The Moral Question of Using Unconditional Basic Income to Refuse Employment
For Those Who Believe a Basic Income Would Be Morally Wrong
You obviously have very strong feelings of morality, and especially the "rightness" of your own morality, so I'm certainly not about to attempt to change your mind, or to show how basic income can be seen as somehow being moral in your eyes, and especially if you consider yourself a Christian.
However, I would like to ask you a series of questions in response, if that's okay.
Question 1: Would you agree that morality is not an absolute but something that exists along a spectrum, such that things aren't necessarily always right or wrong, but degrees of right and wrong, with some things being more right or more wrong than others?
The popular example of this type of thinking is the idea of facing the choice between stealing and saving the life of a member of your family. Is it more wrong to steal food or medicine, or is it more wrong to let your family suffer or die?
Now, I don't know your answer to this question, but if you do recognize that some things are more wrong than others, the question of basic income then becomes "Is basic income more wrong or less wrong than _____?" And this leads to the next question.
Question 2: Can you think of any situations in which the choice between working for pay and not working for pay is again like the example above, in that your choice is between something wrong (not working in the labor market to earn an income), and something more wrong (working in the labor market in a way that hurts others)?
I can't answer this question for you, but I can provide some examples that would fit for others. Karl Widerquist has thoughtfully provided a list of possible objections in chapter 4 of Independence, Propertylessness, and Basic Income, fourteen of which I will share here:
An objection to the goal or some of the goals of the joint project or of a specific task: One person might believe that the economic system is wrong, because she believes (even if heavily regulated) that it is too materialistic and detrimental to human wellbeing. Another person might believe that the economic system is wrong because it is overly regulated because society is too concerned with environmentalism or with solidarity and not concerned enough with the flourishing of the strong.
An unrecognized or unrewarded contribution: Some individuals do things that benefit the community but go unrewarded (e.g. caring for children, volunteering, producing art); others might think they benefit the community when they do not. Some people might choose to fulfill care responsibilities rather than recognized contribution without considering whether it should count as a social contribution.
Insufficient pay (under-recognized or under-rewarded contribution): Some people might have access to jobs they would be willing to do if the pay or the recognition was reasonable to them, but do not find the jobs offered to them to have sufficient rewards. Anyone might think they are underpaid, but only some (probably mostly those near the bottom of the income distribution) object so strongly that they would rather live off a social minimum than accept employment.
Difficult or unpleasant working conditions: Laborers might object that their contributory obligation requires them to perform relatively difficult work, while others are (for whatever reason) allowed to satisfy their contributory obligation with more pleasant possibilities.
Unfulfilling opportunities: People whose only job opportunities are relatively boring, low-status, or unfulfilling might decide to refuse unless they are offered something better.
Insufficient opportunities and unemployment: Some people might want to contribute in a way that is well rewarded by the community, but for whatever reason can’t get that job. Some people might have lost their job or be unable to find the kind of job they are looking for. Some might lack the required ability, and some might simply lack recognition of their ability.
Improving skills: Some people would like to drop out of participation temporarily to improve their skills or to begin a project that will allow them to reenter with more desirable opportunities. Society might recognize some reimprovement of skill as a contribution, and so for this to be considered a refusal to cooperate the individual must be improving her skills in some unapproved or unrecognized manner.
Objection to hierarchy: Some people might be perfectly willing to perform the functions they are offered but might object to the hierarchical structure in which those jobs are placed. But of course, it is always possible that someone might object that the structure of society is not hierarchical enough.
Objection to the specific place in a hierarchy offered to an individual: Some people might not be opposed to hierarchy in general, but object to the low position in the hierarchy that their functions place them. Individuals might have good or bad reasons for believing they merit a higher place.
Objection to the standard of fairness of the system (including the role of luck, discrimination, nepotism, social advantage, etc.): Any system with different roles for people and an imperfect ability to give maximal opportunities to everyone will run into somebody with a legitimate complaint about bad luck. Discrimination and social disadvantage are not simply bad luck; they are socially created arbitrary factors. They create similarly arbitrary outcomes that could inspire a similar unwillingness to participate. There might also be people who accept only unfairness in their favor, such as racists who are not willing to cooperate in any project that includes other races. Society might try to reduce these problems, but it is unlikely that they will have the ability to eliminate them.
Objection to the required level of effort: A person might believe that the effort demanded of her is larger than necessary even if others work hard. Or, she might believe that no one else works hard enough or that her extra efforts are not rewarded sufficiently.
Grievance: Someone might refuse social cooperation because she believes that she or a member of her family had been wrongly punished or wrongly deprived of rights, property, or privilege.
Insufficient range of options: A person might refuse to participate just because there aren’t enough varied choices of how to participate. I hesitate to include this objection, because presumably most people who object to the range of options have some specific objection to each offer in the range of options. However, it is conceivable that someone might refuse an option they genuinely like just because they believe they have too few options to choose from.
Mental or physical disorder: Some people might appear lazy, gaming, or weak-willed who actually suffer from depression or some other mental disorder that inhibits their ability to interact with others and hold a position. Physical disorders (whether recognized or not) might have a similar effect.
If you think none of these possibilities have or could ever possibly apply to you, then it will probably continue to make sense to believe in the absolute moral rightness of work and the moral wrongness of refusing employment. But if you think any of these could apply, and that the possibility exists for the moral wrongness of a job to outweigh the moral wrongness of not accepting that job, then perhaps enabling the option of not requiring jobs empowers people to make that choice?
If you faced a choice between:
- Working for someone who greatly injured or even killed someone you love
- Working for a company that sells snake oil
- Working for a business that dumps toxic waste in your backyard
- Working with other workers who make your life miserable
- Working for slave wages insufficient to cover your basic needs
- Working a job you love for zero pay, making you unable to live despite all your hard work
- Working a job that promises a shortened life, like breathing in asbestos and guaranteeing cancer
- Not working for money until you can find a job or situation that is none of the above
Would you appreciate that last choice as an option?
If a side-effect of enabling that option of not working for money is that it directly results in everyone working suddenly earning larger incomes than anyone not working, then does that not improve upon the current situation of the employed earning the same incomes as the unemployed? Isn't that then too an example of something that is more right or less wrong than what we have right now?
Right now someone can get $12,000 from the government for not having a job while someone who has a job gets the same income. Basic income would double the total pay of the employed. Someone with no job would have $12,000. Someone with a $12,000 job would have $24,000 in total. That's paying people to work instead of not work.
If another side-effect of enabling the option of not working is that it directly results in everyone who pretends to work in their job but actually gets paid to do nothing suddenly gaining the ability to quit their job, while also enabling those who really want to work but can't find work to fill these same jobs, in a way that these jobs are actually done and done happily/well instead of just pretending or done unhappily/poorly, doesn't this too provide an example of an outcome that is more right and less wrong than we have right now?
In other words, do we really want to pay people to do nothing at work while preventing those who want to actually work from working?
If you can consider all of these questions and still feel as strongly as you did before you considered them of how wrong basic income is compared to anything/everything else, then that's that and I have no desire to change your mind. Nor will I pass judgment.
But if you can consider all of these questions and feel a bit less strongly, concluding that there are possibly some circumstances no matter how remote, where you yourself would not want to be forced to do something even more wrong in your eyes than not working, then I think that's really something to consider in your judgment of the idea of basic income and those who support it.
Oh, and that image at the top of this blog post, it's from Nazi Germany where imprisoned Jews were told in their concentration camps that work would set them free...
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I have absolutely no qualms whatsoever about universal basic income replacing work. If I had a way of achieving an alternate income equal to what I make now as a corporate slave, I would quit my job tomorrow and take great delight in doing so. I am in fact actively working toward realizing such a scenario.
My job is interesting, challenging, and mentally stimulating. But I have to get up at the crack of dawn, get home very late so I don't see my family that long before bed, and I spend all day toiling away to essentially line the pockets of the rich with even more money.
Freed from having to do that, I could find my own way to make useful contributions to society, at my own pace, doing whatever strikes my fancy and makes me happy. Lining my own pockets and improving my quality of life instead of the fat cats at the top of the corporate hierarchy.
So yeah, I'll be the biggest cheerleader of universal basic income that there ever was. VIVA la revolucion!
I am actually in the same boat as you, with an interesting and well-paid job that. If I did have an alternate income, I am not even sure if I would quit, but I would love to have the option.
1 word, 5 syllables: VIVAconomy
https://www.vivaco.in
How so, cancer rate is predicted to reach 1 in 2 adults in america by 2020?
How about ending the toxic food chain first? here is an example
US trade deal after Brexit could see milk and baby formula with cancer-causing toxins flood UK market
7 August 2017 GMT
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/us-trade-deal-brexit-cancer-milk-aflatoxins-peanuts-a7877541.html
But dont you worry, europeans also test positive for monsanto glyphosate spreading cancer like wild fire.
The ways that I'm aware of MedicAxxess changes the medical field involves the storage and handling of medical records and bringing basic medical services to remote areas.
As far as the carcinogens in food, that is a completely different issue, and I agree the problem needs to be addressed - quickly and efficiently.
However, I believe the ultra ledger technology underlying MedicAxxess coule also be instrumental in changing many problems, such as deceptive practices. As more and more businesses adopt the transparent block chain type technologies, atrocious and deceptive practices will be more difficult to maintain. Block chain type technologies are developing to be for much more than just trading digital currencies.
Go to www.vivaco.in and see what applications are being developed besides just the UBI.
all issued are connected in the end and physicians will fight back not to lose their jobs to mega computers and robot surgeons, unlike the middle and low classes used to work to make ends meet. I can see the giant mess ahead.
It's no secret that valuing by money and by contributing to society are not currently the same thing / out of sync. A UBI brings the two more in sync. Money isn't meant to be a proxy for the value of everything and bringing social value and monetary value closer in sync increases the risk of monetary value being seen as the proxy for all value.
(Toying with ideas for the lelz/robustness of debate)
Hi @scottsantens, I just stopped back to let you know your post was one of my favourite reads and I included it in my Steemit Ramble. You can read what I wrote about your post here.
Thanks for the mention! I'll head on over to your post for an upvote and reply. Cheers!
this argument is the carrot and the stick... there wont be ANY job market... from TV anchor, movie makers and actors, to surgeons, hedge fund managers, physicians, stockbrokers, fast food workers, factory employees, cubicle positions... etc ... there won't be any job market in 15 years from now, and in 5 years we'll begin feeling the pinch.
There already are supercomputers writing the news... journalists will to go at some point
UBI is based on the assumption that there will be a market... based on the numbers above, everybody will get 12,000.
UBI rejects the reality of megacomputers/automation/robotics, based on this OP it is rather blatant
The Founding Fathers were anti-taxation... taxation throughout history has been misused and still abuse people 24/7, with UBI, we'll get more of the same. Tax money will go to fund a "minority report type of society" aka smart cities, paying taxes to be spied on 24/7.
I challenge UBI on the ground that the theory ignores reality (that more knowledge de-materializes the meaning of life) and mankind history. Its metaphysics have very shaky foundations
If there's half as much paid work available in 20 years as estimated, that means full-time can be considered 20 hours per week instead of 40.
UBI doesn't reject the reality of automation it embraces it. It also recognizes all the work there is to do that isn't paid, like care work, volunteering, and open source coding. It also better enables people to create work.
Look too at Steemit itself. This is a platform that will exist on top of basic income. You would earn your basic income as a floor with earnings like this on top.
Additionally, there is no reason to assume a basic income should be $12k in a world with no jobs. That's silly. A basic income should rise with increases in productivity.
I suggest something along these lines, looking at Alaska as a model to copy and expand upon:
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/04/extreme-wealth-inequality-alaska-model
thank for responding but it still doesnt add up, in my view, UBI may have a so-called wealth effect as a mixed economy ingredient. When referring to 12k it was based on your example.
You see, I do not believe that wealth can be created nor destroyed, the metaphysics of a money-free society borrows fro Nature itself, which functions as a zero-sum game. Because man evolves at a much higher level of awareness he cannot murder/exploit. So the zero-sum game can only be achieved with a money-free society.
One cannot make profits without extracting from a bottom or increasing profit margins. But I digress, we have had both for centuries long. Nearly 7 millions of africans have died so far in the coltan war, so corporations can get this mineral needed for electronics much cheaper, There is blood on all of electronics... so how is UBI going to resolve this? And dont you worry, such examples abound, I could go on an on. A new system is a system that also puts an end to corporate crimes. I'd suggest by the same token "the high price of electronics", a doc exposing the the toxicity of chinese factories, every year 1000s of chinese getting cancer to make our electronics... then you have countries like ghana which we dump on for 30billion worth of our e-waste and which poisons africans in turn. Those highly toxic e-dumps exist in china, india and pakistan too... so please, how can UBI fix that?
The world needs real solutions not just a band-aid solution for the west... developing countries will not get UBI most likely, additionally we have the cashless society that is being thrust upon us and which has so many downsides. But that is another chapter, for another time.
UBI and money-free (which too embraces futurism) are two different premises. UBI is just another keneysian version of the old (what we have now), and monetarism-free promotes the end of darwinism at the expense of the masses, which is at the root of all the planetary ills.
Like I said, UBI theory doesnt seem to be really interested in fixing our world mess. Its metaphysics are poor, and will not bring about any real change. With the prediction of 70% of joblessness in 10 years or so from now, this means that 70% will all get the same amount of money to muddle through and, we can trust that it will not be cumulative.
Making people believe that there will still be "jobs" is selling a illusion. That is maybe why america has a $100 trillion unfunded liabilities black hole. They do not know how bad it really is.
Moreover UBI doesnt address the threat that is AI, the Hive Mind Cloud.
Years before I started researching basic income I discovered the ideas of Jacque Fresco about a resource-based economy which I thought and still do think makes a lot of sense in our future. The key problem was always and remains to this day the avenue of transition to such a new economy. It was when I started looking deeply into UBI that I realized it was the tool of transition - the missing ingredient. This is also why Peter Joseph, founder of the Zeitgeist Movement, is pro-UBI as well.
You appear to want a society that is beyond money. So do I. To evolve in that direction, it is imperative that we decouple money from work. Money cannot be seen as something people require in order to live. As long as that is true, people will care a great deal about money and how to acquire it. Once a minimum amount of money is given to everyone simply for being alive, people will begin to look differently at money. Money will no longer be required to live, and so people will begin to look at money differently, as well as work differently. People will find other goals in life than money, goals like relationships and personal development.
Basic income is about Maslow's Hierarchy. If we cover the first two levels of the pyramid, everyone will start reaching for the upper levels instead of only the bottom two. Scarcity limits thinking. The scarcity mindset effectively reduces IQ by about 14 points. Remove the scarcity mindset and people effectively those 14 IQ points back. Thinking shifts from short-term to long-term.
As long as you think of UBI as only money, you're not seeing the emergent effects of such a system change. One of the effects of UBI is babies are born healthier due to better maternal nutrition. That means we're talking positive epigenetic effects. Kids raised in poverty develop less surface area in their brains compared to kids not raised in poverty. This is structural. Kids lifted out of poverty do better in school and develop positive personality traits. These kids grow into healthier adults with fewer health problems and a greater tendency to be honest and work together well with other people.
If you study all these effects, it's impossible to look at basic income as a "band-aid". The elimination of poverty is not a band-aid. I'd even argue it's one of the points of civilization itself.
The world exists as it is in large part because we do not guarantee that everyone starts above the poverty line. Once we do that, so much more becomes possible, including a resource-based economy thanks to a population of people who no longer worship money, who grew up in healthier environments, who are more educated, more happy, more willing to work with others, more intrinsically motivated, and oriented around abundance instead of scarcity.
UBI is the key to the world we both appear to seek. If you disagree, I highly suggest studying more of the effects observed.
I recommend reading the following in consideration:
https://medium.com/basic-income/human-park-a-mammals-guide-to-stress-free-living-17f6cab007b3
https://medium.com/basic-income/post-capitalism-rise-of-the-collaborative-commons-62b0160a7048
https://medium.com/basic-income/how-we-can-transform-americas-broken-economic-system-to-work-for-everyone-ddba38fc328a
Cheers!
He is for a money-free and resourced based society. And it is pretty obvious. I can assure that Peter Joseph is anti any taxation schemes. He will rather push his resource based theory than saying "money-free" but that is what he means.
I have heard that Joseph said that the basic income should come from the top 1%' s wealth... not by government managing/distributing it. But he doesnt believe it is gonna happen. I agree with him.
"Zeitgeist - Moving Beyond Money" Peter Joseph, Zeitgeist Movement
Published on Mar 27, 2011
In his latest film, Zeitgeist: Moving Forward, director Peter Joseph presents a case for a transition out of the current socioeconomic monetary paradigm which runs modern global society to a new sustainable resource based economy. Everyone suffers under the system that exists and suffering is inevitable, not because of politics or policy, but because of monetary existence. The system is flawed. Money is the problem. The focus should be resources, such as food, health and other aspects.
sure I look at the end goal and I agree with the quote here... BUT... the top 1% will make sure it doesn't happen, the top has serious track records proving this. And that explains my stance against UBI, that among other things.
ps: a world with people working out of passion is a world of creators, that's the only metaphysics that can save humanity.
Keep working, stop paying, enjoy freedom.
Providing $12,000 annually to every citizen over 18 will require almost doubling federal expenditures. Where does that money come from?
http://www.independent.org/pdf/tir/tir_19_04_02_henderson.pdf
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-12-11/flaws-basic-income-everyone
https://www.mises.ca/against-the-libertarian-case-for-a-basic-income/
That is an incorrect calculation, and I'd appreciate it if you'd read this to understand why:
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/07/the-cost-of-universal-basic-income-might-be-lower-than-you-think
As for how I'd go about funding it, this is how I'd prefer we do it in the US:
https://medium.com/economicsecproj/how-to-reform-welfare-and-taxes-to-provide-every-american-citizen-with-a-basic-income-bc67d3f4c2b8
So you assert there will be no cost associated with the bureaucracy managing this gigantic program? You assert there will be no change in behavior on the part of the wealthy who will be paying the enormous amounts of money given to the poor? You assert that there will still be some sort of social security program and payments, so that means the revenue streams for SS will not be made available to the UBI program. No, your math example is wrong. The analysis in the article I posted is correct. Distributing those payments to that many people will require all that taxation, all that increase to federal spending and posting some silly example based on 5 people voluntarily hsaring a pittance among themselves can't undo the analysis of the federal budget done by economists.
My math is correct. You just don't understand subtraction apparently. If I give you $20 and ask for $15 back, the cost to me to give you $20 is $5, not $20.
Based on the costs of the Social Security Administration's overhead, we're talking about a 0.07% cost of administration.
As for a change of behavior of the wealthy, we're talking about a 10% increase in tax burdens on the top 10%. If you were earning $1 million per year, what kind of drastic behavioral change could we expect from you $600,000 after taxes instead of $700,000? Studies looking for optimal tax rates show that behavioral changes of the rich don't kick in till around 60-70% effective tax rates, not 40%. It's like you're worried about turning up the thermostat in your home out of fear your blood will reach the point of boiling.
Additionally, if you have such a problem with raising taxes on the owners of capital, to pay for the lost incomes of those whose jobs are replaced by capital itself in the form of hardware and software, what is your preferred solution to that economic reality? What is your answer to technological unemployment?
Also, don't bother claiming that economists don't like this idea. It has plenty of support among economists, including Nobel prize winners including both Milton Friedman and F.A. Hayek in the 20th century, and a growing list this century.
Umm, you shouldn't poke at other people's math when you use an example like that. If you give me $20 and ask for $15 back then you haven't given me $20. The cost for you to give me $5 was $5. The other $15 was never transferred, except in the federal bureaucracy it would disappear forever into the government overhead and fraud.
You only prove my point. Yes, the cost in my example is $5 instead of $20, just like the cost of UBI is ~$500 billion instead of $3 trillion.
Regarding your claim that government would take all the money, that's just stupid. Government wastes all kinds of money on services that are inferior to giving cash, and so many programs and so much bureaucracy that could be eliminated with UBI.
No, you missed the point entirely. You want to make it seem that giving me $20 only cost $5, but I never got $20. The entire example was flawed and wrong. Try it with your mortgage company. Tell them to return all but $20 of your mortgage payment back to you. Then explain that they got the mortgage payment, but it only cost you $20 and so everybody comes out ahead.
Would you explain for all who are reading this exchange why you authored the piece above describing how you would go about funding UBI to a level of $3.8 trillion (copied from your article: Basic income revenue pool: $3.72 trillion) if the program will only cost ~$500 billion?
You didn't provide a preferred solution to the problem of technological unemployment. Or are you denying that it is even a problem?
Shrink government. Reduce government spending. Eliminate government programs and agencies. Open the free market to greater entrepreneurship with less regulation and intervention by government at all levels. Allow the creative genius of the people striving to create a better life for themselves and their families to pursue a million different solutions until the ones with the greatest success rate rise to the top and dominate the markets. The very last thing I would support or endorse is growing government. Allowing government to consume even more resources, dominate even more areas of human activity, control ever larger percentages of the mmarket and the economy is exactly the wrong solution. It doesn't work, it has never worked, and it is the majority of what is wrong with the world's economy today. More liberty, more freedom, more individuality, and less, much, much less government is the only hope for the future.
You didn't even address the question. What about technological unemployment?? You appear to be a bot with your inability across threads to address the posts you are responding to. It's just an never ending automated scripted reply about 'gubment evil, taxation bad, freedum good!'.
And your second article is all about adding $trillions in new taxes. Why would we need to add $trillions in taxes for a plan that doesn't require $trillions in new spending?
The funding avenues determine the net distributive outcome. Adding trillions in new taxes wouldn't matter in the least if they were matched with refunds of equivalent size. Of course, that would be pointless. What isn't pointless is reforming the tax code in a way that simplifies it, and lowers the effective tax burdens of 8 out of 10 households and increases the tax burden of 2 out of 10 households, which are currently the only ones benefiting in the American economy.
The overwhelming majority of the US has not seen their incomes increase since the 1970s, despite increasing productivity the entire time. This is because technology is only benefiting the top, at the cost of pushing down on everyone else. That's unsustainable, and a very bad idea.
If your taxes go up $4,000 to pay for basic income, and you receive $12,000 of basic income in return, you are $8,000 better off. You can also look at that as paying $8,000 less in taxes. It's a giant tax cut.
as history shows, tax and spend does not work... sorry, I regard UBI as another keneysian miracle that cannot become true.
Taxation is utterly coercive because it make people pay for things they do not want, such as war. And with world govs pouring billions into AI weaponry, it clearly tell us that taxation is lethal.
Eliminating means tested welfare and returning the tax levels on the wealthy to where they were between 1945 and 1979 when the USA had the largest middle class in history.
that time has long gone away... there is NO way back, unless one is a mormon or an amish
The tax rates you refer to were never actually paid, because the code had so many loopholes and exemptions and deductions nobody actually paid 91% taxes, or later 70% taxes. It just didn't happen. The period of time we had the largest middle class in the world was the result of a lot of things. The industrial revolution, the rarity of free markets in the world, domestic manufacturing, etc. Increasing tax rates doesn't magically bring back the glory days of times gone by.
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