Are there no workhouses?
January 15, 2015 11:34 AM Subscribe
This is why an income guarantee will not work. (IE, society through the state will bring you up to a certain level if you are below it.)
Which is why you need a universal income. (That is, society through the state is paying you a dividend on the accumulated capital). It's kind of a cop out to say "that's politically impossible." I would say, tautologically, that everything is politically impossible until it happens.
posted by PMdixon at 11:41 AM on January 15, 2015 [5 favorites]
Which is why you need a universal income. (That is, society through the state is paying you a dividend on the accumulated capital). It's kind of a cop out to say "that's politically impossible." I would say, tautologically, that everything is politically impossible until it happens.
posted by PMdixon at 11:41 AM on January 15, 2015 [5 favorites]
More discussion of the article on /r/basicincome, including a link to this alternative view of the system.
posted by Rhaomi at 11:41 AM on January 15, 2015
posted by Rhaomi at 11:41 AM on January 15, 2015
The prevalent view of the time that working was a moral duty, and that the unemployed were morally defective, is echoed in the Coalition’s glorification of “hard-working families” and the vilification of benefit claimants as “scroungers”. And the idea that the unemployed must be forced to work to earn their benefits, even if that work is pointless and demeaning – and even if it disrupts the labour market - continues today in “workfare” schemes that force the unemployed to take basic unskilled jobs, however unsuitable for them, or lose benefits.
The interesting thing about despising "scroungers" is that scrounging is, in itself, a form of work. It takes a bit of intelligence, sometimes quite a lot, to make a stingy and hostile system pay out more than it's supposed to, to know what to say to keep the gatekeepers off your back, and so on.
By which I mean to say, if you don't want people to game the system, it helps to make a system that works well and is generous enough that the effort involved in gaming it is not worth it. Some people might do it anyway for the sheer hell of it, but ihave a hope that clever people who aren't stuck in hopeless circumstances might find more interesting things to put their minds to.
I am good with the idea of a universal income, so long as it's sufficient to live on without having to do anything specific other than be a citizen. It needs to be the bottom layer of the safety net, so that there is no such thing as falling through it. You don't lose it if you've served time in prison, you don't lose it if you are a horrible asshole, you don't lose it if you say "America suxks" on Facebook. It's just there. You can live on it your whole life, or you can do some other kind of renumerative work that pays you more.
I think the explosion in creative work and educational attainment could well lead to a new renaissance and fuel unprecedented advances in science and art.
But there are still so many people who think that nothing great can be attained in human history without the fear of starvation at everyone's door. That free from fear, people would just do nothing but sit around and do drugs or eat potato chips or what have you.
I would love to see if we could prove them wrong.
posted by emjaybee at 12:05 PM on January 15, 2015 [27 favorites]
The interesting thing about despising "scroungers" is that scrounging is, in itself, a form of work. It takes a bit of intelligence, sometimes quite a lot, to make a stingy and hostile system pay out more than it's supposed to, to know what to say to keep the gatekeepers off your back, and so on.
By which I mean to say, if you don't want people to game the system, it helps to make a system that works well and is generous enough that the effort involved in gaming it is not worth it. Some people might do it anyway for the sheer hell of it, but ihave a hope that clever people who aren't stuck in hopeless circumstances might find more interesting things to put their minds to.
I am good with the idea of a universal income, so long as it's sufficient to live on without having to do anything specific other than be a citizen. It needs to be the bottom layer of the safety net, so that there is no such thing as falling through it. You don't lose it if you've served time in prison, you don't lose it if you are a horrible asshole, you don't lose it if you say "America suxks" on Facebook. It's just there. You can live on it your whole life, or you can do some other kind of renumerative work that pays you more.
I think the explosion in creative work and educational attainment could well lead to a new renaissance and fuel unprecedented advances in science and art.
But there are still so many people who think that nothing great can be attained in human history without the fear of starvation at everyone's door. That free from fear, people would just do nothing but sit around and do drugs or eat potato chips or what have you.
I would love to see if we could prove them wrong.
posted by emjaybee at 12:05 PM on January 15, 2015 [27 favorites]
Too many of the fantasies about a basic income guarantee seem to revolve around a tiny minority, like the individual who will write a great novel on his stipend.
Really? Most of the fantasies I about a basic income guarantee that I'm familiar with revolve around "not starving" and "eliminating the ever-present specter of looming homelessness."
posted by Tomorrowful at 12:07 PM on January 15, 2015 [40 favorites]
Really? Most of the fantasies I about a basic income guarantee that I'm familiar with revolve around "not starving" and "eliminating the ever-present specter of looming homelessness."
posted by Tomorrowful at 12:07 PM on January 15, 2015 [40 favorites]
I never knew this bit of history, so thanks for that!
Some of Smith's discussion is weird, though. He objects to a basic income because it would create a consumption boom?! That's the first time I've heard poverty and unemployment defended on environmental grounds. First, a consumption boom is what we normally call "growing the economy", it's a good thing. Second, what we do now is: when the economy grows, we give all the extra money to the 10%. They certainly don't spend it better than the poor would.
Also, what happened with uneducated rural laborers in the 1810s might not be the best guide to what would happen with First Worlders in the 2020s. (Though of course we can learn from the experiment and try to think out ways to make it work better.)
As for his jobs guarantee, it sounds nice but the devil is in the details. People love to punish the poor, as his example of workhouses should tell him. If his jobs guarantee is a bureaucrat who assigns you to the first available job, it'd just be horrible exploitation. We've had corvée labor in history, too.
Though a safety net is very important, I wonder if basic income proposals miss the larger issue: our economy has become terrible at producing good middle-income jobs— precisely the sort of jobs that would motivate basic-income people to move up.
posted by zompist at 12:27 PM on January 15, 2015 [7 favorites]
Some of Smith's discussion is weird, though. He objects to a basic income because it would create a consumption boom?! That's the first time I've heard poverty and unemployment defended on environmental grounds. First, a consumption boom is what we normally call "growing the economy", it's a good thing. Second, what we do now is: when the economy grows, we give all the extra money to the 10%. They certainly don't spend it better than the poor would.
Also, what happened with uneducated rural laborers in the 1810s might not be the best guide to what would happen with First Worlders in the 2020s. (Though of course we can learn from the experiment and try to think out ways to make it work better.)
As for his jobs guarantee, it sounds nice but the devil is in the details. People love to punish the poor, as his example of workhouses should tell him. If his jobs guarantee is a bureaucrat who assigns you to the first available job, it'd just be horrible exploitation. We've had corvée labor in history, too.
Though a safety net is very important, I wonder if basic income proposals miss the larger issue: our economy has become terrible at producing good middle-income jobs— precisely the sort of jobs that would motivate basic-income people to move up.
posted by zompist at 12:27 PM on January 15, 2015 [7 favorites]
Rhaomi's alternative view is from the always insightful Frances Coppola (personal blog), and points out that there was little moral hazard in the Speenhamland system:
posted by ambrosen at 12:28 PM on January 15, 2015 [3 favorites]
Some people no doubt did take the easy option, but the Speenhamland poor relief was hardly generous, and it was not tapered, so getting a real job actually increased family incomes. The “benefits trap” of today, where marginal tax rates due to benefit withdrawal are so high it is not worth finding a job, did not exist.She does mention that because it was a local system, for local people, that it was much more likely to be the implicit restriction of movement (because if you came to an area and didn't find work, the system would not provide for you) which was a brake on agricultural productivity, together with the burgeoning industrial revolution.
posted by ambrosen at 12:28 PM on January 15, 2015 [3 favorites]
Some of Smith's discussion is weird, though. He objects...
Yves Smith, FYI, is the pen name of Susan Webber, a woman.
posted by Steely-eyed Missile Man at 12:30 PM on January 15, 2015 [1 favorite]
Yves Smith, FYI, is the pen name of Susan Webber, a woman.
posted by Steely-eyed Missile Man at 12:30 PM on January 15, 2015 [1 favorite]
from the coppola article: "the primary reason for its eventual abolition, was not its economic effects but its morality."
reminds me of gladwell's million dollar murray:
lastly from a what's-happening-right-now standpoint in terms of labor policy (or lack thereof in congress) what's going on from a monetary policy perspective is actually pretty interesting; most-powerful-person-in-the-world federal reserve chair janet yellen & co. i think have basically adopted 'wage targeting' as abludgeon guide to boost aggregate demand.
posted by kliuless at 1:56 PM on January 15, 2015
reminds me of gladwell's million dollar murray:
From an economic perspective the approach makes perfect sense. But from a moral perspective it doesn't seem fair... We can be true to our principles or we can fix the problem. We cannot do both.also btw speaking of polyani... oh and here's kind of a 'survey' of some thinking on living wages/basic incomes/job guarantees altho for a relatively near-term politically practical point of view wage subsidies probably have the best chance of passage (apart from local level minimum wage initiatives like in seattle).
lastly from a what's-happening-right-now standpoint in terms of labor policy (or lack thereof in congress) what's going on from a monetary policy perspective is actually pretty interesting; most-powerful-person-in-the-world federal reserve chair janet yellen & co. i think have basically adopted 'wage targeting' as a
posted by kliuless at 1:56 PM on January 15, 2015
Well, nobody's going to be confused because of that! [Yves Smith]
The thing is, this is a discussion of a basic income in the milieu of a high-demand labor market -- one that was, I suppose, rather inconsistent, due to the heavily agricultural orientation of the area. What is driving much of the discussion of basic incomes today is a low-demand labor market, i.e., one where there are more people than there are jobs to be had. It's not that you're redirecting someone from useful work -- it's that without a basic income, you end up with squalid poverty for many, even without taking into account high levels of inequality. (In an economy no longer centered on things, productivity is likely to soar, which will especially privilege the investor class while providing few opportunities for labor. Soon to come, as I keep saying, is the self-driving car squeezing out everyone from cabbies to over-the-road truckers. Railroads and shippers are already using robots and whatnot to cut the jobs per ton shipped to levels that would have seemed insane a generation or two ago.) A job guarantee is a nice idea, but I'm wondering how it plays out 50 years from now.
posted by dhartung at 2:01 PM on January 15, 2015 [1 favorite]
The thing is, this is a discussion of a basic income in the milieu of a high-demand labor market -- one that was, I suppose, rather inconsistent, due to the heavily agricultural orientation of the area. What is driving much of the discussion of basic incomes today is a low-demand labor market, i.e., one where there are more people than there are jobs to be had. It's not that you're redirecting someone from useful work -- it's that without a basic income, you end up with squalid poverty for many, even without taking into account high levels of inequality. (In an economy no longer centered on things, productivity is likely to soar, which will especially privilege the investor class while providing few opportunities for labor. Soon to come, as I keep saying, is the self-driving car squeezing out everyone from cabbies to over-the-road truckers. Railroads and shippers are already using robots and whatnot to cut the jobs per ton shipped to levels that would have seemed insane a generation or two ago.) A job guarantee is a nice idea, but I'm wondering how it plays out 50 years from now.
posted by dhartung at 2:01 PM on January 15, 2015 [1 favorite]
A job guarantee is a nice idea
Why, though? I mean, if society literally cannot find marginally productive labor for a person to engage in (ad arguendo purely; I don't really buy this as a phenomenon), what is gained by forcing them to do presumptively worthless (because otherwise we would already be paying for it) work in exchange for subsistence?
posted by PMdixon at 2:08 PM on January 15, 2015 [4 favorites]
Why, though? I mean, if society literally cannot find marginally productive labor for a person to engage in (ad arguendo purely; I don't really buy this as a phenomenon), what is gained by forcing them to do presumptively worthless (because otherwise we would already be paying for it) work in exchange for subsistence?
posted by PMdixon at 2:08 PM on January 15, 2015 [4 favorites]
The article doesn't so much argue against a basic income as much as it handwaves it away and then argues against a different system that people aren't actually arguing for.
posted by ckape at 2:15 PM on January 15, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by ckape at 2:15 PM on January 15, 2015 [2 favorites]
Makework jobs are pointless. We already had a whole thread a few days about about how little work most of us actually need to do to get our ostensible jobs done. Automation is only going to increase that, and in the case of really dreadful and dangerous jobs, that's a good thing. Fewer human bodies beaten up by hard labor is a worthy goal.
The chasm we are trying to leap is, is the belief that there is something morally wrong with letting all people (instead of just a privileged few) live lives in which their labor is not required for their survival.
posted by emjaybee at 2:20 PM on January 15, 2015 [9 favorites]
The chasm we are trying to leap is, is the belief that there is something morally wrong with letting all people (instead of just a privileged few) live lives in which their labor is not required for their survival.
posted by emjaybee at 2:20 PM on January 15, 2015 [9 favorites]
there are approx. 115,000,000 households in the US. if you gave each household a basic income of $25,000/yr, the cost is approx. 3,000,000,000,000/yr which coincidentally is about the total federal tax revenue for 2014.
Now, obviously this is fantasyland, so there's little point in arguing about how you could double federal tax revenue (and $25,000/household is a very minimal BI). However, suppose you did manage to raise all of that money: would you really spend it on sending out checks to everyone, or would you buy healthcare for everyone, and affordable housing and education or green energy or any of the huge long list of infrastructure repairs and improvements that are desperately necessary, all the things that we all need to live regardless of income.
If you're for a BI you aren't allowed to say, "well, I want those things too," because the whole context for federal tax increases is that the public has resolutely voted against those who have advocated for them to pay for all the things I've listed above. At the same time, the context for BI proposals in the us the "Earned Income Tax Credit" which was passed as part of a legislative agenda which effectively eliminated "welfare" (i.e. direct payments) for the most vulnerable segment of the population.
posted by ennui.bz at 2:42 PM on January 15, 2015 [1 favorite]
Now, obviously this is fantasyland, so there's little point in arguing about how you could double federal tax revenue (and $25,000/household is a very minimal BI). However, suppose you did manage to raise all of that money: would you really spend it on sending out checks to everyone, or would you buy healthcare for everyone, and affordable housing and education or green energy or any of the huge long list of infrastructure repairs and improvements that are desperately necessary, all the things that we all need to live regardless of income.
If you're for a BI you aren't allowed to say, "well, I want those things too," because the whole context for federal tax increases is that the public has resolutely voted against those who have advocated for them to pay for all the things I've listed above. At the same time, the context for BI proposals in the us the "Earned Income Tax Credit" which was passed as part of a legislative agenda which effectively eliminated "welfare" (i.e. direct payments) for the most vulnerable segment of the population.
posted by ennui.bz at 2:42 PM on January 15, 2015 [1 favorite]
That's trivially solved by making BI a guaranteed minimum income, so you don't get it if you make whatever, 120% of what the BI is.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 2:47 PM on January 15, 2015
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 2:47 PM on January 15, 2015
No surprise. Basic income is favored by some libertarians, and is therefore suspect. If they're for it something bad must be going.
posted by Sangermaine at 2:59 PM on January 15, 2015
posted by Sangermaine at 2:59 PM on January 15, 2015
there are approx. 115,000,000 households in the US. if you gave each household a basic income of $25,000/yr, the cost is approx. 3,000,000,000,000/yr which coincidentally is about the total federal tax revenue for 2014.
Now, obviously this is fantasyland, so there's little point in arguing about how you could double federal tax revenue (and $25,000/household is a very minimal BI). However, suppose you did manage to raise all of that money: would you really spend it on sending out checks to everyone, or would you buy healthcare for everyone, and affordable housing and education or green energy or any of the huge long list of infrastructure repairs and improvements that are desperately necessary, all the things that we all need to live regardless of income.
I don't think you can do a static analysis here. For ex, if nothing else, I *think* you'd see one time price inflation by a factor of the fraction of GDP that is distributed this way. I know this is all magic asterisky, but my quasi-ideological priors suggest that a basic income would increase output, because a society structured around wage labor as access to resources is incredibly wasteful.
Also: Yes. I think the vast majority of in kind benefits could go away under such a regime. Poverty is, to first order, a problem of money. To first order, it can be solved that way.
I also think that a society in which literally every one knows that they will have some amount of money in their bank account on the 1st is so far from this one that it is very difficult to generalize. I feel pretty certain that that society will have very different problems.
posted by PMdixon at 3:02 PM on January 15, 2015 [3 favorites]
Now, obviously this is fantasyland, so there's little point in arguing about how you could double federal tax revenue (and $25,000/household is a very minimal BI). However, suppose you did manage to raise all of that money: would you really spend it on sending out checks to everyone, or would you buy healthcare for everyone, and affordable housing and education or green energy or any of the huge long list of infrastructure repairs and improvements that are desperately necessary, all the things that we all need to live regardless of income.
I don't think you can do a static analysis here. For ex, if nothing else, I *think* you'd see one time price inflation by a factor of the fraction of GDP that is distributed this way. I know this is all magic asterisky, but my quasi-ideological priors suggest that a basic income would increase output, because a society structured around wage labor as access to resources is incredibly wasteful.
Also: Yes. I think the vast majority of in kind benefits could go away under such a regime. Poverty is, to first order, a problem of money. To first order, it can be solved that way.
I also think that a society in which literally every one knows that they will have some amount of money in their bank account on the 1st is so far from this one that it is very difficult to generalize. I feel pretty certain that that society will have very different problems.
posted by PMdixon at 3:02 PM on January 15, 2015 [3 favorites]
Basic income is favored by some libertarians, and is therefore suspect. If they're for it something bad must be going.
Hey, I'm a Libertarian and I'm for it because it makes more sense to just give people money if you want them to have enough to live on instead of fucking around with the markets for labor and various goods and services.
posted by Jacqueline at 3:04 PM on January 15, 2015 [1 favorite]
Hey, I'm a Libertarian and I'm for it because it makes more sense to just give people money if you want them to have enough to live on instead of fucking around with the markets for labor and various goods and services.
posted by Jacqueline at 3:04 PM on January 15, 2015 [1 favorite]
That too: markets can be incredibly valuable information generators, but they require money as the carrier. By giving people money instead of stuff, those people both a) make the markets better by providing more information b) get, fundamentally, a vote, since markets are how a whole lot of societal arrangement is determined.
posted by PMdixon at 3:16 PM on January 15, 2015 [4 favorites]
posted by PMdixon at 3:16 PM on January 15, 2015 [4 favorites]
Yeah, if you've read the complaints about "government cheese" in the Reddit thread from a few posts down, it's pretty clear that the overwhelming majority of the recipients of that cheese would have never bought it if they'd been given a choice.
There was no market for it, yet a horrible product continued to be manufactured in great quantity and inflicted upon people for decades because it was given to the poor instead of just giving the poor money and letting them decide what kind (if any) of cheese to buy.
posted by Jacqueline at 3:28 PM on January 15, 2015 [2 favorites]
There was no market for it, yet a horrible product continued to be manufactured in great quantity and inflicted upon people for decades because it was given to the poor instead of just giving the poor money and letting them decide what kind (if any) of cheese to buy.
posted by Jacqueline at 3:28 PM on January 15, 2015 [2 favorites]
Wait, my math is wrong. I think you'd expect price inflation by a factor of 1/(1 - fraction of GDP)
posted by PMdixon at 5:31 PM on January 15, 2015
posted by PMdixon at 5:31 PM on January 15, 2015
I am probably not qualified to guess at the macro effects of a guaranteed minimum income in the US, but on a personal level? A $25k basic income would damn near double my income, and very likely make it possible for me to earn more than I currently do.
I own a small business, and if I knew I had a basic income to fall back on I could finally open my own shop and stop needing a second job. Many of the friends who've expressed envy at my freedom from 9-5s and bosses could do the same. All the artists and musicians I know could actually focus more on their work and less on their day jobs or on hustling for exposure; all the people who want to buy their art would have the spare cash to do so. I would certainly be more likely to buy things like original art, like books, like concert tickets; my customers who fall in love with a piece I'm selling but can't justify the cost would be less likely to leave it behind. Also, I would have substantially less shitty health insurance.
I cannot think of a single person I know-- certainly no one I know under the age of 40-- who would not see an immediate and significant improvement in their quality of life. Not to mention the number of people who do not currently work in creative fields for reasons of economic necessity, who would have that option made available.
If we're going to mechanize most blue-collar jobs out of existence, I damn well want a massive flowering of entrepreneurship and expansion of the creative class in return.
posted by nonasuch at 6:06 PM on January 15, 2015 [9 favorites]
I own a small business, and if I knew I had a basic income to fall back on I could finally open my own shop and stop needing a second job. Many of the friends who've expressed envy at my freedom from 9-5s and bosses could do the same. All the artists and musicians I know could actually focus more on their work and less on their day jobs or on hustling for exposure; all the people who want to buy their art would have the spare cash to do so. I would certainly be more likely to buy things like original art, like books, like concert tickets; my customers who fall in love with a piece I'm selling but can't justify the cost would be less likely to leave it behind. Also, I would have substantially less shitty health insurance.
I cannot think of a single person I know-- certainly no one I know under the age of 40-- who would not see an immediate and significant improvement in their quality of life. Not to mention the number of people who do not currently work in creative fields for reasons of economic necessity, who would have that option made available.
If we're going to mechanize most blue-collar jobs out of existence, I damn well want a massive flowering of entrepreneurship and expansion of the creative class in return.
posted by nonasuch at 6:06 PM on January 15, 2015 [9 favorites]
(My implicit model: basic income is equivalent to giving everyone a perpetual bond at birth that they can't sell, with an NGDP/capita linked coupon, funded by something VAT-like.)
posted by PMdixon at 7:04 PM on January 15, 2015
posted by PMdixon at 7:04 PM on January 15, 2015
She does mention that because it was a local system, for local people, that it was much more likely to be the implicit restriction of movement (because if you came to an area and didn't find work, the system would not provide for you) which was a brake on agricultural productivity, together with the burgeoning industrial revolution.
Poor Relief under the Old Poor Law (1601-1834) was administered by parish, and after the Settlement Act (1662) which parish you were entitled to relief in was very restricted (being born in a parish didn't count if your father wasn't entitled to settlement there, unless you were born out of wedlock - which is why mean overseers of the poor would try to rush unwed pregnant women out of the parish when their time came).
But this didn't stop people moving to where there were jobs. Instead, we have the fascinating phenomenon of poor relief petition letters where a person in an industrial town (such as Manchester) would write home to their rural town and say things like, "I've lost my job and I need money for rent, I just need a shilling more a week. But if you don't send it, I'll have to come home and then I'll really not find a new job and will cost you so much more, so a shilling would do well, kthxbye!" (maybe paraphrased a bit).
posted by jb at 8:41 PM on January 15, 2015 [2 favorites]
Poor Relief under the Old Poor Law (1601-1834) was administered by parish, and after the Settlement Act (1662) which parish you were entitled to relief in was very restricted (being born in a parish didn't count if your father wasn't entitled to settlement there, unless you were born out of wedlock - which is why mean overseers of the poor would try to rush unwed pregnant women out of the parish when their time came).
But this didn't stop people moving to where there were jobs. Instead, we have the fascinating phenomenon of poor relief petition letters where a person in an industrial town (such as Manchester) would write home to their rural town and say things like, "I've lost my job and I need money for rent, I just need a shilling more a week. But if you don't send it, I'll have to come home and then I'll really not find a new job and will cost you so much more, so a shilling would do well, kthxbye!" (maybe paraphrased a bit).
posted by jb at 8:41 PM on January 15, 2015 [2 favorites]
The article makes it sound like the primary problem was that the implementation of the guaranteed income was simply to subtract how much you made from the guaranteed amount and give you the difference. This seems like obviously a bad idea because it gives you no incentive to make money if the total you are going to make is less than the guarantee. It sounds like businesses took advantage of that and just payed wages down because it was no skin off your nose, you would still make the same total, guaranteed.
Someone used the term taper, what are the solutions people have suggested to this problem? How do you make it always to someone's benefit to make money in such a system?
posted by macrael at 8:45 PM on January 15, 2015
Someone used the term taper, what are the solutions people have suggested to this problem? How do you make it always to someone's benefit to make money in such a system?
posted by macrael at 8:45 PM on January 15, 2015
also: only have time to skim the FPP, but why is he citing Polanyi? There are dozens of historians who are experts on poverty and poor relief in England c1600-1900; Polanyi isn't one. Why isn't he citing Paul Slack or Steve King or Keith Snell? Steve King's work on geographic variation in poor relief is excellent (PDF mini review)
posted by jb at 8:48 PM on January 15, 2015
posted by jb at 8:48 PM on January 15, 2015
I don't pretend to know anything about the macro effects of job guarantees vs. a guaranteed income. A depression of wages for the working poor seems likely, but I wonder what shape job guarantees would take? Are these public sector jobs where you're essentially unfireable? Would it involve a massive overhaul of employment law that essentially eliminates at-will employment? Or would it be more like the unemployment model in my state, where you're required to call in every morning to see if there's work available to maintain your benefits?
posted by Ham Snadwich at 8:12 AM on January 16, 2015
posted by Ham Snadwich at 8:12 AM on January 16, 2015
I'd just finished reading Karl Polanyi's The Great Transformation about a year before 'mincome' discussions and editorials started to flourish and I kept wondering when somebody, anybody would mention Speenhamland—even if for no other reason than to refute its applicability.
posted by whittaker at 11:46 AM on January 16, 2015
posted by whittaker at 11:46 AM on January 16, 2015
I would say, tautologically, that everything is politically impossible until it happens.
Ooo, I like this. I'm totally ripping it off as my rebuttal of choice.
posted by heathkit at 2:16 PM on January 16, 2015
Ooo, I like this. I'm totally ripping it off as my rebuttal of choice.
posted by heathkit at 2:16 PM on January 16, 2015
Also: Yes. I think the vast majority of in kind benefits could go away under such a regime.
Well, yes, all those Kafkaesque benefit schemes that require a doctorate in bureaucracy to even grasp the beginnings of an inkling of how they work could just, well, go away. There'd be no need for almost all of the current schemes in place (here in Australia, anyway), because a guaranteed income would neatly fill the same space without the need for thousands of public servants to maintain, lots (ie I have no idea how many) of law enforcement resources arresting people for abusing them, not to mention the devastating impact all of these have on families. One of the beautiful things about it (and the cost of the current systems are beyond anyone's grasp) is the absolute simplicity - are you a citizen/permanent resident? Yes? OK, you qualify, give us your bank account details and you're done.
To say this concept is 'not fully costed' is laughably simplistic, but I don't think the cost is anywhere near as much as critics claim (but yes, it would cost an absolute shitload). There would obviously need to be tax increases somewhere, which would need to ensure they don't remove incentive for working for a living as well, if people are able. There would also have to be some point where it just drops away - it makes no sense to give someone $25k a year when they already earn $500k. This is incredibly sensitive, as others have alluded to here and can completely remove any incentive for those that can contribute to do so. The point at which this happens needs to be well and truly high enough that anyone who needs it to live reasonably well simply gets it, but that, at a point where it becomes almost meaningless, it stops.
I'm a big fan of dramatic simplification of the tax system, to the point of simple flat taxes (x% of every single dollar you earn or, for companies, of every single dollar of profit). While the issue of the robber barons being able to structure their affairs so they pay little tax doesn't go away, making the tax system simpler and with a strong central premise that all income is taxed, a lot of the loopholes that allow this would go away. It's clear to everyone but the robber barons themselves that they are not paying anywhere near their share of the tax and increases to high-income earners and companies is the only way to significantly increase tax revenue without making half the population destitute.
Easy to say here of course - the level of reform needed is beyond any elected government, particularly in a country where there's no certainty of how long any government stays in power. Maybe somewhere there's a politician with the ability to get to a powerful enough position without totally loosing sight of what they were elected to do...
what's that up there? is that a flying pig?
posted by dg at 4:30 AM on January 17, 2015
Well, yes, all those Kafkaesque benefit schemes that require a doctorate in bureaucracy to even grasp the beginnings of an inkling of how they work could just, well, go away. There'd be no need for almost all of the current schemes in place (here in Australia, anyway), because a guaranteed income would neatly fill the same space without the need for thousands of public servants to maintain, lots (ie I have no idea how many) of law enforcement resources arresting people for abusing them, not to mention the devastating impact all of these have on families. One of the beautiful things about it (and the cost of the current systems are beyond anyone's grasp) is the absolute simplicity - are you a citizen/permanent resident? Yes? OK, you qualify, give us your bank account details and you're done.
To say this concept is 'not fully costed' is laughably simplistic, but I don't think the cost is anywhere near as much as critics claim (but yes, it would cost an absolute shitload). There would obviously need to be tax increases somewhere, which would need to ensure they don't remove incentive for working for a living as well, if people are able. There would also have to be some point where it just drops away - it makes no sense to give someone $25k a year when they already earn $500k. This is incredibly sensitive, as others have alluded to here and can completely remove any incentive for those that can contribute to do so. The point at which this happens needs to be well and truly high enough that anyone who needs it to live reasonably well simply gets it, but that, at a point where it becomes almost meaningless, it stops.
I'm a big fan of dramatic simplification of the tax system, to the point of simple flat taxes (x% of every single dollar you earn or, for companies, of every single dollar of profit). While the issue of the robber barons being able to structure their affairs so they pay little tax doesn't go away, making the tax system simpler and with a strong central premise that all income is taxed, a lot of the loopholes that allow this would go away. It's clear to everyone but the robber barons themselves that they are not paying anywhere near their share of the tax and increases to high-income earners and companies is the only way to significantly increase tax revenue without making half the population destitute.
Easy to say here of course - the level of reform needed is beyond any elected government, particularly in a country where there's no certainty of how long any government stays in power. Maybe somewhere there's a politician with the ability to get to a powerful enough position without totally loosing sight of what they were elected to do...
what's that up there? is that a flying pig?
posted by dg at 4:30 AM on January 17, 2015
While I like the idea of a guaranteed basic income very much, it seems to me that the problems of unemployment and underemployment would be more effectively addressed by creating more good public sector jobs. There's so much work that needs to be done: building and repairing infrastructure, caring for the sick, protecting and restoring the environment, and so on.
Of course, it doesn't have to be an either/or proposition. As the linked article points out, a guaranteed basic income can (and maybe should) be combined with easy access to good and meaningful work.
posted by Kilter at 8:56 AM on January 17, 2015
Of course, it doesn't have to be an either/or proposition. As the linked article points out, a guaranteed basic income can (and maybe should) be combined with easy access to good and meaningful work.
posted by Kilter at 8:56 AM on January 17, 2015
maybe i'm crossing the streams but how about reviving the CCC -- "volunteers planted nearly 3 billion trees to help reforest America" -- to plant one trillion trees (with pay of course; in kind? ;) like the forest service used to be a shining example of effective gov't; it could be so again!
posted by kliuless at 9:14 AM on January 17, 2015
posted by kliuless at 9:14 AM on January 17, 2015
But there are still so many people who think that nothing great can be attained in human history without the fear of starvation at everyone's door. That free from fear, people would just do nothing but sit around and do drugs or eat potato chips or what have you.
I would love to see if we could prove them wrong.
I would love to see the idea that doing drugs or eating potato chips is not a valid choice go away (not trying to imply you were saying that emjaybee).
I think there are 2 things going on here when people say we shouldn't do BI because people will just choose to be couch potatoes all day:
1) It is believed by society that "work" is the only valid form of being productive. Another equally valid way someone can be productive in our economy is to spend money. Spending money incentivizes businesses to create things, which requires workers, etc.
2) There's anger at being those different. These people want to have their current lifestyle, while also just being a couch potato. They are angry at these hypothetical people who have chosen to live with less, who have chosen not to chase the BMW, the 5BR house, the shiny new things. They are angry that someone made a different choice than them and can be perfectly happy with that choice.
On a micro level, I have not yet seen an argument about why BI would be a bad thing. On a macro level (the jury is still out, right?) inflation, the budget, etc. are real and valid concerns, but when speaking with normal people about this, very few bring up those concerns, while almost everyone brings up people being lazy cheeto munching tv watchers.
posted by LizBoBiz at 8:20 AM on January 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
I would love to see if we could prove them wrong.
I would love to see the idea that doing drugs or eating potato chips is not a valid choice go away (not trying to imply you were saying that emjaybee).
I think there are 2 things going on here when people say we shouldn't do BI because people will just choose to be couch potatoes all day:
1) It is believed by society that "work" is the only valid form of being productive. Another equally valid way someone can be productive in our economy is to spend money. Spending money incentivizes businesses to create things, which requires workers, etc.
2) There's anger at being those different. These people want to have their current lifestyle, while also just being a couch potato. They are angry at these hypothetical people who have chosen to live with less, who have chosen not to chase the BMW, the 5BR house, the shiny new things. They are angry that someone made a different choice than them and can be perfectly happy with that choice.
On a micro level, I have not yet seen an argument about why BI would be a bad thing. On a macro level (the jury is still out, right?) inflation, the budget, etc. are real and valid concerns, but when speaking with normal people about this, very few bring up those concerns, while almost everyone brings up people being lazy cheeto munching tv watchers.
posted by LizBoBiz at 8:20 AM on January 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
People that would take up the burden of being society's lazy cheeto munching TV watchers are pretty much already doing this, though. No doubt there would be an increase in the number of people deciding to simply live on a basic income and do nothing but, in an environment where it's unlikely society will ever be able to provide a job for every adult, there's always going to be a portion of society not working anyway. Why not have it be the people who don't want to? The idea that every adult must be either working some soul-destroying menial job or they aren't contributing to society or the economy has to go away.
posted by dg at 1:12 PM on January 20, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by dg at 1:12 PM on January 20, 2015 [2 favorites]
Is it even possible to provide a basic income that would cover the necessities? Assuming that everyone is provided a basic income that would cover rent, food and health insurance, you're probably looking at $8-10,000/year per person. At the current population of 316 million, that's the entire federal budget consumed by the basic income.
posted by Ham Snadwich at 7:22 AM on January 26, 2015
posted by Ham Snadwich at 7:22 AM on January 26, 2015
Do you mean politically possible or, like, thermodynamically possible?
posted by Steely-eyed Missile Man at 8:07 AM on January 26, 2015
posted by Steely-eyed Missile Man at 8:07 AM on January 26, 2015
Either really.
I know that some libertarians like the basic income idea because they think it'll get rid of the welfare bureaucracy, which they regard as wasted money. I'm not convinced that those things completely go away. Even if people no longer have to rely on the USDA for say, food assistance, there's still going to be people with mental health issues that require some sort of public advocate to administer their income, and budget items like education and defense don't really change much.
Basically I like the idea, but I'm struggling to figure out how you can provide enough to live on without massive increasing the amount of taxes collected. Maybe you can't, and you just chalk that increase up to the price of living in a civilized society.
posted by Ham Snadwich at 11:19 AM on January 26, 2015
I know that some libertarians like the basic income idea because they think it'll get rid of the welfare bureaucracy, which they regard as wasted money. I'm not convinced that those things completely go away. Even if people no longer have to rely on the USDA for say, food assistance, there's still going to be people with mental health issues that require some sort of public advocate to administer their income, and budget items like education and defense don't really change much.
Basically I like the idea, but I'm struggling to figure out how you can provide enough to live on without massive increasing the amount of taxes collected. Maybe you can't, and you just chalk that increase up to the price of living in a civilized society.
posted by Ham Snadwich at 11:19 AM on January 26, 2015
At the current population of 316 million, that's the entire federal budget consumed by the basic income.
You've answered your own question: of course it's possible. A $17 trillion economy can afford to spend $3 trillion on its citizens.
Very roughly, we already spend about $3 trillion on redistribution— see the "mandatory spending" chart here. (Mandatory spending is $2.56 trillion, but some of the $1.16 trillion in discretionary spending is redistributive, too.)
Right-wingers have some strange fantasies about the size of the federal bureaucracy. Social Security, for instance, which disburses 23% of the entire federal budget, employs about 70,000 people. If that seems like a lot, note that there are 2.4 million people employed in the private insurance industry, who produce nothing— their job is basically to shuffle money around.
Just distributing money is both effective and efficient. However, it really wouldn't work in the area of health care— unless you have something like Obamacare, which keeps insurers from declining coverage based on preexisting conditions, has penalties for free riders (people who skip the insurance when they're healthy), and has other measures designed to reduce costs. Without those things, you have something like the last-chance coverage states used to offer— basically, expensive but minimal plans that would eat up most of your basic income and still wouldn't cover catastrophic problems.
posted by zompist at 1:54 PM on January 26, 2015 [2 favorites]
You've answered your own question: of course it's possible. A $17 trillion economy can afford to spend $3 trillion on its citizens.
Very roughly, we already spend about $3 trillion on redistribution— see the "mandatory spending" chart here. (Mandatory spending is $2.56 trillion, but some of the $1.16 trillion in discretionary spending is redistributive, too.)
Right-wingers have some strange fantasies about the size of the federal bureaucracy. Social Security, for instance, which disburses 23% of the entire federal budget, employs about 70,000 people. If that seems like a lot, note that there are 2.4 million people employed in the private insurance industry, who produce nothing— their job is basically to shuffle money around.
Just distributing money is both effective and efficient. However, it really wouldn't work in the area of health care— unless you have something like Obamacare, which keeps insurers from declining coverage based on preexisting conditions, has penalties for free riders (people who skip the insurance when they're healthy), and has other measures designed to reduce costs. Without those things, you have something like the last-chance coverage states used to offer— basically, expensive but minimal plans that would eat up most of your basic income and still wouldn't cover catastrophic problems.
posted by zompist at 1:54 PM on January 26, 2015 [2 favorites]
there's still going to be people with mental health issues that require some sort of public advocate to administer their income
Sooooooo if you think those people are being well, or at all, served by the current system I have some bad news for you.
(Less flippantly: Yes, that is a thing that should happen in this utopia. That population is pretty tiny, though, especially as a fraction of current spending, since most of those people are bad at accessing the system. Most of our welfare spending, tho, is on giving people Stuff, and most people are pretty good at figuring out what Stuff they need if they can access it. So why don't we give them money instead of Stuff? Especially in the case of SNAP, where it might honestly be politically more relevant as an Ag bill than welfare spending.)
posted by PMdixon at 3:10 PM on January 26, 2015
Sooooooo if you think those people are being well, or at all, served by the current system I have some bad news for you.
(Less flippantly: Yes, that is a thing that should happen in this utopia. That population is pretty tiny, though, especially as a fraction of current spending, since most of those people are bad at accessing the system. Most of our welfare spending, tho, is on giving people Stuff, and most people are pretty good at figuring out what Stuff they need if they can access it. So why don't we give them money instead of Stuff? Especially in the case of SNAP, where it might honestly be politically more relevant as an Ag bill than welfare spending.)
posted by PMdixon at 3:10 PM on January 26, 2015
Yeah, there's no doubt that a basic income would have to be enabled by increases to taxation in pretty much all areas. Which is why it is never going to be a reality, because it would be absolute political suicide to even propose such a thing, given that the majority of the increased taxation revenue would have to come from high-income and company taxes.
There are a lot of hidden costs in current welfare spending, including things like finding and punishing people that claim welfare payments when they aren't entitled to them and thinking up then regulating ever more Kafkaesque regulatory frameworks to plug the loopholes, that would simply disappear with a guaranteed basic income.
Still, it's nice to dream of a world where nobody has to sleep under a bridge because they simply lack the capacity to 'earn' enough money to survive in a world created to marginalise them. Those that are currently impacted the most are likely those that lack the capacity to navigate the bureaucracy - again, in a world where simply being born entitles you to the resources to survive, those problems largely go away.
posted by dg at 4:43 PM on January 26, 2015 [1 favorite]
There are a lot of hidden costs in current welfare spending, including things like finding and punishing people that claim welfare payments when they aren't entitled to them and thinking up then regulating ever more Kafkaesque regulatory frameworks to plug the loopholes, that would simply disappear with a guaranteed basic income.
Still, it's nice to dream of a world where nobody has to sleep under a bridge because they simply lack the capacity to 'earn' enough money to survive in a world created to marginalise them. Those that are currently impacted the most are likely those that lack the capacity to navigate the bureaucracy - again, in a world where simply being born entitles you to the resources to survive, those problems largely go away.
posted by dg at 4:43 PM on January 26, 2015 [1 favorite]
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posted by Steely-eyed Missile Man at 11:34 AM on January 15, 2015