WTF: Who'll UBI?
We Talk Friday
(WTF)
This is a semi-regular series that I will run on Fridays to hold discussions on a current topic from the week gone. The aim is to keep them light and conversational, though some might be heavier - regardless of the content topic itself though, just have some fun engaging and discussing with whoever happens to put in the effort in the comments section below.
We Talk Friday Ep. 11: Who'll UBI?
With all the economic turmoil ongoing, I wonder which will be the first country to bit e the bullet and introduce a universal basic income for citizens. I both like and dislike the idea of universal basic incomes and this isn't the place today to get into that conversation, but I do see some potential benefits, especially given the other changes in the economy and culture.
For instance, as automation takes more jobs away from humans, the value the automation creates has to be distributed back to humans, rather than just collecting into bank accounts in tax havens. Takes on automated production would provide the funding potential for a UBI.
And A UBI can actually create jobs, if there is increased consumer spending in various sectors that will require more people. But more importantly than that, it can supplement incomes for those willing to reduce their hours each week, giving space for more employment opportunities. With "four-day weeks" getting tested, a UBI can mean that those in industries that are cutting back, can reduce hours of employees, without the employees losing out, and it gives those employees time to retrain.
But, I think that the biggest benefit of a UBI is that it massively reduces the administration costs and burden on the government and on people, also reducing the need to constantly police to ensure people are sticking to the rules - like "not working too much". If there was a UBI, all of the rules for means testing and earning tiers and all of that can get cut away completely. Everyone gets it - work and earn as much as you want on top without risking loss.
While this generates governmental debt, it will also be offset by people spending more, reduction in admin, increase in jobs, and as many of the tests have shown, increase in wellbeing. That is the goal of government, isn't it? Shouldn't they then be working toward that end? As I mentioned the other day, the increase in national debt in the US over the last decade, would pay off every home mortgage, every care loan, and all credit card debt. Has that national debt money been well used to improve the daily lives of Americans? If every American was debt-free suddenly, would their lives be better? Of course, that is not the way to do it, but you get my point.
UBI is also a terrible idea, because people will likely rely on it, which means relying on the government even more to provide for them. But, it is moving that way anyway, because of the increase of automation technology, which will leave more people struggling to fend for themselves. And, UBI is a stop-gap measure at best, but it might be necessary to cover any transition from the economy we have built, and the economy we need to build that works effectively to provide wellbeing for humans, instead of profits for corporate entities.
Anyway, while I have my reservations in regard to many respects, I am highly interested in giving it a go in practice, at scale. It is unlikely to be enough by itself, but like the Economic Improvement Plan on HIVE a few years ago, change a few other factors in the economy simultaneously and the results might be pretty good. For instance, four-day weeks, corporate taxes paid in the country where income was earned, and a flat-rate taxation system that is lower than the corporate rate.
Sounds crazy.
Would you want it to be tried in your country?
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
Past Episodes:
Episode 10: That's my Cake
Episode 9: Materials of War
Episode 8: In Living Wage
Episode 7: Cost of Dying Expenses
Episode 6: Abuse Me a Little More
Episode 5: No Humour Here
Episode 4: Your Country Sucks
Episode 3: Collapse is Inevitable
Episode 2: Show me the money
Episode 1: Strange bedfellows
I absolutely want UBI tried in my country.
We have to have it. Economies will fail if consumers have no income to consume with.
UBI doesn't have to be government funded. Alaska has UBI funded by energy companies and Norway has royalties that energy companies have to pay... the concept being that the natural resources are owned by all the people in that country and not just whoever owns that specific bit of land. I really like that concept.
I really liked the idea that (I think it was) Andrew Yang was proposing where tech companies have to pay us for all our data they are using. UBI could be funded by tech companies.
I see UBI as the people getting paid what they are entitled to. At the moment corporations have convinced us they should get all our resources for free.
For sure. Governments have sold the people out, by promoting that corporations provide jobs, so should pay less tax. That is no longer the case, abd as you say, they are using our resources.
Norway owns around 2% of all stocks on the world, financed by oil. Taxes are high there, as are living expenses, but they also have a very good quality of life, with lots of social support.
Lots to hate about UBI also, but currently, the pros outweigh the cons abd doing nothing is not an option.
I go back and forth on this. We do have, to some degree, a UBI. These are benefits the government gives out to the poor, elderly, or disabled. We don't see people rushing to be poor, old, or disabled. In this regard, it doesn't seem like an incentive.
However, I don't know how this would manifest with able-bodied, skilled people. Naturally, many would want to earn more than the UBI allowance for whatever reasons. And many would be content to live off UBI. Imagine being able to backpack around the world knowing you'd be able to afford to eat wherever you go. Perhaps people will supplement their UBI by selling their data or participating in communities like Hive.
As far as automation and AI are concerned, I think that these will take over repetitive jobs, hopefully a majority of bullshit jobs. But there are things that would still require people. For example, you'd still need a plumber to find and repair leaks, which are often in inconvenient places for machines to access. It's not unusual for a plumber to have to break concrete or open up walls, or dig and crawl under foundations.
For this reason I think the workforce might turn to the crafts where not everything is a cookie cutter job. AI and machines could help out in the field. For example, there are brick-laying machines that are great for long straight stretches (some can do corners and curved walls). But masons still need to work on custom jobs or repairs.
We don't see oil production automated even though oil companies have the capital to do it.
Vocational and craft work are arts to some extent. In my opinion those jobs that require some degree of craftsmanship would be the ones to gain. We may see that without the boring jobs, people might actually level up to create more interesting works. And with a UBI, perhaps they would only take the jobs that interest them rather than have to take a job for the money.
In reality, it's hard to say with human nature being unpredictable.
That is social security, not UBI. UBI by definition is universal. And, social security is means tested, meaning people aren't incentivised to work more, if they lose payments for doing so.
The UBI would be unlikely to get someone very far, and I would assume there would be rules like "live in the country".
How many people have repetitive jobs, and how many plumbers are needed? All jobs likely have some level of repetition that could be automated, so the impact is immense at scale.
It is a cost issue for now, but the cost to automate are coming down rapidly. If a company can do it cheaper with people, they will - but that won't always be the case.
This would be the hope.
A lot of the “UBI” experiments that have been done haven’t really been UBI in that they haven’t been universal. Most have been very localized and limited, almost always with some form of means-testing. At least in the USA, the closest we’ve come to truly universal UBI is the Alaska Permanent Fund but even there the amounts doled out have been rather small, never having exceeded $4,000 a year.
We did have a couple of Covid relief payments but they weren’t ongoing and they were means tested.
“Conservatives” in the U.S. may have whined about those payments being socialist but I don’t remember seeing a single story about anyone refusing the payouts as a matter of principle. Everybody seems to have accepted the money.
There was one in Finland a few years ago that chose a small location to trial it and the results were promising. But, the problem with trials is that the results rarely scale accurately. It really needs to be tried at scale, with a few different models to see what works.
If everyone else is doing it.... Nazi Germany acted the same.
😂
Same here - and for other benefits and concessions.
My guess is one of the Scandinavian countries 😃
Most likely Sweden or Norway :D
😃
I love the more utopian promise of UBI. It's a beautiful dream, as these things often are. The part I can't square in my mind is how it wouldn't cause inflation. If everyone gets free money, what's to stop corporation from just raising the prices of everything that much more, in effect kind of cancelling out everything.
That said, I'd love to see it honestly tried at scale. Wages have been flat here for 30 years, and now with inflation going absolute nuts, people are rapidly falling behind. I'd love to see it tried here.
I like the utopian idea of it too, but like you I feel it would just be eaten up by increased costs. Greedy corproations would just soak it all up like you stated. It is a fact. An example of this is look at military installations. Anytime there is a raise in military pay, all the local businesses in the area around the installtions raise their prices. Its predatory.
I think this is why there should be an increase in corporate taxes that would fund the UBI anyway. Business by definition is set up to be maximising, and without appropriate checks and balances, they will maximise until there is nothing left.
This is the problem, isn't it? But I think it would also balance out in time to some degree. Though, corporations are assholes. The balancer would of course be, corporate taxes that would finance the UBI anyway.
UBI would be great with a competent government that actually does what it's supposed to do.
Sure. Maybe it might also lighten the government load so they can be more competent in other more valuable areas than spending their time policing and adjusting social security.
I think governments needs help sometimes, they're not experts at everything, one of the reasons why it is important to have a strong independent sector that is neither profit- nor politically-party driven.
Is that not what thee various departments are for?
Maybe they just seem to hyperfocus on that because it's "easy" (at least to push perception around on if not deal with the actual problem) unlike a lot of the other things?
I wonder if robot owners will pay tax on the income their robots earn. Will private robots be paid for their work?
Will people have private robots, or will it be on a SaaS model?
There will be private robots. But the operating system will be from the company. AI will be on the servers of Elon Musk and others.
Who wouldn't want UBI to be tried? All poor citizens want it. Do the bosses want it? I don't really think it's possible. It should be made mandatory all over the world. Worldwide organizations should take on this and take the lead.
Bosses might want it too, as they will be able to have more freedom with the way they hire.
UBI is effectively just communism under another name. Why be a brain surgeon when you can be a street sweeper for the same money ?
If UBI is enough for a truly great lifestyle, where would be the incentive to work at all ? But if it is set at slightly under poverty level, there will be a lot of people who lose jobs due to automation who'll never work again, but have a miserable life just existing without luxuries, which would create a huge underclass.
The issue of how it could be afforded is a concern. Automated businesses would probably still be existing on the margin of profitability - globalism has killed most of the profit margin in once viable businesses. We'd be left with a few mega-corporations totally above the law and treating the few staff they needed like slaves.
So governments would fund UBI as they've always funded social programmes. With borrowing. Printing money. A huge ponzi scheme that works until something goes slightly wrong and the effect is amplified to bring the whole system crashing down. 2008 is a good example. A little bit of what was considered minor paperwork fraud, but the impact worked through like a butterfly effect. Tens of millions of people were impoverished, but not a single banker or government minister went to prison, and no lessons were learned.
For interest, satisfaction. The same might be true in reverse.
You reminded me about this UBI pilot project which was reported in the media just about two years ago (also, I found critiques of the idea here - pros and cons, here - the dystopian truth and further discussion here - "money for nothing?". I haven't been able to find any follow-up of this pilot, although it looks like there is another proposal for a pilot in Manchester. I'll keep looking, maybe @revisesociology has come across something?
I like your idea about using UBI as a transitional arrangement for industries/companies which require re-structuring or even exiting. There was an article yesterday about the declining middle-ground market for bread. Two of the biggest companies have been operating at a loss for a while and are discussing a merger (Crumbs! How Britain fell out of love with the sliced loaf). UBI may be able to help with the restructuring involved in these kinds of situations.
I think there would be other savings as well: improved well-being would lead to lower costs in the NHS, both mental health services and the reducing the prevalence of long-term conditions, and social care. Some of the bigger local authorities here have been looking at moving some of their budgets from social care into economic development as creating secure income (however that is done) would decrease demand for benefits and services.
Great discussion topic, it's helped me with some things I'm thinking about at work, in fact, I came up with a proposal this morning as a consequence of thinking about your post (I may have got there eventually anyway, but much more slowly) 😂.
HUGE FAN! I'm ready, bring it on. The shameless autocrats will of course just raise prices on everything with all the free money in the system, but I think it would start a virtuous cycle if people had 1) more security 2) more time of their own. Please one of you Scandanavian countries will be able to pull it off with your solid bankrolls and small populations. Look at Norway!