[KiwiCoder]

I'd not heard of the basic income concept until now so my reaction might be naive, but what benefit could possibly justify the collection and redistribution of a fixed amount of cash to everyone, regardless of their situation?

For example, if 1 person in 10 is thirsty, what benefit derives from giving water to all 10 versus the 1 - isn't that simply a wasteful distribution of resources?

Even in the extreme case where a blind distribution of resource would save a life I cannot see it being superior to a distribution based on actual need.

[SEMW]

Distribution based on need (means-testing) seems to scale poorly. You need a system to determine means, which at governmental scales is inevitably bureaucratic, resource-intensive, and prone to cheating.

Point is, it is always possible to take a means-tested system and turn it into a universal system without changing the final distribution.

Take your thirst example. Say nine people have 100 units of water and the tenth has 0. A means-tested welfare system might involve taking 5 units from each of the 9 people and giving it to the tenth, leaving the nine with 95 and the tenth with 45. Now, instead, we increase the 'tax' from 5% to 50%, and give everyone 45 units. The resultant distribution is the same (the nine have 95, the tenth has 45), but this way involves no means-testing.

OK, so the numbers here are a bit unrealistic, but the point is, given any means-tested system you can always make it universal and just make the tax system more progressive to cancel out the benefits paid to the non-needy.

[JanezStupar]

In quite a lot of Europe we have social support schemes that are supposed the same net effect.

Except if you are unemployed for more than X. Or if you have more than a minimal wage on your bank account. Or.. Or.. Or..

All these exceptions are meant to cut social support from people who are not entitled to it. While in reality they usually hurt people who have no means to be really productive.

Quite a lot of resources are spent on edge cases, which decreases efficiency and transparency. Thus making these schemes ineffective for what they were designed to do.

I think that basic income is an awesome idea and should be at least tried so we can see if it works out in practice. Especially because we can afford it.

[JackFr]

> Especially because we can afford it.

You mean you can afford it. How do you know if I can afford it? By necessity, to implement this, you've got to take money from people and give it to other people.

Your assumption is that by rights any one in the category of those losing money, is making so much that they lack any moral claim to it.

[JanezStupar]

We already do that.

Throughout Europe we take 40-50% of personal income + taxing corporations to fund common good programs.

I will argue that we needn't take any more than we take currently. Expecting that taxes would drop because of BI is ludicrous. However less of our money may be wasted and more of the needy may be served.

You don't need to trust my word. Run some numbers[1].

[1]: https://googledrive.com/host/0B68HCFLtgK_QTHRGWGZBTkRNQjQ/UB...

[JackFr]

Fair point. Still not sure it's such a great idea though...

[JanezStupar]

I am not sure either. However I think that it is absolutely necessary to test it out in practice.

[jrkatz]

To construct a trivial example, say we give every citizen $2000 a month in post-tax basic income. Of course, most citizens have jobs and other sources of income. To make math easier, assume this government has a flat income tax of 20% If you earn $0, you are pay $0 in tax and get $2000 in basic income. If you earn $9000, you pay $1800 in taxes and get $2000 in basic income, netting you $200. Basic income washes at $10,000, and after that serves only to defray your tax costs until it is hardly noticeable.

I can't speak to what levels of taxation and basic income might be useful -- these ones have been selected for convenient math -- but that's the general idea of it.

Or, in terms of your water metaphor, if one person in ten is thirsty, we give water to all ten, but we also take from the nine, so they actually see a small loss. The water didn't come from nowhere.

[transfire]

FYI, for the States at least, $2000/mo is too high. It always strikes me... I don't think people who make good money often understand just how poor most people really are. The lower 50% of U.S. tax payers only average around $15,000/yr. If I were to guess, approx. 50% of the poverty level would make a good peg. I also think parent should get additional allowances for no more than two children.

That said, the system has a tendency to balance itself (the marvels of free-market capitalism when allowed to work properly) so no mater how much was granted per month, the system could self-adjust. Unfortunately there are so many entrenched interest gumming up the works these days, I'm not sure anything about the markets are really working "freely" as they should.

[JackFr]

Parents should get no allowance for any children, and children should get the same benefit as everyone else.

[KiwiCoder]

This is the answer that made most sense to me - I'll attempt to paraphrase;

The net benefit of basic income for an individual tends to zero (percent) as the individual's income rises.

[Kliment]

Basically, it's super-expensive to check actual need, and by removing the administrative expense related to it you end up getting a much more efficient system. There's also the side effects of making part-time employment easier and speculative/entrepreneurial projects safer. To match your analogy, if it costs 11 units of water to determine who is thirsty, then giving water to all ten costs 10 units, and giving water to just the one costs 12.

[maxerickson]

I think the hope is that it is sort of like digging a well.