A scheme that benefits all, such as guaranteed minimum income, will always face great resistance in the US, because enough US citizens are zero-sum thinkers. If it helps people we hate, it must be bad.
> Why aren’t we giving everyone a fair chance at Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness by providing them the fundamentals they need to get there?
Because for a lot of Americans, relative order within the social hierarchy is more important than absolute level of prosperity: it's more important to have someone below us than it is to do well.
Modern automation has also taken a dark turn— we already got laundry and dishes sorted out decades ago, and the only real developments on the domestic front since the roomba have been lights that change color when you talk at them. Meanwhile, AI is increasingly threatening to upend creative, high value professions, stuff like law, medicine, communications, journalism, and even software.
But at the low end, AI is never going to be the janitor or your garbage guy, or your barista (ordering kiosks aside) or your instacart dude. AI won't unclog your toilet or service your car or make your basement not smell funny. It won't tend the garden or cut the grass or install a new air conditioner or re-shingle a roof.
I think the prospect of a world where everyone has their basic needs covered and has to choose to work is scary to people who are used to looking down on certain professions and assuming that no one would do <thing> if they didn't absolutely have to.
>AI won't unclog your toilet or service your car or make your basement not smell funny. It won't tend the garden or cut the grass or install a new air conditioner or re-shingle a roof.
There are labs training AI robots for these very tasks right now. There are robots that fold laundry and spread peanut butter, right now.
We're maximum 1-2 years away from a general all-around robot the way chatgpt is an all around digital assistant.
Willow Garage envisioned in the early 2010s that a successor to the PR2 would be a mass-market bi-manual manipulator able to complete a wide range of household tasks. They folded in 2014.
Ten years later, I don't think the state of the art in general purpose robotics is that much further along. Even top tier research robots would struggle to climb the stairs or navigate around my kids' messy bedrooms, much less complete the wide array of tasks that my amazing housekeeper cheerfully and proactively handles for a bit over minimum wage.
I'm aware of the 1x Neo, but that has a lot of unknowns— the videos are full of cuts and have significant evidence of teleoperation and no indication of things like lift strength or battery life. What they're purporting to show is simply not aligned with what the state of the art is in perception and manipulation/grasping. They're a long ways from having even the hardware solved, much less the software.
"Zero-sum thinker" does not in any way suggest idiocy. It's a term from game theory, for a game where one cannot win without another losing. Neither UBI nor this discussion need to be like that. You're getting outraged over something you made up (and apparently ran away from two posts later). Maybe you should try engaging with actual arguments instead of dismissing them because of (what you incorrectly think are) Bad Words. GP is correct that zero-sum thinking is one source of resistance to UBI (though I'd say it's not the only one) and that we must overcome that for UBI to be implemented.
> If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you.
I don't see zero-sum thinkers as "idiots". Rather, the prevalence of such attitudes is a fundamental aspect of human nature that we have to reckon with.
> the prevalence of such attitudes is a fundamental aspect of human nature that we have to reckon with
If a proposal requires changing human nature, it’s safe to dismiss. I’m saying that your argument for why UBI is dismissed is itself an argument for dismissing it.
I disagree that it's an aspect of human nature. It's primarily cultural and that's why we can observe significant differences in the level of individualism in different societies.
Another adjacent example is justice system and reform. American system is punitive and even barbaric in many ways, while most European countries have a system that's heavily centered around reform and reintegration. This is all cultural.
Hostility towards the ethnic/cultural "other" exists in all societies. The emphasis on a "fairness" which preserves structural advantage over the "other" is also universal.
There's nothing unique about Americans who believe that those "others" (Blacks, Hispanics, Muslims, LGBTQ, etc in the contemporary US case) are undeserving and who reject universally beneficial programs because they benefit the "other" equally.
There are plenty of areas of human interest where resources are zero-sum, especially in the short term.
Using that term without nuance is about as helpful as shouting "SuPpLy and DeManD!!" in every economic discussion because you saw an Econ 101 book one time in a library.
Well, I agree that we can't have a productive discussion if that's how you see my commentary, but I happen to think that designing social programs which take into account baser human resentments is a worthwhile endeavor, e.g. "Social Security isn't a tax" and all that.
> A scheme that benefits all, such as uaranteed minimum income, will always face great resistance in the US, because enough US citizens are zero-sum thinkers. If it helps people we hate, it must be bad.
I've only heard objections within the context of people being worried that giving money will reduce productivity and raise prices.
> Because relative order within the social hierarchy is more important than absolute level of prosperity. It's more important to have someone below us than it is to do well.
This is the "inequality" discussion. It's true that a lot of people are worried about relative order, and I agree that absolute prosperity is far more important, but I doubt those people are against UBI.
It takes 2 generations of concerted effort. Your great grand children will have a different attitude if you start now.
Evidence : untouchability is virtually gone in India (at least the urban part). I remember my great grand parents still had those mindsets when I was very young. It is an alien concept to our children.
Internally the US has free movement of both labor and capital, so any single state trying broad social programs without federal support will run into free rider and arbitrage problems pretty quickly. Since the US can control its border and currency, it’s less likely to be a problem if it’s a national program.
Some types of growth, yea that's the theory. But I don't think there's any theory of UBI with freedom of movement between borders where UBI isn't present. If every single person who doesn't want to work shows up to your state, you won't be able to keep UBI running.
> Internationally, capital and labour are also mobile.
Capital yes. Labor ... not really? Even historically immigrating to the US is kinda difficult. Immigrating into any developed country is hard.
> If the argument for UBI is basically North Korea, I’m not seeing it.
No it's not even NK. It's socialism but no central planning. NK (and really any prior long running example of socialism in US history) doesn't do free market do decide e.g. who picks up the trash.
So it could well be that UBI works, but a lot of grunge jobs just don't get done. Maybe people are happier and have more free time, but there's fewer janitors so things are dirtier, and a much higher percentage of money goes towards paying people to farm so good is way more expensive.
Things definitely wouldn't be the same as they are now, even if it did hypothetically work.
> Put simply, if a UBI scheme doesn’t work at the state level, it won’t federally in the long run.
There could easily be things that break it at the state level (especially, freedom of movement of people), that don't apply federally.
It might also fail at a federal level, but you can't claim there aren't major differences between a single state UBI and a federal UBI
> don't think there's any theory of UBI with freedom of movement between borders where UBI isn't present
Then you need to define categories of good and bad people. And explain why the former will stay (or continue to immigrate). In the long run, borders are porous. If it doesn’t work at the state level, and it doesn’t cause inflation, I’m deeply sceptical about the claim that it doesn’t require categorising by productivity.
It's definitely more porous going out. So yeah, UBI needs to be not so bad that people can do better elsewhere that's easy enough to immigrate into. The same is true of basically any policy though, that's not really a unique thing to UBI.
That's true, although there's a pretty strong overlap of UBI proponents and supporters of pro-immigration policies.
If you want to say, "Of course UBI can't work if we allow whoever wants it to move here and receive it," I agree, but that's often not a qualifier made by proponents.
The fed does have the ability to control monetary policy.
This is akin to why some problems in the EU - individual countries gave up monetary policy rights, which means they have to do what Germany wants w.r.t. the euro. They can't control interest rates like the US Fed can, can't expand or contract money supply, and have fewer tools to deal with problems that arise.
Imagine if NYC couldn't build buildings over 1 story because of a state law. That would complicate adding new residents. It might work for awhile and they could get creative, but eventually it would become untenable.
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This is not all to say that there aren't any problems with UBI specifically. We haven't really tested that level of socialism anywhere with still trying to also do free market and no planned economy.
It could well be that a lot of stuff wouldn't get done, or at least not done as much. There's a lot of shit jobs that are done for cheaper now because people gotta eat & put a roof over their head.
Unless you do a U"B"I solution which isn't actually covering the basics, but is lower than necessary.
> you could also ask the uberwealthy to pony up instead
Then you don’t need monetary policy. Saying it cannot happen at the state or local level is basically admitting it isn’t solvent or requires a population filter to keep the wasteful people out.
I was curious what your answer was? What argument was refuted? I explained clearly why the program needed to be national and not at the state level. Good grief.
Your argument rests on mobility of capital and people being less federally than statewise. At both levels, that becomes less true as income goes up. And it virtually disappears in the long run. If the argument for UBI is that it must be federal because of monetary or mobility reasons, it’s either reliant on causing inflation or locking down the population à la North Korea.
Ah, ok, finally! You made an argument clear enough to respond to. I think your point is ridiculous! There is an entire range of possibilities between total global freedom for capital and North Korea.
First, North Korea is a bad example, because I'm certain that Kim Jong-Un and his key cogs are able to stash their cash in London, New York and Geneva like all good autocrats and oligarchs do. The average North Korean lives in poverty by western standards, why would they need capital mobility?
Second, the US had capital controls in place throughout the New Deal Era, surely you aren't comparing regulated capitalism with socialist qualities with a statist monarchy that impoverishes its' people?
> the US had capital controls in place throughout the New Deal Era, surely you aren't comparing regulated capitalism with socialist qualities with a statist monarchy that impoverishes its' people?
Sure, if you say we need capital controls and exit visas to implement UBI, that is consistent with breaking continuity between state and local experiments and the federal proposal. But I’m not sure how much buy in there is for those policies.
> North Korea is a bad example, because I'm certain that Kim Jong-Un and his key cogs are able to stash their cash in London, New York and Geneva
And American oligarchs wouldn’t?
> You made an argument clear enough to respond to
Isn’t it presumptive to use one’s own ignorance as an argument?
>* Because for a lot of Americans, relative order within the social hierarchy is more important than absolute level of prosperity: it's more important to have someone below us than it is to do well.*
That's humanity 101. And it's not something to be shunned: it means that the wealth that matters more is social not material.
Don't you think the people who are more zero sum, are the ones who are very focused on inequality (rich getting richer means poor getting poorer), who are also the ones who are most likely to support stuff like this? Direct payments, minimum wage, guaranteed income, welfare, etc?
We're talking about the poor here, not the middle class. A lot of states haven't raised their minimum wage above the federal minimum wage, which hasn't been raised since 2009.
Also even if wages go up inflation still reduces the wealth owned by the middle class. Especially given that interest rates on savings hasn't kept pace with inflation for decades. So unless you own a house or a stock portfolio even the middle class gets poorer due to inflation.
Sure that's an if, but the effects of inflation certainly exacerbates that inequality. Thus the rich get richer while the poor get poorer. It's just a question of cause and effect.
To add on what the other person said, the rich getting rich can indeed directly lead to the poor getting poorer. Money is influence, and especially in the US, a sufficient amount of money can buy anything. As the ultra-rich category of people accumulate more wealth, together they become the most important bloc to serve. Hell, you guys just directly cut taxes from the rich and raised on the poorest - what's that but not 'poor getting poorer'?
Any flow of money will be attacked and diverted over time, as much as it can be, by those with the power to pursue it. The first thing that generally happens is some source of rent-seeking. GMI needs a lot of protections from those kinds of systems.
How does it benefit me if it's not what I want? The idea that a third party can decide for me what I should want, and because this thing or that thing is something I should want means that it benefits me... it's a little circular. "But it's good for you!" they scream, and the word good is, in their head, something they've decided meets a goal or end result that I should be pursuing. And so the circle spins round and round.
This scheme does not benefit me. It is not a goal I want to pursue. There are costs associated with it. This isn't for free.
>It's more important to have someone below us than it is to do well.
Well, that's the least generous interpretation. What if I'd rather starve as a deer, than be well-fed cattle? What if, no matter how hard I try, it's nearly impossible to imagine myself being so stupid or passive that I would prefer otherwise?
>You benefit substantially from living in a stable, high-trust society where
You have decided what I should want and what I should pursue, for me, against my wishes, and say "because I want these things, he should want them too". I don't want the same things as you. I'd try explaining, but I don't think you'd get it.
>where customers have money
I don't have anything I wish to sell you and you have nothing to trade that I want.
>and employees are educated.
I've seen the education system. I'm well past the "maybe if we just do the education a little more intensely, things will improve" phase.
you dont get high trust society by increasing welfare state. The argument that by handing out money we will get stable high trust society does not hold at all.
European countries that are unable to assimilate migrants are a living proof, for example Sweden Denmark, etc.
Counterpoint to your argument is El Salvador: by enforcing laws they are able to achieve high trust society, so what we actually need is maximimum law enforcement and isolation of people who dont want to maintain the high trust society.
China/Singapore is another example: they just execute drug dealers and solve the drug trafficking problem. It may be perceived as inhumane to drug traffickers, but it is very humane for the victims(current and possible) of drug addiction.
USA has a giant surplus of people with net negative contribution to the society and is unable to solve it in order to propel society forward
Your first argument makes no sense. People from totally different cultures don't suddenly integrate. In the US, Jews originally ran the mafia when they came over, then Irish/Italians. Was that an indicator that America's model failed? And that jews/irish/italians would never integrate into it and never have high trust neighborhoods? Or that integration is a process (that you aren't allowing for in your argument)?
Not having moms working multiple zero hour jobs to try and barely survive would be a huge plus for high trust society. They would better socialize their children (which would reinforce a high trust society). They would better account for their children because they would be present (a plus to high trust). Under your current system they aren't home to instill high trust, when they are around they are too tired, and they have way less time/ability to engage in socializing activities with their children resulting in a non-parented, non-socialized society.
The majority of high trust societies are ones where peoples' basic needs are met. El Salvador has a very short history of some improvement from militarized policing but hardly enough data to start extrapolating from other than high enforcement police states are police states.
> "But it's good for you!" they scream, and the word good is, in their head, something they've decided meets a goal or end result that I should be pursuing.
That's just strawmanning the argument, no? Why not argue against the strongest position?
The way minimum guaranteed income would benefit you is twofold. One way is similar to how any other tax payments that don't benefit you directly provide a safety margin - I've never had a house fire, but I pay for services that cover my fire department because I know that if I'm ever in that situation, they will help me. I'm not in poverty, but my money subsidizes poverty benefits, and if I ever get in that situation, it will help me too.
The second way is much more important - subsidizing the poor lets them get out of the hellhole of poverty and contribute far more than they otherwise would. Being poor is insanely expensive, and once you have more liabilities than assets, they tend to explode and become completely unsustainable. Poor people can't relocate (or even live anywhere) for better opportunities; they can't get education and will often remain low-wage, unprofessional workers; they can't afford healthcare (in the US) and will leave illnesses untreated until they can barely do anything at all, or die. Fixing any of these three leads to more income for businesses and more tax money for the government.
For some reason, pro-hierarchy Americans love portraying any form of welfare as letting people live in luxury for nothing. Minimum income, as it is proposed, doesn't come anywhere close to being something you can live your whole life off of. It's a safety margin that lets you get back on your feet more easily - it's money you pay debts off, money to educate yourself, money to cure yourself - not what you live off. That's why it's so infuriating to hear people double down time and time again about how America's most hated class are all just lazy, bloated slobs, because in this hypothetical world, they have the audacity to receive a couple thousand dollars in benefits.
>That's just strawmanning the argument, no? Why not argue against the strongest position?
It is not. Not even a little. I'm pointing out that you and I have wildly different value systems, alien to each other in ways so profound that you could be forgiven for thinking I'm exaggerating. I get that your values are different than mine and that you want different things.
You don't even seem to be aware that I want different things. "But but but! How could you not want wonderful European-style welfare" I just don't. Saying "but you should want them because you're like me and I want them"... I'm not like you. I couldn't be like you if I tried, and I'm not inclined to try. You saying that I "benefit" from these things indicates you think I "receive good things" from them... but I don't receive any benefit or good thing, those are not things I want. Benefits aren't objective. They are subjective. Absolutely, undeniably subjective.
When you make it sound like they are objective, you are lying to yourself. Lying so badly to yourself that when you lose elections, you are confused and angry about it. "How are they brainwashed into going against their own self-interests?!?!?!" you oxymoron about. No, other people just have different interest than you. It's impossible to go against your own self-interests (short of coercion... even then, one might argue that you're still doing so, to avoid the blackmail/torture/whatever).
>The second way is much more important - subsidizing the poor lets them get out of the hellhole of poverty
I grew up on foodstamps. I would have preferred starving. I want nothing from you. Your charity, however well-intentioned you believe it to be, is toxic and demeaning, and you refuse the evidence of your own eyes when you see it fail to work as you believe it would. I do not wish to pay for anyone else's foodstamps... they're better off figuring out how to survive for themselves.
>For some reason, pro-hierarchy Americans love
It should at least occur to you that when someone like me can't explain things to you such that you're able to see our point of view, that other more regrettable (for both of us) futures await.
>It's a safety margin that lets you get back on your feet more easily
Safety is illusory. Chasing it is futile and even shameful.
>That's why it's so infuriating
The fury of people who want safety nets is pathetic. You should use the word "frustrating", you don't sound capable of true fury.
> It is not. Not even a little. I'm pointing out that you and I have wildly different value systems, alien to each other in ways so profound that you could be forgiven for thinking I'm exaggerating. I get that your values are different than mine and that you want different things.
No, you weren't pointing that out. Disagreeing with a value system doesn't mean you're incapable of understanding or representing it fairly. If the best you took away from the discourse is that 'the ominous they are telling you it's good because that's what they're saying', you were never arguing in good faith. You never had to agree with the points I'm making, but if you want to make an argument against them, you have to make targeted attacks against those arguments, not indefensible caricatures.
The rest of your comment looks big, it looks content-rich, it looks like there's so much to say. In reality, you said basically nothing. You're not putting up arguments or logical reasoning, just a chain of assertions and accusations. The fact that you went down to argue semantics ("true fury") or trying to bring me personally into this while letting the direct, accusatory points I made fly right over shows that you never had the intention of arguing them. It's not just about value systems - these systems have to be defensible. They have to rely on fact. People can disagree in interpreting the facts, but objective reality comes first before subjective feelings. You don't have any of that, you just try to quickly dismiss it at the beginning as being just inherently irreconcilable and impossible to address, without saying why or even trying.
There's a side that can look at actual data of what happens to the wellbeing of people and communities, or the objective benefits and drawbacks of welfare, and make a conclusion out of it - right or wrong, but at least well-intentioned. And then there's a side that has already decided on what's right and will never yield, like in a religion. Where I live, the first side had set up a small-scale, limited UBI trial to conduct research and see if it's a worthy investment or a waste of money. Then, the other side got elected and shut it down immediately - they had already known which is the 'right' option from their ideology, they didn't need no pesky science or research to tell them what was right.
Suppose it'd be meaningless to quote my comment above, for the reasons I've outlined and for that matter, just because anyone else can scroll a few inches and see for themselves. You're oblivious.
>Disagreeing with a value system doesn't mean you're incapable of understanding or representing it fairly.
It means that I do not care. If my values are secondary to your own, then I no longer wish to participate, and I will vote with those who promise to stop this nonsense. And guess what? Those people are winning elections and your nonsense will never be implemented.
>There's a side that can look at actual data of what happens to the wellbeing of people
You're already functionally dead, your entire civilization. Your well-being is irrelevant.
>or the objective benefits
There is no such thing as "objective benefit". Either you want something, or you don't. I don't want this.
I am generally a bit skeptical of the concept of basic income, mostly because I think costs would just rise to match new spending power. IMO it would be better framed as Guaranteed Basic Needs (food, shelter, entertainment, etc.)
That said – one thing that has made me change my mind recently, though, is that UBI might serve as a buffer against the profit motive taking over everything. Increasingly it seems like other value systems are being overtaken by the desire to earn money. By "other value systems" I mean a huge variety of things that aren't driven by money: living a non-materialistic lifestyle in line with numerous religions, mastering a centuries-old craft that doesn't have much market demand, being a philosopher/thinker not defined by participation in academia (or the market), and so on.
Part of the growth of the profit motive can be attributed to the general precarious economic situation, unpredictability of future jobs, etc. But it's also because there are fewer and fewer cultural institutions that make up the ecosystem, because no one wants to make that bet anymore. Everything seems to default back to monetary/professional success, whether that be the "creator economy" or getting a professorship at a top university.
So I do wonder if UBI would be a mechanism for encouraging people to say, "I can count on making a basic living, so I'm going to study XYZ art form and become great at it."
Assuming that UBI is funded from taxes, poorer people would end up with more money, richer people would make less overall, and somewhere in the middle there's a level where the additional taxes are exactly offset by the UBI.
Prices for some things may rise, but it seems unlikely that they'd rise in a way that consumes everyone's UBI. Lots of people wouldn't have any more money. Many would have a bit more money. Some would have a lot more money. Any price rise would correspond to the change somewhere in the middle of that, so people who earn less than that point would still be able to buy more. Concretely, if UBI is $1,000/month, and someone is currently struggling on $1,000/month, they're going to have more purchasing power, because that level of UBI won't double prices.
It's a lot more than a hunch, it's standard economic principles. The standard sources of inflation are money supply increases and supply crunches. The OP specified a UBI that doesn't increase the money supply. Nor would UBI cause a supply crunch. So why would you expect inflation?
Providing the "needs" vs money to buy the needs would result in just as much inflation. Those goods and services still need to be paid for, even if it's the government paying for them.
Money is just the simplest way to give assistance because it's fungible. Fewer rules to make, less administrative overhead, extremely flexible, responsive to changes in the market.
If the government built giant housing blocks, so that anyone could have a basic apartment, how would that lead to inflation in the housing market? If anything the abundance of supply would dramatically deflate the costs.
Note that I'm talking about orders of magnitude more of construction than current public housing projects.
> how would that lead to inflation in the housing market?
If the government buys up all the contractors’ labour, that increases their prices for everyone else. At the same time, if the cash flow consumers once directed to housing is now freed for e.g. whoever is buying 10+ cartons of eggs at Wegman’s, that too drives inflation.
Good policies can be good without dismissing their drawbacks.
1. No reason why contractors have to be the only laborers. You could pay regular people to build them, as was done in the Depression.
2. This would potentially lead to inflation in the construction market, not the housing market as a whole.
3. Even then, the increased amount of work would likely increase the labor pool.
4. And any of these effects would probably be temporary, as it's not like the housing units would need to be reconstructed yearly.
But honestly, this whole debate is entirely uninteresting to me and was only an offhand comment in my original comment. Shame that no one seems interested in the artistic part, only the drab economic one.
The government doesn't do anything. It is the people that do. If the poor people all choose to live off UBI then who will be building these giant housing blocks since it isn't the rich people that build housing?
1. You can pay people to build them, as was done in the Great Depression.
2. UBI does not exclude the ability of people to work for money. If workers wanted to earn money on top of the UBI, presumably they would do so.
3. The number of workers required to build housing is also a tiny fraction of the number of people that can be housed in said building.
4. Furthermore, the question here is between UBI and giving "basic resources." So presumably if the government is going to spend money on UBI, they could spend that money on just directly building stuff. (Which makes more sense to me.)
Housing is a bit different because it's so supply-constrained, so I do think that building social housing would have a huge positive impact. Other supply-constrained goods and services may be similar, but I don't think many are as obvious as housing. Maybe doctors?
Various demand-side subsidies seem roughly as likely to raise prices, whether that's giving money to consumers or buying the goods on their behalf.
I wonder about that too, but I think there's two things in its favor that pretty much outweigh everything else:
1. Prevent low-wage, low-skill workers from being exploited. If the manager at a fast food restaurant is a creep or a jerk, desperate people feel they have to stay and put up with it so they can make rent that month. If they instead had a safety net and were able to quit without being put out on the street, then they'd be less likely to tolerate being taken advantage of.
2. Like you mentioned, art. Many people work to survive so they can pursue their real passion. Musicians, artists, anyone you see at a booth in the farmers market with handmade trinkets, and so on. UBI would allow them to focus on their art, and more people to participate and experiment, and I think the world would be better for it.
Look at the major components that push up the guaranteed minimum income every year: rent/mortgage; health insurance; auto insurance; lack of public transportation; ripping off by utilities like PGE in California. The more one gets paid, that delta (increase in wages) is eaten by rents, insurers, etc.
Fix the housing mess, fix the insurance mess by dismantling cartels, etc.
I'm a firm believer in the Housing Theory of Everything™ and in the urgency to fix our housing shortages, but... we can do both at once.
A huge part of fixing housing is fixing regulations, not spending more money (though I'd love to see state funding and capacity to build counter-cyclically), so the solutions don't even compete for funds.
"The Housing Theory of Everything", by John Myers & Sam Bowman & Ben Southwood (2021)
Western housing shortages do not just prevent many from ever affording their own home. They also drive inequality, climate change, low productivity growth, obesity, and even falling fertility rates.
That might be somewhat overstated. But not by much.
Incidentally, much of the housing situation devolves from transport, and specifically the automobile, which reshaped both urban and rural landscapes far beyond patterns which had existed for millennia, based on the limits of pedestrian (and occasionally equestrian) mobility.
I cannot imagine how UBI wouldn't fuel yet another mad increase in rents.
The fundamental problem with housing in economically strong areas is that there is nowhere near enough of it. That is creating a brutal competition already.
Once everyone is able to fork out +X thousand monthly from their UBI, how much of that X will be captured by landlords?
UK is struggling to pay its meagre unemployment and disability benefits. The idea that we can pay a meaningful amount of money to everyone seems fanciful to me.
I mean, I don’t think it’s a fairytale idea; the implication of the opening discussion on wealth inequality is that the US would need to raise taxes fairly significantly to do so.
The question is really just whether the political will to do so exists. If that’s what you’re referring to as fanciful, I guess I can see where you’re coming from.
Some back of the envelope maths suggests that to pay every American adult 1k/month would require 3tn USD per year, or about 11% of total GDP (12K per person per year, 258m adults -> 3tn dollars, total GDP around 27tn). That's about 3x as much as what the US spends on its military. And 1k / month doesn't strike me as a big amount.
I just don't really see how people think UBI is realistic in the current budgetary structure.
Say what you will about anything else, but if you have never been there, I don't think many of you could understand the crippling, unbelievable poverty that exists in West Virginia that the author somehow managed to claw his way out of. It's the kind of multigenerational poverty where all economic activity in the area seems to have ceased completely. There aren't any "beggars" because there is no one to beg from. Dwellings are often made from found materials in the area. Especially if you are from the West Coast or the North East, you might find it hard to believe that places like this exist within the United States.
In these areas, if you happen to secure a job that makes in the 30k's, you are several standard deviations above the baseline and you are probably taking care of your entire extended family.
These areas are, by and large, completely ignored and abandoned by our country. They are things we don't want to look at, because it hurts our sense of national pride and national identity. It hurts our narrative of the "American Dream", because the American Dream does not exist or apply here.
This is not to say that the people here are not hard working and industrious, as much as they can be. But the lack of economic mobility in these areas is intense.
It's hard to understand the difference an unconditional 500 dollars per month would be here.
Perhaps you think most people would waste the money. Even if you are right, some would not -- and the some who would not are now not responsible for those who choose not to, and those bright stars can possibly break free of the situation they are in.
Huge kudos to the author for beating all the odds and still remembering where he came from.
If you have it in you, I would invite you to visit Charleston, WV sometime. Get a car and drive around. It is beautiful country, the area could use the tourism revenue, and it will certainly not be an experience you will forget.
I remember "Justified" portraying the area (technically it's Harlan County in Eastern Kentucky) much like you describe, and then the show visited the black portions of the region and the poverty appeared even deeper. That said, as a resident of Texas, I can tell you that that sort of poverty isn't limited to Appalachia.
Actually the evidence is that a vast majority would not. For studies, look to the article's recommendation, GiveDirectly, which has worked with academics to study this question.
Is there a huge difference in outcomes, really? On average, I feel like the people who live in dead-end cities and towns that have no hope left in them would move on their own, given the money. But the places that still have promise in the form of natural resources or manufacturing capacity could get their economies restarted, letting them attract people and investment.
Rip people away from the only concept of support they have: Family. Unless your plan includes the ability to move generations of families, you aren't helping people, you are just keeping them impoverished and separated.
A fundamental misunderstanding of human nature. There is a significant non-majority of the population that will take the money and do absolutely nothing but waste it.
This mentality is exactly the problem. The idea that people with more money should get to decide how people with less money get to spend it. And if they don't sped it the way they want, Its waste.
This is a straw man. Nobody is talking about funding people to the point where they get everything they need for free. That's insane. We are talking about giving people bootstraps so they can pull them selves up with them. Reducing poverty reduces crime and health care costs as well.
> Nobody is talking about funding people to the point where they get everything they need for free. That's insane. We are talking about giving people bootstraps
If it isn’t funding subsistence it isn’t basic income. Whether we flourish that as welfare or bootstraps is rhetorical dressing.
"The idea that people with more money should get to decide how people with less money get to spend it."
If it's my tax money, I get to say how it's spent. This is yet another example of the incredibly sad and stupid, "whoever is weakest is rightest", "morality" that's becoming more and more prevalent in the west.
> If it's my tax money, I get to say how it's spent.
No? This has never been how it works.
We all get to decide how it’s spent by voting. You don’t get to individually decide because, obviously, you’re always just gonna choose yourself. In which case - why bother taxing you?
There’s really two camps here: people who think taxation goes towards freeloaders, and people who think taxation goes towards the community.
I’m in the second camp. I believe these things are mutually beneficial. I want to live in a country with less homelessness, less drugs, less violence, less crimes, more education. That costs money, and I’m happy to give it up because I think I DO benefit, just not directly.
You "get a say" when voting, but you do not "get to say" where your money goes exactly. Those phrases have very different meanings, maybe you got them confused
If you were being ironic/sarcastic in your initial comment, that didn't come through for me.
Given the degree of political friction on this (and other) sites, and the fact that for any "obviously" exaggerated point of view you are quite likely to find absolutely sincere adherents ... it would benefit your writing to be clear when you are or aren't being sarcastic.
And to reply in a positive rather than antagonistic tone, particularly if someone's supporting your own viewpoint.
(I'm not certain even this take of mine is valid. However your writing doesn't make your viewpoint clear as it can be read two ways. Which itself raises the temperature within the thread. Avoid that if possible.)
If the communities improve overall - what's the problem? Everyone dealing with UBI knows that there will be individuals who will spend in non-optimal way. There's no misunderstanding or surprise here.
I agree with you, but that's a hard sell to many people.
There's been a large amount of social conditioning over the past few generations in America that says that if even a tiny slice of the population would abuse a program, that program is worse than the problem itself.
Anyone who's volunteered at something like a food bank will have seen the person in the nice car and nice clothes show up and take food and it requires an unfortunately rare level of benevolence to just move on and remember that you're there for the far larger number of people who really need it.
> social conditioning over the past few generations in America that says that if even a tiny slice of the population would abuse a program, that program is worse than the problem itself
This problem is sort of caused by how hard Americans work. If you’re working two jobs to make ends meet, it is insulting to see someone lazing on the perceived fruits of your labour.
But now you get the fruits as well, and only have to work one job. The perceived insult will feel lessened, would be even more without one side constantly telling you to feel aggrieved over it.
Because it places the burden on those that are actually participating in the work force. What incentive do I have to work when the end result is similar if I don't?
The end result is not anywhere close to similar. UBI will never provide more than the basics. Food & rent and that's about it. If you want more than that, you'll have to work.
That's the point, I have a full time("good") job currently, and can barely afford food and rent for my family, I am literally selling plasma 2x a week for gas money, while paying a significant amount of taxes, so why would I work?
Now imagine getting by with a lot less. That's what UBI-only would be like.
I assume your main problem is that you're in a high cost of life area. A national UBI would almost certainly be set at a level appropriate for a median area. If you want to not work and maintain your standard of living you'd likely have to move to a low COL area.
with what money? we already do a lot of that with de facto negative tax rates for the lowest earners.
You bring up a great option though, I have been working to move to a lower COL(see rural) area already. Part of this plan is a draw down on my participation in the labor market, basically a necessity unless I want to commute multiple hours each way. We have gotten by on much less than I do currently, my QOL was very similar, but I was doing more work for myself and my family, rather than my employer or society.
Which is why I picked your comment to reply to. People have this inclination that UBI is going to provide a reasonable amount of money. But if you do the math you'll find that about $1500 a month is about the limit that's feasible. You want to increase the tax rate by an amount that has the average adult paying the same amount in extra taxes as they receive via the UBI. $1500 a month gets to European level taxation rates which I figure is about the limit of acceptable.
A couple can live on $3000 a month in some areas of the country, and perhaps a single person can live on $1500 a month in West Virginia.
But even at current levels of taxation I am looking for the exit because it is unsustainable. I am already deciding that the tax burden and COL is too high to justify my participation, and I am working on severely cutting my income and moving away from the city in order to be more self sustaining, and sharing less of my labor with everyone else.
*So my original question still stands, what incentive do I have to participate?
"If a small amount of my taxes goes to somebodies rent or healthcare, instead of paving roads for the Amazon trucks to drive on, or the FAA for the Amazon airplanes, them I might as well just be homeless myself!" What a strange argument.
As it currently stands ~40% of the profits from my labor is taken by my federal and state government and they are both running at a deficit. That's before accounting for state sales, property, and utilities taxes. It doesn't seem like a small amount currently, and the government's books are not even balanced at current entitlement levels. I have a really tough time coming to the conclusion that the governments would get better with more liabilities, especially when the largest UBI study showed less workforce participation, not more.
You are also conflating my position with that of one who thinks the current corporate protections are a good thing.
Satisfaction and drive to work. This actually happens all the time with ubi tests - people work more, not less. Turns out we're wired to try doing useful stuff on average.
And you benefit either way - lifting whole community and reducing homelessness and risky behaviour is good for everyone around, not just that one person. The burden of social issues has always been and will always be on the working people. Ubi doesn't change that part.
Even on a website that largely self-selects for people with enough agency, pride and autonomy to graduate and go into software development (then choose to discuss it online), we have people like the 'I currently have 10 fully remote engineering jobs' guy
I mean... if i was given a livable amount of money for no work for a year or two, my quality of life would go up, but I wouldn't quit my job and move somewhere cheaper (where I could get more for that amount of money).
But if i was guaranteed livable amount of money for the rest of my life, that would be a whole different story.
What else are we to base opinions on? There is no available data. It doesn't exist. The "data" you're referring to is tripe.
To repeat the point you're replying to - a UBI study that examines human behavior from a set of people who are only guaranteed to be given some livable amount of income for a short period, and not for their entire lives, is completely useless. It isn't actually studying UBI. It's studying "what do people do if I give them $20k or so over a few installments?".
Very boring thing to study. Honestly a waste of time and resources to even bother conducting such a study, the results can be put directly in the rubbish bin.
Unlike the wealthy which spend money on useful items like golf courts and investment funds, the significant non-majority of the population wastes it on groceries and rent.
How do you waste money? By burning it, throwing it in the bin?
Isn't the goal in a capitalist system to spend that money?
Also, several GMI studies have proven your statement to not be true. It is not a significant non-majority of the population that do this.
Setting aside how often people actually do it, it's clearly possible to waste both money and value. You can buy lottery tickets, or you can buy things you don't need.
Buying lottery tickets with UBI money is just returning the money to the government and/or some other lucky individual. Only an insignificant amount of marginal wasted work is performed.
TBF: many state lotteries are operated by franchises which may be engaged in fraud and/or abuse, or simply skimming a large share of the take.
Texas, notably, recently:
"The Texas Lottery Is Accused Of Fraud, With Calls For It To Be Shut Down"
The Texas Lottery is under fire once again, after Lt. Governor Dan Patrick paid a visit to a store in Austin, where an $83 million dollar winning ticket was sold. Upon arrival, Patrick discovered a warehouse of lottery ticket printing machines, run by a ticket reseller....
Lotteries also manifestly fail in their often-posited goal of funding beneficial services such as education. In reality they shift tax burden from the wealthy (who know better than to play) to the poor (who are desperate even against very poor odds), and cut overall educational funding. See:
"The Big Lie: Gambling and Education Funding" (2012)
“Don’t insult me with those ridiculous claims like “the money is for education!” Money is fungible, and education is already a high-priority budget item. Money raised from slot machines and earmarked for education is simply money that would otherwise have been diverted from some other budget item. The disingenuousness of this claim is jaw-dropping, and it’s even more appalling to me how many people fall for and parrot it.”
Then it's not a waste of money. That is the beauty of money, everyone see fit how it is useful to them, while holding the same value (currency) for all.
What I do with my 1 EUR has value to me, and might be a waste to you. You might be spending that 1 EUR on a keychain that looks good to you. Personally, that's a waste of money, but not to you.
Are you making this point because you believe that UBI/GMI is not earned, and therefore someone else had to dictate how to be use? Like food stamps?
It's hard to state how wrong that "solution" is. It comes from good intentions but as they say hell is paved with good intentions.
What is needed is that work pays more so that it's fairer and more attractive and that's it.
Instead of wasting time with an UBI that would have terrible problems down the line, just make laws so that wage inequality is reduced to a minimum. And laws to take everything of the ultra-rich beyond a certain point.
The problem isn't that there is not enough money (or ressources) to go around, the problem is that they are not fairly distributed, trying to fix it in a roundabout way will have more secondary issues than actually fixing anything.
Why are they calling it GMI instead of UBI now? Is it because all the UBI studies showed, yep, it doesn't work so they need a new name? I really doubt the slightly different accounting scheme will make any difference--after taxes are considered there's not any difference between UBI and GMI.
> After three years of distributing $1,000 monthly to beneficiaries in Illinois and Texas, the organization has released a trio of research papers on its findings. Like many of the other studies released before it, OpenResearch finds that recipients spend more to meet their basic needs and assist others, and don't drop out of the workforce — although they work slightly fewer hours. But the researchers’ biggest takeaway is that cash provides flexibility.
I might be in a web search bubble so if you have any conclusive info that UBI doesn’t “work”, please do share.
> Why are they calling it GMI instead of UBI now?*
Because that's what it is? If it were UBI then it would be labeled UBI instead.
> after taxes are considered there's not any difference between UBI and GMI.
Mathematically that is true, but there is still a significant human difference. Consider a case where you have a loss of income. With UBI, the money will just show up at the usual interval to keep you going. With GMI, money will not show up until you go through the arduous process of notifying authorities that you are now eligible. And if you've ever dealt with people who manage these kinds of things before, you know they don't operate on an instant basis, so you could be going quite some time before the support finally shows up.
IIRC Piketty's book also made a similar suggestion of having the government as an employer of last resort, i.e. offering an unlimited number of jobs at a guaranteed minimum income. It's seen as a more "palatable" policy by many, as it's "just a job" and we've already tried something similar during the New Deal. For people who take these jobs, there's also a lot less stigma than "taking social security".
According to this article [1], GiveDirectly is taking a more targeted approach in the US, because of the results of a study they did during the pandemic:
> During the pandemic, the nonprofit found its $1,000 payments to nearly 200,000 households barely made a dent in the lives of U.S. recipients. There was no measurable difference between the households that received the cash grants and those that did not, GiveDirectly declared in a blog post based on academic studies from the University of Michigan. One reason, according to the study, was that most cash grant recipients also received government assistance, which made it harder to discern the impact of the GiveDirectly money alone.
...
> GiveDirectly has vowed to learn from its mistake. So far, that has meant targeting populations such as pregnant mothers, infants, and families experiencing homelessness for whom regular, modest cash impacts have proven to be life altering.
So, maybe leaving out the "universal" would make sense, since they're not giving money to everyone anymore? GiveDirectly describes what they do as "unconditional cash transfers."
For one it would amount to rapid inflation that would erode much of the purported benefits. This is hard to argue with after we watched pandemic stimulus do exactly this. It made wealth inequality substantially worse. The average person is in the red. The wealthy scored.
Assuming you find some way to address that, the next problem is it doesn’t work with a democracy. People will vote for whoever offers to raise the income, and politicians will pander to it. Also hard to argue with after politicians on all sides promised tax cuts and increased spending despite running wartime level deficits.
UBI is nice in theory. In practice, I don’t see how you fix those issues.
I would encourage anyone who is a fan of systems like this to understand a bit more about how the US taxes and distributes its money. Specifically, look for writings from Jessica Riedel (formerly Brian Riedl). A great interview is at https://freakonomics.com/podcast/ten-myths-about-the-u-s-tax..., and she gets to the meat of the problem towards the end.
At scale the other prong is housing supply. If guaranteed income is not paired with an intentional housing glut, it'll just get sucked up by landlords.
Maybe because a country is collection of individuals. It’s not that people have to sign up to the dream so they can be held accountable. It’s a romantic vision inspired 250 years ago, maybe it’s time to move on. It’s clearly out of touch with the reality of the people.
If for none other, the reason UBI or another solution to our economic deprivations are needed is that rising inequality is reducing the size of our markets. An affluent middle class participates while increasingly impoverished people are less able to as they become more poor.
What is the idea outcome for guaranteed minimum income in rural communities with no meaningful activity? They can’t actually set up a working community if they’re not doing anything.
If there was a sudden surplus of money in the community, isn't it pretty likely people would spend it immediately? Sure, some - maybe a lot initially - would go towards drugs and this would require some attention. However, whatever goods/services currently exist there wouldn't be enough to supply this new level of demand. That would then incentivize people to start offering competition for those goods/services or creating bespoke goods/services for their new customer base. For the people who do actually want to save up and leave, they may now have the means to do so.
Side rant: I don't think many people in this country grasp how expensive, time-consuming and anxiety-inducing moving is nowadays - especially longer distances or across states.
Something that I don't understand, and would love to hear a counterpoint to, is how UBI doesn't just constitute shifting the zero point.
We're already in the situation where everything that actually matters (food, shelter, healthcare, transportation) is rapidly increasing in price. I don't see how giving everyone UBI wouldn't just exacerbate that.
This is probably naive, but I feel like if we deem something a necessity or "human right" then we should just give people these things free of charge. Like food, housing, healthcare should all have a free but basic government option. And maybe people who don't want the government version can get a tax credit towards their groceries, health insurance, or mortgage so that it benefits everyone and not just the poor. I guess that describes some kind of "Socialism" and has a whole host of issues and caveats, but it seems like a better system than UBI.
The US (and UK) have been growing enormously in wealth inequality. This is the big actual problem wealth needs to be distributed more evenly as its harming many people. I think there are a lot of arguments for which mechanism is used, whether its inheritance or direct wealth tax or capital gains or something else, but the obvious cause of the problems today is inequality and that needs to be addressed.
> wealth needs to be distributed more evenly as its harming many people
Why? Seriously. I used to believe this. But it’s increasingly apparent that a lot of people are idiots. Why is inequality in wealth fundamentally bad if the poorest are taken care of? (They’re not, in America. But I’m framing a hypothetical.)
If a UBI proposal requires dismissing the concept of waste, it’s probably a stupid one.
One reason is that the intensely wealthy class doesn't simply spend their fortunes on more food or more sheds to store more lawnmowers or extra rice cookers or patronize more local businesses across the country. They might buy more beds for their now larger mansions, but their rate of consumption doesn't scale linearly with their wealth beyond the median. I seriously doubt they're commonly buying even 12 to 20 yachts, and if they buy 45 cars they aren't driving them enough to also be buying 45 times the maintenance since you can't drive more than one car at once.
Instead they invest their fortunes into private equity and other capital like homes that, after driving the cost upwards, will now rent to the people who are, economically speaking, incomprehensibly far beneath them. They will acquire hospitals, doctor's practices, homes, drug rehab facilities, banking institutions, water utilities and electrical companies to fuel their own wealth. They squeeze out the stakeholder in preference for shareholders who will demand stock buybacks to provide additional returns on investment.
The result is that the people who are on the losing end of wealth inequality will have no voice in how the resources are deployed, the cost of the utility provided, or the capital to compete in the market. It drives the cost of inelastic supply upwards as its utility is no longer a home but an investment vehicle. Generational wealth like farms become corporations which pay their profits to someone other than their local community. National banks squeeze out local institutions with stake in their local economies, they will burn cash to buy the market out from local economies and the profits of life vanish from the people who live it. When there is nothing left to buy, they'll buy the government.
I agree. The arguments for UBI can’t be economic because it isn’t economy. The arguments have to be democratic. This also sustains why it must be federal or perhaps at the state level, versus municipal.
There should be votes for de-selection through the annual possibility of an 'ostracism', in which citizens could write down any name and the 'winner' should pay 95% tax.
If taxes on income were rated by wealth, we could consistently tax billionaires 95% tax and they would still be pocketing millions for safe investment returns
That assumes billionaires don't have billions of free speech to hand out to politicians. How many billions of dollars of free speech do you and I have to counter them?
Not at all. It reduces people’s agency and flexibility. Billionaires can do whatever they want with the wealth they syphoned off. I can absolutely imagine how that weakens connections between people and prevents new ones when you’re poor.
I think you might be overcomplicating the problem in a way that actually makes it harder to solve, not easier. AI governance and optimizing business processes sounds cool and all, but we don’t need to "engineer" a way to address poverty. We already have a simple, effective, well researched solution...just give people money.
We need to be careful of this notion that social ills caused by prioritizing "growth" over people are intractable problems that require us to throw technology at them. It's often a convenient smokescreen from those that don't want the problems addressed at all. And we do their work for them if we play along.
Perhaps, but the distribution of said funds has always been rought with fraud. I suppose you do have a point but if it were that easy, why is it not done? I am simply proposing another way, and honestly its a pretty said day where proposing and idea on a forum is met with such vitriol. I'm also working on https://crohns.ai/ and have had some really good feedback, should this also just be done by handing out money? The approach I am hearing from everyone here is that the world should just STFU and allow Trump and Musk to handle it because they are the big boys so everyone else should shut up. While agree that you all have the right to feel that way, it's simply not a reality the rest of us have to blindly accept. Also pretty said that simply "Trying" has become so uncool on a site like HN.
One can understand hyperbole and still not know that you were being emphatically hyperbolic instead of literally hyperbolic. Sometimes the hyperbolic statement is also literally true. This is a place of academic types who are used to being careful with hyperbole for this very reason. (In this particular case, the contention is also with the use of the word "only", which suggests a factual basis rather than opinion, so it's not necessarily an issue with hyperbole. But... meh, people can read better, too.)
Not trying to say the point you intended to make is invalid or even that your word choice is invalid, just that the literal interpretation of your writing is also a valid one. Especially among people who don't know you personally. That said, I also believe that the other commenter could and should have read a stronger interpretation of your words (such as if "only" was replaced with "best" or "my most preferred") and replied to that or not replied at all.
Really, OK; I digress because at the point you imply that: "Yes. The only solution is magic. Well done." is such a high brow and intellectual comment and I a'm just too dumb to I understand it - this obviously is a waste of both our time.
> you imply that: "Yes. The only solution is magic. Well done." is such a high brow and intellectual comment and I a'm just too dumb to I understand it
My friend, I think that comment was utter trash and they shouldn't have posted it.
That said, interpreting a comment literally, as they did, is a valid way to interpret a comment. I disagree with how they chose to respond to your comment, not strictly with how they interpreted it.
Lastly, you are not too dumb to understand anything, let alone what I've written. Do whatever you normally do to unwind and read my comments again tomorrow if you don't believe me. Anyone who tells you that you are inadequate in any way is being abusive.
> Why aren’t we giving everyone a fair chance at Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness by providing them the fundamentals they need to get there?
Because for a lot of Americans, relative order within the social hierarchy is more important than absolute level of prosperity: it's more important to have someone below us than it is to do well.