Is universal basic income a good idea?

[Frahlind]

In the current world? No. But in the near future, automation will probably make some sort of basic income a necessity.

[Internationalist Bastard]

Where does the government get money from?

[Sovaal]

Even if they have a job? Nah, might as well be burning the money instead. Or putting it towards something like infrastructure or healthcare.

[Constitutional Technocracy of Minecraft]

Where does the government get money from?

Some possibilities:
. Higher taxes (could tax things like financial transactions, land value, capital, carbon emissions or even robots)
. Cutting existing welfare programs
. Cutting other areas of spending i.e. defence budgets

All of these have their own advantages and disadvantages

[Republic of the Cristo]

No:

1. It puts essentially all economic ( and in turn ) political power into the hands of a few super elite. The only ones paying taxes are the ones who own the means of production ( a means of production now not reliant upon actual human laborers ). The UBI would funded by these people, and indeed the entire government would be as well. An absolute oligarchy would be created.

2. The UBI would only accelerate our unsustainable levels of consumerism. On our current path of consumption we will, inevitably, destroy our world and ourselves.

3. I believe that work is good for a person, and good for character development. Not just work we do as a hobby but doesn't actually matter or mean anything - actual meaningful work.

These are the reasons that most stick out to me

[Republic of the Cristo]

Hang on, can I just confirm that the report you linked actually suggested with a straight face to fund a Universal basic income by slashing personal allowance?

The income tax personal allowance disproportionately aids the poor by taking them out of tax - some 11 million people have been removed from the tax threshold since 2010. By cutting the personal allowance and ploughing that into a universal basic income (which will be given to the rich as well as it's universal) then this is basically a transfer of wealth from the bottom to the top.

Nice one leftists.

UBI can't be taxed

In the United States, all income is taxed ( even things like social security ).

[Trumptonium]

Where does the government get money from?

Some possibilities:
. Higher taxes (could tax things like financial transactions,

No you can't. That's a leftist wet dream which was tried in Sweden and permanently decimated the equities market and gave London and Amsterdam a whole new country's stock index. IKEA moved to the Netherlands, reminder.

land value,

Land value is a replacement tax not an example of a higher tax. It cannot be combined with any other taxes, it replaces them all.

capital,

Aka let's go back to primitivism

carbon emissions

Doesn't tend to work as intended. Also tends to export emissions anyway, and merely ruins your domestic manufacturing industry in favour of imports from countries with lower standards.

or even robots)

How?

[Trumptonium]

Note for all Americans:

"shrinking government" is not the same thing in Europe as in the US. Government-spending-to-GDP is a completely absent statistic on this part of the ocean and does not represent anything.

Also note: Sweden's top rate of income tax rose from 51% in 2000 to 56.4% in 2007, to 57.1% in 2017, to 61.85% in this coming 2018 fiscal year.

>Size of safety net isn't related to government spending
lolwat

It is not.

[Forsher]

Let's say it costs $10,000/week for Company PLC to implement a system that prevents $1,000/week losses due to fraud. Is it rational for the firm to spend that money? No, it's not. It's actually better for the firm to just allow itself to be defrauded.

Okay, what if the social costs of the fraud are substantially greater? Let's say that for every dollar of fraud that gets past Company PLC encourages one more dollar to be defrauded from all the other firms. That is, if there are two firms it's $2000, three firms it's $3000 and so on so that if there are ten firms then it's $10,000 being defrauded. Now we know the social benefit of Company PLC's spending $10,000 on the system is $10,000. Company PLC should literally be flipping a fair coin to decide what to do here.

The way I see it is that Universal Basic Income is basically this same idea. The underlying logic is that there's some amount of money being spent to operate the current welfare system (the $10,000) which is meant to generate at least that much in social benefits. The rationale for UBI is that the current system is like the first example... a lot of money gets wasted running all sorts of checks, subjecting people to dehumanising processes and complicating labour mobility (resource mobility being an assumption of efficient markets).

In other words, implementing a UBI isn't a theoretical discussion. It's empirical. If you want to argue the philosophical case against the UBI you really ought to make a case against any and all forms of welfare system. And it follows that "where's the money coming from?" lies in the opportunity costs... if you spend the government's money more effectively (e.g. via the UBI) then it recoups the costs of operating a UBI through the normal ways (e.g. more goods and services, company and income tax revenues).

In practice, were a UBI to be introduced (to my knowledge it doesn't exist anywhere properly) it would be part of a more radical change. After all, a government would want to have the "readies" to pay for it rather than relying on being able to capture enough of the benefits of having a UBI (which wouldn't necessarily be the case). I would imagine that part of these substantial changes would relate to the tax system... perhaps incorporating a form of land tax or a transactions tax into the system. But, as I say, a UBI wouldn't arrive without some compelling practical advantage.

[Constitutional Technocracy of Minecraft]

Some possibilities:
. Higher taxes (could tax things like financial transactions,

No you can't. That's a leftist wet dream which was tried in Sweden and permanently decimated the equities market and gave London and Amsterdam a whole new country's stock index. IKEA moved to the Netherlands, reminder.

land value,

Land value is a replacement tax not an example of a higher tax. It cannot be combined with any other taxes, it replaces them all.

capital,

Aka let's go back to primitivism

carbon emissions

Doesn't tend to work as intended. Also tends to export emissions anyway, and merely ruins your domestic manufacturing industry in favour of imports from countries with lower standards.

or even robots)

How?

About the "taxing robots" thing: When industrial automation inevitably replaces most jobs, you can tax companies based on their production and level of automation to fund a UBI. Automation will still make more money for companies than employing humans, as they don't have to pay robots salaries.

[Trumptonium]

No you can't. That's a leftist wet dream which was tried in Sweden and permanently decimated the equities market and gave London and Amsterdam a whole new country's stock index. IKEA moved to the Netherlands, reminder.



Land value is a replacement tax not an example of a higher tax. It cannot be combined with any other taxes, it replaces them all.



Aka let's go back to primitivism



Doesn't tend to work as intended. Also tends to export emissions anyway, and merely ruins your domestic manufacturing industry in favour of imports from countries with lower standards.



How?

About the "taxing robots" thing: When industrial automation inevitably replaces most jobs, you can tax companies based on their production and level of automation to fund a UBI. Automation will still make more money for companies than employing humans, as they don't have to pay robots salaries.

So basically it's the same as a tax on manufacturing.

Ergo, say bye to manufacturing.

Unless you put insane tariffs on all imports that make leaving impossible, then most manufacturing corps will just relocate to your nearest neighbour who is able to produce at the lowest margins and then export that back to you.

[Great Minarchistan]

Where does the government get money from?

Some possibilities:
. Higher taxes (could tax things like financial transactions, land value, capital, carbon emissions or even robots)
. Cutting existing welfare programs
. Cutting other areas of spending i.e. defence budgets

All of these have their own advantages and disadvantages

1. Yes, tobin tax, LVT, CGT, CO2 tax and robot tax are great ways to raise rev-- wait, the investments are fleeing! HANS, ENACT CAPITAL CONTROLS!1!1!1!!
2. Unless if you cut literally every cent from welfare spending then you'll still be incurring on an extra deficit of several percentual points a year.
3. 300-400bn. cut from military covers literally less than 10% of an UBI

[Oil exporting People]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-43078920

So, yesterday a report suggested that the UK should introduce a universal basic income - giving everyone a set amount of money every month/6 months/year even if they have a job. What do you think, NSG? Should your country introduce UBI?

I think UBI is a good idea, since it will become increasingly necessary as automation replaces jobs and will significantly reduce the financial dread felt by poor people.

For more information, I'd recommend you watch this video

Absolutely horrid idea, and anyone suggesting it is doesn't understand basic economics.

[Shofercia]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-43078920

So, yesterday a report suggested that the UK should introduce a universal basic income - giving everyone a set amount of money every month/6 months/year even if they have a job. What do you think, NSG? Should your country introduce UBI?

I think UBI is a good idea, since it will become increasingly necessary as automation replaces jobs and will significantly reduce the financial dread felt by poor people.

For more information, I'd recommend you watch this video

Bad idea. It encourages people not to work. What you need is the Government providing paying jobs for the unemployed, as well as temporary payments to its citizens that are going through job retraining programs. Instead, we get handouts.

[The Parkus Empire]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-43078920

So, yesterday a report suggested that the UK should introduce a universal basic income - giving everyone a set amount of money every month/6 months/year even if they have a job. What do you think, NSG? Should your country introduce UBI?

I think UBI is a good idea, since it will become increasingly necessary as automation replaces jobs and will significantly reduce the financial dread felt by poor people.

For more information, I'd recommend you watch this video

Bad idea. It encourages people not to work. What you need is the Government providing paying jobs for the unemployed, as well as temporary payments to its citizens that are going through job retraining programs. Instead, we get handouts.

Providing work is not the state's job, really. Except in socialism.

[Shofercia]

Hang on, can I just confirm that the report you linked actually suggested with a straight face to fund a Universal basic income by slashing personal allowance?

The income tax personal allowance disproportionately aids the poor by taking them out of tax - some 11 million people have been removed from the tax threshold since 2010. By cutting the personal allowance and ploughing that into a universal basic income (which will be given to the rich as well as it's universal) then this is basically a transfer of wealth from the bottom to the top.

Nice one leftists.

UBI can't be taxed

So people receiving UBI won't pay sales taxes? Alcohol taxes? Property taxes through their rent? Cigarette taxes? Gas taxes? How shall this wonder be achieved?

[Shofercia]

Bad idea. It encourages people not to work. What you need is the Government providing paying jobs for the unemployed, as well as temporary payments to its citizens that are going through job retraining programs. Instead, we get handouts.

Providing work is not the state's job, really. Except I socialism.

If you have a bunch of people sitting around and doing nothing, it's a drain on society. Those who have nothing to do might start committing crimes, (police expenditure,) generally don't lead healthy lives, (social healthcare burden,) can spread diseases if they're homeless, (how do you think that'll affect your home's equity balance?) and so on. Just let 'em work.

[The Parkus Empire]

Providing work is not the state's job, really. Except I socialism.

If you have a bunch of people sitting around and doing nothing, it's a drain on society. Those who have nothing to do might start committing crimes, (police expenditure,) generally don't lead healthy lives, (social healthcare burden,) can spread diseases if they're homeless, (how do you think that'll affect your home's equity balance?) and so on. Just let 'em work.

Thanks is no law prohibiting their working

[Shofercia]

If you have a bunch of people sitting around and doing nothing, it's a drain on society. Those who have nothing to do might start committing crimes, (police expenditure,) generally don't lead healthy lives, (social healthcare burden,) can spread diseases if they're homeless, (how do you think that'll affect your home's equity balance?) and so on. Just let 'em work.

Thanks is no law prohibiting their working

My point is that those who are unemployed are a drain on society's resources. The way to reduce said drain is to let the Government provide them with jobs or retraining programs. It's cheaper in the long run. It's akin to introducing a European Style Healthcare Program in the US. Yes, lots of bad people will get a free ride, but, in the end, the Healthcare Expenditure will decrease, and it will be cheaper for most US Citizens.

[The Parkus Empire]

Thanks is no law prohibiting their working

My point is that those who are unemployed are a drain on society's resources. The way to reduce said drain is to let the Government provide them with jobs or retraining programs. It's cheaper in the long run. It's akin to introducing a European Style Healthcare Program in the US. Yes, lots of bad people will get a free ride, but, in the end, the Healthcare Expenditure will decrease, and it will be cheaper for most US Citizens.

The government is not prohibited from hiring for its needs

[Mushet]

Meh, I like negative income tax, which is sorta similar.

[The Parkus Empire]

Meh, I like negative income tax, which is sorta similar.

It makes zero sense. The idea of the state paying taxes to citizens is naturally backward, but especially when it's not for rendering service. Negative income tax is based on a gross misunderstanding of the very point of taxation

[Mushet]

Meh, I like negative income tax, which is sorta similar.

It makes zero sense. The idea of the state paying taxes to citizens is naturally backward, but especially when it's not for rendering service. Negative income tax is based on a gross misunderstanding of the very point of taxation

It's more like scaled assistance to anyone below the threshold, while scaling back the welfare system.

[Summertimequestionswine]

Isn't most any form of income a good idea?

[Summertimequestionswine]

Meh, I like negative income tax, which is sorta similar.

It makes zero sense. The idea of the state paying taxes to citizens is naturally backward, but especially when it's not for rendering service. Negative income tax is based on a gross misunderstanding of the very point of taxation

Is it Theft? Please tell me it's Theft. I've had people bombarding me all over the internet with messages equating taxation to Theft.