Universal Basic Income thread

[Brian Peacock]

I am wary of the idea, in that it has the potential to create generations content to do sweet fuck all...

People who hate working always say this.

:shifty;

[PsychoSerenity]

I am wary of the idea, in that it has the potential to create generations content to do sweet fuck all...

Oh shit, I'm having a Sethian moment...

Do you really think that's what human nature would drive the majority of us to do? I take a very different view.

From the day we arrive on the planet
And blinking, step into the sun
There's more to see than can ever be seen
More to do than can ever be done

For years I've been trying to get myself into a situation where I'm financially secure but also have a reasonable amount of free time - because there is so much I would want to do with that time. I've managed to get myself working only four days a week and spend as much of my free time as I can manage studying all sorts of things, volunteering, and trying to be creative. But it's still not enough.

But also in my experience the people who don't have the same sort of view as me, who don't try and engage in self improvement or contribute to anything outside of paid work, have particular reasons for that which a basic income would help solve.

Either they are people who, often because of social or financial poverty, rightly or wrongly think in their situation in the world as it is that they have no opportunities to do any better or to contribute in a meaningful way.

Or they are people who spend their lives working to the point of exhaustion and so whenever they're not working obviously don't have the energy to do any more, and so wrongly believe that without work they would still not do anything because they've never had the chance to explore their own creative potential.

I think freeing people from drudgery whilst ensuring their basic needs are met would most likely lead to a massive increase in productivity.

[pErvinalia]

I am wary of the idea, in that it has the potential to create generations content to do sweet fuck all...

People who hate working always say this.

:shifty;

Actually, conservatives usually say this, as it reflects their pessimistic view of human nature. It's just Jim getting more conservative as he ages...

[JimC]

However, I did say that it had the potential to cause that effect, not that it would always and automatically do so...

[pErvinalia]

[rainbow]

You have a strange idea of what a difficult versus an easy task is. Investigating and enforcing restrictions on welfare, and prosecuting fraud, is a difficult task. Pressing a button and simultaneously paying everyone the same amount of money is an easy task. One clearly requires more people to achieve than the other.

You must not forget that Svarty is French, and the French invented bureaucracy.

The WHOLE POINT about bureaucracy is to make a simple task as complicated, time consuming and frustrating as possible.

[Scot Dutchy]

You have a strange idea of what a difficult versus an easy task is. Investigating and enforcing restrictions on welfare, and prosecuting fraud, is a difficult task. Pressing a button and simultaneously paying everyone the same amount of money is an easy task. One clearly requires more people to achieve than the other.

You must not forget that Svarty is French, and the French invented bureaucracy.

The WHOLE POINT about bureaucracy is to make a simple task as complicated, time consuming and frustrating as possible.

Better than living in chaos and corruption as so many African states do.

[PsychoSerenity]

We definitely already have the necessary bureaucracy here. Everyone gets a unique tax reference and everyone can set up an online account to check their own tax and national insurance status. You need to give them quite a lot of identifying information to set up the account, addresses, passport number etc. which automatically gets checked against all their other records. If you've overpaid, you can claim tax refunds through your account giving them bank details to pay into. Of course there's always the chance of people using multiple identities or stealing others, but I'm pretty sure that it's harder to do than it's ever been, and the benefit you'd get would be unlikely to out way the risk of them catching you. But if they wanted to pay everyone a basic income it could be done with little extra work.

But the bureaucracy it would replace is huge. Thousands of people across hundreds of offices and job-centres investigating the details of each benefit claimant, the different categories of claimant based on work capability assessments each given different rules, doing weekly paperwork to check what they've been doing to get a job that week, what work they've done and the calculations of how any income received might affect their benefit, setting them tasks, issuing sanctions if those tasks go unmet, the sanctions tribunals and appeal processes. It just goes on and on. It's an astonishing amount of work and effort put in to basically bullying the unemployed.

[NineBerry]

^ This

[rainbow]

You have a strange idea of what a difficult versus an easy task is. Investigating and enforcing restrictions on welfare, and prosecuting fraud, is a difficult task. Pressing a button and simultaneously paying everyone the same amount of money is an easy task. One clearly requires more people to achieve than the other.

You must not forget that Svarty is French, and the French invented bureaucracy.

The WHOLE POINT about bureaucracy is to make a simple task as complicated, time consuming and frustrating as possible.

Better than living in chaos and corruption as so many African states do.

You don't know what you're talking about.

Come to Africa, and we'll have you for dinner.

[pErvinalia]

He could be a literal Boerwors!

[Scot Dutchy]

Boerenworst. Dank je wel.

[rainbow]

mkulima uume kwa muda mrefu

[Brian Peacock]

Potty mouth.

[Forty Two]

The question is should unpleasant work be paid more or paid less? and the same for enjoyable work? why should a pub landlord be paid more than the pub toilet cleaner when the advantage to his office in terms of perks are so much greater?

There is no "should." It's all about what one person is willing to pay another to do X. Why should a computer cost less than window draperies in the house? I have no idea. There is no should. It's just supply and demand.