@mendax I actually read the Shock Doctrine when I was younger. I think I might revisit it now that I am more well-read. Thanks, though!

@krellin I might mention that universal basic income is usually posited as a replacement for other means-tested programs, so the upside is that you could remove a lot of bureaucracy and administrative government workers.

@pangloss - I'll look through the big piles of books I have lying around, and if there's anything that seems to be what you're looking for I'll point you towards them.

Sure, some people may still be productive, like the real go-getters. But if you gave everyone in the country enough free money that they didn't have to work, then the vast, vast majority wouldn't. I sure wouldn't. I'd go out with my friends every night and try to write the probably awful novel I've been kicking around in my head for years.

Even assuming the rpgram could be payed for, the bottom would fall out of the economy because the workforce would shrink drastically. It's a fantasy.

Enough money to live =/= enough money to be comfortable.
Enough money to live =/= enough money to go out every night.

Stop mischaracterising a very simple program in order to suit your ideological preconceptions.

@Invictus You're making a baseless claim. There haven't been a lot of studies on basic income, but there was one of note: it happened in the 1970s in Canada. Working hours only dropped significantly for teens and new mothers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mincome
(I can try to find the actual paper, but you'll have to PM me for it. I can't post links to scholarly works.)

Never mind, found it.

http://public.econ.duke.edu/~erw/197/forget-cea%20%282%29.pdf

krellin - it would be paid for by, say, eliminating social security and other measures. It's more of a reality for oil-rich nations such as Norway (who are instead using their money in a sovereign wealth fund....but I forget what they're using the wealth fund for). But Alaska already does something like this with the profits from it's oil revenue.

idk, I think it could be an interesting alternative to the huge amount of different types of welfare programs that are out there. Get rid of food stamps, social security, medicaid (keep medicare though) and replace it with a basic income. Now, cutting those programs won't completely pay for it, but it would go a good ways towards it.

Beyond this, the marginal propensity to spend is very high amongst the poor, meaning that there are often large multiplier effects to government spending designed to help those with little money.

"Enough money to live =/= enough money to be comfortable.
Enough money to live =/= enough money to go out every night."

Assuming a democratic government, the political incentive will always be to raise the amount. A "more free money" platform is a winner if ever there was one. The incumbents would protect their position by keeping on jacking up the amounts given out. This entitlement treadmill goes back to the grain ration in ancient Rome, it's not exactly some modern right-wing libel.

As for the study, I'm not going to pick that apart (I need to be studying for an income tax law clinic exam). However, even if this experiment in Canada worked perfectly that doesn't mean it would work everywhere and on a massive scale.

"I'd go out with my friends every night"

Enough to live, not to go out. That's the point. If we're talking, say, $800 per month, which could probably even be double without a big change since that's more of a preference, everybody can live an ok life and there's enough incentive to work. It's also probably cheaper than all the policies already in place, so in a sense the government's grip would be less than now; they control less of the money flow.

The workforce needed will remain, and if not, the salaries will increase until the workforce is big enough.

All you do is keep everyone alive in a cheap way compared to what we have these days.

"try to write the probably awful novel I've been kicking around in my head for years."

If you are ok living with little money, sure. That's the point. You can get wealthy or do something else with your life. You are free.


I'm not saying there are no loopholes, but it could definitely be done. It doesn't make a communistic government any more than what we have now, there's just a social thing in place to keep people alive and from prostitution and what not to stay alive.

Just talking about the income-part.

Hmm, the discussion moved on a bit since I started writing that... Oh well.

@Invictus, Fair enough. If you have a chance, give it a quick read. She does a review of different studies and programs at the beginning and then examines the specific Canadian experiment. The results are not perfect due to a number of factors, but they certainly run counter to any claim that "everyone will stop working".

The age old trap of assuming ownership improves outcomes, no it is the use and management of an asset that generates added value over and above its intrinsic value.
The left and right fall in to the same trap on this ownership issue, public banks would only be good if they were managed well, otherwise they would be rubbish, just like private banks.

"Assuming a democratic government, the political incentive will always be to raise the amount."

So your argument is that democracy doesn't work if it's not a funny act as it has been lately?

The current puppetshow or dictatorship of the many? Which exactly do you support?

No one took that article seriously, it was deemed unintentional auto-parody in almost every quarter as soon as it came out, including among youngsters like me.

We may be sympathetic to what he is saying, but he is woefully underinformed.

"So your argument is that democracy doesn't work if it's not a funny act as it has been lately?"

Not at all. It's an argument against a policy, not democracy itself.

@Invictus Your argument is actually against any government-administered social assistance program, but I suspect you're OK with this.

The only thing of marginal interest I gleaned from that article was the notion that the advent of technology to do many things that manual labor was previously required for has put us in a state where we really don't need nearly as many people working for a living in order to keep society operating at full throttle. 30+ years ago, people needed incentive to work to make sure all the private and public sector work had enough laborers, but that's simply not the case anymore. Is it wrong to work towards a society where people won't have to work to support themselves and can choose to work only if they want to make more than a baseline that can be lived off? I'm not sure where I stand on that.

"The current puppetshow or dictatorship of the many? Which exactly do you support?"

This got cut off somehow. I support constitutional, democratic government with sound policies. Policies don't exist in a vacuum though, and in examining whether something is actually a good idea we really need to look at what incentives it creates, both economic and political. Giving people free money gives politicians the incentive to keep on raising it since "more free money" is, for obvious reasons, a winning electoral promise. Get it high enough, as is pretty much inevitable, and the incentive to work all but vanishes. Then the whole rotten edifice falls down since there just won't be enough economic activity to support the program.

If that political incentive is true, why hasn't it happened already?

"Your argument is actually against any government-administered social assistance program, but I suspect you're OK with this."

No I'm not. There needs to be, for example, unemployment insurance. This is free money guaranteed for everyone with no strings attached and no cut-off to encourage them to get work eventually.

Invictus said: "There needs to be, for example, unemployment insurance. This is free money guaranteed for everyone with no strings attached and no cut-off to encourage them to get work eventually."

That is a common definition of basic income. Free and guaranteed money with no strings attached and no cut-off. Unemployment insurance is typically hinged upon pre-contributions to the fund, weeks spent off work, etc.

@Thucy - it may be parody (I doubt it was intended to be) and unfortunately all you need to do is look at the lazy, wanna-be-government-tit-sucking-fools around here to see that not everyone is as informed as you are.

@Invictus, Having re-read what you wrote, I understand what you mean now. I'll have a response in a moment. But I wag my finger at your vague pronoun references.

"If that political incentive is true, why hasn't it happened already?"

It does happen in other areas. Public sector union pensions, for one. Unemployment and food stamp programs as well. Also veteran health care and pensions. This is just what happens when the government gives out money. It steadily rises. That's more or less OK with the programs I mentioned above, since the increases are manageable and deal with specific groups and situations. But giving free money to everyone a massive project with likely ruinous externalities.

The specific direct-free-money-deposit hasn't happened because its such a silly idea it can't get enacted.

"But I wag my finger at your vague pronoun references."

Guilty as charged.

The lack of a cut-off doesn't give anyone a disincentive to go to work. If anything, it can give an incentive to search for work. A lot of low- or no-income earners receive some form of social assistance that is dependent on a particular income level. If they should ever rise above that particular income level, they lose that benefit. This is known as a welfare trap. Making these payments unconditional means that the welfare trap disappears and you'll get more people going out in search of work.

Consider also that having a cut-off can punish people who search for jobs but are unable to find employment. If your benefits end after (say) eight months no matter what and you can't find anything within those eight months, you're SOL. The consequence of such a policy is that you'll push a lot of people to become extremely under-employed or else hungry and cold. This strikes me as inefficient use of resources.

Or, stop subsidizing the businesses so they can get away with paying so low that people have to be on government assistance even while working. Raising the minimum wage and then tying it to inflation would go a long way to solving the welfare trap, and without running the risk of encouraging dependency.

I don't think you're going to find much criticism from the left about proposed minimum wage increases