[dionidium]

"Basic income removes that harsh penalty"

The real challenge of a basic income isn't how to pay for it; it's how to convince regular people who get up every day and go work at jobs a lot shittier than most of us here have that that's a harsh penalty.

There is enormous social momentum behind the idea that you should work if you can.

[sgnelson]

Not to disagree with your point, but shouldn't we examine the reasons behind and for necessitating that all people work? Not to get too existential, but does anyone really believe that's why we're here, or what we should be doing with our lives?

[thedaemon]

This is a very good point. We are at a point in society where we have replaced multitudes of workers with automated machinery. (1st world countries)This in turn is supposed to make way for more high thinking jobs, but in my understanding does not. To me it seems we have reached a point where we should find a way to fund people who want to do creative work, or experimental. To me, yes, we are meant to work. But that work is not just for a company. Perhaps teaching yourself how to garden, painting, etc. Doing something, that's work.

To validate the point of work being why we are here I will roughly quote Marcus Aurelius: When you wake up in the morning get up and get going. Why are you wanting to sleep and be lazy? Does the honey bee say forget this and sleep all day? Does the ant forgo his work and sleep and eat all day? No, all creatures go to work. What makes you any different?

This is of course out of context, as this is just reasoning for himself to get up in the morning, not a blanket statement about society.

[Grishnakh]

>The real challenge of a basic income isn't how to pay for it; it's how to convince regular people who get up every day and go work at jobs a lot shittier than most of us here have that that's a harsh penalty.

That's not a problem. If a job is shitty and ultra-low pay so that no one wants to do it now that they have a UBI to live on, then the business owner needs to either increase the pay enough to make someone want to do it, or he can just shut down the business or do it himself. UBI prevents people from having to toil at horrible jobs unless they choose to, rather than being forced to in order to survive. That can only be a good thing. It then means that true market forces can now set the wages for jobs.

[dionidium]

UBI prevents people from having to toil at horrible jobs unless they choose to, rather than being forced to in order to survive. That can only be a good thing.

I agree with you. My whole point was that most people do not agree with you. There is enormous support for the idea that you are supposed to work for what you earn. Full stop. End of story. Anything less is charity that should, at best, be accepted as a last resort.

[gremlinsinc]

the rich claim that the poor and homeless are lazy and by not being lazy they could have all the riches... yet most rich people were born rich, and most rich families have been the richest families for centuries. Furthermore I know many homeless people who work very hard for the little they get, while I know many rich people who sit on their Yachts all day, or take 6 week vacations every year. -- The rich are just as lazy as anyone who isn't rich if not MORE lazy because they CAN be lazy -- especially those who got wealthy by luck of birth.

[ENGNR]

And yet many people knows of at least one family of super lazy people who would happily live on basic income.

The trouble is convincing them that these people will never ever do anything productive anyway so the best we can do is loss minimisation by ensuring they don't turn to crime and fix basic medical issues early. And that they're not worth a single second more worth of attention compared to the other 99% of society

[Grishnakh]

Exactly. And what's more, they are productive, even if they just subsist on UBI alone. They're getting their UBI mostly from extremely wealthy people, who would otherwise hoard it mostly. By redistributing it to poor people, it's going to be spread around in the economy more, creating economic gains. These people are going to spend it on rent, food, clothes, maybe a car, and various other stuff. They might not be creating any wealth, but they're advancing the economy, which will create wealth elsewhere (such as when someone comes up with a new business to provide a useful service to these UBI "leaches"). And more tax revenue will be generated from their economic activity too. This is why wealth concentration at the top is so bad: the wealth stagnates and does nothing for the economy when it's just held in offshore bank accounts; when it's spent, even on booze, it has many consequential effects: paying for bartenders, janitors at the pub, delivery drivers (maybe not with robo-trucks...), brewery employees, etc.

Finally, you never know what these "lazy" people will spawn: one of their kids could become a great author or scientist or something.

[ck425]

6 weeks vacation is considered lazy? I don't disagree with your point btw just shocked that that's considered lazy.

[geon]

Yay for living in Sweden!

[Grishnakh]

Sorry, I misunderstood. You're right: America absolutely has a Protestant work ethic instilled into its culture that will make UBI hard to get passed into law. The problem is, that like most religious concepts and ideals, it's completely obsolete: all the drudgework jobs are rapidly becoming automated, leaving many people unable to find decent-paying work to support themselves.

[gozur88]

>The real challenge of a basic income isn't how to pay for it...

No, actually that's the real challenge, as the author of the article points out. We would have to raise taxes tremendously to give everyone a nontrivial amount (the numbers are in the article) even if we ended all current income redistribution programs.

And we'd have to raise taxes even more than you'd think at first glance, since a whole lot of people would stop working in response to higher taxes and UBI.

I probably would. Even without UBI I would probably retire early if my taxes were raised significantly, and I can't be the only one.

[damptowel]

But government spending within the national economy is not income constrained, so raising taxes is not a requirement.

[gozur88]

Then why do we have taxes at all?

[dTal]

To control the money supply. It's true that the government don't need to directly fund all spending with taxes, but if more money is issued than collected, the amount of money in circulation increases and the currency devalues. Obviously this should be avoided as the more the currency you're printing is worth, the better off you are.

So practically speaking, you do have to fund expenditures with taxes. You can't just create value out of thin air.

[damptowel]

Good question, what drives politicians I can only guess. Neoclassical economists have their heads buried firmly in the sand, preferring their a priori fantasies and pushing that as their agenda.

Taxes are good for creating currency demand (and large scale markets systems resulting from it), shaping incentives and income redistribution. It can also be used to put a brake on a bubble economy.

[dionidium]

It's a good question, but it's clearly not merely to raise money. They print money.