Slashdot Mirror
Slashdot Asks: Which is Better, a Basic Income or a Guaranteed Job? (timharford.com)
Barack Obama said this month that AI research is accelerating, making it harder to find jobs for everybody, and concluding "we're going to have to consider new ways of thinking about these problems, like a universal income."
But a Financial Times columnist adds that "an intriguing debate has broken out over how to look after disadvantaged workers both now and in this robot future. Should everyone be given free money? Or should everyone receive the guarantee of a decently-paid job?" An anonymous reader quotes some of the highlights: Psychologists have found that we like and benefit from feeling in control. That is a mark in favour of a universal basic income: being unconditional, it is likely to enhance our feelings of control. The money would be ours, by right, to do with as we wish. A job guarantee might work the other way: it makes money conditional on punching the clock. On the other hand (again!), we like to keep busy. Harvard researchers Matthew Killingsworth and Daniel Gilbert (UK) (US) have found that "a wandering mind is an unhappy mind". And social contact is generally good for our wellbeing. Maybe guaranteed jobs would help keep us active and socially connected.
The truth is, we don't really know... It is good to see that the more thoughtful advocates of either policy -- or both policies simultaneously -- are asking for large-scale trials to learn more.
He titled the column "The secret to happiness after the robot takeover." But what say Slashdot readers?
Is it better to be given a basic income -- or a guaranteed job?
But a Financial Times columnist adds that "an intriguing debate has broken out over how to look after disadvantaged workers both now and in this robot future. Should everyone be given free money? Or should everyone receive the guarantee of a decently-paid job?" An anonymous reader quotes some of the highlights: Psychologists have found that we like and benefit from feeling in control. That is a mark in favour of a universal basic income: being unconditional, it is likely to enhance our feelings of control. The money would be ours, by right, to do with as we wish. A job guarantee might work the other way: it makes money conditional on punching the clock. On the other hand (again!), we like to keep busy. Harvard researchers Matthew Killingsworth and Daniel Gilbert (UK) (US) have found that "a wandering mind is an unhappy mind". And social contact is generally good for our wellbeing. Maybe guaranteed jobs would help keep us active and socially connected.
The truth is, we don't really know... It is good to see that the more thoughtful advocates of either policy -- or both policies simultaneously -- are asking for large-scale trials to learn more.
He titled the column "The secret to happiness after the robot takeover." But what say Slashdot readers?
Is it better to be given a basic income -- or a guaranteed job?
Doing a pointless task or showing up to do nothing in order to earn a living is soul-crushing.
In a low-job boom economy we may need to encourage people to get out and socialize, but there are many better ways to do this.
To quote a German comedian, I need money, not an occupation. I can keep busy all right myself, no need for that.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Worse yet, if you're "guaranteed" a job, can you be fired? If not, then for some people it's the equivalent of basic income, because they can just show up when they want, do what they want, and not worry about the consequences. Worse, because the people who *are* trying to work will be demoralized and understaffed. And if you can be fired, then it's not really guaranteed, is it?
TCP: Why the Internet is full of SYN.
Health care works pretty well for the purpose of UBI, outside of the US. Of the developed countries, only the US lacks public health care. Given the results on a population basis, as well as the actual cost as part of GDP (the US is 50% higher than #2) the non-US approach seems to be dramatically better.
others _must_ work and have their money taken without any kind of compensation or benefit.
That's an unpreventable cost of maintaining a civilization. Either pay these people not to go out and commit crimes, or pay police to clean up after. I much prefer the former myself, because it results in the least deaths and violence and is probably cheaper.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
The funny of it is, if you add up how much we pay administering the current welfare system--the thousands and thousands of bureaucrats who administer things like Electronic Benefit Transfer cards, who determine what items you are allowed to buy, who determine if you qualify, who police the system--we could provide a reasonably generous UBI to everyone with nearly no administrative overhead.
Remember: a proper UBI replaces EVERYTHING, including tax deductions normally enjoyed by higher-income individuals, such as tax deductions for children (as children also receive a UBI), mortgage tax deductions, tax deductions for retirement savings, tax credits for paying for college. The idea is to eliminate the unfairness that is intrinsically tied into all of these separate programs, each which have their own target audiences, administrative bureaucracies and qualifications.
The UBI would also replace Social Security--both the OSADI and SSI disability funds.
Imagine how much smaller the administrative state becomes when your tax return is essentially four lines: A: gross income, B: tax (from tax tables), C: UBI D: Tax owed (or refund due).
This is why I don't think we will ever have a proper UBI. Because there are just too many people--both working for the government, and private companies (like Intuit, who constantly lobby against simplifying the tax code) whose jobs rely on the massive administration of hundreds of government programs which would all be wiped off the map by a properly designed UBI.
Tthat's part of the problem: we pay nearly as much in administrative overhead administering the current welfare state and the current tax code as we do paying out benefits. If you consider those bureaucrats as beneficiaries of the welfare state, that's a lot of jobs which would be wiped off the map. And they make a very powerful lobbying group--which is why in government corners, "UBI" is always reframed as yet another program for them to administer, rather than a new program that would cost them their job.
As I noted elsewhere, we're already there today; it's just the debate spans across multiple different programs and ranges from a debate on "welfare reform" to "tax reform" to "child support" to debate on a "living wage," with all sides making a pitch for their own favorite program.
Certainly UBI cannot replace medical aid (Medicaid), since the cost of health care for someone on dialysis (for example) far exceeds what any but the wealthiest individuals could pay out of pocket. (As I recall, the cost of dialysis out of pocket is in the low six figures annually.)
But this hits on a core philosophical difference about the poor and about people in general: are people too God-damned stupid to manage their own affairs, and thus must have their affairs managed for them?
It's not to deny the fact that there are demonstrably people out there who lack the logical or social skills necessary to function in our current society. And certainly we need to have social workers out there who can help them.
But when you make the de-facto assumption that all poor people are stupid and require their lives to be managed by those of us who are "better" than them--you walk right into an aesthetic argument. (At what point does your inferiority require us to treat you as a ward of the state? Does being poor mean you must be a de-facto ward of the state? What's the threshold? Is it abject poverty? Is it just being lower-middle class? Do we by default assume you're making poor decisions because you're barely scratching out a living? Do we pass judgement because in our opinion you drink too much for your socio-economic class? Drink too many empty calories in the form of fast food soft drinks? Eat too often at McDonalds? Should you become a "de-facto" ward of the state because you live in the wrong area? And I'm not being snarky; I've heard each of these given as a reason why those "less than us" need to make "better decisions", or who should have their rights limited.)
Worse, you walk head-first into an authoritarian argument: if "those people" can't "make the right decisions" that are made by "their betters"--how far away are you from simply taking away all of their decisions?
As a Native American I've seen these arguments play out over history on the reservations.
They never end well.
So your statement "UBI recipients will inevitably mismanage their funds and safety nets" strikes me as overly authoritarian. And distasteful.
Me, I'd rather just hire a bunch of social workers (and we may not need to hire any more since we have a lot of them already), and task them with the job of helping people who seek help, or who are referred to them by police officers, with making better decisions. Kinda like what we do today, but without the "nanny state" authoritarian bullshit.
Remember: from where you stand, unless you're Warren Buffet, there are people at a higher socio-economic level than you looking down at you as part of the hoi-polloi--part of the unwashed masses, an uncouth individual who can't seem to manage your life to the level they can.
If UBI is too good it will turn into a lifetime subsidy for do-nothings.
This statement pretty clearly shows your philosophy. You define a person's worth by the work they do, and look down on people who don't satisfy your criteria. This puritanical mind set is slowly becoming incompatible with the modern world.
First, as productivity advances, more and more wealth is being created with less and less human effort. We're at the cusp of producing enough to provide basic living support to everybody with almost 0 human effort.
Second, as technology advances and things change more and more rapidly, the requirements for jobs are starting to grow beyond the average human's capabilities. New jobs need a lot of adaptability, enough intellectual capacity and a lot of study. There are quite a few people that simply won't be able to find meaningful jobs. What then? Would you have us revive the workhouses for the poor?
when was the last time you saw benefits decreased? Almost never. Increased? Almost always.
And this is exactly the way things should be. Not, as you seem to imply, because the "do nothings" are clawing more and more from the worthies (whichever way you define them), but because global productivity has been growing continuously, because more and more wealth is being created, and it makes perfect sense to use this extra wealth to increase programs that benefit the most people.