‘Basic income’ poll: 64% of Europeans would vote in favor!

a reply to: ScepticScot

You won't get everyone to see it that way. If unskilled people think you are better off not working then you will be down yet more generations of job dodgers and more resentment. The only way to get those who could work off the dole is to make their benefits less.

At the end of the day this all has to be paid for and with jobs disappearing and part timers making a large proportion of the work force you won't collect enough revenue so it will all end in some ludicrous social experiment that will bankrupt faster.

a reply to: Shiloh7

The point is to make sure people are better off working. Both a universal income or a job guarantee scheme would, in different ways, achieve this. The current systems of unemployment benefits used on most countries don't achieve this and make it harder for people to get back to work.
I favour a job guarantee scheme as it has additional benefits that a universal payment dies not.

a reply to: Davg80

OK but this money will be coming from the Government e.g. tax payers so you will obviously see yet more cuts elsewhere to try to balance some form of economy. You are naive if you don't think what you are given in one hand, the government doesn't take back - with bells on from the other hand. The country needs to earn this money first not borrow it which is what will happen and this will be paid for and put onto our great great grand children. You don't do this kind of economic experimental trick, which is exactly what it is, when your economy is in the doldrums and debt.

Have you looked recently at the increases in essentials like food? It is going up more and more virtually each time we go to the supermarket. So they are going to have to put more money into earnings and dole rates from somewhere to cover these basic living costs.

The benefits might be OK for you in Scotland but Scotland was a cheaper place to live all round when I was in Glasgow in any case. What you call moderation and being healthy may not be other people's view. What about the ordinary people who use films, the library as their escapism to name just a few of the many simple things people enjoy - not everyone uses the three pretty expensive things for their escapism and they don't all live mundane lives either.

We agree on the UK vote - what we don't agree on is the problem of having a Scottish assembly and Scots in the London Parliament - too many of you and look where we are today. I for one was furious that you all didn't go with your referendum - you should have gone as I still think it was fixed. We also haven't had a vote for the English to decide what they would do - and we all know the likely result of that. You might not like your get out of jail card if you get it because your border will be open to more immigration and as the cake gets smaller with more paws dipping in, especially if they aren't working, Scotland might just disappear down the plug in any case. You would have been in trouble with the low oil revenues already - bit like the last time when the Scots wanted to become part of the UK cos they were broke weren't they? Its not all bagpipes and haggis in the roses.

originally posted by: ScepticScot
a reply to: Shiloh7

The point is to make sure people are better off working. Both a universal income or a job guarantee scheme would, in different ways, achieve this. The current systems of unemployment benefits used on most countries don't achieve this and make it harder for people to get back to work.
I favour a job guarantee scheme as it has additional benefits that a universal payment dies not.

How do you guarantee jobs? Either employers have jobs to offer or they do not, and you cannot force employers to offer jobs if they cannot afford to create them. If you do, you put employers out of work. So in the end, job guarantee comes back to government, and then you are talking about the government suddenly creating jobs for the sole purpose of making people work for pay that ends up being to pay people to do things we don't actually need done.

We might as well pay people to dig holes and them fill them in.

And you still need a lot of money to support all of it.

a reply to: Shiloh7

Firstly Scotland Joined the UK after most of their money went on an an ill fated venture trying to set up a trade route through the Panama canal. advice that was given to them by an Englishman, around 3/4 of all Scotland's money went into this trade idea, which was in direct competition to the biggest company in the world at the time, the British East India company. This Darien scheme was failing because the land they settled on was no use for agriculture and the Scots with no crops to feed them, died from disease and malnutrition. whilst at the same time Scotland was going through the Ill-years where a large portion of the Scots people were dying through famine and disease. So yes Scotland was poor and dying from famine.
So what was England's gain from the deal. Ohh England were fighting a long war with France , they needed Scotlands soldiers but more importantly they were very exposed, they knew that they could get invaded to the North, so they need to Unite the countries so they could insure they wouldn't be invaded from the North, their weakest point.
so it would not be to far a shout to say that England created Scotlands problems with the intention to come in and save the day, gaining more strength to their empire, whilst looking like saviours. yet Scotland had no choice to enter the agreement, not to mention the people that voted for it wasnt the poor it was the powerful and they all got land and titles.
regards

en.wikipedia.org...
en.wikipedia.org...

originally posted by: ketsuko

originally posted by: ScepticScot
a reply to: Shiloh7

The point is to make sure people are better off working. Both a universal income or a job guarantee scheme would, in different ways, achieve this. The current systems of unemployment benefits used on most countries don't achieve this and make it harder for people to get back to work.
I favour a job guarantee scheme as it has additional benefits that a universal payment dies not.

How do you guarantee jobs? Either employers have jobs to offer or they do not, and you cannot force employers to offer jobs if they cannot afford to create them. If you do, you put employers out of work. So in the end, job guarantee comes back to government, and then you are talking about the government suddenly creating jobs for the sole purpose of making people work for pay that ends up being to pay people to do things we don't actually need done.

We might as well pay people to dig holes and them fill them in.

And you still need a lot of money to support all of it.

Do you really think there are no productive jobs that could be done? No pot holes in the roads. No big construction projects? No more teachers needed? No shortage of staff in hospitals? I don't see this as providing jobs in the private sector but supplementing roles already done by government. As Keynes pointed out you could pay people to dig holes but it would be a lot more sensible to "build houses and the like."

The only potential losers are firms that currently do government contracts, frankly if despite the supposed advantages of private sector management they can't continue those roles more effectively than the JG scheme could then maybe they are in the wrong business (or heaven forbid, milking government contracts)

At the moment we pay people to be unemployed. This creates a whole host of economic distortions and involves expense with no direct return.

A job guarantee scheme is far fairer, improves employment prospects, helps stabilise prices long term, removes the need for a minimum wage and is counter cyclical ( as the economy goes better then government will spend less on the JG).

The government does not need money, It this fundamental misunderstanding that drives most of the bad economic decisions we see. The real questions is would the a JG improve the economy (more growth, more jobs, less inflation). I think the answer to these is all yes.

originally posted by: ScepticScot
a reply to: Fishy

I find it strange that so many people think any government job is going to be make work. I look around and see almost limitless additional jobs that could be done adding real value to society. These range from basic labour to the highly skilled. None of which are being done because if the mistaken belief (as you have correctly pointed out yourself) that government spending is constrained by revenue.

Automation may one day do away with need for labour, but I don't think we are there yet or even close.

Markets provide an effective way of allowing people make choices and distribute resources. They don't work for everything and I don't believe that society has to accept the results of markets however for most goods and services they are best mechanism.

Design contests work when they are part of a market system. The final product still needs to viable in the market. If you think for consumer goods single design is better then you may want to revisit your Trabant example.

You haven't addressed the actual logistical nightmare.

Your assuming people will just be welders, carpenters, plumbers, electricians, construction workers, surveyors, Masons, engineers etc.

You are talking about training all these non working people. Some who may have mental illness, disability, drug addiction etc.

It's aassive undertaking to train people or your insulting the trades as if people can just suddenly know how to do them without apprenticing or the vary least Foreman trainers.

Would it work prob not. There will be the need for healthcare universal to treat those in society who can't work without considerable help from the medical and psychology sector.

If you have a model for this I would definitely look at it. However having been a sub contractor in the past myself and working in building and running small bussinesses I can say this would be a massive not only strategic planning project but a massive logistical situation.

IMO a great theory but assuming there is a vast amount of unskilled labor positions is not realistic. I don't think organizing the training of these people is realistic. Then if they don't do it do you just let them die? Or do you need a safety net anyway.

This just isn't a realistic solution. The corruption in the US Gov would create a basic workfare program where workers are really just subsidized to the oligarchs. I can't see this working. I see support for it. I also see an utter failure.

a reply to: luthier

As I am pretty sure I mentioned in earlier posts there is nothing compulsory about someone taking a job. A Job Guarantee simply means that a job is available for anyone that wants to work. this would be at a level probably similar to current minimum wage. (you can then get rid of the minimum wage which would allow employer to offer less if they can attract with other perks and benefits) You would still need welfare for people unable to work. You may still want some unemployment benefits for those choosing not to (that is a political not an economic choice just as it is now).

There are already a lot of unemployed people with skill sets that could be used and a lot of jobs that don't require advanced skills. Where there is a need to train people what is the problem? A better trained workforce is a good thing for the economy and benefits the private sector.

I think health care should be universal anyway, however where this is not an option for political reasons it can be incorporated into the scheme quite easily or you can let people decide with the money they are now earning if they want cover.

You are right there would be a lot of bureaucracy, but we already have a lot of bureaucracy dealing with unemployment, both directly administering the various benefits and indirectly in dealing with the social costs of unemployment.

There are several different models of how it could work most are obviously quite general as until you actually start doing it is impossible to know what you can do (what skills people have, what needs done etc). I'll get a good example of the concept and link to it.

a reply to: ScepticScot

Let me again say I agree with this principle. I have seen models like in SA.

I just don't see how adding MORE beauracracy for minimum wage jobs (a wage non supportive of even the most basic cost of living ) is a solution. I also for see this being a crony employee subsidation program in the US.

I don't think you can assume a welder is going to want to work for $7 and change. Thats rediculous. He prob can't even maintain his equipt for that.

I think there could be some very basic land scaping and non skill positions. However I don't want Welders getting minimum wage fixing bridges.

I think there are plenty of solutions bit it will have to be combinations of things.

The Basic income is attractive to me and some other libertarians is it simplifies the beauracracy. It eliminates the beauracracies where we just create made up busy work like the beauracracies that distribute benefits or the size of the IRS.

Then we have social issues of people being trained to not work because benefits pay more than min wage.

I think step one is raising min wage. It should have been raised slowly and steadily. However we have some inflation issues because of relying on the CPI. Raising min wage means what do you now do with skilled labour. A carpenter gets basically the same wage he did in 1978. Which when starting is prob in most cases less than the proposed 15 an hour min wage raise.

The best suggestion I heard to offset min wage is offsetting it with business tax breaks. This doesn't deal with the wages that are around the 15 an hour mark right now.

Of course raising min wage means a carpenter is going to want more. House then costs more etc. This is the disaster set up by not paying attention to actual inflation. If we saw for instance a trade war with China we would see the effect immediately of relying on the CPI to judge inflation.

This is all my amateur opinion. I took an econ class or two and economics does have branches in philosophy which I am actually a little more "trained in" bit really this is simply my opinion. So it doesn't really mean all that much.

a reply to: luthier

I agree that a universal basic income has a lot of merit. The main ones being that it is in essence very simple to administer and that it is a 'fair' way of providing a minimum income for everyone.

I don't think I believe that just because something is simpler it is better and I am also not convinced it would be that simple or fair in practise. It would require either increasing tax rates for higher earners (with possible more complicated banding's) or going through a probably prolonged period of wage adjustments. There are also (as pointed out by another poster) big differences in what is a subsistence income in different areas meaning it would probably have to be decentralised (and therefore less simple).

I think with any type of minimum income or job guarantee there has to be a degree of the government knowing what it is doing (or at least not being completely useless). This would probably be more hope than experience. However we already have government intervention in the economy in many way, unemployment benefits just being one, and we accept that imperfect schemes are often better than inaction.

Here is links to basic description of Job Guarantee. Annoyingly there does not seem to be a next article button so had to link separately. Also going to point out that while I think Wray is right on a lot of things I do find his writing style somewhat aggressive (not so much in these articles)

neweconomicperspectives.org...

neweconomicperspectives.org...

neweconomicperspectives.org...

a reply to: ScepticScot

Thank you for the links. I will read through.

Personally I am becoming an anarchist because the whole situation in American politics is such a mess. I would in an eutopian world want everyone self employed to an extent. Perhaps returning to some self sufficiency. Kind of like anarchistic capitalist models. The difference with me and advocates of those systems though is I know it's a complete fantasy. Without an authority to protect contracts I don't think people will simply do things out of the kindness of their hearts. Just like I think Mises misses the effect of money power in corrupting the untegulated market.

Ultimately we are most likely heading to either a glorious or a bloody revolution. Without major demonstrations and unrest politics just won't change. Prob why they keep us divided and distracted.

originally posted by: luthier
a reply to: ScepticScot

Ultimately we are most likely heading to either a glorious or a bloody revolution. Without major demonstrations and unrest politics just won't change. Prob why they keep us divided and distracted.

I like to think people will realise that much of our current economic and social problems are the result of policy decision not inevitable decline and that we will eventually get politicians who actually make a positive difference. As I said hope over experience.

You might be better just saving me a spot on the barricades.

Those of you who keep saying "unskilled workers" don't understand what is coming with automation and AI.

A reasonably large percentage of virtually everything is going to be replaced in the nearish future.

Lawyers - www.techinsider.io...

Doctors - www.technologyreview.com...

Customer Service - techcrunch.com...

Computer Scientists and Programmers - www.techinsider.io...

In fact, ~47% of all jobs by 2030 or so. www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk...

originally posted by: luthier
I think step one is raising min wage. It should have been raised slowly and steadily. However we have some inflation issues because of relying on the CPI. Raising min wage means what do you now do with skilled labour. A carpenter gets basically the same wage he did in 1978. Which when starting is prob in most cases less than the proposed 15 an hour min wage raise.

The best suggestion I heard to offset min wage is offsetting it with business tax breaks. This doesn't deal with the wages that are around the 15 an hour mark right now.

If minimum wage followed with purchasing power from the 50's and 60's it would be worth $22/hour today, from the 70's $18-$20/hour. With no change in the cost of goods. CPI really screwed things up.

a reply to: Marid Audran

You are so right. The same goes for the "skilled" construction trades. Companies are already experimenting with 3D printing of small buildings/houses. I hear over in Japan, the are about to start using (or maybe already have started using) a series of GPS-led excavators, dump trucks and bulldozers to perform almost all the earthwork portion of large scale projects with just a small number of people on site to monitor. Yes, there is a job created for the person that programs the machines, but there are dozens of operators/oilers/laborers/etc that will be gone.

originally posted by: Davg80
So what was England's gain from the deal. Ohh England were fighting a long war with France , they needed Scotlands soldiers but more importantly they were very exposed, they knew that they could get invaded to the North, so they need to Unite the countries so they could insure they wouldn't be invaded from the North, their weakest point.

Um, either a bit of revisionism going on here, or a lack of access to the facts.

England and Scotland, at the time of the Act of Union (1707) has shared a monarch for nearly 100 years. There had been three attempts to peacefully to unite the two nations. The first attempt was resisted by the English, but there followed two further attempts and continual discussion even during and after the English Civil War.

The Scottish Darien scheme, which had disastrous consequences was a factor, but not over-riding. More compelling was bribery of the Scottish elite. The English motivation was more about Royal succession. Not sure where the "needed Scottish soldiers" comes in...

Ah, yes I see it now. That myth that Scots formed the backbone of the British military force, even if the evidence shows this to be completely wrong. I am not dismissing the amazing contribution of Scots in the British army and navy, but there were many more English.

A basic wage with opportunities to earn additional income is a necessity in a post automated world. Between the present and the next 12 years, billions of jobs (a significant percentage of the human working population) will become automated, with no plans whatsoever for each automated job to be replaced by some robotics engineer or software designer.

Humanity will be lucky if 500,000,000 jobs remain, in a population that will teeter between 7 and 8 billion. Like the debates of the slaves vs. the working freemen in the time of Julius Caesar, the governments of the world will have to decide what to do with people when virtually every trade school and college major teach essentially redundant, obsolete occupations. This includes engineering innovation, design, screen writing, law, accounting, surgery, nursing, diagnosis, repairs, farming, ranching, mass transport such as pilots and train drivers, as well as individual transport such as taxis and limos. Almost every single occupation will be replaced.

Therefore, the most advanced civilizations will have to produce a means for their people to survive, and in turn, by having guaranteed wages, they secure that the market, and the demand for products with the capacity to purchase and consume continues, giving the corporations and their robots a reason to exist.

Else, the whole economy falls.

a reply to: skynet2015

THat's the way I see it.
Our most basic premises about life will have to change, and that is what we're struggling with here.

I know I grew up almost believing that if I didn't have my survival instincts being provoked, with fear for tomorrow, then I would be lazy and probably do nothing. The precarious american way of life and the constant low level stress of knowing I could lose everything at any moment, I felt was somehow necessary. That's what was always subtly communicated to me from my environment - that is what makes us great! That is what gives way to creativity and innovation!

Many years later, when I was able to experience security (and it took me a while to understand and accept it) outside the US, what I found is that I didn't suddenly have no interest in life and stop moving....On the contrary, suddenly my interests widened beyond the necessary and began to get creative.

That was where I got a bit angry - realizing that in our current model of society, we tend to think that the most brilliant, creative, innovative minds will end up in that higher financial bracket; that it is the result or product of that mind.

When it is largely the opposite - when the survival instincts are not constantly provoked, the mind is freed up for expansion. I suspect you get more intelligent when you aren't worrying about surviving another day.
That is what is drastically wrong with the American dream, the whole "rags to riches" scenario. If you are born poor, you are likely to stay poor and if you're born rich, you're probably going to stay there. And each will have the sort of mind we expect of them because they can't have otherwise.

We might have to envision a world where people work with passion and joy, not because they have to survive, but because the physical world is an awesome experience and inspires creative action.

Sometimes humans are so attached to what is familiar, they fight even positive change!

a reply to: Bluesma
I agree with you wholheartedly,
Human beings are afraid of change it is the way we have been conditioned, we have been governed by bodies that use Machavelian principles and have done for centuries, there is a reason they only teach this "philosophy" in private school and the top University's, as well as memory techniques like "the loci system", public schools only want you smart enough to be integrated as a "worker bee" into a capitalist society, whereas the top private schools have a curriculum that teaches how to get to the top without basic human morals and values.

"Machiavelli presents to his readers a vision of political rule purged of extraneous moralizing influences and fully aware of the foundations of politics in the effective exercise of power."
" Machiavelli expects princes of the highest virtù to be capable, as the situation requires, of behaving in a completely evil fashion."
"That ruler is best suited for office, on Machiavelli's account, who is capable of varying her/his conduct from good to evil and back again,as fortune and circumstances dictate”.

plato.stanford.edu...

I learned who Machiavelli was and read "the prince" after hearing Tupac Shakur speak about who he was and his ways, then in 1st year of my Uni degree, we were told to buy "the prince" and a lot of questions from year 1 exam on politics, were about principles laid out in "the prince", I finished year 1 social sciences degree and changed to psychology, from here i went on to learn about conditioning among other stuff, and i remember thinking about Capitalism and how we are conditioned to be integrated straight into a Capitalist society.
The thing is, we are at a turning point in our existence now, i believe that there is new technology waiting and there will be less and less need for physical and demanding work.
I dont know how they are going to pay this Basic wage for everyone, is the world not trillions in debt already?
Unless they make more money available and just print more of it, but that would just make a total sham of the monetary
system....... Which it is!

Cheers, Dave.

i have also noted an upsurge on news about this basic income proposal, or am i just noticing this because i am now looking for it? does anyone else feel this idea is being put out there by TPTB (i use this term as any group that has power to implement change) not as an idea but as something already decided as happening and happening soon?

some new reports regarding the OP...
www.independent.co.uk...
money.cnn.com...
www.bloomberg.com...

i also feel that the UKs universal credit may well be a stepping stone to this "basic living wage"