[Barrin92]

I dislike UBI a lot. (coming from the left side of the European political spectrum for what it's worth) for a few reasons. The first one is that I think work is a fundamental aspect of personal life and people feel deeply rewarded for being compensated for it. UBI is underpinned by a sort of Wall-E philosophy of human nature. It in a weird way presents itself as humanistic but is deeply apolitical and anti-social.

Secondly it creates dependency between receivers and givers. I'd rather empower workers collectively than make people dependent on welfare. This, in contrast to UBI is I think viable across the spectrum and actually what people want.

I think UBI rests on a sort of naive utilitarianism that overrates material equality and underestimates what's wrong with the system as it is and what really makes people angry and pessimistic. For that reason I also don't think it's ever going to get a political majority.

[alex_duf]

I don't think people stop working with UBI. What it does provide though, is a safety net to make sure you'll have food on the table but no more.

Suddenly if you're hating your job, it's not that scary to tell your boss that their abuse is over. You can have some time to re-train, and be whatever you really wanted to be.

There's also loads of activities that aren't counted as work that would suddenly become very developed such as volunteering.

Yes, some people might suddenly realise that if they live on the cheap they might play video games all day, but I don't think it will be most people.

It also depends how it's rolled-out, if its start at 50 EUR a month, then increases each year for the next 15 years, the economy will have the time to adapt, the citizens will have the time to adapt etc.

It also present an interesting effect. Low paid jobs that aren't well valued such as cashier or delivery person will become less attractive and will have to be paid decently to be worth it. Contracts with a lower amount of hours would also become more common

[mackrevinack]

exactly. i think a lot of people forget that its a "basic" income, not a full income. if you want the latest iphone you are going to still have to work for it

[akvadrako]

> The first one is that I think work is a fundamental aspect of personal life and people feel deeply rewarded for being compensated for it.

That's a reason to like UBI.

(1) It allows more people to work. Current social programs discourage work because earned income reduces benefits; not so with UBI.

(2) It allows more meaningful work. People aren't so desperate they need to take any job and we can safely drop minimum wage, making it affordable to hire people for less commercially viable tasks.

[pindab0ter]

Makes me wonder what will happen to the parts of the economy that rely on jobs that people aren't lining up to do. I can imagine fast food getting more expensive, for example.

[username90]

It could also get cheaper as a minimum wage is no longer required when you have UBI. People would work because they want $$$, not because they have to. This means that for many who would want to earn $2.5 an hour working a low stress job to pay for some simple extra things they can do so.

[ulisesrmzroche]

That’s what robots are supposed to do, right?

[agumonkey]

Activity is important but the welfare dependency doesn't seem much worse than the normal job market / company dependency. I was harassed and conned a few times in my jobs and the notion that the people in front of me holds the power to my monthly finances was a heavy and dreadful feeling. And they know it.

[gr__or]

> Secondly it creates dependency between receivers and givers. I'd rather empower workers collectively than make people dependent on welfare. This, in contrast to UBI is I think viable across the spectrum and actually what people want.

This one I don't get. Empowering workers, in leftie politics, usually means some version of labor, wage, union,... protection laws (not saying this wrong, I'm myself seeped in leftisms). Thus creating a dependency to the state to protect one's work from the ruthless.

Where is the principal difference between being dependent on the state for cash vs protection?

Wrt the larger UBI point: I see it more as an opportunity for people to find deeper, more personally meaningful, work. My inner optimist hopes people would seek out more fulfilling, self-determined, work. My inner pessimist sees the Wall-E thing, though I would not call it underpinning. My inner realist would like to see more studies.

[ulisesrmzroche]

What’s the reasoning behind that? Why is work a fundamental part of life? I don’t feel deeply rewarded.

There’s no such thing as the sanctity of work. This is just ancient propaganda.

I think it’s the complete opposite. Happiness would increase with UBI because it would increase leisure time. Just look at how many people say WFH has made their lives so much better. It’s not because they can spend more hours hunched in front of the computer managing slack notifications.

[boxed]

UBI can be many things though. You can have some super low level of it and just remove marginal tax effects, or a bit higher that removes the marginal effects of companies firing people to save money but society loses much more money by that action.

Both those numbers are way below the level needed to.mske people not motivated to get even very crappy jobs.