Comment: Dan Larimer's Basic Income Vs Unconditional Basic Income (Reply to @teamSteem)
Links in Guillaume's reply: 1 and 2
Thank you, Guillaume. I appreciate the links. Those were some pretty long articles! On the whole, even if I like Dan's sentiments, I have a different opinion. Also, I am not an economist/statistician or in politics or finance so I apologise in advance if I misunderstood some points.
From reading the article, Dan's basic income model is economically driven rather than life/creativity-value driven. This form of thinking comes from a scarcity mentality and any solutions coming from this mindset will not decrease suffering in society. I don't think assigning a monetary figure when one is born that decreases/increases (through interest) will necessarily solve problems created by this mindset. Personally, seeing human beings as units that either contribute to society or not feels abhorrent to me. Who is to judge what is of value or not, and in what way, is incredibly subjective and liable to abuse.
If I've understood it correctly, the unintended effect of Dan's model would be a form of psychological slavery coming from the idea that someone in society (or the collective), rather than individuals themselves, deciding what is valuable or productive, what needs to be done and how much something is worth. Our value to society would be defined by the consensus -- rather than us collectively valuing our psychological individual or collective health, creativity, innovation or compassion. From systems thinking approach, in a healthy society, consumption is more or less equal to production. The consensus is usually a consequence of the biological/psychological/sociological/spiritual health of society. An unhealthy society can be manipulated to create horrific consensus, e.g. Germany before WW2, so it would be dangerous to put value on this necessarily. Equally, those in power could be equally unhealthy and perpetuate a populace that never truly reaches its potential.
I also don't think society is filled with suicidal farmers, as Dan calls them. An impending flood will drive people to put sandbags around their home. A drought will create community pressure on neighbors to save water. These things happen naturally. Even now, those in marginalized communities try to grow their own food and similarly, those on welfare are resourceful in their own way to get as much as they can to have semblance of a good quality of life.
Dan's article seems to betray a stereotype towards he calls "freeloaders" -- as if "freeloading" and greed is something inherent in the nature of a subsection of the population. There seems to be no understanding for why people might have those characteristics in the first place. People parasitise systems only because their needs (defined by Maslow) aren't being met in some way. Even overconsumption / underconsumption is related to this. Advertising and consumerism, for example, thrives on unhappy/unfulfilled/traumatized people.
At the heart of things, people get self worth and feel happier when they are contributing in some way. That's why I think it's better to put value on human/animal/ecosystem health and life rather than anything else.
Universal Basic Income (UBI) is the only system I've come across that values each human life for its own sake rather than what people can contribute to society. It is based on the assumption that each individual would have self-leadership or would naturally develop leadership over their own inherent creative and productive potential, given their needs can be met and growth potential unimpeded.
When the pressure to survive (through a universal basic income) is removed, Individuals can:
- Decide to do what needs to be done, by themselves or with others, using their own judgement and resourcefulness. A platform like Steemit and Steem would be perfect for this.
- Take jobs they like and would naturally be more productive at. Even if they weren't completely productive -- happier people make happier societies.
- Focus on their on creativity which naturally producing value -- think of artists taking over run down areas, bringing life to and adding value to entire communities/city districts.
- Focus on educating themselves in their own way to reach their maximum potential, rather than be educated to become "units" that pay taxes.
- Focus on their own healing if necessary, which is normally interrupted by the pressure to just survive with some quality of life, hence the appearance of freeloading -- think about army vets who weren't able to focus on healing from PTSD etc because of pressure to earn a living. Another example would be the unemployed who are under pressure to find jobs (rather than create or add value) becoming more and more depressed. Too many cannot focus on healing and end up with confounding issues as a result of pressures and lack of societal support for their wellbeing.
As we start to value life (human, animal and ecosystem) for its own sake, mental/physical health and wellbeing of society increases. With time, further creativity, contribution and value is added to society.
Sadly, I don't think this utopia will happen anytime soon because the status quo and wealth/resource inequalities will be perpetuated because all humans reaching their true potential is a dangerous thing to those benefiting from inequalities. The likelihood is that Dan's system (or Universal Credit, another model) will probably be more supported than Universal Basic Income.
This Salon article on how scarcity changes the way we think might be of interest to some.
There are schemes being talked about that would give free housing/food etc but for me this would be akin to being like caged slaves who are allowed to move about for work/leisure.
UBI would make society psychologically and even financially (if one makes extra income from work) less dependent on state than it already is. Unlike this scheme, it can enable a far larger number of people to better reach their full potential wherever and however they pleases. It actually promotes a lot of freedom to develop and contribute value to society.
I for one would voluntarily pay to enable fellow society members to be freer and happier.
I would voluntarily pay for that too. As soon as it is forced then I'm against it.
First I just want to say Dan has had a huge influence in my life. I disagree with him on some points but nonetheless his writings and actions have inspired me a lot. As I understand him he want to help everyone equally. Here's one of his quotes that illustrate this.
Dan's model is a bit tricky. I won't try to describe it. Many people misunderstood it at first and many people called him out because UBI is a form of taxation and Dan is against any taxation because he stands against any violence and taxation is forced on people.
How is UBI forced taxation and why should we avoid forcing people to do anything unless they are or they're action is a threat to us?
I'm Canadian. Let's say we implement UBI in Canada and every single Canadien begins to receive 100$ a week from a UBI program then the price of living will increase by around 100$ a week. This will solve nothing obviously. Money or more precisely fiat money is not a resource.
Now if we begin to distribute 100$ a week only to some Canadien, the net result will be inflation and thus the purchasing power of the canadien dollar will go down. This decreasing purchasing power will be at the cost of everyone who doesn't receive the 100$ and to the benefit of everyone who receive 100$ a week.
This is a form of taxation or in other words some people are getting rob of their labor. A robbery is violence against someone who is not violent. Violence can occurs whether or not there is physical violence involve. Psychological violence or the threat of violence are 2 examples.
Nothing good comes out of force of violence except self-defense. You can't force someone to be compassionate or force someone to be generous.
To better understand some of Dan's view I highly recommend reading my post linked below. It's very enlightening. I don't think could recommend something more powerful to read than this.
https://steemit.com/liberty/@teamsteem/thank-you-dan-larimer-you-are-a-great-mentor
Debt
Dan's article
Under UBI, people are psychologically free to take a break when they need to. Under Dan's idea, we're not, because healing or "time off" is considered an expense. Under UBI, individuals are trusted to naturally create and want to work once healed. Of course work is naturally encouraged by healers once an individual is ready. Under Dan's idea, no one is trusted and you have to effectively a pay a tax from your "account" and go "in debt" in order not be automatically judged as lazy.
For those who think UBI will be spent on "hookers or blow" -- look at the results of UBI trials that disprove this, just as they disprove the idea that people will become lazy.
The life with the simplest requirement or the lowest maintenance is sleep and eating. Some people might not have the ability to feed themselves. They might be too disabled to pick the fruits themselves or unable to operate the machine that could feed thousands of people.
We don't have to force anyone to feed and care for those people. If some people are too lazy to feed the disabled and these lazy people aren't threatening anyone we shouldn't force the lazy person. Forcing the lazy won't make things better. Violence against people people doesn't make things better.
Give me a food forest and I'll feed dozens of disabled. Add to this some robots and I'll feed tens of thousands. (We can produce more than at any point in history. The problem isn't a lack of production of anything be it, food, housing or anthing.)
If the lazy are a threat, then they are a threat and must be taken care of, not because they are lazy but simply because they are a threat.
Again, we can't force people to be good. Let's be good and generous and feed the disabled and if someone is forcing their will on us let's recognized this for what it is:violence.
We can't force people to exercise their freewill. This is an oxymoron.
It's a cruel system if the basis of a system is that all human beings basically require are sleep and eating. People afford that to slaves and prisoners. Most people sleep and eat now but is society happy?
A free society is one that allows everyone to reach their highest potential, whatever it is. Even the people you might judge "permanently lazy"
There is enough food for everyone in the world now without need for increased production or robots. Using sustainable, ecologically friendly agriculture will produce even more.
What you call "lazy people" aren't the cause of the problems.
Also, who's labor are you going to use to create those robot? You have to put something in to get something out of it.
It seems that many are brainwashed to think the problems are with certain subsections of society, rather the psychological burdens (and blindness) of society being exploited by those with power. The latter are also interested in hoarding resources through the centuries due to their own psychological burdens. Both greed and laziness are symptoms of parasitic mindsets that Dan's basic income idea will only perpetuate not tackle. I feel UBI is the only systems so far that is going to put these issues at the forefront and address the root cause. When people are given the freedom not to work, those with trauma will have the space to address them... for example, it's easy to judge another's "deadbeat" nature than it is to actually see this person is an veteran who's been traumatized or an addict who couldn't afford rehab or been heard/respected.
If you don't address this things, you're ignoring the roots of violence in the world and people being "forced" to do things. You will react to every show of force and immediately are triggered to react against it -- and be controlled/manipulated potentially.
It's clear people like Dan and you genuinely care about the world. But how much better would your systems be if you would explore and incorporate the basis behind human trauma, addictions, laziness, violence etc.
By saying remove taxation because it is violence and not addressing the roots of that violence, all you do is perpetuate and increase violence in other areas (obvious to see when you take a systems based approach).
Some people will experience unfortunate circumstances which make them more likely be unable to produce value for society. Wanting to help those people is a good instinct, and people do so naturally.
Giving people a guarantee that they'll survive if they add no value to society encourages people to freeload even though they don't need to. More and more people will do it as it becomes more acceptable, and fewer and fewer people will produce value. Those that do produce value will be the ones paying for freeloaders and taking on the load created by everyone else. The producers of value totally have a right to judge others as freeloading. Growing food is objectively more valuable than drawing pictures.
If UBI is financed through forced participation (e.g. taxes) it is immoral because it is theft. UBI sounds great to me if it can be financed voluntarily, but that's just called good old fashioned community support.
Empirical data shows differently. When people are given the means, they want to work and create value. Both UBI and cash transfer schemes have produced positive results
https://list.ly/list/1RdG-ubi-research-links-universal-basic-income-evidence
You say "Growing food is objectively more valuable than drawing pictures". I'm sure there are people in the world that want to be farmers but can't because of financial restraints.
It really depends on whose perspective we look from.
No doubt UBI will shake things up quite a bit. In the UK, it would turn out to be cheaper on the taxpayer.
With regard to enforced taxation being theft, that's another matter.
I mention UBI because it sounds like a basis for a healthier, happier and more productive society, compared to the current system or universal credit. I would prefer to contribute to something like this. I think our natural cynicism would naturally be overcome when we see the long term fruits of schemes like this.
Data sets also say vaccines are safe, in other words data can say what you want it to say. I'll go with what human intuition, common sense and large scale history tells me. I've found they are consistently more accurate than data sets.
Food is objectively more valuable than pretty pictures. Who wants to do what is irrelevant. In a world where we have all the food we need, all the energy and will to get it where it needs to go, and all the renewable land use practices we need to continue indefinitely, then people can draw pictures for a living without me raising an eyebrow when they say it's equally important. It's still not, but I won't care about making a fuss at that point.
Theft is theft. Saying this theft is better than that theft does not compute in my world. You're just used to the theft and feel it's inevitable so you feel fine advocating another form of it.
I don't see an agenda behind Unconditional Basic Income and my intuition tells me it will never be implemented because it's too great a threat. We're more likely to see universal credit/income which is something else entirely. All are still based on a monetary system which also creates problems. Using crytocurrencies aren't necessarily going to solve issues either because either way, the banks will look for a way around it.
Meanwhile, many of those stuck in the system continue to suffer.
I'm not sure who is saying drawing pictures is going to be equally important to a starving family as food is ... I'm confused about where you got that from @Cahlen. I don't believe everyone wants to paint pictures. Secondly, most people would want to work to supplement the unconditional basic income as they'd want to continue living in conditions they're used to or prefer. UBI is not going to be enough to cover some aristocrat's rent in London or Manhattan. It might promote people moving to the countryside and setting up homesteads and farms though. Lack of jobs/survival money is what drives people to cities in the first place.
Thirdly, people generally want to contribute in a meaningful way that benefits society. Just because one person like to draw, using your example, does not mean they won't want to grow food. UBI affords people the time to explore their options and the reality/fantasy behind it. Most would end up doing something that works for them and society.
My post was comparing UBI to another scheme for basic income and not taking into account that moral issues of taxation at all. At this point, I don't have an opinion on the matter yet.
ps: This is not going to sway anyone who thinks tax is theft or that there is an agenda but it explains something about wealth distribution and work issue.
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/01/why-we-should-all-have-a-basic-income