[afafsd]

Or how about remote Aboriginal communities in Australia?

If you want to see what giving people just enough money to live on looks like, check out our remote Aboriginal communities where the government hands out enough money to live (mediocrely) on to everybody, so what's their incentive to get a job? What's their incentive to do anything?

The results? Well the worst one is massive substance abuse problems. If they can't get booze, they sniff petrol. Actually for the most part they sniff petrol and drink booze.

Highly educated creative-class people are the minority who can deal with free money without getting sapped of initiative, because (a) we tend to get satisfaction from work and (b) we can earn substantially more by working than by not working.

But for someone at the bottom end of society who couldn't earn more than minimum wage anyway, granting them minimum wage for doing nothing is probably the worst possible thing you can do to them. Even if some choose a life of honest toil for slightly more money, vast numbers will choose a life of idleness and substance abuse.

[jpatokal]

Not entirely sure why you're picking on the Aboriginals here, their well-known problems are caused by much more than just getting 'free' money every now and then. In Australia everybody is entitled to unemployment benefits for an indefinite length of time (as long as you're "looking for work", which doesn't mean much). The payments max out at around $1200/mo, which is still below the poverty line, but it is "just" enough to live on and many people do live on it. Political rhetoric about "dole bludgers" aside, the country has yet to collapse as a consequence.

http://www.crikey.com.au/2013/01/16/dole-around-the-world-ho...

[innguest]

Let's say for the sake of argument that Basic Income results in 70% of the population sniffing petrol and drinking booze. Who are you to tell them they are doing anything wrong? If they're not harming anyone, they have the right to make their choices and harm themselves if they want to. Why do you care? At least you are free (as they are) to do as you want.

It all comes down to people thinking they know what is best for other people. You can't force other people to contribute to your idea of society. If you want something big, find a group of people that believe the same and do it. Don't force others into your idea of how life should be.

[logicchains]

They are indirectly forcing people to follow their idea of how life should be, by forcing everyone to give them money to spend on sniffing petrol and drinking booze. They are indirectly harming people; if you trade with someone else without giving a portion of the proceeds of your trade to the non-workers, they'll throw you in jail, or kill you if you resist.

Somebody has to make the petrol and booze. If you say the people making these products should give them to the non-workers against their will, you're telling them to live their lives how you want them to, not how they want to.

[logicchains]

To whoever downvoted, care to present a rebuttal? I understand there are arguments that coercive redistribution by the state is necessary in the name of some 'greater good' or utilitarian outcome, but I have never encountered a cogent argument that redistribution doesn't involve any coercion.

[aianus]

In a hypothetical future world with basic income, machines would be the ones making the petrol and booze and indeed most of the things someone on basic income would be able to afford.