Topic: Basic income guarantee - opinions&criticism welcome - page 4. (Read 14403 times)

That is inflation, someone must have told you the wrong terms at some point.

Inflation: increase in supply, resulting in loss of value, and increase in prices denominated in that currency.
Deflation: decrease in supply, resulting in increased value, and decreasing prices denominated in that currency.

I like this paragraph

You grievously misunderstood me, sir. You claimed that the BIG model can be replaced with the stock market system we have today, and I wanted to show you that it is not the case. That's all.

The farmer typically doesn't give a shit who eats his food. All he cares about is that someone buys it. Thus, he seeks the money for the food, and uses that money to buy services and (here's my next point) other consumer goods. Food is not the only consumer good out there, it's just one of the few that everyone needs. He's also not the only farmer, nor does he supply the only type of food.

But let's assume that there is one farmer supplying all the food to everybody. He has enough food for all 100 million people. The people all have enough money to buy the food. They do. Now he has a great deal of money, but, say, only enough food to feed himself. What now? Well, now, he takes that money and buys a TV, a new couch, some booze (likely made from his grain), some fertilizer, new farm equipment, watches movies, gets a blowjob, etc, until he's out of money. By that time, the crops are in, and he has food again, and no money. The people have eaten all their food, and by virtue of providing services and other consumer goods to the farmer (and each other), the people have money. The cycle starts again.

No, I didn't mean that.  I mean that if a guy can earn his life on his own already, he doesn't need your help or your money to afford the things you're talking about.  That's what I meant.  A man who is not poor does not need the basic income you're promoting.

But maybe I had your proposal confused with an other in my country.  You want to give this money to everyone, including people who actually already have a job and no financial difficulties, don't you?

No the farm owner doesn't really need money, even though he'll be offered plenty of it; he controls the goods that money is worth anything for, and only 24 hours in a day to enjoy its worth. He might have a use for 50 million people, and gives them grain for their services via money, but if he can feed the total 100 million that exist, what are the other 50 million people to do to get the food he controls?


First part; no I mean literally circle jerking, not metaphorically. The farm owner can even be a part of it, but the trade can go on forever without any food entering anyone's bellies.

Second part; Yes you're right about that actually, it's an issue that could exist in either realm, so this point was more in support of it being a big state thing only. Going on that, if one doesn't believe that a big state should ever exist, then there's no reason any of this would make sense either way.


lol ok, I won't mention them again.


There is the small matter of the "What if I somehow fail hard and end up being desperate?" fear driving that caring aspect, but otherwise pretty much: depending on how much you value his life, just for existing, you can agree to a portion of your capital going to sustain them if they are unable to do so (including the mental disorder of laziness). You don't have to pity him to value his life, but that's up to you. Being a big state solution, this isn't really charity, because the amount would presumably be set by some power balance and all would be forced into it - even if it was zero, which it actually is today.

You, working hard and saving and buying shares, will still always have a better life than he will ever have, and in the relative way that humans understand things, there is a way this will find rationalization/justification.

I don't really understand what you mean by "the guy who hates capitalism, earns life correctly and who would never buy a share" - what's earning life correctly? Working -> earning -> consuming -> repeat?


Yes, it would make everything else more expensive. I think anyone who has contempt for the capitalist system is confusing politics with economics, tbh. As for need, by definition everyone needs it, since it is to cover items most certainly used by every human being (food, water, shelter, clothing, healthcare, etc). I guess you must mean "need" as in "can't afford because I take more than I give", but this isn't about welfare really, as put just above it's about how much the aggregate of society values each individual member's life at its most basic level. It may in fact not be very much, but people need to be asked to know.

This is more to do with consumption than capital itself. Your capital is what will of course be consumed, to a degree.

Jeez...  For someone who does not take starvation as a primary driving force to advocate your system, you sure talk about it a lot.

But fine, I think I get your point.  Basically it is just an example of how we can make exceptions to capitalism, because of moral considerations, altruism and all.   We care about each other, that's why we might accept to give to a stranger with not much in return.  Cute.

But once again, your system is for EVERYONE.  Including the guy who hates capitalism, who earns his life correctly, and who would never ever spend a penny in order to buy a share.  It doesn't seem to me that I should feel much pity to him.  And yet, you want me to give him some of my capital.

If you give this guy a basic, additional income, this money will come from the "excess of production" as you called it earlier, which otherwise would have gone to people who did actually buy a share:  capitalists people like me.

So you steal capital from people who did a financial effort to acquire this capital, and you give it to people who:
- were not interested in acquiring this capital ;
- do not need it ;
- have nothing but contempt for the capitalist system ;

To me, there is something deeply wrong in this scheme.

Yes, that's how every economy works. Everyone works for everyone else and everyone profits.

If you worry about this scenario, then a guaranteed basic income isn't the solution. If you can't exchange your basic income for food, what good would a basic income do you? I can't imagine any realistic situation in which people would need to worry about this, but if we ever get anywhere close to it, I'm sure the superior technology we'll have in that far distant future will make possible a solution you and I could never even dream of.

So the farmer just needs money? He has no maintenance costs? He doesn't like to watch movies? He's just going to sell his food, and put all the money gained thereby into the bank, where it sits, doing nothing, right? Yeah, no, It doesn't work that way. He has costs, too, and desires. The money he gets from selling his food will go to pay for those needs, expenses, and desires. That puts the money back out into the market.

So by that definition, circle jerking will feed everyone.

I know you said they can earn the $1 off someone else and use that to buy the food from the controller of food, but there's only so much the controllers of food needs (or has time to consume), and that's the problem. Once he has all the $ in circulation, where will the more dollars come from without an army backed inflation currency?

So long as there is at least one other person who doesn't have everything they want, there's something to do. I can live with the possibility that one person might not get everything they want.

I wanted to address this separately, as it deserves it. The starving people are not a primary driving force to advocate a system like this - they just benefit slightly more than others. When I was talking about starving people, I was leading to welfare as an example of social expectations within humans trumping the economic efficiency of capitalism - we care about each other, unfortunately, even when we don't expect to or want to, and it overtakes our normal sense of unemotional rationality.

This scheme (not my scheme although I would like to see it tested) is not an equalizer in the way that communism was, and those who choose to just soak up basic income and do nothing else will likely be worse off than before when they had a job - the price of basics might come down due to subsidization, but the price of everything else would go up to compensate, if I'm not mistaken.

Just being alive is given a particular status by society, and different cultures have different idea of what that level should be, led by prevailing proportions. In some cultures starving to death is ok, in others it isn't. Even though the Germans might grumble about the people immigrating and going on welfare, they're still not taking that food away. It's possible that they believe a higher minimum standard of living is more important than a higher maximum standard of living. This does not mean that a person cannot still personally aim to have the highest standard of living possible for themselves (and family) if they so choose.

Child care. Customer service. Actor. Director. Sex worker. Designer. And that's just a few off the top of my head. If it requires dangerous, dirty, or repetitive labor, it probably will be automated. If it requires thought, decision making, or creativity - or even just a "personal touch" - it will not be automated. As Joel said, If someone cannot find anyone for whom he can do something, then he's the only one on the planet without everything he needs.

Even if there is a good reason for state welfare (hell saving lives is a good thing, I can agree with that), this is NOT what your proposal is about, as I've mentioned above.

I want your reaction on the paradox I've pointed out:  you claim your proposal is for poor, starving people and yet you want to give the same amount of money to everyone, including people who don't need it.    Doesn't make much sense.

Really it almost seems that you're exploiting poverty for your profit.

Feel free to ask me why, or you can continue to presume. I'll have to make whatever presumptions I can as you've chosen not to illuminate me.

Starvation only came up because somehow this turned into a welfare debate. You refuse to accept that there is a good reason state welfare exists, even if it is a "lesser evil" solution, and that it is a natural consequence of capitalism without conscience in a human population.

People won't buy robots, and they will starve, and they will either die or destroy. We should just kill them now, right? How much of law is to protect people from their own stupidity?


Yeah fair enough, fuck him, but what are you going to do to convince the society that steals from you to give it to him to stop doing it? Just not pay taxes? Start a revolution? How much power do you have?

I'm not saying it's "right" that people get something for nothing (not that anyone ever actually does - it can all be rationalized somehow), but that it is what's going to happen anyway whether one likes it or not.


Yes, I agree this is mostly the case today, but how long is the list of things that can't be replaced by self-supporting machines? I can only really see the creative arts as being uniquely human. Just how interesting is that?

I'm not talking about people not participating because they're lazy, I'm talking about people not participating because there is nothing to do.

I think the wealthy man can pretty much always come up with something he wants... somebody to mow his lawn, wash his car, produce clever widgets in his factory, mine his uranium, stand guard along his borders, pick up his trash, farm the food that is sold in his grocery store, act in the movies he enjoys watching, be the serviceman that repairs the elevator at the apartment building where he keeps his mistress, heck, be his mistress...

All of these things require a participatory economy, some might even suggest they are a (shudder to speak the word) a JOB. Suggesting that everyone is entitle to have everyone else take care of their needs and wants without contributing back doesn't work. Even Marx saw that there had to be a little "from each according to his ability" to go with the "to each as much as his evil, slimy, lazy ass wants to suck away from other, needs". No society can survive with a non-participating entitlement class. Nor should one. Economic imbalance does not a moral imperative make.

The German example is a very clear one. Reunification brought a huge segment of state-supported entitlement supporters into the German economy, and tore it apart. Germany has long attracted a huge number of immigrants who welcome an opportunity to work at better wages than home, but all too often they end up resented by the native Germans, and are forced onto the dole by Germans who resent those who compete for the jobs, swelling the welfare ranks as it happens. No thanks. Not a desirable or defensible option.

He doesn't, he earns it from someone who does want something from him. If nobody wants anything, then he's the only person on Earth who doesn't have everything they want. I can live with that problem.

Then convince people to buy robots, a.k.a. capital.   Let the market work, the yield of capital will raise, so that having very little capital will be more and more interesting.

The transition to a society where all work comes from non-human capital, if it happens, will be smooth.   So you must let price mechanisms and market adjust to it.  Not an arbitrary system decided by bureaucrats.

If people don't want to buy capital, not even a single share that only costs a few dollars, I don't want to hear them complaining about how poor they are and how I should give them some shares that I did buy.   And please do not tell me they don't have any money to spend for these stuff.  Unless they are completely destitute, they do.



I've just realized something about what you write.  You keep talking about starving people, and yet this whole proposal is about some kind of a universal basic income.  I mean it's for everyone, not just for homeless people, isn’t it?  You don't live in a country where homeless, starving people are at majority, do you?

Therefore, mentioning starving people to promote a basic income sounds pretty sketchy.  I'm sorry to tell you that, but it can very well be understood this way:

« We should take to the rich in order to give to starving people.  And I want my cut. »

Starvation really sounds like an excuse to get a free share of the cake.

That's why I will NOT answer your questions about starving people.  We all have moral issues when we walk in the street and encounter a destitute human being.  Assuming you are not completely poor, you do have too.  You could give a homeless person half of your income to save him.  I guess you do not and I do not ask you why.   So please don't ask me why I don't like the idea of giving away to strangers a capital that I worked to earn.

What seems harsh today becomes less harsh in the future - robots and AI basically feed off stars directly; something humans can never do. If 90% of people are not the owners of said robots (the best capital possible), how will they get what the robots produce? Sure some portion would be able to convince the owners to barter, but ultimately the owners will be satisfied at a particular point, and people will be unemployed longer than it takes for them to starve - this is a far cry from having no economic value whatsoever. We cannot hibernate when energy becomes scarce, like robots can.

The only reason this isn't happening *today* is because of government interference (or stealing, as you put it). Charity doesn't stop death, and you have to decide if you're ok with that. It seems that most people are not.


It may be, but you can still answer the specific question can't you? Or is it too personal to answer?

Which is worse, to you - a person starving to death before stealing, or stealing before starving to death?

As a side note, I agree that people have a right to defend their property, and the more powerful on the day will win. This scenario where there is one absolute winner and one absolute loser can and has been replaced by a compromise to reduce risk (perhaps ironically, created by the one with the food).

There is no magic.

If someone has really no economic value whatsoever, which by itself is quite a harsh hypothesis but that was your hypothesis, then indeed I see no way for him to earn his life other than owning some capital or relying on charity.


To me it's beyond moral.  I'd totally understand if someone tries to steal because he's desperate or something.  But I also totally understand the person who will defend his property.