I read the book and got the distinct impression that he is advocating against UBI. Did I miss something? If so, let me know.
Matt Holbert wrote:
I read the book and got the distinct impression that he is advocating against UBI. Did I miss something? If so, let me know.
Matt,
I didn’t read the book. I gleaned that from a quick read of Charles’ post. I apologize for misunderstanding his intent.
Grover
charleshughsmith wrote:
2. In my book on Universal Basic Income, (Money and Work Unchained), I went thru the exercise of using IRS tax data and concluded that raising the needed $1+ trillion annually to fund UBI solely from the top .5% would require the top .5% to pay 80% of their income in taxes. This is politically unlikely, given wealth casts the only votes that count.
3. Sadly, whatever is “free” (to the user) is squandered without thought. This is human nature. If there is no cost/price, then there’s no inhibiting waste.
Sooo you mean, like free money to the banks and the rich?
Isn’t it interesting give away’s to the rich, as in Quantative Easing and “Bailouts” are "good/acceptable business practices but give-always to the poor are a bad idea.
I would bet those WITH a job are against UBI and those without a JOB are for it. Just a guess of course.
AKGranny
yes I’m against UBI, for many reasons, most importantly that humans need positive social roles, purpose and meaning via being needed by a group/community. What we need is universal opportunities to contribute to our communities in meaningful ways, not “free money.” UBI is superficially appealing but it’s not what people actually need to be fulfilled, productive and happy. Nor is it even remotely practical to fund given the reality that the US budget deficit is already heading to $1 trillion just funding existing entitlements, interest and programs.
UBI is touted by the usual suspects, not because it re-enfranchises the laboring class but because it attempts to by them off on the cheap.
You can read the first 36 pages of my book for free here: https://www.oftwominds.com/Money-Work-free.pdf
While I don’t think there is anything morally wrong in a society where robots do the work and everyone gets a UBI, I do feel that such a society will probably end up with a whole lot of problems having to do with experience, meaning and purpose.
What do we come to earth for? I claim its to have a set of experiences that provides us a mechanism for expanding our consciousness in one way or another - i.e. learning things. Part of that involves doing difficult things, or being in difficult circumstances or situations and having to sort out where to go and what to do next. And right now, work provides a lot of that experience for all of us.
A tough experience is the best teacher ever. There is no substitute. A lesson learned in the school of hard knocks is never forgotten. Passing through such an experience also provides confidence. Take away such experiences, there is a loss of education - and at its core, a loss of the essential reason for coming here in the first place. To the end that a UBI eliminates experiences that people encounter at work that is the reason people come here in the first place, the UBI is a bad idea.
You can tell a student something a hundred times, and they will not really receive it. Yet when they encounter that same “lesson” through experience, they have the opportunity to learn instantly. That’s what life is - that set of real experiences that gives us the opportunity to learn. Martial arts without sparring is like life without real experience - its all very theoretical and ultimately without any grounding in reality. There’s nothing like getting kicked in the stomach to make you fully appreciate the technique of blocking, the importance of distance, and/or stepping back out of the way. “Ouch. I guess I was too close.”
Our experiences are the only thing we take with us when we die. Well, if you believe in that sort of thing. Which I do. If we end up trading work (which is really just a set of experiences) for free money (which provides us no experience at all), its probably a bad trade.
Kind of like the “helicopter mom” who keeps her child safe and largely insulated from the real world, at the cost of the child learning the essential truth about life on their own through a series of never-forgotten (and hopefully non-fatal) experiences.
There is always a balance of course. Experiences that are really harsh end up possibly teaching the wrong lesson. Then again, the master in one life ends up being the slave in the next. Well if you believe in that sort of thing.
Anyhow, I worry that a UBI risks robbing people of experience. Is there a way to provide some amount of help without turning into a “helicopter society” that robs people of life experience? That’s the challenge.
Father: Son, you need to show better judgment!
Son: And how do I get that?
Father: From experience!
Son: And where do I get that?
Father: From poor judgment
Agreed with most written here, UBI seems to be a bad idea. Addressing symptoms and not removing underlying issues, while creating a whole wad of other issues. How about using resources to ensure that society provides a good platform to work from and that the playing field is more level and can be used by people to launch their lives from: adequate security, quality education up to secondary school level, good basic public health care, good public transport, good child care services, support for sensible labour laws, initiatives that support social cohesion …
Build the foundation that people can launch themselves from.
Socialist? No, if done wisely an investment and common sense it seems… And there are plenty of examples (admittedly with some of their own issues) that could be used for guidance on what could work
Fortunately, in Alaska’s past we had a few intelligent and honest politicians who set up our Permanent Fund. It was believed that a big chunk of the oil money Alaska received should go into a special fund that would pay out a dividend to the citizens of the State. After all the windfall didn’t belong to the politicians but to the people. It’s akin to the UBI.
- In a perfect world there would'nt be a need for UBI
- In a perfect world a huge portion of our jobs would'nt have been transferred to other countries
- in a perfect world we would have a government that actually representes the people
- In a perfect world we would'nt financially reward those who speculate, manipulate and profit from the loss of others. And we call that "work".
- While those who seek honest work can't find it.
- In a perfect world there wouldn't be So Very Much indifference for those who have NO job, are having trouble putting food on the table and keeping a roof over their heads.
- In a perfect world people would be finding, creating and insisting on solutions instead of obsessing and declaring that giving to the poor is a bad idea.
Quote:
something unearned will be thoughtlessly squandered
Grover wrote:
Mark,
I sincerely suggest that you spend the next 8 years of your life (assuming you already have a 4 year BS degree) in pursuit of adding an MD to your name. Then, you can examine too many snot nosed kids and other entitled individuals, deal with restrictions from your local and national medical boards, and spend an inordinate amount of time fending off the lawyers who want to remove excess "wealth" from your pockets. You'll also need to employ a staff to handle all the mundane details. Then, add in lots of really expensive specialized equipment needed in your practice. All of this adds up to an enormous obligation to your educators, your financiers, your employees, and your family (oh, and don't leave out the various levels of government who want to tax all your efforts.) You are a cash cow to all these folks. If you still feel that universal medical care is a worthwhile goal ... you have 100% of my support (so far as your participation is concerned.)
Given a choice, I choose not to participate in universal healthcare. It isn't a right. Rights - like free speech - don't have a price tag associated. Benefits - like free medical insurance - end up costing someone. That's one of the huge differences. Should the elites be required to fund this? Ever wonder why they also have an "us" VS "them" attitude?
If government got out of it completely, medical providers would have to compete for business. If all they offered were plans that were too expensive, they'd go out of business. Some clever individual/company/corporation would figure out how to provide a service for a price that their customers would be willing to pay. In fact, there would be many types of these agreements, because one size rarely fits all. I can then choose to customize my coverage as I deem. If I choose to go naked (no coverage,) I should be given the option of not receiving medical attention if I choose not to pay when the time comes. Them's the breaks.
Since you (as a future practicing MD) and other bleeding hearts want to save idiots like me who choose (or are forced by circumstances) to be without medical insurance, please donate your time, resources, and efforts for a cause you believe is worthy. If it is just as you point out in your post, it really isn't a big deal. After all, only 1% of their costs are due to pills (according to you.)
I give of my time and resources where I see fit. Whenever I feel my heart needs to bleed, I do so through a needle into a bag. Nobody pays me to do this. It is strictly voluntary. I don't know who gets my blood. I like that model. If government required me to donate blood (because my blood is so red,) I doubt that I would ever do it again. It would change from a gift to a tax. It isn't the same and it doesn't impart the same feeling either.
Quote:
If you really want universal health care, figure out a way to give elites the appropriate amount of kudos for giving of their time and resources toward this end. Then, instead of having an antagonistic relationship, you would have cooperation. Unlike negative reinforcement (taxes,) positive reinforcement is its own reward. Then, the situation will morph into us AND them.
And I agree to most that you say 
.
I think the solution needs to go deeper though (and thus isn’t easy as it requires a change in the ways we think and function as society).
One large part is that we need to change the way companies work. Their responsibilities shouldn’t be to shareholders only. We should get to a system where companies don’t environmentally, financially, socially and politically strip-mine the society they operate in. The link between enterprise and society needs to be restored. Companies need to operate as responsible stewards of society they benefit from and are part of. Responsibility should be to the ones running companies, personally, and retrospectively. The company you run dumps waste in the river? You lose your house and you personally pay for solving the issue (very expensive with environmental issues)… Ensure costs of goods reflect the ‘real’ price they have actually costed to society and the environment.
Worker and environmental protection should be universal. The reason why producing an ethically made t-shirt in Sweden/ France/ USA/ Australia would cost multiples of the price that we actually pay, is that the social/ environmental issues are exported to countries that don’t respect the standards we have. If a country doesn’t buy into and respects this protection? Your products cannot be sold here.
It’s not the silver bullet, but it would probably go a long way in addressing many issues we are now facing/ observing
"something unearned will be thoughtlessly squandered."
Yes, if you consider things like food, shelter and clothing for their kids to be "squandering". In a sensible world we'd make sure that everyone could access basic levels of food, shelter, and other essentials, but they'd have to pay for their own beer.So Yoxa. If someone gets free clothing, they probably won't take care of it. Same thing for free food, free shelter. If it was no effort for you to acquire, then it can't possibly be valuable. That's just human nature. For humans to value something (i.e. for them not to waste resources), the resource must be perceived as being scarce. Our discussion on oil is a case in point. When Americans experience low oil prices, they waste energy like crazy - because they can, with virtually no penalty. Imagine if gasoline were handed out for free? How much larger would the amount waste be? The riddle is always: how do you help someone, without making them dependent on your help - and at the same time, having them perceive the resource they receive as being scarce and worthy of being cared for?
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If someone gets free clothing, they probably won't take care of it. Same thing for free food, free shelter. If it was no effort for you to acquire, then it can't possibly be valuable.
Habitat for Humanity comes to mind as a good example of where people in need are provided with an opportunity to meet their needs (in this case, housing), but it isn’t a freebie; they must contribute “sweat equity” into earning that asset. You value something you have to work for. This seems like a good model to me.
Willingness to partner, ability to pay
Every parent, every person, should have the decent shelter they need to thrive. When families partner with Habitat, they start down a new path — one with far fewer barriers to a better, healthier, more financially stable life. Habitat homeowners play a hands-on role in eliminating those barriers, beginning with the sweat equity hours they perform. With the help of volunteers, they build and renovate the places they will call home. They attend financial education and budget planning classes. Some help staff the local Habitat ReStore; others serve on committees or help out in the local Habitat office. All of them are proactive, not passive. Investing, not receiving. They are seizing an opportunity, and — with a hand up — they are changing their own futures.
The last position that I held (1996-1998) before “retiring” was with the State of Alaska. I was an investment officer with what was then the Alaska State Pension Investment Board. I fraternized with several individuals who worked for the Permanent Fund in the investment area and my boss had come from the PF and returned to the PF after I “retired.” In fact, I think that my boss ended up with a pension from both the state and the PF and was probably the highest paid individual at both when he retired. He is definitely in the same illustrious camp as those Oakland employees that Chris highlights in his comment today entitled “California is scroomed.”
The money was good, but the job was soulless. Many of those who worked for the public in the investment arena end up working in the private sector. However, all of those jobs are soulless as well. (It’s because the basic nature of “the system” sucks.) I am much happier as someone who works at home as a house husband. Gardening, food processing, cooking, maintenance, etc. The problem is that my wife would be happier doing this as well and she more than carries her weight on the home front anyway. So the question is: How do we make the transition to a more sane world where we don’t go off each weekday to an office where we play by the rules and are tormented by technology?
AKGrannyWGrit, I am mostly in agreement with what you write above. However, I think that we need to do all we can do to avoid UBI for the reasons that Charles describes in a comment below and in his book. You may spend your PF money on seeds, but the general feeling when I was in Alaska was that most spent the money on big screen TVs.
We should create organizations that help facilitate the transition from soulless to meaningful.
…
Some of you may have seen an article today about how JPM, Amazon, and Berkshire have joined forces to create a company that addresses high healthcare costs. Before you get a warm, fuzzy feeling about this endeavor, you need to note that this company will just serve those who work for JPM, Amazon, and Berkshire. This is only a way to keep these soulless companies competitive. It should be noted, however, that those of us with soul can create the same type of company.
Mark_BC wrote:
Sounds like I struck a nerve...
Mark_BC wrote:
You point out that it takes a lot of education and bureaucracy (resources) to go from snot nosed kid to practicing doctor. I agree. My response is, again: poor countries seem to manage to do it. If the assertion is made that we need to do away with universal entitlements as we run out of fossil fuels, my argument stands. This is an illogical conclusion, because poor countries can do it just fine. If the US has built an inordinate amount of waste into its medical system (as all the rats have come to feast on the freely printed reserve currency), well that's the US's problem. Once these excess natural resources, which have previously enabled the waste, go away (when the reserve currency ends), then the US will have no choice but to become more bureaucratically efficient and do things like anywhere else does.
Mark_BC wrote:
The reason the US medical system is so bloated is not because of the government, it is because it is a hybrid system where the corporations control the government and wedge their way in and do all the bad things you have outlined above (which is why the pills are so expensive in the 1st world). A government run system would work much better, as it does in many other countries.
Mark_BC wrote:
If you really want to buy your own medical care, go ahead, in a two tier system. Or fly to Cuba or Mexico where it's cheaper.
Mark_BC wrote:
Quote:
If you really want universal health care, figure out a way to give elites the appropriate amount of kudos for giving of their time and resources toward this end. Then, instead of having an antagonistic relationship, you would have cooperation. Unlike negative reinforcement (taxes,) positive reinforcement is its own reward. Then, the situation will morph into us AND them.
Mark_BC wrote:
A wealth tax isn't negative reinforcement; it is a way for the 99.99% to prevent sociopaths from taking over the world.
A think a little frame-shift may be in order here. There is nothing wrong with “free stuff” given to us by the community, rather there is a lot wrong with community. Let me explain a bit and see if I can coalesce my thoughts well enough…
Paleolithic humans (of all stripes and colors) prior to the development of intensive agriculture lived in small, often mobile hunter-gatherer groups we often categorize as “tribes.” The most defining feature of these tribal groups was their diversity - each had their own culture, religious views, myths, ways of doing things, etc - but for the most part, contrary to the popular image of tribal groups as ruled by a chief, anthropology shows us that hunter-gatherer groups are above all communal groups with “leadership” being more in the hands of the entire tribe than in the hands of one or two powerful people (most current views of tribes ruled by chiefs come from the colonial-era bias that there has to be a single ruler). In reality, the eldest of any given tribe might be given great leeway, and younger members of the tribe recognized it was wise to listen to those who had survived dozens of seasons over those who has experienced only a few, but they did not have the kind of authority and absolute power we think of when we say the word “chief.” If anything, tribal groups were either democratic or communist, depending on how those terms are defined. This was possible because tribal groups were small enough that joint decisions could easily and quickly be made.
Economically speaking, paleolithic humans were about as “communist” as you can get, if by communist you mean “everyone contributes, and everyone receives according to their need.” Put bluntly, you did whatever you were capable of doing for the benefit of the community (hunting, gathering, caring for the young, making clothes, etc), and since roles as well as ‘jobs’ were extremely fluid, you might hunt today, care for young the next, and sew something the day after. In return, the community provided for you according to your need. If you had five kids, your shelter would be larger than the shelter of a couple that had no kids, and you would accept this because you understood that those five children were an integral part of your survival now, or of your future children’s survival in the next generation. This is because every “hand had to be on deck” to insure the survival of all members of the community, and possessions were thought of as that which the group had given to you as a way to insure your survival. In short, we worked together because that was the best way for homo sapiens to insure individual as well as communal survival. So, you were given things for “free” in the sense that you didn’t specifically earn that thing, but you were given it because you were part of the overall group and your ‘work’ was meaningful to the whole group. To quote an 80s sitcom, you had a place where “everyone knew your name” and where everyone genuinely cared for you and your well-being (I’d argue this is a reason that shows like Friends or Cheers gain such popularity in the first place).
Now, paleolithic hunter-gatherer groups were far from perfect, and they certainly weren’t some kumbaya Disney-esque Pocohantas-style paradise on earth, but for the better part of over 200,000 years this system of human organization allowed us to not only survive, but thrive, through ice ages, warming periods, drought, floods, and pretty much anything the world threw at us. We spread to every ecological niche and didn’t bring the world to a bloody or fiery end.
Enter intensive agriculture, and with it villages, towns, and cities. No longer did we move around. We produced more food than we needed, which led to specialization of jobs, the rise of writing, science, formal religion, bureaucracy, invention and innovation on a scale and speed not seen before in the history of our species. Because of the power inherent in such a system, settled peoples began the inexorable march of conquest and assimilation of their neighboring hunter-gathers, the putting of new lands under the plow, and unstoppable expansion. Yet with the benefits of civilization also came the demons of social hierarchy, inequality, war on a massive scale, famine, crime, poverty, and most importantly, living outside the natural boundaries the planet had imposed on all life forms up until that point. For those who know Daniel Quinn’s work, it was at that point that humans were thrown out of the Garden of Eden, so to speak. In fact, we walked away from it when we began to think of ourselves as existing outside the natural world, and indeed antagonists to it. It is also, I think, the moment we began disconnecting from one another, because the “community” no longer existed for the benefit of everyone, and the work of each member was no longer valued as equally as others. We also stopped seeing the connection between ourselves, our work, and our natural world. In Marxist terms, we no longer saw the fruits of our labor - we were just a “factor of production.”
To square the longest and most drawn-out circle I could possibly draw, we humans are a social species who thrive and survive when we operate in communities where we have a role, rights, and responsibilities we can see as beneficial to others. We are not, and have never been, “lone-wolves” (which is itself a stupid concept since wolves are also pack animals who survive in groups). So, we can totally be given “free stuff” if we are working in a meaningful way to the betterment of the community around us, because doing so gives us a place where we belong and where we are cared for. The more those two things exist, the harder we will contribute to the community. I think this is why the “hand-up” of the New Deal worked so well; yes, you were “given” money by the government, but you were paving roads, creating state parks, or doing something else in such a way as to feel you were contributing to the whole. The chief failure of today’s social net system isn’t in its goal of alleviating poverty, unemployment, etc, but rather that it does so in a way that disconnects us from meaningful existence. Chris and others have elaborated on this point in other ways before, but I don’t think putting welfare recipients to work in some meaningless job will solve the problem either…but just handing out free money without finding some way in which the recipients can meaningfully contribute back is a recipe for disaster; disaster in society and disaster in the souls of those receiving the aid.
Looking back over this post, two things occur to me. First, I both agree with and disagree with the notion that free stuff is always bad, because the notion of what constitutes “work” doesn’t always mesh with the notion of “meaningful.” If you are contributing meaningfully to the group, what the group gives you isn’t “free,” but it isn’t a “paycheck” either. It is the group including you in its material prosperity in exchange for you helping with everyone else’s material prosperity.
The second thing that occurs to me is Charles, Chris, and others have said similar stuff much more elegantly and concisely, but I am apparently in the running for “longest diatribe evah” award and had to put in my best effort at winning. I also have essays to grade, and as every teacher knows, there is no time when a teacher is most productive at anything other than grading as when there is grading to be done.
-S
'Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.
One night, during a week long stay in a Canadian wilderness, we were looking at the stars and waxing philosophic in some, no doubt, profound fashion. After a few minutes, one of the group proclaimed, “too much thinking” and walked back to the fire.
The brain is a wonderful tool, but just like other tools, it’s best if you put it away once it’s completed it’s job.