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Greece's Former Finance Minister Explains Why A Universal Basic Income Could Save Us (fastcoexist.com)
Charlie Sorrel, writing for FastCoExist: Next time you're having a fight with somebody who doesn't like the idea of a universal basic income, you might employ some of these arguments from Yanis Varoufakis, Greece's former finance minister. In an interview with the Swiss newspaper Tages Anzeiger, he not only refutes the usual arguments against the concept that the government should give everyone a minimum check every month, but he makes them sound quite ridiculous. The interview was published ahead of the Switzerland's vote on a universal basic income (or UBI) in June. If successful, all Swiss adults would get $2,500 per month, and kids around $625 per month, whether or not they have a job. Here are some of Varoufakis's best answers.
First, on the need for a UBI: "For the first time in the history of technology more jobs are destroyed than created. Technical progress means that more and more high-paying jobs will disappear and thus shrink the middle class. This will in turn cause a further concentration of income and wealth in the upper classes. That's why I fight like a basic income for sociopolitical reforms. The robotization [of work] has long been underway, but robots don't buy products. Therefore, a basic income is needed to offset this change and stabilize a society which has an increasing wealth inequality." Then, on why you need a UBI if you already have a good job: "What good is a well-paying job, if you are afraid to lose it? This constant fear paralyzes."Good luck convincing many citizens to do actual work.
First, on the need for a UBI: "For the first time in the history of technology more jobs are destroyed than created. Technical progress means that more and more high-paying jobs will disappear and thus shrink the middle class. This will in turn cause a further concentration of income and wealth in the upper classes. That's why I fight like a basic income for sociopolitical reforms. The robotization [of work] has long been underway, but robots don't buy products. Therefore, a basic income is needed to offset this change and stabilize a society which has an increasing wealth inequality." Then, on why you need a UBI if you already have a good job: "What good is a well-paying job, if you are afraid to lose it? This constant fear paralyzes."Good luck convincing many citizens to do actual work.
Have to pay Greece?
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
Greece's former finance minister probably has as much credibility in financial matters as Steve Jobs had on cancer treatment.
Follow along here. The Swiss are successful. Why do they want to take advice from the Greeks? Especially that one Greek who had as much a hand in the mess as anyone else?
For how long? http://www.businessinsider.com...
Silence is a state of mime.
The Swiss vote on the universal basic income will only take place because it's part of the normal political process here. But even the promoters of it agree publicly that there is no chance at all to be adopted now. There only goal is to force discussion about simplification of the various social income administrations as there is many of them in Switzerland. There also openly admit that the proposed modification of the Swiss federal constitution will not give a clue about how to get the money, and this make the whole affaire just a joke from the point of view of many peoples here.
It's funny to see all the comments dismissing the all article without even reading it. Oh wait, I forgot this is Slashdot after all.
Yanis Varoufakis is not the man who got Greece into its current mess, he's the guy who tried to negotiate a way out. The EU and IMF eventually refused to deal with him (he is much better at macroeconomics than they are) and forced the Greek PM to cave in to their demands. Veroufakis resigned as a result but not in disgrace; he was offered another government job but declined.
"Good luck convincing many citizens to do actual work."
It wouldn't be that difficult, given how little "basic income" would pay. Adjusting for the cost of living difference between Switzerland and the US (rent, groceries, etc), their proposal would work out to about US$1500/month, or $18K/year. (This is in the range of what people who are judged too disabled to work get from Social Security.) Yes, there are people who are content to live on that. But not most people. Would you?
Anyone who aspires to a middle-class lifestyle would at least get a part-time job to supplement basic income (maybe regular freelance work, a half-time office job, gig-economy stuff as needed, a creative project that they never had time for, that business they were otherwise afraid to take a risk on, etc) or a full-time job that they might not otherwise be able to afford to take (e.g. teaching, social work, performing arts). And the kinds of people who are used to taking home $1500 or more every week would undoubtedly stick with the jobs they have already, and treat the basic-income grant as "mad money" to spend on something fun.
The idea needs to be tested thoroughly, before being tried on the scale of, say, the US, or even the UK. It may not work as projected based on how it's worked in a few small-population experiments so far. The amount definitely needs to be evaluated. But if you're ridiculing the idea based on the assumption that a just-above-poverty-level income is going to be really attractive to the masses... I'm pretty sure you're mistaken.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
So? You are saying as if communism is automatically "bad".
In the USSR everybody had a job (it was actually mandatory for adults who are not studying), which means that 1) there was less time for drinking (showing up drunk at work was not OK) and 2) everybody had some money, there was no need to look for food in garbage bins.
Now that we are capitalists and free, a lot of people do not have a job. I guess one solution would be to let them starve to death, however, that tends to increase crime (since a hungry person is more likely to steal or rob) and some people oppose it for humanitarian reasons. So we have welfare - give free money to the poor. Most of that money gets spent on alcohol (well, you are poor and do not have a job, you have nothing better to do).
The side effect of capitalism is that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, however, in the long run that is bad for the economy because more and more money is settling down in the bank accounts of the rich, which means there is less and less "active" money. The rich also find ways to avoid taxes and may end up paying less than a poor man who has a job (because he cannot afford to set up offshore companies for tax evasion purposes etc).
Technology increases productivity, which is great, now everybody can make more in the same time. Which means that in the future, everybody will be working for half the time and producing the same or more than we are now (a prediction from the past). Oh wait, currently instead of everybody working for half the time, half of the people are unemployed and those that have a job, work full time.
I personally believe that some communism would be great. That is, individuals should be free to do what they want (within reason) and private property should be respected, but large companies (companies, that have a too high influence on the market) should be kept on a very short leash - larger companies get a shorter leash.
Do you think that wages will stay the same if everyone gets X per month from the government? I can imagine that every employee who doesn't have a contract with a dollar amount spelled out in it, would immediately get a letter from the CEO explaining why their pay will be cut the week UBI goes into effect. Lower private wages are one of the assumptions that the universal-basic-income model is based on.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
The whole idea that people are inherently lazy and won't work without being forced to always puzzled me. Most of the people I know want to do something productive, but more often than not it's either not something they can get enough income from quickly enough to be able to drop their day job and start doing it full-time or it's not something they can get enough income from to keep the bills paid. Give them a guaranteed basic income and they won't sit around doing nothing, they'll start doing what they want to do (instead of the day job they have to have because it pays the bills).
And on the flip side, what does Donald Trump do exactly? I know he's rich and considered successful, but what work does he actually do? Or Kim Kardashian? It always seemed to me that the more successful you were, the more well-off you were, the less actual work you appeared to do each day. I know there's research involved in say running a major investment fund like Warren Buffet does, but he doesn't do the majority of it. 95% is delegated out to subordinates who do the legwork and write up the analyst reports, Buffet himself just goes over those reports and makes the final decisions. It's something only he can do, but he's not spending 40 hours a week nailed down to a desk poring over corporate reports and newspaper articles and stock trade data, running spreadsheet calculations to figure out what's behind the stock movements and what's likely to happen in the future.
To quote a mill supervisor, "I don't want the industrious guy who'll clean up the mess with a smile. I want the lazy bastard who'll figure out how to stop the mess from happening so he doesn't have to clean it up all the time.".
I've seen a few people say that they would start their own businesses IF they had a basic income to fall back on. It's understandable, because starting a business is a huge risk if you don't have family money to back you if it fails. This doesn't sound like promoting mediocrity to me at all, this sounds like allowing people to find their potential instead of withering away behind a desk.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
The Constitution has been modified as follows:
Art. 110a (new) Unconditional basic income
The Confederation shall ensure the introduction of an unconditional basic income.
The basic income shall enable the whole population to live in human dignity and participate in public life.
The law shall particularly regulate the way in which the basic income is to be financed and the level at which it is set.
The 2500$ comes from the actual *poverty line* in Switzerland: believe me if you have such a low income in Switzerland you are not going to be happy, even if you do nothing to get it.
Actually I don't think a massive taxation increase would be required. The reason is that in Switzerland there is already welfare support for people under the poverty line, which is exactly those 2500$ per month. The idea is basically to get rid of the "usual" welfare, including all the bureaucracy and costs involved and replace it with this "no question asked" basic income. This would basically affect only those under the poverty line, which is a very small percentage of the population, and it would in most cases just replace money they already get, only with a different label.
It's not communism -- communism is an industrial philosophy, and the key point about all industrial philosophies is who owns the means of production. Communism places ownership at the community level, socialism at the level of "society" (in oractical terms almost always defaulting to "state socialism"), cooperativism is about the workers, and capitalism states that ownership starts with money (so how do you get into the system in the first place?)
The idea of a basic income is not directly related to the ownership of the means of production, so cannot be labelled with any of these terms. The reason I feel BI is fair and equitable is that the existence of "society" and the notion of "property" rely on relinquishing certain natural rights. Without society, I would be allowed to hunt, fish or gather wherever I wanted to. Because of society, though, there are rivers that I'm not allowed to fish and deer that I'm not allowed to stalk. Society has removed my right to feed myself for free, and forced me instead to buy food, and therefore has created the need for money. This process has made humanity more efficient and productive (a farmer with a combine harvester can feed hundreds, a hunter with a spear can feed a dozen or so) which improves the average standard of life immeasurably. But if one man can't eat because of that, where is the justice? What have we given him in return for the removal of his natural right to feed himself?
Welfare systems and/or basic income schemes are how we compensate for the loss of those natural rights. Food that buys your hunting rights; housing that buys out your right to pitch a cowhide tent wherever you please.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
Of course, the article glosses over implementation details like that.
Sure, I wouldn't mind an extra $2,500 every month. But is it truly an extra $2,500? If the taxes on my normal income will also go up by that $2,500, it's a wash. If inflation makes it so I don't have any real additional purchasing power, it's also a wash. So why add the additional level of complexity in those cases? And won't there be bureaucratic and administrative costs?
Show me the numbers. Show me where the money will come from such that I really will have an extra $30K take-home every year... that I actually benefit from and that won't be vacuumed away in taxes, bureaucracy, and inflation. Show me real, solid, numbers, and sure, I'll support the idea. But in my experience, things that sound too good to be true, usually are.
Imagine all the people...
Whereas Capitalism fails only when human beings are no longer required to produce goods and services. i.e. real soon now.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
I suspect that after a year or so to adjust, we'd see higher employment rates than ever, at least if you count the sort of informal employment that becomes possible once basic needs are a given. Idleness actually gets old pretty fast.
As Carlin pointed out, pot leads to carpentry. So even with that, it might make an interesting new cottage industry.
I don't see robots doing work. I see people making pennies assembling iPhones in China, children working in sweatshops in Vietnam making Nike clothing. This man is a fool. The problem isn't robots. People are cheaper than robots are.
Because you're not looking. There's a reason the US is the second largest manufacturer in the world, and has grown in manufacturing capability over the last 15 years (except for a dip during the recession), while at the same time continueously employing fewer and fewer people in manufacturing jobs. It's called "robotics". Turns out it's cheaper in the US, where average/minimum wages are relatively high, to use robots than it is people, while in China, with it's much lower wages, it's still viable to use human labor. People are only cheaper if you live in a country with a shit average wage.
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
So if society collapses because the base-mechanisms of capitalism fail, that is fine with you? Talk about being self-centered _and_ stupid...
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Simply its this: the world doesn't owe you a living, get over yourself and suck it up. Live or die on your own efforts, not mine.
Fine. If robots take my job and I don't get to have part in the production gain I'll just grab myself a Kalashnikov and take what I want.
Glad we could clear this up so quickly.
' be seeing you soon.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
I don't really care about anybodys arguments for this UBI concept, I know one thing for sure: Somehow, it'll get corrupted, so that I get screwed out of it, have to work, my taxes jacked up, and I'll be paying for some jackoffs to smoke weed, drink beer, and play video games all day long, while I get my pay cut, and as mentioned above, my taxes increased to pay for losers to play all day. I just KNOW it will happen that way.
You want the government to give us free shit? How about we do away with the requirement for healthcare (or paying Danegeld to the IRS if you don't) and give us basic healthcare for FREE instead!? That would make WAY MORE sense than this UBI crap. I'm dead serious about this: If the U.S. Government can't manage to give every U.S. citizen free basic healthcare, then it sure as fuck can't afford to give everyone enough cash to live on every month. Call it a test case. I challenge the Government and everyone who supports this UBI nonsense to make free healthcare for everyone work, first; if that works for, say, a decade, THEN we can talk about your UBI. Deal?
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Sorry kid, we are number 3 and dropping fast.
Mexico will outpace us in manufacturing by 2020. Mostly because American companies are moving there for the lax environmental laws and cheap labor.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Ok, since the majority of people here very obviously have ZERO clue about the situation in Greece and what role Varoufakis plays in the whole mess, allow me to clue you in.
The whole shit started WAY before Varoufakis was more or less pushed into that position. And he was one of the few intelligent people to grace that position with his presence (seriously, his predecessors were duds), but he had very little chance to actually do anything sensible. The IMF was calling the shots. And if you didn't notice by now, allow me to inform you: The very last thing you can use in your country is the IMF telling you what to do. It's almost granted that they will make matters worse, since they have no interest at all to "help" you. Their job is to ensure that whoever you owe money gets it. No matter how. As far as they're concerned, sell the organs of your people.
To give you an idea what Varoufakis' situation was and how sensible blaming him for the mess is: It's a bit like blaming whoever will be the next president of the USA for the war in Afghanistan and Iraq, along with the mess with that Cuban prison.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I'm an economist; I recently finished my PhD and am now working in the tech industry.
I am hugely in favor of UBI. I think of it in 3 ways:
Is it doable?
Yes, of course. Existing social programs are very costly, and this will replace many of them. Furthermore, there are a lot of profits that have been created by technology in the last 50 years. And yet work weeks have increased, and many people have a lower quality of life than before. You might ask why this is. I'll give you a hint: the answer isn't population growth.
What is the cost?
Social disruption in the short term. Probably a cost to some or many very wealthy individuals. New regulations are required, but these may be less in total than existing regulations.
What is the benefit?
Many. Increased social stability. A simpler social safety net for one. A promise that each individual will be better off as technology improves and jobs may be destroyed.
That last piece I believe to be very important. The looming driverless car revolution has highlighted the risk of technology: jobs lost there have no promise of replacements.
Productivity is soaring and has been for over 20 years. the benefits of that productivity are not being shared in part due to the fact that productivity gains from automation and robotics go straight to Capital.
The U.S. is at record levels (about 25%) of disengaged workers between the ages of 16 to 50. They don't count as unemployed- but they don't have jobs.
Projections are for 38% to 45% of jobs in the united states to be automated over the next 17 years.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Dusting off old history books to try to predict the outcome of the invention of strong AI and robots is ludicrous!
Uhh... You realized that you just proved what I said? It only took me to write the "cursed" keyword and you react aggressively without thinking about what I meant. A automatic response, you noticed that?
Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
The base mechanisms of capitalism have been failing since the 1980s. We've passed a boundary condition and what's passed for capitalism in the US since then is no longer viable.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Capitalism has always been around, even the feudal farmers were capitalists.
Capitalism doesn't mean what you think it means.
Moron. No one is saying robots don't exist. But they aren't taking the jobs. Jobs are being shifted to cheaper places. Vietnam, China, Singapore. You know who is going to replace you? Not a robot. Just a cheaper human.
You apparently have never worked a day in medium or heavy manufacturing, if you did you'd know that what you just said is bullshit.
Companies will hit a point where there is "simply no place to go for cheaper wages." And robotics will be the end of the job for building things, that's why the auto industry for example has pushed robotics so hard. Let's take a look at the auto industry, the auto plant near me currently employs 300 people per 8hr shift, 3 daily shifts in total. If the robotics weren't there, it would be closer to 1300 per shift, even the basic things like painting aren't done by humans anymore it's all robotics. A auto company could send their manufacturing plants to the 3rd world to build stuff, but it's actually cheaper to build them here for the intended market with a mix of robotics and people. Even the National Parts Distribution Centre's aka giant warehouse that provides OEM parts to dealerships, manufacturing plants and supply companies(like NAPA/Pepboys, etc) usually encompassing entire geographical areas of a content like the entire east-coast and part of east-central US or all of Central Canada, plus Ontario and Quebec. The NPDC I worked at few years ago just to make a couple of extra bucks, it ran with 50 people per shift including all supervisor and office staff. Back 30+ years ago a place like that would easily run 500-700 people per shift(usually 4 shifts) plus another 150-300 for management and front office staff.
The loss of people is directly attributed to computers, robotics, and JIT delivery systems.
Om, nomnomnom...
Here, here, here!
I actually did start my own company, and it wasn't such a big success that it would pay the bills, so now I'm doing freelance work which pays nicely (I'm an information security consultant) but is more stressful than a regular job.
I have a long list of things that I would like to do, both in my field and outside. I just don't have time for it, if it doesn't in some way end up as profitable, at least a little bit. With a basic income, knowing myself the first month or two I would do some shit that I've just wanted to do for a long time, but then all the articles I wanted to write, the speeches I wanted to give, the software I wanted to create would appear.
Giving people a survival is the #1 humanity thing that a western society should feel itself morally obligated to do. If we can afford private jets and million dollar wedding parties for the super-rich, how can you possibly make any ethically justifiable argument that the same society has people looking for food in trash cans?
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
You're forgetting something - 2-3 centuries ago, that would have been easily possible - as long as you find a little plot of land somewhere (even if in the middle of a forest) then you would have a good chance of a means to support yourself.
Now - find a place, where you are allowed to plant something of your own - at first, you'd need to find a plot of land that doesn't belong to anyone - and that, by now, in Europe is almost impossible. If land is arable, it is owned by someone. If it's a forest, it's owned by someone. The times where you could make a living for yourself without being "dependent" on someone else - namely, someone who is willing to pay for your services.
So, what will the future hold for the "lower qualified" jobs that robots eat up? They can't _force_ a company (or _any_ company) to hire them to work for a living wage.
But, before you try your line "live and die by your own efforts, not mine" - before you go as far as declaring whose lives are worth being kept or allowed to starve - just think about how secure your own job will be 10-20 years down the line. I've seen my net "middle-class" income being reduced over the last 12 years (through cut-downs by some employers - and other employers not willing to pay as much as the previous ones -- even though they make more profits; so it's not a cost necessity to go through the cuts -- it's just that it's possible, as there is a lot more competition from outsourcing jobs to lower-wage countries).
Another thing you should think about is the implications of what you're saying - "living and dying by your own efforts", this sounds "natural" in the most basic sense - it's what happens in the animal kingdom, but do remember that this is also what drives conflict in nature (the fight for survival). While your sentence seems to imply "either earn your living or go die quietly somewhere away from me" - rest assured, that it will rather create MORE violence, not less. (all the while also foregoing those "low-earners" as customers for your businesses - which might also be a chance for growth.
The current system of capitalism is too transfixed on "optimizing" (think: economies of scale; automation; ...) - and at the same time leaving governments unable to really care for their citizens, as more high paying jobs (and hence high income tax payers) get eroded, while at the same time, profits are being moved across the globe so that the companies also don't pay taxes that would make up for the shortfall from the eroding income tax base.
Your "fight for yourself" approach has only a very short term usefulness - so it's a great model as far as people in their 80s are concerned: the kind of people who do not need to care whether the whole system will break down 10 years down the line -- because they most likely be gone by then.
That really depends on what you use as predictors. Tech may have changed. I can assure you, we humans have not. Our basic human needs and desires are the same as they've always been.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
It's a good thing that there are more than just the two choices then, right?
You are welcome on my lawn.
Are you refering to the privileged landowning classes? Or to thier property...the farmers? Or would you also refer to American slaves as capitalists because they calculated to ROI and decided that picking cotton was more profitable then getting hanged?