UBI fails to take into account human nature. 1) Crime and social unrest is directly correlated to perception of relative wealth inequality. Past a certain point, relative wealth has a dominant effect on life expectancy! [b]<p>2) Given the above point, the solution would seem to be a progressive tax on the wealthy. Unfortunately, this is very hard to make workable, as the wealthy have control of most of the wealth and power, and failing that, are the most mobile.<p><a href="http://www.sfindicatorproject.org/indicators/view/146" rel="nofollow">http://www.sfindicatorproject.org/indicators/view/146</a><p>([b] Ichiro Kawachi, 2000. Income Inequality and Health. In Social Epidemiology. Eds. Lisa Berkman and Ichiro Kawachi. New York: Oxford University Press. Pp. 76-94.)
A talk by the Throwing Rocks as the Google Bus author. A little muddled but I think his argument is the problem UBI is "it's just a way of perpetuating our roles as consumers at the bottom of the pyramid not as owners" while I guess the 0.1% still own everything.<p>Which I guess could be an issue although as we don't have UBI who knows how it'd play out.
2:45 : "we faked lower employment through ... unsustainable business practices"<p>What sustainability is can be up for debate. But i've never seen of a version that would put more people back in jobs than automation will take away.<p>3:55 : 'We will get the government to print more money, to give it to workers'.<p>Either this is some very small thinking for 'Big Think' or you they are skipping over a lot of assumptions that should be stated explicitly.<p>---<p>One 'Universal Basic Asset' idea i like is giving every person a yearly carbon credit that companies have to buy, instead of gifting it to the largest polluters.
I had a thought, wondering if it could work. For anyone who has the means, you can set up a basic income for your children by contributing about 350/month from the time they are born, then assuming 7% growth there will be over 250K sitting in the trust fund. This is enough for $10,000 per year (4% drawdown rate), which will provide them a basic income just as they are getting out of college, and trying to find their way in the world.<p>The major problems I see with this, is inflation (adjust the monthly contributions to keep up with inflation), and for multiple kids $350/month will not be achievable for people of lower income.
To me, part of the problem is that nobody can simply "live" anymore. While there are homesteaders who can effectively "live off the land", people can no longer actually do that.<p>Instead of UBI, why not create a system where people can actually "live" without needing to create a whole system where the government ends up requiring people to pay into the system?<p>From the video: "We can't just give these people houses because they don't have jobs".<p>Yeah, because they don't just get "the house" they also have to pay property taxes, and for the utilities, and for everything else that is required, you know, actually live in the house.<p>Maybe this is overly simplistic, but it seems like you can do one of two things: prop "the system" up by continuing to require things like property taxes and the like, or find a way for people to be able to actually, you know, OWN their property and do whatever they want with it so that they could be completely self-sufficient.<p>EDIT: Actually, that seems to be something along the lines of what he is saying: "UBI perputates people as consumers but not as owners" (my paraphrase)
UBI seems like a interesting idea but I don't think it's more than a small part of a bigger solution.<p>It could possibly help people from having 3-4 part time jobs just to make ends meet, but other problematic areas still exist.<p>Affordable housing, get people off the street / living in their cars.<p>Public medical care that doesn't require insurance or bankrupt you.<p>Higher education system that doesn't leave you with a life long debt.
I've never heard UBI discussed in terms of its benefits to innovation, which is its most important characteristic. There is exactly one <i>reliable</i> way to innovate: Be able to spend a huge amount of time doing unpaid work.<p>Right now there are essentially three groups that can afford to innovate: Students, the wealthy, and the people the wealthy give money to (via VC money). (Note that I'm using "wealthy" broadly here, if you can not have income for 1-5 years, you're wealthy by these standards).<p>UBI is basically having faith in human race is natural innovators, funding for the creativity of the <i>entire</i> human race, instead of just a tiny subset of the population.<p>To address the straw man upfront: Capitalism of course incentivizes innovation as well, and just as important as UBI. These approaches can, and must co-exist, and in fact form the two sides of the innovation coin: Incentivize (capitalism) and enabled (UBI).<p>The counterarguments to this model are ridiculous, because they assume you have to throw out capitalism to get UBI. Where are you going to get that goop for the 3D printer? You pay people to mine it! Why in the world would you think that wouldn't work? If you give every human $100,000 a year (for example), you think no one is going to be willing to work to earn more money? Which human race have you been watching when you formed those beliefs? All those rich people who earned their first million and then stopped?
There are so many issues with this video, I don't even know where to begin. I like this one line:
"The US Department of Agriculture burns food every week in order to keep the prices of that food high, even though there's people who are starving and people who need homes."
... OK, let's ignore the fact that the world produces far more food than it needs and people still starve. Obviously the problem is with the USDA, if only they didn't do that everything would be fine /s. Every line in here reads like it's pandering to a specific viewpoint in an attempt to legitimize the UBI message. "I think people shouldn't starve, therefore this person must be right".<p>To me, "the" colossal big problem with UBI (if there is only one) is the probable hyperinflation and crash that happens as a result of redistributing many trillions of dollars without the creation of commensurate economic value. Guaranteed employment (where at least some economic value is getting created) is a less risky approach to accomplishing the same goal.
I don't see UBI in this way at all. Nothing would stop a UBI recipient from investing a portion of that income.<p>In my mind a UBI allows increased economic freedom. It especially benefits the people currently most in need of it.<p>That's not a bad thing.
Douglas appears to be saying that UBI is bad because it supports and perpetuates all of the bad stuff about capitalism (wrecking the environment and concentrating wealth in the hands of the wealthy)<p>It does this because UBI means giving people money, and then they buy the usual crap from the usual wealthy guys.<p>Have I got that right?<p>But the alternative, "give everybody a job", does the exact same thing.<p>So the "colossal problem" with UBI is that it does nothing to cure the evils of capitalism?<p>Ok. Well it does cure some other big evils.<p>I think Douglas's point is just hot air. Sorry.
Isn't Big Think funded by the Kock family[0]? I'd take this information with a grain of salt, they typically lean hard on conservative perspective.<p>[0] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Think" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Think</a>
I used to be a big proponent of UBI.<p>After doing a lot of reading and research, I'm not. I think people should be paid for the work they do, whether directly or indirectly.<p>I'm now much more in favor of things like social dividends: taxing profits of businesses and distributing it equally amongst the population, taxing estates at 90+% and distributing it equally amongst the population, etc.<p>Another idea I like is the social fund: it buys controlling shares in publicly-traded companies, forces them to issue dividends, then sends 10-20% of the dividends to the citizens, and spends the other 80-90% on buying more shares in other companies, with the net effect of socializing the profits of large companies.<p>Yes, most of these ideas would fall under some loose definition of "socialism." That said, it ties passive income to overall productivity, something that UBI doesn't do.
I think it’s useful to look at the basic social contract here. Voters already have a degree of ownership over the state. They are shareholders that get to elect a board to run the state on their behalf. In that sense maybe a dividend is reasonable. Looking at it another way, the relationship between citizen and stats is one of responsibilities on both sides.<p>Citizens are responsible for the defence of the state, in the most extreme case through conscription into the armed forces, which puts an obligation on the state to protect them. This and the realisation by the government that many citizens were not fit for such service, was one of the impetuses behind the consensus on the creation of the National health Service in the UK. Partly it was quid-pro-quo for the sacrifices ordinary people made, but partly it was just good national security policy to ensure the nation had a healthy labour and fighting force. This isn’t socialism, it’s just good governance.<p>So while I see a clear justification for a social dividend for citizens, I don’t necessarily see a UBI as a sensible form in which to express it. The form that dividend takes should take into account the form of the obligations of citizens to state and vice-versa. For me health care is an obvious one. The state has a clear interest in a healthy population, ready for work and capable of defending it. I plain don’t comprehend how US conservatism doesn’t see this, it’s been plainly obvious to European conservatives since WW2 or earlier, perhaps because we faced a more existential threat than the US did. Pensions and Medicare or it’s equivalent are also just good policy, who wants thousands of destitute old people dying on the streets.<p>Unemployment benefit and UBI are more arguable. Both are a form of social dividend, but could disincentivize work. I’m not an absolutist about this, I think it’s certainly true that people from time to time can find themselves unable to work or find a job and need a helping hand and I think that’s fine and reasonable, however people able to work have an obligation to do so. I worry that a lot of discussion about UBI leans towards freeing people from the need to work. I’m sorry, but someone needs to do those jobs. We’re a very long way from a Star Trek utopia where AI does all the hard labour.<p>Employment rates and open positions in the west are both pretty high. The global economy has gobbled up hundreds of thousands of Chinese workers without breaking step and wages in China have until recently been soaring. The current economic risks have nothing to do with AI taking our jobs. It may happen, but it isn’t really now and I don’t think it’s likely to for many decades to come. Automation has been stealing jobs for hundreds of years, yet somehow there’s more work than ever.