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RE: Universal Basic Income = Slavery
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this @ericarthurblair, but I respectfully disagree with a few of your assumptions regarding the implementation of UBI.
- Handing out currency certainly has inflationary pressure, but providing basic income would only tank an economy if implemented in a severely irresponsible way. Many of the pilot program I've seen suggest that the cost of UBI could be covered by cutting welfare services that would be rendered unnecessary by a UBI.
- UBI could create a socialist situation if facilitated by the government, which is why I was excited to find this list of decentralized projects experimenting with basic income.
- Giving people basic income doesn't make them any lazier than being born wealthy makes a person.
That being said, I'm not convinced UBI's will solve everything. TBH, I'm more excited about combining DAO's with Employee Stock Option Plans than UBI.
Thanks for the thoughtful reply. In response to your comments...
All of the most in demand goods would see the most inflationary pressure, at first it might not be a big deal but over time buying power would be depleted. Money can be printed, resources can not. Of course the speed of these developments are all dependent on the amount of income handed out under such a program. These are basic economic laws. Also, I am guessing those pilot programs are quite small and would not be representative of a nation the size of the USA with over 350 million people. Additionally, the welfare programs as they are also cause a lot of the issues described in my post, simply switching the way they are distributed would not fix any problems.
I have much less of an issue with decentralized entities engaging in such activities, but I still do think there are some costs associated with such a program that still remain.
Not having to strive to make ones life better has quantitatively shown to reduce the quality of life for people regardless of them being born wealthy or surviving on assistance programs. A large portion of a persons self value and image of self worth comes from their work and what they produce for the world around them. Furthermore for those in poverty this has the feedback effect of not creating the drive to achieve more leaving them in a state of dependence rather than striving for independence.
I always love a good economics discussion!
What makes you think this inflationary pressure isn't already partially caused by these issues? Granted the amount of money printed out of thin air dwarfs this amount, but it is not something that can really accurately be accounted for either way.
We seem to be in agreement.
That is kind of my point... I understand some people need help for a variety of reasons. For example I don't think assistance in the case of disability would be a bad thing. However it is that very striving to survive that is what really motivates people to make something better of themselves so they never have to go back to that again. As far as the Darwinian perspective, what would be the result of a complete safety net placed permanently around society? What would then happen if said society had problems and then couldn't fulfill those roles any longer? That could be a VERY bad result training and breeding the ability for survival out of society. As far as people being lazy & reproducing more... I disagree. Just take a hard look at the existing welfare system, you will see children are used as tokens for payouts. It actually incentivises reproduction and unemployment.
After getting UBI payments in Finland, citizens are turning down job offers and staying home lol