluted and lost purchasing power since it now requires more of this money to buy the same goods.

As i said absolutely nothing in this world that requires human input to produce is free, which is presicely why people in power (who dont know how to produce jack shit) want to steal it from the productive class and redistribute it to themselves (mostly) while throwing a bone to the poor to justify themselves.

[aviger]

See my view of UBI is that it's necessary when there just isn't enough work (i.e when robots take over even menials tasks like fast food, cleaning etc)
and the whole idea is you don't HAVE to work. it's not a "low" amount to make you want a better job.
The thing is in most future ideas/stories where it works the reason it works is we have cheap labor to replace expensive humans and some kind of cost free or VERY low cost energy production.
Right now we just aren't advanced enough to make it work.
Plus theres no shitty red/blue political thing going on :P

[PosPosPos]

Well, it IS a calamity for the alt-right, because apparently people having enough to live on is a horror for them.

Then again, you can name anything at all that is good in this world, like cute animals or sharing and caring for your neighbours; but to the alt-right it's like Armageddon.

[Video Games]

You can bet your ass if they paid me without having to work i would. Neet 5ever

[Varitok]

You can bet your ass if they paid me without having to work i would. Neet 5ever

You would work because its not a lot of money, Its a small amount as floating sum to keep you above being poor and able to live a normal life.

There is already evidence of it actually working here, when tested in a working town in Manitoba in the 70's. Quality of life went up massively but then the conservatives (Of course they came along, right wingers love to make people die from overworking) ended it abruptly.

[Doctor Amadeus]

Ah, socialism again.
This money would have to come from somewhere and there are only 2 choices:
1. Tax productive citizens (redistribution, because you cant tax those who dont produce anything which also makes laughable when public officials (such as police and countless "pant farters (as we used to say in the USSR) on all levels of federal, state and muni governments) say they also pay taxes. What they often forget is that their very salaries are paid from taxes that PRODUCTIVE people pay to fund the entire gig)
2. Print this money out of thin air (prices will simply rise due to inflation resulting from the influx of "money backed by nothing". and adjust at the higher level essentially making the extra money received worth nothing in purchasing power.

In the soviet USSR we had a great saying - the only thing free is cheese in a mousetrap.

Noo, NOO and NOO

Bullshit, it is already money that is being spent right fucking NOW, not more the exact same maybe less if you really want to be optimistic. People aren't going to suddenly become lazier because they don't have to worry about starving to death or freezing to death, because society already spends lots of money trying to provide that.

What this is, it's a way of processing that a different way to make it better, so it's easier to help people. A person who has not need to make certain limited choices wont out of fear of starving to death or being completely Homeless.

[PosPosPos]

You would work because its not a lot of money, Its a small amount as floating sum to keep you above being poor and able to live a normal life.

There is already evidence of it actually working here, when tested in a working town in Manitoba in the 70's. Quality of life went up massively but then the conservatives (Of course they came along, right wingers love to make people die from overworking) ended it abruptly.

The alt-righters also love to use themselves as a negative example of why the system wouldn't work.

"SEE, I am an unproductive lazy bum who won't work if given UBI, so this means the liberals won't either."

[Nadiru]

Well, it IS a calamity for the alt-right, because apparently people having enough to live on is a horror for them.

Then again, you can name anything at all that is good in this world, like cute animals or sharing and caring for your neighbours; but to the alt-right it's like Armageddon.

It's a calamity because the arithmetic doesn't function. Total government spending is estimated to be 7 trillion dollars for both State and Federal in the states, the population of the US is 323 million, simple division gives us 21k per head. This assumes that things that the government provides is completely worthless: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, you can forget socialized medicine, defense budgets, infrastructure, courts, etc.

[Deleted]

You can bet your ass if they paid me without having to work i would. Neet 5ever

I'm assuming t
you wouldn't spend the 45 hours a week you would spend at work staring mindlessly into space...

People get bored, they have ideas, the benefit of UBI is that it frees people up to develop ideas as well as looking after children / the elderly or complete other socially important tasks without the need to be constantly worried about what they are going to eat that evening.

Anyway, it seems curious that you would criticise the Saudi system and not the similar one in Alaska which afaik is pretty popular.

[nycnyc88]

Great article on Finland experiment and UBI in general
https://mises.org/blog/dangers-universal-basic-income

The universal basic income shares another problem with traditional welfare systems. Far from promoting the unemployed from searching for work the market rewards, it actually subsidizes non-productive activities. The struggling entrepreneurs and artists mentioned earlier are struggling for a reason. For whatever reason, the market has deemed the goods they are providing to be insufficiently valuable. Their work simply isn’t productive according to those who would potentially consume the goods or services in question. In a functioning marketplace, producers of goods the consumers don't want would quickly have to abandon such endeavors and focus their efforts into productive areas of the economy. The universal basic income, however, allows them to continue their less-valued endeavors with the money of those who have actually produced value, which gets to the ultimate problem of all government welfare programs.

In the marketplace, wealth is earned by generating value. When someone buys a good, they’ve earned the money they are spending by having produced something else. This is not so with welfare programs like a universal basic income. Money is forcibly taken from those who have produced enough to earn it, and given to those who haven’t. This allows for people who aren’t producing wealth to continue to consume scarce goods. Eventually, all government welfare leads to the consumption of wealth, or, at the very least, a reduction in the amount of wealth that would have been accumulated otherwise. When entrepreneurs have less need to respond to the needs and desires of their customers, consumers will find themselves with fewer choices and with lower-quality choices.This means that overall welfare makes everyone poorer than they would have been in a free market.

This may seem obvious, but the conditions required for work to be abundant and the cost of living to be low are not so obvious. For work to be abundant:

It must be easy to start a business.
It must be easy to operate the new business.
It must be easy to make a profit so the business can survive the first few years and,
It must be easy to hire employees.

All these factors require an environment of low-cost compliance with regulations, low tax rates, low costs of transactions, reasonable transport costs, reasonable cost of money (but not near-zero), reasonable availability of capital for small enterprises, local and national governments that actively seek to smooth the path of new enterprises and existing enterprises seeking to expand, and a transparent marketplace that isn't dominated by politically dominant cartels and subservient-to-cartels government agencies.

This matters because the number one cause of the high cost of living is artificial scarcity created and maintained by monopolies, cartels, and the government that serves their interests. Artificial scarcity imposed by cartels and a servile state is the primary cause of soaring costs in a variety of sectors.