Quote:
Originally Posted by pdxtex
this all just sounds like welfare on steroids. working people being taxed at a even higher rate, to subsidize those out of work, due to impending technological improvements. nobody has yet answered the question, where is all of this money coming from, besides taxing those that have employment. will we make cuts to other programs? reduce aid to foreign countries? how will the economy be sustained? consumer spending? in that case, will goods and services become cheaper?? this just sounds like the emperor's new clothes. also, will we be limited on what we can spend this money on. I think its a naïve assumption idle people will spend their money on wholesome, life improving things. given what I see on the streets of porltand city, when you give bums money, they probably spend it on booze...none of this sits well with me.....
|
I understand it doesn't align with your ideological priors. Set aside your skepticism for a moment about the eventuality of it happening. If it did happen that a great proportion of the population - say everyone who was of average or below-average intelligence - was unemployable, how should the government respond? If you just tell people to go pound sand, but there really aren't any jobs to be had, people won't just quietly sit in a cardboard box and starve to death. They'll do what they have to to survive, including stealing from those who have more than they do. And if they have the power they'll try to start a revolution. Ultimately there are no options that don't boil down to executions or some form of social welfare.
Anyway, we already support many people in our society who do not provide much in terms of economic output. Parents are legally obligated to provide for their children financially, but children are generally not allowed to earn their keep. The elderly, disabled, are paid for via social programs with the understanding that they no longer can provide a decent living standard for themselves with their labor.
Also note that if concentration of wealth towards the top of the income scale continues, basic income would actually help keep economic growth stronger. This is for a very simple reason - a poor person spends close to 100% of what they earn, while a rich person saves a considerable amount of money, with that savings not directly stimulating the economy in the same way.
Regarding money, there is nothing inherent about it - it's basically a shared delusion (literally an Emperor's New Clothes scenario, which becomes clear when currency crises happen). We have all agreed that money has a set (or rather, in the modern era, floating) value because when dealing with an economy with finite resources, having a method of exchange beyond the barter method is advantageous. But what if someone dropped Star Trek style replicators in our laps tomorrow. If we're heading towards a post-scarcity economy in some areas (most notably around labor) then there's no reason why money will have the same relevance it does today. Hell, I could see a future, say 100 years hence, where money still exists, and there are still inequalities in wealth, but the amount of things money can buy you is so curtailed that most people could live their lives without thinking much about a market economy even existing.
The financing, there are many ideas, some of which I have already mentioned. One popular with more conservative proponents is the idea that the government basically grant a stock portfolio to every citizen which is diversified and large enough to allow them to live on dividends for the rest of their life. They find such a system advantageous because the government doesn't have to directly tax for the benefit, but the government would need to engage in initial expropriation (or at least diminution) from existing stockholders to hand them over to the people.
Threaded Mode