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eBay Founder Pledges $500,000 To Test Universal Basic Income Program In Kenya (mashable.com)
"Ebay founder Pierre Omidyar is the latest tech bigwig to get behind the concept [of universal basic income]," reports Mashable. "His philanthropic investment firm, the Omidyar Network, announced Wednesday that it will give nearly half a million dollars to a group testing the policy in Kenya." The money will come from the Omidyar Network and be doled out to people living in Kenya through a program called GiveDirectly. Mashable reports: Universal basic income is the notion that a government should guarantee every citizen a yearly sum of money, no strings attached. The thinking is that such a program would relieve economic stress as automation technology severely reduces the demand for labor. Theories along these lines have existed for centuries, but their proponents have never had much luck convincing governments to give them a shot. Thus, the only data on real-world effects come from a few scattered experiments throughout the years. GiveDirectly is looking to add to that knowledge with one of the biggest trials of a basic income system in history. The group recently launched a 12-year pilot program in which it plans to give 6,000 Kenyans regular stipends for the entire duration. Around 20,000 more will receive at least some form of cash transfer. The Omidyar Network is hoping the study will help advance the debate around basic income from broad theoretical terms to more practical considerations. "While the discussion has generated a lot of heat, it hasn't produced very much light," wrote the Omidyar Network's Mike Kubzansky and Tracy Williams in a blog post announcing the pledge. "There is very little research and empirical evidence on how and when UBI could best be used."
Because automation is a real threat to the economy in Africa...
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
The whole point of all technology is to lessen the need for human work, because if you need human work then you need other people and if you need them they've got leverage to demand things from you.
That's an incredibly cynical point of view. It's also completely and frankly rather obviously bullshit. The increase of technology and the rise of human civilization has done nothing but vastly increase the dependency each human has on each other. It used to be every couple fed themselves and their children. Then humans banded into tribes and the hunter/gatherers did the feeding, and the others took care of the children/old/weak. Then we made cities, and one farmer fed three or four. Now we have combine harvesters, and one farmer feeds a hundred. There is maybe a few dozen humans alive today in the US who are truly self-sufficient, who do and could continue to survive with the help of no others, while even a few hundred years ago half or more of the human population could do so (at least for a few years). Technology has made specialization a requirement, and with that has come a level of interdependence unrivaled in human history, and that interdependence is if anything getting stronger (now entire countries rely on other countries, in a hundred years that could become entire planets).
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
Why do the factory-owners need money to maintain their factories when they own robots who will maintain the factories for them for free? And other robots who maintain the robots. The goal is to have robots just take care of everything for you, including mowing down the angry starving hordes storming your mansion, so you don't need money, because money is just a tool you use to get things out of other people, and who needs people when you've got robots.
You're absolutely right that in the process the whole economy will come screeching to a halt, but the fat pampered robot-owning overlords will have no need for it at that point.
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
Either way, the fundamental problem with the concept of UBI is that it assumes money can always turn have-nots into haves, and we've already seen examples of when that doesn't work (the Weimar Republic comes to mind.) Wealth comes from material goods, not from money, and increasing the money supply doesn't do anything to create more material goods, instead it just increases the amount you pay for those goods.
Where I think UBI is really going to sting (if implemented) is housing costs. San Francisco is a perfect example of how increasing the money supply in a given area doesn't actually solve homelessness, and instead just makes it that much harder and more costly to find a place to live, including for those that already have a place to live and have an actual job. The reason why is because if you suddenly give people more money, they'll start to outbid one another for the same real estate, and no amount of automation will solve that.
The same will also happen for less finite material goods, though it will be a little less obvious how this occurs. If everything really was automated and you eliminated labor from the equation from common goods (which UBI proponents assume will eventually happen,) then it will ultimately come down to who can pay the most for given raw materials (i.e. iron, gold, etc.)
The selling point is is a removal of all gov oversight of different and complex payments in different nations. :)
:)
Unemployment payment, old age, war veterans, education compliance and reporting is not needed.
You can get an education, work, work part time, see if a hobby can be a job or use the universal basic income to part fund a start up hobby/job/trade. Buy ebooks, pay for online support to code apps.
Thats great you get cash the UBI every month
Over time the UBI will go digital. Accept it and strange new list of conditions will grow. Government regulations once removed will see new guidelines, then laws.
Buy internet, a cell phone with the UBI card and its logged with a filter list. No buying a secure international VPN service with the UBI. Select medical and nutritional plans get funded, suggested and then become policy.
A list of prosumer, consumer products get banned. No bad food, no alcohol, no gambling, no cigarettes.
Been tracked to ensure a ratio of the digital UBI can only go on food, medical, clothing, education, rent/housing.
No buying other currencies or saving up for holidays with a digital card or remittances to some other nations faith/cult.
Suggested clothing lists, energy use, approved products. No spending too much in any bars, clubs and local hotels. The UBI will not buy junk food or a larger soda/pop drink.
Tracking of spending on plumbers, electricians so their tax payments are digital from any UBI account. Seeing a gov doctor and then spending a lot at the pharmacy too? Thats a tracked digital payment. The doctor or pharmacist cant claim too much back in gov health funding beyond a national average set by tracking all other medical services.
Toll roads and expensive domestic transport? No using the digital UBI to travel to a larger city and using the UBI to support long term protests.
Apply for a digital credit for transport for medical, family or other gov approved reasons.
The digital UBI is an internal passport with privileges and controls. Link the UBI to a permit to live in a region or get residency in a city. The other plus is no more illegal migration, document sharing, fake passports or illegals working for cash. Fingerprints, other biometrics on file per citizen, per encrypted UBI card. No working full time for cash while been allowed in a nation to "study" full time. No over staying any other travel documents. The ability to count every travel document in and out of a nation.
Even if a person works the digital UBI card will still be demanded for tax reasons at a point of sale or as a national ID.
Spend cash and that new UBI card gets the receipt. No more cash, paper receipts and a UBI card is free budget planner for everyone
The win for huge corporations is in their tracking of spending (gov compliance) and been granted national monopolies for a list of products or support service.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
This is why I often say it would be incredibly useful to have a crazy radical left, as crazy (and thereby wrong) as the radical right we've got. To renormalize where "moderate" really is. Not saying that I want such a radical left to actually win, but to have them there as a threat and a contrast to more moderate left positions, in the way that the Black Panthers, though wrong in their position, were useful in helping Martin Luther King Jr. seem more reasonable to those who might have otherwise considered him radical, if not for the Panthers' contrast.
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
Nobody's talking about increasing the money supply, they're talking about shuffling it around. And as the money is representative of material goods, that's equivalent to shuffling the material goods around too, which is the entire point of the exercise.
It's still increasing the money supply just the same.
Think about it: If you were strapped for cash, would you be more inclined to move to a more expensive house? Of course not, you'd be more inclined to either stay where you are, or find a less expensive house. Now, suppose we decide to take a billion dollars away from Bill Gates and distribute it to one thousand people in San Francisco, giving them an additional $100,000 over what they might already have in their possession. Bill Gates isn't likely to sell any of the properties he owns as a result of that, however now we have a lot more people in SF that might decide they want to upgrade their living conditions. The price of housing has now gone up because a lot more potential consumers now have more money.
Now imagine doing this with everybody in SF. And indeed, this isn't just going to happen with houses; this will also happen with more everyday things like the price of food. The fact is, you're more likely to buy more stuff when you have more money, and when the demand for goods increases, the price tends to go up with it. Meanwhile, the few wealthier people that you're taking this money away from probably aren't going to be consuming less, so it isn't balancing out somewhere else. This is primarily because wealthy people tend to sit on a lot of cash, and when somebody sits on cash, that cash isn't circulating and isn't being spent.
A perfect analogy is how the value of gold dropped when the conquistadors brought it over to Europe.
In other words, you take money from the rich and give it to the poor.
That is exactly what UBI is. It is redistribution of wealth. In a world where the rich are getting richer, and goods and services will (supposedly) get cheaper and cheaper to produce because of robots and AI, yet require less and less labor, them some sort of redistribution will likely be needed to maintain social harmony.
India is probably most serious about UBI. They already have a huge welfare system that is badly corrupted, so they would benefit from just wiping it out and replacing it with something simpler.
UBI would be much harder to implement in America. There is little political support for redistribution, and there would be enormous resistance from people currently receiving entitlements that would be drastically reduced under any plausible UBI system.