Universal Basic Income Programs Arrive (theguardian.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Y Combinator will give 100 randomly-selected families in Oakland between $1,000 and $2,000 each month as a test, continuing the payments for between six months and a year. And The Guardian reports that Finland and The Netherlands also are preparing pilot programs to test Universal Basic Income, while Switzerland will vote on a similar program this week. One Australian site is now also asking whether the program could work in Australia, noting that currently the country spends around $3 billion on their Centrelink welfare system, "so simplification can offer huge potential savings."
The Guardian sums up the case for a Universal Basic Income as a reaction to improving technology. "In a future in which robots decimate the jobs but not necessarily the wealth of nations...states should be able to afford to pay all their citizens a basic income unconditional of needs or requirements... In an increasingly digital economy, it would also provide a necessary injection of cash so people can afford to buy the apps and gadgets produced by the new robot workforce."

I'd be curious to hear what Slashdot readers think about the possibility of a government-run Universal Basic Income program.

Comments

Re:Luddites?

[mentil]

Precious bodily fluids! And uhh our brains produce electricity, or something? I heard it from a documentary once...

Re:What I think?

[roman_mir]

Ha ha ha ha, in a female dominated western world there is 0 chance that the crying will not get the next politician from making a name for him or herself by promising to 'tax the rich their fair share' so that Suzy with her 5 kids gets welfare (oh, sorry, UBI) money for each one of them.

UBI is theft and redistribution, just like every other idea that rakes more from some to buy the mob with the promise of easy life. No, I don't buy into any notion of collectivist theft and redistribution regardless of how they dress it up and what they name it. It is still theft and it is not trade.

If there are 2 people on the planet, one is producing food and the other is doing nothing, but he has a gun and is taking the food produced by the first, then it is clearly an armed robbery and clearly there is no trade. Just because it is a few billion people who might produce nothing, who have government with guns to rob from a few thousand producers, does not change the equation.. The producers only trade with other producers. To sell something to a person, whose money came from the taxes imposed upon the producers does not mean to trade, it means to exchange ones own money for ones own product. Might as well not sell at all, this avoiding the taxes, avoiding the product from being taken away forcefully. Might as well only barter with other producers and might as well not support those, who are robbing you.

Switzerland just voted against their idiotic idea of UBI 78% against. They get it.

Any collectivist robbery is just that and must be stopped or it will destroy the system entirely and in case of automation this means this: the military and the police can be automated as well. Taking down a very large crowd with flying, driving, running robots may just be possible this time, so previous threats that created collectivism through violence in the first plave may eventually be negated.

Automation brought down the food prices 200 years ago to the point where only a few could feed everybody and did so but in an honest exchange.

Automation is taking down other prices and will keep doing so ( government created inflation none withstanding) that an honest exchange will still be possible.

UBI will create an impossible situation of complete theft, where the producers are forced to provide to non producers for nothing, no exchange at all. Money taken from the producers used to 'buy' from the producers is theft, not trade. It would be best for all to recognize this and remove government from money manipulation, from business and labour regulation, from welfare redistribution, getting rid of income and wealth taxes completely, so that people can save and start and run their own businesses, creating new ideas for production that others want. People will find things to produce, font use government violence to break their legs and to give them crutches, just step away and let them create on their own.