If I read it correctly, in all of the case studies referenced in the article, the basic income provided was exogenous. That is, the basic income going to the villagers, was not coming from the villagers. So it's not surprising that everyone got chummy when the money flowed in. However a complete picture would show how the people paying felt about it.
Consider agriculture. It used to employ over 80% of the workforce, now less than 2%. But now, with over 98% unemployment, we're not starving. Instead, we're wasting 40% of our food, exporting food, and reading articles about obesity epidemics and how the grocery store is reducing its 57 varieties of ketchup so that we won't have so much difficulty choosing.<p>Manufacturing is going that way. We're well into the disposable junk and cheaper to replace than repair era. Relatively few people work in industry now.<p>That only leaves services. But how many people does it take to hand you your burger or bag your new cellphone? Repairmen have less to do now that most everything is disposable. Even in the more professional level services, salaries have been stagnant for decades, moreso than minimum wage in some cases. Sure companies complain that they can't find good talent, but they're not willing to pay for it, so they don't really need it.<p>The traditionalists say "people will just go do something else, like they always have" but what? Well, for now, some could become Uber drivers or such...until the automated cars come online in a few years. Then what? And how many Uber drivers do we need? Can they make a good living doing that if everyone else is too?<p>People moved from the farms to the cities to do industrial work, then commuted from the suburbs to do commercial and services work. Where do they go when none of the farms, cities, and suburbs need workers anymore (and they can't afford to live in any of those places)?
I think it's especially telling that even in a 3rd world country where one might expect profound poverty to be the norm, a basic income still provided a cushion against the social friction that comes with poverty.<p>God damn lets just do this already.
Basic income is just classical economics rebranded, and basic income is not drastically different from welfare systems that are simple, rule based, and have minimal compliance monitoring, for example Australia's.<p>Most of the arguments for basic income apply just as well to a welfare system like Australia's. The ones that to not are the worst ones. E.g. it's said that basic income avoids disincentivizing work. And yet as an accounting identity, all redistribution schemes must disincentive work for some people. Welfare systems place a greater disincentive to work on the poorest, which to me makes sense as many of these people have a lower intrinsic incentive to work in the first place. In any case, the lower marginal effective tax rate for the poor under basic income, is only possible because of a higher marginal effective tax rate for the middle class.
I find it both funny and appalling how Americans view any sort of movement in the common social interest as a threat. It's as if they want to maintain an inegalitarian status-quo that only protects the richest minority, even if they are not part of it. Absolutely ridiculous.
I wonder if universal basic income is going to change the ad hoc basic income we already have in place -- the one where I'm supporting my retired parents, my wife, and my pre-workforce kid.
If I could live and not have a job, I wouldn't have a job. I could do my art and enjoy my life and the economy would crumble while everyone else watches Netflix.
What I'd like to see is machines on the street (like drinking fountains) that dispense (at no charge) nutritious meals. I'd like to see a global network of (robot cleaned) rooms anyone can go into at any time, (at no charge), and sleep. I'd like to see free transportation. Free education. Free places you can go work. Free places to go watch a movie. The best medical care at no charge. I'd like for people to completely have to stop worrying about providing for biological needs and have those met with 0 friction.<p>And... I'm pretty sure all this will happen with time.<p>The problem now is we have this myopia about money. We think it's something more than just the symbol or variable it actually is. But really it's a fairly new invention. We have done without it for most of our history.<p>Don't get me wrong... the invention of money as a concept has allowed great leaps forward in technology and progress. But the concept isn't eternal and it has it's downsides. One is that it creates a certain amount of friction. You have people spending too much effort playing with the symbol rather than what it represents.<p>Ideally, I'd like to own absolutely nothing. Except for a great big sack. When I need something, I'd tell the sack and out comes the thing I need. When I'm done, it goes back and the sack and disappears and no more worrying about it. That's how I think it should be.
No it won't. Full stop.<p>It will drive a further wedge between the producers and consumers in society, which plays right into the class warfare rhetoric that the politicians who would support UBI are always fomenting.<p>Who's going to pay for UBI? Everyone! I see the amount of $10,000 thrown about. There are 235 million adults in the U.S. That's $2.35 trillion per annum, more than 13% of the GDP. You don't think the taxation required to generate that kind of money won't reach far down into the middle class? Dream on.<p>And we are going sacrifice $2.35 trillion for what? It won't increase productivity. If anything it will reduce it somewhat. Yes, I'm ignoring the benefit it will be to the truly needy, and that's important, but for the majority of the country, the UBI will be way more offset by the much higher amount they have to pay in additional taxes.<p>Social cohesion, my ass.
People are using Australia as an example, we have very large taxes (most people pay at least 25%, some 35%+) we also have a 10% tax on all goods and high GDP per capita. You cant fund social welfare programs without huge taxes on everyone not just the rich.
Basic Income sounds great on paper but I fear that it will lead to a new kind of servitude towards the state, that will be the only provider. Politicians will have even more access (direct access) to the quality of life of their electorate. What will stop states to link the "Chinese style credit score" to the quantum of BI one receives?<p>How will we make sure the quantum of basic income is enough for a decent life? How will we convince people that they got enough and avoid falling into dissatisfaction with it? I suppose people will always bitch about BI being too low.
In the studies mentioned, were immigrants able to move into the areas receiving UBI and avail themselves of those funds? It doesn't appear so. What difference might that have made? And wouldn't that have made them more realistic experiments? (Were the experiments specifically designed to produce positive outcomes?) Can the experiments even be considered to have been about UBI? What does giving money to a small group and finding it makes them happy have to do with the likely outcome of a state-level wealth distribution scheme? Doesn't receiving money for nothing make everyone happier and more trusting?