[anticon]

People starting companies are driven, determined people who want to create things.

The vast majority of people are not. You're vastly over-estimating the general population. The majority are lazy, and if given money, will sit watching reality TV and stuffing their face with ice cream. (Step outside the startup bubble for a while). Most people are also selfish. The idea that they'll all start doing things to benefit others is a bit far fetched.

Communism (Which is what this is), has failed. Why this generation seems determined to try it again is beyond me.

This is about stealing money from the successful, and giving it to everyone, regardless of merit. It's a fantastic way to reward failure and penalise success, and society will suffer because of it. The numbers are also staggering - it just doesn't work mathematically unless you can magic up billions from somewhere each year.

Also be under no illusion - if a basic income was implemented, the chances are (Assuming you're better off than the average person) you would have to reduce your quality of life substantially to pay for it.

[Fuxy]

> Communism (Which is what this is), has failed. Why this generation seems determined to try it again is beyond me.

A bit of a stretch there and i should know i was born in a communist country. The reason Communism has failed is because of the lack of checks and balances on power compounded with corruption not because of concepts like this.

> This is about stealing money from the successful, and giving it to everyone, regardless of merit.

Be realistic most rich people are not rich because they are extraordinarily successful it's because they are born rich and there's entire companies with the sole goal of taking advantage of the system (in some cases doing morally wrong things that are technically legal) in order to make rich people get richer. Over the past 5 - 10 years the middle class has been getting poorer while the rich have been getting richer even with the economy collapsing. If you start off rich a lot of doors that are closed for regular people are wide open to you so you don't have to be successful just don't be a fool.

I see basic income as more of a equalizer so people who can't afford billion dollar companies and robotics to replace the workers get to eat as well.

[goldfeld]

The real reason Communism couldn't succeed (not necessarily the reason it failed) is because none of the countries trying it were or are advanced capitalistic economies before the revolution. Imagine a transition into communism in a less-scarcity scenario, where robots generate so much material wealth as to provide it to everyone, and no one HAS to work, and technology married to political science in turn allows more distributed forms of governance by the people for the people. Once you have that, and of course less bigots running the roost, you have a shot, as a society, to completely do away with 'marginalization', since every city and every community will be self-contained and no one will have to do commutes to serve a master.

Communism, for all I know, is the alternative to Totalitarism (be it from American corporate overlords or from so called extreme "left") in a future where jobs are no longer to be found lying around. It probably won't be called communism, though. China or Germany (and other smaller european countries) may have a shot, but the US seems destined to be ruled by corporate emperors.

[ajuc]

> because none of the countries trying it were or are advanced capitalistic economies before the revolution

revolution was the least common way to turn communist. Far more common was "forced by nearby communist country"

Also for example Czechoslovakia was advanced capitalist country. It's often overlooked - it was very industrialized country, with long capitalistic traditions, and democracy before WW2. It also went through war relatively unscratched. In 1950 it had GDP per capita roughly equal to Italy and Ireland, 50% higher than Spain.

> Imagine a transition into communism in a less-scarcity scenario

From the POV of medieval people We're already in a less-scarcity scenario. We just don't like to share, as a species. I highly doubt technology will change that.

[TeMPOraL]

> From the POV of medieval people We're already in a less-scarcity scenario. We just don't like to share, as a species. I highly doubt technology will change that.

It seems to me that technology will force that change on us. In a world when a robot can do every job you can, only faster and better, and doesn't eat, sleep or complain, there's little use for you and me. So either we get rid of the whole concept of jobs or starve (or stop the progress, but good luck with that, the very system that threatens to destroy us is the one that's driving progress).

[vidarh]

> Czechoslovakia was advanced capitalist country

Did it have sufficient over-production that redistribution would remove "common wants" for everyone?

As early as 1845, Marx set that out as a central criteria that would have to be met before a socialist revolution would have any hope of succeeding.

> We just don't like to share, as a species.

And in fact, this is a central aspect of Marx' argument for socialist revolutions: We don't like sharing, and so for the vast majority of workers, the only way of getting a reasonable share is to join up and force the upper classes to surrender their wealth.

Marxism is basically founded on two ideas: 1) Capitalism will eventually make production efficient enough to produce substantial surpluses. 2) Workers will only get "their" share by cooperating to fight the ruling classes, and if they don't they will eventually get marginalised as capitalist competition starts driving down employment and/or incomes.

Nothing assumes people wanting to share. On the contrary, the Marxist focus on revolution is basically based on the idea that there's no chance you'll get wealthy ruling classes to voluntarily give up their wealth.

[ajuc]

> Nothing assumes people wanting to share.

It assumes once workers won the surpluses won't decrease.

This turned out to be false assumption, because people don't like to share, so they don't work as well if they only get part of the fruits of their work, as they would if they got most of the fruits of their work for themselves.

[vidarh]

Today they don't generally get a share of the surplus, so by your argument they should be working even worse.

[TeMPOraL]

From what I learned, Communism has this successful capitalism as an assumption, as starting condition. They tried to speed up the process (with bloodshed), so it's no surprise it didn't work, just like you wouldn't expect a baby born 5 months premature to survive. It's not developed enough.

[bitJericho]

No doubt. Had companies in general not taken advantage of employees nobody would even be considering this option. This is what you get when companies look at the bare minimum they can pay somebody for the work they want.

[tiatia]

>> Communism (Which is what this is), has failed.

> communist country. The reason Communism has failed is > because of the lack of checks and balances on power > compounded with corruption not because of concepts like

Socialism did not fail because of corruption - capitalism has this too. Socialism failed because of its inability to put pricing on a product due to lack of a market place. On the other hand, Socialism had tremendous growth. Hitler (another socialist) said, "The Soviet Union is a rotten house - kick in the front door and the whole house will collapse". This was true in the WWI but in WWII the Soviet Union was a different country, they probably had a higher GDP than Germany. Why? Because Stalin achieved growth rates that may have dwarfed China (controversial, but he may have achieved up to 500% Growth in 13 years based on some estimates).

So socialism failed, back to capitalism. Yes, capitalism survived. But how much longer?

"There is No Steady State Economy (except at a very basic level)" http://ourfiniteworld.com/2011/02/21/there-is-no-steady-stat...

Limits to Growth–At our doorstep, but not recognized http://www.resilience.org/stories/2014-02-12/limits-to-growt...

Wealth And Energy Consumption Are Inseparable http://www.declineoftheempire.com/2012/01/wealth-and-energy-...

Galactic-Scale Energy http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/07/galactic-scale-e...

[Sir_Substance]

>The vast majority of people are not. You're vastly over-estimating the general population. The majority are lazy, and if given money, will sit watching reality TV and stuffing their face with ice cream.

I've always felt that this argument against basic minimum income said more about the arguer than society at large. In my experience, everyone has a personal project that gets sidelined for their work.

[dagw]

everyone has a personal project that gets sidelined for their work.

For many people that project is to watch their favorite TV shows while eating their favorite ice cream.

[onion2k]

No it isn't. That isn't their personal project. That's all they have the choice of doing. Most people do those things because they're tired after working hard all day for a wage that doesn't give them enough money to do anything but sit in front of the television. If people had the opportunity to work a bit less in their job so they could do something worthwhile and fulfilling in their spare time, most people would take that choice.

Just look at people who inherit or win large sums of money - a few of them end up just enjoying themselves, but most use the money to follow a cause that they think is something worthwhile. There's no reason to believe the same wouldn't be true (on a smaller scale) for a minimum income.

[TeMPOraL]

Exactly this. After 8h+ of work for little pay, 2h of commute, doing dishes, dinner and cleaning up, you'll have little energy to do anything creative and constructive. Grabbing a beer and turning on TV is a way to relax before turning in and beginning another day of work. I don't know of a person who doesn't have dreams, hobbies, things to do and create. Many just put it off until they can buy a house, until they can have children, until they can give children education, until they retire...

[goldfeld]

I think it's even more than necessarily being tired: people who struggle to get by are in a constant state of alert and stress that precludes developing their creative dreams (they will have them, but can't advance on them). When you're stressed you'll turn to addictions to relieve yourself: chocolate, TV, MJ, and some will even become workaholics through some basal twisted work ethic.

[TeMPOraL]

That's true, and I know this from first-hand experience. Having an unstable financial situation, constant worrying about how to support 4 people and pay off debts pretty much shuts down your ability to do anything creative. It didn't stop me from having ideas, it didn't even stop me from starting to work on them - but it always stopped me from advancing on them - either because lack of money for required components, or being too stressed out worrying to focus on doing the theoretical/software work. So in the end I ended up opting for watching stuff and reading books as a way to tune down before another day of struggle.

And yes, I am a programmer. You can end up in shit as one too. I made some bad work choices before and ended up pretty much not being paid for half a year.

[just_had_tea]

I wish there was a translation of this article into English: https://decorrespondent.nl/511/waarom-arme-mensen-domme-ding...

Basically, the argument is that "poor people do stupid stuff" because their "intelligence bandwidth" is being sucked up by worry about where to find the next meal/rental payment/etc. leaving no brainpower for what we well-off and spoilt folk would call "constructive pursuits".

[mattchew]

> Just look at people who inherit or win large sums of money - a few of them end up just enjoying themselves, but most use the money to follow a cause that they think is something worthwhile.

Can you link to the source you're talking about? I'd like to know more about what you're referring to.

[paulhauggis]

"a few of them end up just enjoying themselves"

The studies about people that win money that I've seen paint a different picture: 75% lose it all within 5 years by not spending wisely. It's the same with professional sports players and it's gotten so bad, they have started getting them mandatory professional money managers. I believe there is a Netflix documentary about it called "broke".

People that inherit money also end up losing their money at crazy rates unless they already had good money management skills/work for a living/were taught these skills by their parents.

I don't see how this would be any different with a basic income. Not to mention the inflation caused by it. For starters, all businesses will have their prices raised automatically to pay for the new taxes imposed on them.

In the very beginning, it might be okay in terms of economics. However, as the years go on, more and more people will start relying on this basic income and we will have entire generations of people depending on it to live.

Costs will only increase and there will be less people actually contributing to the tax base, so the only way to continue to pay for it is tax increases on the middle class and everyone else making a living. It's basically just another wealth transfer scheme to people that never earned it.

The sad fact is that the vast majority of people never really appreciate things they haven't earned and although a basic income sounds nice in theory, it's a flawed idea that is doomed to fail.

[chimprich]

With all due respect, I think you're really confusing two arguments here; that of wealth distribution and the concept of basic income.

The idea of a basic income does not imply a transfer of wealth from the middle class to the poor or indeed anyone. You could set up a basic income system tomorrow in your country of choice and set the level of basic income and tax levels so that everyone, at least in the beginning, was receiving the same amount of cash they were before.

One advantage of the idea is that the poor would be more likely to find work because the marginal reward is so much better, leading to more wealth overall and sharing out the tax burden more. At least in theory.

[paulhauggis]

"With all due respect, I think you're really confusing two arguments here; that of wealth distribution and the concept of basic income."

With all due respect, you are only thinking about basic income at step 1. I laid out what will happen at step 10..which is essentially a wealth distribution system.

"You could set up a basic income system tomorrow in your country of choice and set the level of basic income and tax levels so that everyone, at least in the beginning, was receiving the same amount of cash they were before."

Where do you think the money comes from to support a basic income? Who do you think pays for it?

"One advantage of the idea is that the poor would be more likely to find work because the marginal reward is so much better"

How so? Many poor people will be content with not finding work and just living on basic income. Minimum wage will also need to be well above what they are getting from the government, further contributing to inflation.

"leading to more wealth overall and sharing out the tax burden more. At least in theory."

You are only looking at it from one very small part of it.

[gregjwild]

> In the very beginning, it might be okay in terms of economics. However, as the years go on, more and more people will start relying on this basic income and we will have entire generations of people depending on it to live.

The problem here is the rate of job automation vs. job creation right now. There's a lot of indicators suggesting we're reaching - or have reached - the tipping point here. We need a strategy for giving people breathing space to adapt to job destruction. That might be a basic income, or a government backed re-training program perhaps. But the latter supposes that there are enough jobs to go for when they re-train. And the one big growth area, IT, is really limited to those with some some degree of innate talent. Think about all those truckers and taxi drivers who are going to see their jobs eliminated by maybe 2030.

[tormeh]

I know one single person like that. Wanting this is very rare and is a symptom of mental illness. Most people want to be proud of something. Granted, MacDonald's will have problems finding workers, but is that so bad?

Living in Norway it is perfectly possible to slack off on the taxpayers' bill if you want to, but society doesn't collapse. People would rather avoid the low status associated with living on the dole than avoid work.

[mierek4ever]

Norway is extremely different than for example US. With all due respect, I'm sorry, I can't see Norwegians happily supporting social programs if they are mostly designed to help immigrants. US is immigration based. What about Norway consisting in 15-20% of Blacks, than the other 80% coming from all over the world. I believe that about 75% of all Americans are immigrants, their children, or their grandchildren. Would you not mind supporting Latinos, Blacks, Poles, Russians, Germans, Brits, Indians, Pakistanis, and whoever else is there in this pot?

I think in Norway it would end up with much worse results than in the US. I think Norwegians in this case would vote for some kind of nazi stuff. It's enough for you to have a few immigrants here and there to become extreme right.

So, please don't compare and don't think you are any better. You are not.

[rhizome31]

I don't think the point was saying that Norway is better than the US. The point was saying that in Norway, it's already possible to live with tax payers money, but most people choose to work. So based on the assumption that US people are as good as Norwegians, most US people would still choose to work even if they didn't have to.

[vidarh]

> It's enough for you to have a few immigrants here and there to become extreme right.

If you refer to the current government, consider that the junior partner in the current government that is considered "extreme right" by Norwegian standards would mostly be Democrats by US standards. E.g. a substantial proportion of them are in favour of continuing most of a welfare system that would get even many Democrats in hysterics over socialism.

By Norwegian standards, the majority of the US Congress is "extreme right" and threatening "US conditions" is a well established way of scaring people.

[just_had_tea]

...in which we learn the real reason you're against UBI—dirty immigrants.

I really fail to see how this can be anything other than an argument for more fair/equal wealth distribution in the world. If most countries had similar schemes, then why would the "good for nothing immigrants" go to supposedly scrounge in the US?

[anticon]

If we redistributed wealth around the world, everyone would be poor, unable to start companies, etc etc. Does that really solve anything useful?

You do realise that if you redistributed wealth over the world, you would be drastically worse off don't you...

[icebraining]

It's less socially destructive than many of the jobs I know.

[s73v3r]

No it's not. That's what they do to try and escape the stress from having a shitty job. Which they have to do in order to have a roof over their heads.

[verinus]

and my take on people arguing for basic minimum income have not understood the human nature.

communism was doomed from the beginning as they were removing all incentives to do something useful in the long therm.

[TeMPOraL]

Human nature is people wanting to reap rewards for their work (that includes having private property). UBI doesn't take away that.

Speaking of "removing all incentives to do something useful in the long term", this is what capitalism does today. There aren't many businesses or even people caring about long-term in their lives, because you have to pay your rent next month, you have to be competitive today, you have to reach your company's quarterly goals, etc. Competition makes things inherently short-term. UBI is a way to remove some of the pressure from general population, so you'd have an option to say "fuck it, I'm gonna do something for long-term payoff" and not starve in the process.

[koonsolo]

> Human nature is people wanting to reap rewards for their work (that includes having private property). UBI doesn't take away that.

How are you going to pay for UBI? With taxes. If you already receive a tax free UBI, this means the percentage of taxes on your extra income will drastically increase (with factors, not percentages). This means that when you work for someone else (sell your time/products), only a tiny percentage will go into your pocket.

If daycare of your child costs $500, and your full-time job gets you $500, how many people in this situation will drop their job and become a stay at home parents?

[splawn]

Good point! More stay at home parents is another benefit of BI that I haven't even thought of yet. I get more sold on this idea the more I read about it.

[koonsolo]

Who is going to pick up the trash, bake bread, repair your car, build your house, build streets, build cars on an assembly line? Less and less people. And less people producing, means less people consuming. Your BI won't be able to support you for very long because prices will increase (less supply). It won't take long before your economy is screwed.

[dtech]

There is a huge difference between everyone gets exactly the same regardless of merit* (communism) and everyone gets a guaranteed income on which you can just barely make a living (basic income).

The second doesn't disincentivize working, as you still get increased rewards if you work or work harder.

* Unless you are in a position of power of course, then you deserve more.

[vidarh]

> There is a huge difference between everyone gets exactly the same regardless of merit* (communism)

Everyone getting exactly the same regardless of merit has nothing to do with communism. So much so that Marx spent a lot of time criticising this idea and tearing it totally apart whenever someone raised it (Critique of the Gotha Programme has a substantial section on this subject).

[xienze]

> and everyone gets a guaranteed income on which you can just barely make a living (basic income).

You realize that basic income will just become another campaign promise to secure votes, right? Couple that with "I can barely live on my basic income!" sob stories and we'll quickly find that basic income won't be so "basic" given enough time.

[anticon]

Seriously? Do you not think you're in a bubble of 1%ers? Most people aren't itching to start a company you know... Most want to watch American Idol and do nothing.

[wubwubwub]

Why does everything have to be an extreme at each end of the spectrum? Either starting companies or doing nothing?

I'd like to believe, possibly naively, that for a lot of people there would be a middle ground. Spending their time on personal growth, creative pursuits, general fitness and well being. In essence, living well.

Just because you're not attempting to start the next social media, it doesn't automatically mean that you have no other interests or internal framework for living.

[Loughla]

That's exactly what would happen. Many people would transition to part-time jobs to spend time with their families/friends/volunteer or civic organizations they are already involved in.

You can see it when an 'Average Joe' gets a windfall. Anecdotal evidence is all I have, but having observed several people inherit money from older relatives who have passed, the general first focus is on creating free time to spend with family and friends. Then they focus on those organizations they are already involved in. Then they focus on fun nonsense like large TV's and dumb cars.

[rorykoehler]

Listen bra, if you're not crushing it you ain't worth .

Welcome to the hyper-individualist bro culture based around status and money. The self-worth crutches for people with low self-esteem/ huge uncontrollable egos.

[TeMPOraL]

There are also a lot of things that can and need to be done for others (as opposed to personal growth, general fitness, etc.) that don't make sense as companies, or that are perverted beyond recognition when exposed to market pressures. Starting a company is one of many ways of doing things useful to the public, but not the only one.

[merijnv]

Who says it has to be a company? How about that guy that wants make music but doesn't have the time to practice due to work. The girl that wants to paint, but is to tired after work.

Why does everything have to be about companies and money? Can't you really imagine any useful social, artistic, or other things these "dumb, lazy" people might want to invest their time into? How about just being a stay at home parent and investing more time in their kids? Do you really think society would not improve from any of these things?

[TeMPOraL]

How about science or engineering? Imagine how it would be if scientists actually had time to read papers in their field, perform experiments and pursue some research goals, instead of cranking paper after paper in order to stay employed?

What about all those social projects that people want to do, but don't have time to really support?

[knodi123]

> Imagine how it would be if scientists actually had time to read papers in their field, perform experiments and pursue some research goals

That's part of the reason why most scientists before the 1900s were wealthy men from the upper class.

[anticon]

So you want to spend £240 billion pounds, twice the NHS budget in the UK, on helping struggling artists?

[merijnv]

Struggling everyone. Why the hell is some bank CEO making several hundred million a year and we have people that can't even reliably be home in the evening to tuck their kids in because they're working 5 jobs. I'm all for taxing high-end income (coporate and private) even more to pay for this.

Why would everyone need to work anyway? It's not tenable. A few more years/decades and we'll have automated so much it'll be impossible to actually employ everyone. So unless you suggest we let everyone who is in a now obsolete field starve, I suggest we start thinking of how we're going to manage a society where it's just impossible for everyone to work.

EDIT: Also, where's this 240 billion figure coming from?

[anticon]

The level of koolaid here is just too large a mountain to attempt to scale.

Automation will just move a few jobs around, like it always has done. And yes - we don't need jobs. But no - that doesn't mean the state should give everyone free money.

[robmcm]

The irony that you chose American Idol as the TV show is delightful. It's a prime example of people often from impoverished background trying to better them selves rather than sitting around doing nothing :)

[notahacker]

Alternatively you could interpret American Idol as people spending one day a year pursuing an unlikely dream of lavish wealth before going back to the couch to see how the few contestants that made it through get on :)

I'm not sure "practising for reality TV shows" falls into the category of self-actualisation I'm particularly keen to uproot the economy as we know it to fund.

[s73v3r]

Wouldn't that be similar to startup culture, though?

[celticninja]

I think you need to define most. Where is your sample data? You have a biased opinion and you are sticking to it it seems.

[s73v3r]

The more I read your posts, the more I imagine you're just someone who's scared that they won't be able to have a bunch of employees paid minimum wage at his beck and call, that he can treat however he wants because they're dependent on him for a job.

[JulianMorrison]

Wrong. The majority isn't lazy, the majority is rebelling, in a passive-aggressive way. Faced with a job that they easily recognize as worthless economic make-work, they do as little of it as they must. Faced with having their mental energy drained down to nearly nothing, they prefer no-effort recreational activities like TV.

Basic income will unleash a temporary plague of laziness, as people snatch back control of their own life, raise a middle finger to the world that has hurt them, and seek comfort activities and recuperation. This will continue for a month or two, and then they'll get intolerably antsy for something constructive to do. It's at this point that you'll start to see how much human creativity was stomped upon by "the 9-to-5".

[fwn]

Isn't that the atlas shrugged plot, just mirrored?

[icebraining]

I've only read summaries, but I don't see the similarities, except in a very general sense, maybe.

I'd say it's closer to the ideas defended by the Situationists.

[beeglebug]

Communism: "A theory or system of social organization in which all property is owned by the community, and each person contributes and receives according to their ability and needs."

Basic Income: "An income unconditionally granted to all on an individual basis, without means test or work requirement."

I dunno, they sound pretty different to me.

[logfromblammo]

I can make it more clear.

Communism: From each according to his ability; to each according to his need.

Basic Income: From each according to his willingness to work; to each according to his need, plus a share of society's surplus production proportionate to the market value of his contributions.

In the event where people are as a whole unwilling to contribute an amount greater than necessary to meet everyone's basic needs, Basic Income is very similar to Communism. There is no additional incentive to work harder, because any excess you produce is immediately applied to the shortfall. If you really bust your ass instead of skating by, everyone gets an extra roll of toilet paper this year.

If people are generally willing to contribute more than is strictly necessary to keep everyone else alive and healthy, they are very different. Once everyone reaches that critical tipping point, additional voluntary effort is rewarded by the ability to get things you want in addition to the things you need. And that is probably incentive enough to keep the economy from tipping back into "looks like Communism" mode. If you bust your ass instead of skating by, you, personally, can get your very own expensive thingamabob. And that allows someone else to work a job making those expensive thingamabobs, which in turn allows them to get an uncheap doohickey.

As such, it seems rather important to always calculate the "needs" in such a way that people are always incentivized to work, or to work harder than they otherwise would.

[kentt]

There are different if course. I think other people are saying they have very similar flaws, not that they are the same.

[anticon]

So in effect Basic Income is even worse as it doesn't means test recipients. If you're a billionaire, the state is still going to give you money.

[mkingston]

Yes, but the state will take more than it gives from the billionaire. This is actually more bureaucratically efficient than manually means testing every possible recipient.

[anticon]

How would they take more from the billionaire? Means test them? What if they're asset rich, cash poor... or if they have no income? The whole idea is unworkable. It's like it's been dreamed up by a 5 year old.

[dtech]

> How would they take more from the billionaire?

We have this obscure system that has been around for a few thousand years to do this. It's called "taxes".

[mkingston]

In the current system, yes. But at least we do away with one set of means testing. I would actually argue for a flat tax rate in the presence of a basic income. As for "asset rich, cash poor, no income" there are plenty of ideas out there for capital or capital gains taxes.

[bitJericho]

The point of it is that our technology is far outpacing our own capabilities, and pretty soon you'll have to literally become a robot in order to compete for basic income. Instead of allowing only the 1 percent of the rich people to own everybody else, we'll have them pay for everyone to live comfortably so they can do good works, while the rich continue to have their robots do all the work. Everybody wins.

[jon-wood]

So what if some people decide to use their money to watch TV all day? Its a trade off, in return for some people being able to do things improving society they couldn't have done otherwise, or being able to spend time with their kids rather than work a bullshit job which mostly pays for childcare so they can do their job, we have to put up with a few people having more reality TV to bore us about in the pub. Sounds good to me.

[TeMPOraL]

Not to mention all the jobs that are socially destructive and other jobs created to counteract the results of the former.

[mrottenkolber]

Unless you cite any scientific sources I am going to be blunt here: You are dead wrong. About every point you try to make. Its exactly the other way around. Give people minimum wage with no perspective and they will learn to love the TV. Give people opportunities to be creative and they will flourish.

Be under no illusion: the reason why our culture is so fucked up and our common psyche is so damaged is the capitalist system, that robs humankind of its humanity by stripping humankind of its dignity. We are not cheap resources. We have rights.

[rorykoehler]

Communism is something else entirely (C & P from wiki: "is a socioeconomic order structured upon the common ownership of the means of production, absence of social classes, money, and the state."). Clearly we can see that UBI is not communism by I will take the bait anyways.

Every single person I know has a passion they would pursue outside of work. Some of them would be productive for society (startups or SME's) and some would be largely neutral (self-indulging in sports for example) but none would be destructive. Contrasting that to their work lives I have witnessed some of them taking part in activities that are largely destructive to society because it is the only thing that will put food on the table. Surviving at a minimum level of comfort should not be merit based. Living in opulence perhaps but not at bare minimum level.

Finally with your last point if society is stabilized through UBI and we leave behind our guilt based protestant work ethic and crime through desperation ridden society I can't see how I would be worse off. I would be able to pursue any project I deemed worthy (even some that are not profitable but would have a profoundly positive impact on society) and not fear financial ruin. The quality of society would improve and therefore the quality of life for everyone also.

Your post is heavily emotional but full of glaring factual inaccuracies that reflect on you more than they reflect on society itself.

[msvalkon]

It seems to me you are not entirely objective on this. The studies (also mentioned in this article) seem to contradict your view.

[nshepperd]

> Communism (Which is what this is), has failed. Why this generation seems determined to try it again is beyond me.

Isn't communism about central economic planning? Basic income is explicitly capitalist. No-one decides who ought to do what. We just distribute money, and let the market determine what to fund with it.

[TeMPOraL]

Exactly.

Though because you bring up central planning - I think that we should reconsider this idea. In a technological society, central planning run by supercomputers executing global optimization algorithms doesn't sound like that bad of an idea. Historically, central planning failed mostly because there was no way for flesh and blood humans to react fast enough and to optimize well enough (that and usual human corruption). Not to mention we didn't have properly developed optimization theory before the 60s.

[anticon]

It's extremely funny how every argument for Basic Income completely ignores the fact you will have to centrally plan how you're going to get all this endless money to give people. You're going to decide where to raise taxes.

The other problem is that if implemented, any future elections would boil down to which party is going to raise basic income the most (Bribing the electorate).

[SCdF]

> This is about stealing money from the successful, and giving it to everyone, regardless of merit. It's a fantastic way to reward failure and penalise success,

That implies that being poor is a product of a personal 'failure'. Sometimes it is. From what I understand though, the vast majority of times it's not. Much like the vast majority of wealthy people aren't wealthy because they really worked at it, but because maybe they worked at it and mostly they were given opportunities that the less fortunate weren't.

[Altay-]

I believe you are making yourself upset by arguing from the point of the ideal.

Its not a matter of meritocracy vs basic income. Its the current welfare state vs basic income.

People like you and I are already paying loads of money to the masses in the form of (from an American perspective) Food Stamps, continued Federal make-work programs (like the USPS/military), Social Security, Disability Insurance, Medicare/Medicaid, etc.

Just as a freebie example, The US spends ~$3000 per capita on its military. Cut that in half and give everyone $1500/year no strings attached. That alone would relieve a lot of stress for a large percent of Americans.

[laurentoget]

Add to this the money you are paying to pay police, prisons, security systems, and insurance to protect yourself against petty crime.

[pknight]

No one's arguing that only a small percentage of people are geared toward pursuing high risk/high cost opportunities. But it's not really relevant to the idea of basic income or an indictment of the majority.

The vast majority are happiest when they are doing meaningful work, not by sitting on the couch and eating ice cream while being void of engaging work. This is true for people of all walks of life, the super bright, the super disciplined, the super motivated as well as the other end and everything in between. The concept of basic income would free people to pursue engaging work. Meaningful work does not have to come in the form of trying to cure diseases or build sky scrapers, or start a tech company.

Meaningful work is abundant and not limited by the arbitrary limitations created by a material-consumption-based society what was ushered in by the industrial age, which for the the majority has dictated what is economically viable to make a living. Meaningful work can come in the form of volunteering, gardening, looking after elders, helping the environment, creating beautiful neighbourhoods, social support, skilled crafts, the list is endless and not limited to people with above average intelligence or motivation. Right now these types of endeavours are not economically sustaining for people to focus on.

Given that technology will drastically cut down the amount of jobs required it is beyond obvious that the current orthodoxy just isn't applicable in tomorrow's world. It is obvious today and it's only get worse tomorrow. Autonomous cars and trucks alone will kill millions of jobs, how do these people find economically viable jobs? Office jobs will decline at an exponential pace, because there will be no economically viable reason to employ people for work that is done more efficiently by software.

Given that we can actually sustain billions of people's material needs with most of the work being done by our tools, rather than people, it is complete lunacy to handicap the population by limiting it because the majority won't actually be able to find economically viable work according to yesterday's economy. It is also completely arbitrary. The conditions have changed dramatically and the sooner we adjust the system to fit the new conditions, the better.

[mkingston]

What is merit?

“What then! Do you think the old practice, that ‘they should take who have the power, and they should keep who can,’ is less iniquitous, when the power has become power of brains instead of fist?” - John Ruskin.

Practically, I believe you have an argument (though it may not be correct). But I think it's worth reassessing your moral framework: if there's any correlation between wealth and moral worth I expect that's purely a consequence of an increased ability of those with greater resources to act morally; a lifestyle choice.

[halviti]

Translation: "Society at large has no value, it is up to the strong to take from the many and cull the weak."

[fsloth]

I'm not sure what you are getting at. Basic income is a form of income transfer -a practice that is considered civilized and expected of modern nation states in a scale or another. This is not communism. It is to enable stable societies with people who are content and not prone to be recruited for an armed mob for populist causes.

Income transfers were implemented as tools to block communism by no one else than the benevolent, friend of the people, Iron-Friggin-Chancelor Bismarck, not because of fairness, but of social stability.

[nabla9]

Most successful North European countries can implement basic income in cost neutral way. For example, in Finland 560 EUR basic income would not increase overall taxation.

[rorykoehler]

Didn't know this. Do you have any links to find out more about this please?

[tonyedgecombe]

"Communism (Which is what this is), has failed."

No it isn't, communism is a form of government, which in theory everybody is equal.

Basic income is a variant of welfare / taxes.

[thomnottom]

> This is about stealing money from the successful, and giving it to everyone, regardless of merit. It's a fantastic way to reward failure and penalise success, and society will suffer because of it.

Then those people starting companies you mentioned are not interested in creating things; they are interested in making money.

[andruby]

This is not communism. Not at all. Don't confuse socialism with communism.

[afsina]

Socialism and Communism are "almost" the same thing.

[kriro]

I think the basic argument for testing this is that in the future it might very well be the case that only a small portion of society can do "meaningfull work". Think of an AI future or a vastly automated one.

Sure one solution is pushing the wages of say a factory worker up so it's enough to sustain them. In reality we'll probably reach a point where lots of manual labor jobs shouldn't rationally be done by humans. It's a very hard problem to solve imo and naive "comperative advantage though" isn't the answer.

I mean I can see a ton of reasons against base incomes but I also don't see many good answers for a scenario where say half the currently working population could be "optimized away".

[belorn]

With just basic income, how will the majority afford buying a TV or ice cream? Neither of those two products are basic necessities, and ice cream specifically is kind of expensive and would require a job in order to be afforded.

[vidarh]

> The majority are lazy, and if given money, will sit watching reality TV and stuffing their face with ice cream.

I'm sure you can cite evidence of this claim from basic income pilot programs, then? (there has been a few).

> Most people are also selfish. The idea that they'll all start doing things to benefit others is a bit far fetched.

Here we agree, but it's beside the point as there's a very good reason for them to do things to benefit themselves that will have the side effect of benefiting others:

They'll make more money. The point of basic income programs is to create a lower threshold that is predictable, simple to administer and unconditional. It's not to create a ceiling on income.

> Communism (Which is what this is), has failed.

This is quite comical, because it has nothing to do with communism, and indeed the idea predates socialism by about 300 years.

It has over the centuries had supporters spanning large parts of the political spectrum. One of the important aspects of basic income is that it is not particularly ideological in its basic form:

There's no implication that the basic income is meant for widespread redistribution, though some proponents wants it to be high enough for that. Many proponents, in fact, specifically makes the argument that done properly it may potentially reduce government expenditure by eliminating a whole host of benefits programs that are expensive to run and hence cut administrative costs. This is an argument often made by liberalists (as in classical liberals by the European definition) for example.

In fact, if you were to push for a form of basic income that would be high enough to make it something most people would happily live on if they could otherwise work, it would be fundamentally at odds with Marx ideas of communism. In "Critique of The Gotha Programme" he skewered the idea that communism involved equal pay, by pointing out that this would be extremely unfair:

People have different needs. Instead, according to Marx, the goal for a communist society should be from each according to ability, to each according to need - in other words: while a basic income could fit within a communist framework, as the only source of income it would just create different problems: it would overpay people who choose to not contribute even though they are able to, and would underpay people with special needs.

This, incidentally is also the reason pretty much no proponents - regardless where they fall on the political spectrum - advocate a basic income that is particularly high. It's called basic income for a reason.

[pknight]

And even if your dim view of people is true - that all but a minority of people are so lazy they would all just sit on the couch and do nothing - it would not matter. When our tools are providing all of what the population needs, what is the realist, capitalist, economic argument for employing them?

[eli_gottlieb]

So you oppose selfishness when the masses do it, but support it when Startup Ubermenschen do it?

[rwmj]

What you say may or may not be true, but such a sweeping statement about humanity needs to be backed up with facts. Has anyone studied whether people are generally lazy?

[megalodon]

Are you that scared that it might work? It's a social experiment carried out by the government, not judgement day. Let's see what result it produces before rejecting it.

[s73v3r]

"People starting companies are driven, determined people who want to create things."

Most of them are also extremely lucky in that they either don't need things like healthcare, or don't have families.

"This is about stealing money from the successful"

No, it's not. Those people would not have been successful in the first place if not for the advantages and benefits they had growing up in a first world country.