Why a Universal Basic Income Would Be a Calamity

[Molis]

You guys act like automation has not been killing jobs for a 100 years.

New jobs are created. People develop and learn new skills.

You do not even know what new jobs will be available.

Yesterdays Horse carriage maker did not know software developer would be a job.

[Hiricine]

People who fear automation don't have a good grasp of history. You can look back less than 200 years ago when over 80% of people in the US were subsistence farmers that basically worked from age 12 until they died farming, and we had nearly 100% employment, including disabled persons, the elderly, children/teens. Now less than 30-40% of people even work (again, including disabled persons, the elderly, teens/children who are capable of labor), and we have almost no concern for the drop in employment. We will just find less and less people that need to work and those that do will be increasingly productive.

To speak to UBI- it couldn't work. Either it will be too expensive because it will be universal, it will be ineffective because it won't be enough, it will be effective and relatively inexpensive if its not universal (basically what we have now with the welfare state), or it won't be effective because it won't even be income. Who is going to want to sell goods for monopoly money that people get every time they pass go? It won't take long after it takes effect for political forces to cause people to try to increase the UBI, debase whatever currency its traded in, and you'll suddenly see bitcoin, gold, and alternative currencies take over in no time.

[NineSpine]

People who fear automation don't have a good grasp of history. You can look back less than 200 years ago when over 80% of people in the US were subsistence farmers that basically worked from age 12 until they died farming, and we had nearly 100% employment, including disabled persons, the elderly, children/teens. Now less than 30-40% of people even work (again, including disabled persons, the elderly, teens/children who are capable of labor), and we have almost no concern for the drop in employment. We will just find less and less people that need to work and those that do will be increasingly productive.

To speak to UBI- it couldn't work. Either it will be too expensive because it will be universal, it will be ineffective because it won't be enough, it will be effective and relatively inexpensive if its not universal (basically what we have now with the welfare state), or it won't be effective because it won't even be income. Who is going to want to sell goods for monopoly money that people get every time they pass go? It won't take long after it takes effect for political forces to cause people to try to increase the UBI, debase whatever currency its traded in, and you'll suddenly see bitcoin, gold, and alternative currencies take over in no time.

UBI is the only solution to the problem you described.

[Glorious Leader]

Unions and federal law didn't magically wish into existence enough productivity to move people past subsistence level lifestyles.

They had violent and bloody labor struggles.

[Bullettime]

You guys act like automation has not been killing jobs for a 100 years.

New jobs are created. People develop and learn new skills.

You do not even know what new jobs will be available.

Yesterdays Horse carriage maker did not know software developer would be a job.

The problem is we haven't seen such an impending sweep across the workforce like automation is set to do. It's one thing if it were one field set to be displaced but there's breakthroughs on the horizon that will impact basically everyone on the lower end of the skill spectrum and in a much shorter period of time. It's also, again, not the people displaced who get to fill the newly created jobs.

Automation forced the move from a manufacturing based economy to a service economy. Now automation is set to displace tons of workers and change the service field. There's not exactly anywhere to go for the people set to be displaced.

[Glorious Leader]

Unions and federal law didn't magically wish into existence enough productivity to move people past subsistence level lifestyles. They simply made it so that productivity gains would be enjoyed by the masses instead of by the few, which is exactly what UBI does as well.

Depends. If UBI is merely an excuse to cut back the social safety net then UBI is not going to spread productivity gains around.

[PC2]

No, they don't. If you experienced a population boom 18 years earlier, BOTH of those numbers are going to inflate purely as a function of population.

Population can help with job quantity and GDP, but it's just one non-linear factor. Otherwise places like India would have an economy 4x bigger than the US instead of 7x smaller.

[Vyxn]

It's not one or the other. It was both. Unions and the federal government could not have stopped child labor if child labor was still required to keep the economy floating. For example, most child labor laws excluded farm labor, because it was still needed to keep that industry working.

no it was unions and laws which forced industry to stop that practice which then forced industries to innovate to keep up with demand to make up for a smaller working pool and less hours


https://www.continuetolearn.uiowa.ed...s_history.html

says nothing about innovation that ended child labor unions and laws did


Eight-hour day

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-hour_day

says nothing about innovation that gave us the 8 hour work day

so I'm not sure where you are getting that from
would love to have a source to read where innovation stopped the practice of child labor and gave us the 8hour work day and not unions or laws

[NineSpine]

Population can help with job quantity and GDP, but it's just one non-linear factor. Otherwise places like India would have an economy 4x bigger than the US instead of 7x smaller.

You are changing the subject. You never made a point of one nation vs another nation. Your point of comparison was on the timeline of one nation.

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no it was unions and laws to which forced industry to stop that practice which then forced industries through innovation to keep up with demand to make up for a smaller working pool and less hours


https://www.continuetolearn.uiowa.ed...s_history.html

says nothing about innovation that ended child labor unions and laws did

If child labor was required to keep the economy afloat, the government would not have banned it. The government would not have banned a practice that would send it back decades economically. That's why they allowed farm labor to be excluded. I already explained this. You didn't refute me, you just repeated yourself and found someone else online that kind-of-sort-of-not-really backs you up. You need to explain the farm exclusion, and you can't without admitting I'm right.

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Depends. If UBI is merely an excuse to cut back the social safety net then UBI is not going to spread productivity gains around.

Very true.

[unbound]

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

rofl

A website whose front-page isn't even formatted correctly (reference links are messed up all over), and provides absolutely no identifying information.

Seriously Hubcap? Are you trying to make Breitbart and Infowars look good here?

Browsing some of the articles on that site, and there is no question that it is a garbage site. The article you are citing on the site is illegally reprinting an article from the WSJ which is certainly not going to entertain helping out the masses by having the rich pay for universal income. Not something that a conservative should really be supporting Hubcap.

In any case, the article's author is a strongly ideological conservative, and none of his articles (he doesn't have that many) demonstrate much of an ability to be complete about the issue. In this particular case, the Saudi government doesn't actually have universal income. It did about 30 years ago. Current government policies require that everyone (pretty much) works...although typically for the government.

Don't believe me? Then listen to an actual Saudi.

https://www.quora.com/Is-Saudi-Arabi...me#MoreAnswers

Abu Sahabi, lives in Saudi Arabia
Updated Feb 21, 2016
Thanks Jack for the A2A..

That was partially true before 30 years or so. When the government had the wrong mindset that it is responsible for the prosperity of every Saudi. Nowadays, everyone must work to live. The government, however, still support and implement social programs to make sure no poor Saudis exist. Beyond that, the market is all open to you ( I literally mean that; beside extracting oil, no big corporations monopolizing the market; starting a business doesn’t cost you much; entrepreneurship is supported with endless efforts from the government) and you can be a millionaire if you worked hard.

As an example of services: if you are an unemployed, the Ministry of Labor will find a job suits your qualifications (in private sector usually) and follow up with your situation. The government as well gives you a minimal monthly stipend (i.e. 600 $) till they/you find a job. Finding jobs are not difficult with the economic booming happening now. As a Saudi, you will find a job and make a living. As a hard worker Saudi you will find a job and make a fortune. Choose whatever path you want.

10 years ago, when I was in the job market, no young Saudi I know who is a hard worker didn’t make it to a top management office with five figures monthly. This was in telecom industry (international and local companies).

As of government jobs, that’s true. I believe some ministries need a restructuring over what they actually need. The issue is: the government can’t and won’t dare to fire Saudis with no valid reason. And there is no valid reason to fire a Saudi from a government job. Sometimes I feel the real obstacle we have to be developed in some sectors is that the government is too generous with us; doesn’t want us to join the ugly truth of working hard day to day to secure a job. Sometimes I feel it is a privilege; I don’t know.

The government has been the first employer for Saudis for a long time. In the near past, Saudis expected the government to employ them blindly. At least now things are a bit difficult and a good number of young Saudis go to the private sector as it gives more money. Most of the people joining government jobs wants it because it is more secure and less stress [ like many other countries]. No one would fire you except when you are i) absent for months with no reason ii) a criminal . Even the later can be revoked by a court certificate stating that you are now good to go. I am not sure about this but I've heard that only the minister has the power to fire a Saudi i.e., your direct boss would only suggest firing you but has no real power.

I believe you can’t build a country out of a bunch of laymen and, as I see it now, the probability to find a young layman is substantially smaller to 15 or 20 years ago. Most of the bright fresh graduates do not even look to the government jobs. They want to work and have money; money is talking my friend; in Saudi or outside.

[Dys]

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

Of course they have, they make their nut off the backs of normal people turned zombie mode. Those people have nothing but massive profits to gain off of a universal basic income, and they know it.

[NineSpine]

Of course they have, they make their nut off the backs of normal people turned zombie mode. Those people have nothing but massive profits to gain off of a universal basic income, and they know it.

Yes, like Henry Ford, they recognize that big business is doomed without a consumer class that has spending money.

[zEmini]

I am unsure about this.

I would rather make necessitates such as Health Care, shelter, food/water free to the citizens instead of handing out cash.

[NineSpine]

I am unsure about this.

I would rather make necessitates such as Health Care, shelter, food/water free to the citizens instead of handing out cash.

Why? You are just complicating what could be very simple.

[zEmini]

Why? You are just complicating what could be very simple.

It isn't that simple to begin with. There are a lot of stupid people out there and would use money against their best interest.

That is why I give homeless people socks (they fucking LOVE socks) instead of cash when I see them.

[NineSpine]

It isn't that simple to begin with. There are a lot of stupid people out there and would use money against their best interest.

That is why I give homeless people socks (they fucking LOVE socks) instead of cash when I see them.

You aren't their mother. Get out of their lives.

[zEmini]

You aren't their mother. Get out of their lives.

Then I feel that they don't need or deserve my tax dollars. Therefore I would just vote it down if that was the only argument for it.

[NineSpine]

Then I feel that they don't need or deserve my tax dollars. Therefore I would just vote it down if that was the only argument for it.

The argument is that the UBI is a necessary step to maintain a market economy in a world where automation is eradicating the need for full employment. It has nothing to do with your weird desire to micromanage the lives of strangers.

[Mackeyser]

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.

Your analogy isn't correct. It ignores first mover advantage, brand, quality, scale and a host of other factors. And oversimplification still doesn't make your analogy any better.

Moreover, you misuse "scarce good". Tomatoes, like everything, has a scarcity to them, but they are not so scarce that they can charge whatever they want. People will set a max price and find alternatives in the marketplace (that's the basic, supply v demand curve at work)

Lastly, as an overall point, opponents of UBI do not answer the basic question: When AI and robotics eliminate millions of jobs in the next 20 years, what do we do?

The answer is simple. We either endeavor to make UBI work or we descend into feudalism where from the moment people are born, they are doomed to fighting for subsistence in a hostile environment. This is because automation will decimate the tax base. Rich don't want to pay taxes and have access to the levers of power to avoid it. The middle class is disintegrating and as numerous studies have shown, the middle class as a large phenomenon is a glitch, an oddity caused by leftist radicals fighting for more a more equitable distribution of wealth combined with the way the US funded WWII, causing a savings balloon that fueled a worldwide boon in consumerism.

With that savings mostly gone and the government no longer using citizen's savings to fund war all while the wealthy seek to put a greater tax burden and/or less services to the middle and lower classes, the status quo simply won't last much longer.

We're gonna have to make a choice. UBI, which won't usher in Utopia, but may allow people to stave off starvation, or lose functional capitalism and descend into feudalism.

So that's the question for those against UBI? How do we stave off the inevitable descent into feudalism if we don't use UBI?

[Vyxn]

The people who are displaced aren't the same ones working the few new jobs created.

Someone who works in say an Amazon facility as a picker isn't suddenly going to be repairing the drones that are set to replace them in the next 10 years.

so how do you know it will just be a few new jobs?
No one would have ever had guessed of all the jobs the invention and wide use of the automobile created it is a multibillion dollar industry and I'm not just referring to the manufacturing jobs to build cars just stop and think off all the other industries that sprung up directly and indirectly from the introduction of the automobile from the oil company's to drill pump and creating gas for those cars to run all the way down to the company that produces those pine tree car air fresheners

you got to think of much more broadly not just dam this automated machine took ten jobs away by just one person running that is nine jobs lost
you got to think of the jobs created designing that automated machine, engineering it, manufacturing it, saleing it, installing it, programing it, running it, maintaining it, repairing it, and then all those jobs indirectly connected to those sectors