The Guaranteed Basic Income

[sukumvit boy]

With debate raging about the changing nature of what constitutes 'work' , jobs being lost to AI and automation and the growing income gap ,'futurists' are proposing a 'guaranteed basic income '.
http://www.npr.org/2016/09/24/495186...d-basic-income

Along with the move toward universal health care the world of the future is beginning to look like a new breed of 'socialism' ,that was so hotly debated in the last century.
George Orwell , in 1936 in " The Road to Wigan Pier" Orwell went to live and work among the coal miners in the Industrial North of England . He argued that , "socialism universally applied as a world system" was the logical answer the appalling inequalities of the present system.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Road_to_Wigan_Pier

[trish]

I’m not optimistic that the notion of a guaranteed basic income could gain much support in the U.S. Some conservatives are looking at it as an excuse to discontinue universal health care and social security - as if a basic income would be sufficient to cover a hospital bill!

Science fiction has often depicted utopian societies of leisure where all the needs of the populace (except governance) were taken care of by computers and robots. Everyone’s a musician, or a scientist, or an artist, or a writer, or a legislator, or an ambassador etc. Others, play golf, tennis and drink martinis.

It beats assembly line work.

“What a wonderful way to spend your whole day, push on the push’em and pull on the pull’em.” - (Doctor Seuss - I think).

For me the thing that stands in these depictions of robotized utopias is that the value of a person is no longer determined by the job they perform. Sure the musician is applauded, the scientist is praised, but no one thinks the martini drinking fashion plate is a freeloader. We’re certainly not there yet. We can’t even abide the notion of food stamps. In the U.S. people without jobs are often considered useless bums; and even more often they consider themselves to be worthless and devalued.

Certainly there will have to be a ground shaking shift in basic values (in how we view and value each other) before we are ready for a futuristic society of leisure. A similar shift (perhaps a smaller one) will be required before we’re ready to freely provide jobless persons even the more basic necessities of life.

Fortunately, even though jobs are being lost to automation, we are far from being fully automated. Wisconsin, Illinois and other states across the nation government jobs are being cut - not because they’re being automated, but because conservative governors don’t believe the services that State governments have traditionally provided. Social programs for the elderly have gone unfunded, parks have closed, school budgets have been slashed, colleges closed etc. With each cut, jobs are lost. People who once had pensions, health care and security are unemployed. The private sector, never picks up the slack.

[Stavros]

What in the UK is known as the Universal Basic Income [UBI] was dismissed by the Conservative government in September of this year, and failed to receive a majority in a referendum in Switzerland.
There is an assumption in UBI that because it is a single welfare payment then collapsing all welfare payments into one will reduce the volume of people required to administer it and thus be a cheaper and more efficient department of government. There is also data to suggest that just because people are receiving a guaranteed income it does not mean they will not seek work or work harder when in employment. The moral argument is that it is a form of wealth re-distribution that would narrow the gap between rich and poor.

Set against this is the bizarre fact that if everyone receives a UBI derived from taxation, people in work will simultaneously pay income tax a portion of which is given back in UBI so that far from reducing the volume of civil servants, one department will be deducting tax while another pays it back. This proposal is thus as daft as the 'flat tax' concept. Moreover, receiving a basic income does not deal with anomalies, such as the likelihood that the actual rate of UBI calculated at say £400 a month is insufficient for the unemployed to live on, even if they receive Housing Benefit, a benefit in the UK whereby people have all or part of their monthly rent paid by the state from taxation. It is not clear what happens to Housing Benefit, and in the case of, say, a drug addict whose monthly habit costs £1,400 the need to steal will remain, as thus will criminal behaviour. The UBI will not on its own reduce crime.

Another objection is the assumption that the economy will generate the taxes needed to maintain payments, even to increase them over time. But if the economy is in recession, UBI could be cut putting vulnerable families at risk. George Orwell once freely admitted that a socialist economy would experience low growth to no growth, thereby raising the prospect of a UBI that is inadequate for average consumers as well as the unemployed. Will it enable consumers to go to Spain for a week every summer? Will it be sufficient to buy little Johnny his football boots?

As for those on the left who claim UBI will end 'wage slavery', as long as money is the primary form of private property and as long as private property is viewed as the individual theft of social wealth, the left has nothing to argue for, except that in financial terms, the UBI would in fact amount to the rationing of money, much as food and other good were rationed in the UK during and after the Second World War. And rationing begets crime.

Nice idea, shame about the realities.

[blackchubby38]

I believe in things like Social Security, Medicare, and temporary public assistance. But I'm sorry, I can't get behind a guaranteed basic income. Not all employees and/or jobs are created equal. I shouldn't be paid the same as someone who doesn't work as hard as I do. Or should I get the paid the same as someone who is in a different line of work.

[sortasubby]

> I shouldn't be paid the same as someone who doesn't work as hard as I do.

As I understood it when it was explained to me in a pub briefly (haven't read about it as yet), the idea is that everyone gets a basic income that is enough to just about live on. If you choose to work on top of that, you'll still get your basic income but you'll earn on top of that, everyone who does earn will pay more tax.

There are aspects I really like about this (provided I understood it correctly) such as the effect it would have on people who are currently on benefits and would lose those if they started working to an extent. With this they'd all of a sudden find themselves in a position where their benefits would be replaced by a basic income and they'd then be free to earn on top of that like everybody else.

[Stavros]

As I understood it when it was explained to me in a pub briefly (haven't read about it as yet), the idea is that everyone gets a basic income that is enough to just about live on. If you choose to work on top of that, you'll still get your basic income but you'll earn on top of that, everyone who does earn will pay more tax.
There are aspects I really like about this (provided I understood it correctly) such as the effect it would have on people who are currently on benefits and would lose those if they started working to an extent. With this they'd all of a sudden find themselves in a position where their benefits would be replaced by a basic income and they'd then be free to earn on top of that like everybody else.

There is a positive guide t UBI in ten simple points here-
http://www.basicincome.org.uk/reason...t-basic-income

However, Business Insider has calculated that UBI in the UK would look like this:

• UK BASIC INCOME BUDGET FOR 2013-14
  Basic income per head for all residents, annually: £3,891
  Basic income per head for all residents, monthly: £324
  Basic income per head for adults only, annually: £5,081
  Basic income per head for adults only, monthly: £423
  http://uk.businessinsider.com/univer...-the-uk-2016-6

As I indicated in my earlier post, there is a gap in the calculations because the UBI to replace all benefits would need to be much larger than the £423 calculated above, Housing Benefit alone would exceed £500 a month in most parts of the UK, in places like London and Oxford rent alone exceeds £1,000 and then some. Again, it seems daft to employ one set of public servants to deduct income tax from people in work, and employ another set to pay the same workers UBI. It is not so much the principle as the application that requires explanation.

[fred41]

I don't like it.
I think in reality, there's just going to have to be some sort of population limitations. I mean, are we just going to spurt out more human beings without there ever being enough jobs. What's the point? Just creating something to survive?
That's not much of a life. Just a fucking drab existence.

[sukumvit boy]

As Trish noted , we are looking at a ground shaking shift in basic values with regard to how we view ourselves and others in relation to work.But the genie is already out of the bottle.
https://www.shrm.org/hr-today/news/h...e-of-work.aspx

As Stavros noted , taxation as we know it would require a complete restructuring.
The Wikipedia coverage is quite comprehensive , with interesting criticism and discussion of tax issues , such as the negative income tax.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income#Criticism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_income_tax

[fred41]

...and just as I wake up this morning I'm greeted by this article in the papers. It's not really a surprise - I've heard of Amazon talking about this before. It's just the timing of it all.
http://nypost.com/2016/12/05/amazon-...ace-americans/

[trish]

Am Amazed! If this is the trend of the future we'll all need free smart phones (with the Go App) too.