[Rumford]

Oh not this again. First of all, Friedman advocated a negative income tax as a replacement to the ad-hoc mess of redistributive taxes, grants and welfare programs that exist now. Add a UBI to food stamps, unemployment benefits, farm subsidies, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and the problems only get worse.

Second, this doomsday scenario of 50 million people waking up one day to discover there isn't a single thing in the world they can do to feed themselves is such hyperbolic nonsense you might as well be asking how opponents of a UBI plan to deal with a meteor demolishing Texas. Economies change. Sometimes a profession becomes obsolete. The people involved in it go elsewhere and on the whole everyone gets richer. It may sound unpleasant but it's only the same thing mankind has done a thousand times over already with great success. Unless you're mad about the fact that you don't have to milk your own cows anymore. This supposed choice between killing, jailing, or subsidizing millions of people is a false dichotomy that would sound like a joke to me if so many weren't sincerely buying into it. The other and far more reasonable option is to let free human beings navigate a changing world by adapting in the way each of them sees fit. They do it all the time. They don't need some savior swooping in with armloads of other people's money.

[Turing_Machine]

Oh not this again. First of all, Friedman advocated a negative income tax as a replacement to the ad-hoc mess of redistributive taxes, grants and welfare programs that exist now.

Yeah, and? He thought it was the best solution to the problem. See above about the difference between political theory and political reality.

Second, this doomsday scenario of 50 million people waking up one day to discover..

Don't give yourself a hernia setting up those straw men. No one said anything about people "waking up one day" to find themselves unemployable. The discussion is quite clearly about a problem that develops in the long term.

[Rumford]

Okay, so the 50 million number emerges gradually. What do you suppose the first million are doing while the other 49 gradually emerge? Unless they're complete derelicts, they're going to be looking for ways to make themselves more productive again. How many of them will not succeed?

There does happen to be historical precedent for this in the many other technological revolutions modern industry has seen. Can you find one that resulted in one seventh of the country just sitting on their hands strictly because they had nothing to contribute (and not because government "safety nets" paid them to do so)?

[nosuchthing]

What do you imagine alternative solutions to the problems of economic (im)mobility?

Free money to all citizens seems like a bold economic policy with no attainable goal and presumably would draw backlash from wealthy business owners who would simply raise prices on basic goods.

Instead why not just invest in public infrastructure like transportation and public housing, and education?

[eru]

> [...] presumably would draw backlash from wealthy business owners who would simply raise prices on basic goods.

Why don't greedy people raise prices already today?

[Rumford]

The simplest thing I could suggest is to repeal all government-enforced occupational licensing. For heaven's sake you need a state license just to give manicures. In America.

This includes everything from manicurists to medical doctors. Repealing these would do two things. First, it would eliminate an unnecessary barrier of entry into a wide variety of occupations, unleashing a great many new job opportunities. Second, it would give consumers -- particularly the poor -- access to low-cost alternatives that today are illegal. Government approval is no guarantee of quality anyway. We don't need it.

I would also suggest eliminating the Federal Reserve System and its monetary policy of gradual inflation. America's period of greatest economic growth was between the end of the Civil War and the start of World War I. Under a regime of moderate deflation the economy grew 4% year-over-year for a sustained period. Living standards rose across the board. Economic mobility was high. I believe this to be directly attributable to the incentives that exist under a monetary policy of slow deflation: saving is rewarded, prices fall over time, yet innovation and wise investment are greatly rewarded. (Gradual inflation, on the other hand, impels people to borrow and borrow a lot, which just on its own reduces one's economic mobility. Excessive borrowing can also be understood as consuming too much in the present at the cost of the future, which is where the boom-bust cycle comes from. Gradual inflation also makes saving extremely difficult. Anyone who doesn't want their savings to erode over time is forced to become a speculator. It subsidizes Wall Street at the expense of every holder of Dollars.)