Many Kenyans refusing basic income experiment

http://www.businessinsider.com/givedirectly-basic-income-experiment-unexpected-trouble-2016-9

by Todd • 10 years ago

101 101 10 years ago

Todd3• 10 years ago

This seems like the kind of surprising result that the scientific method begs for. Instead of trying to understand it, or profit from its prevalence, the organization is attempting to reduce it.

It doesn't seem likely that this type of thing will be a long term concern, but perhaps something can be learned about how society adapts if a significant subset decline the payment.

Normal_gaussian2• 10 years ago

To be blunt it shows how out of touch those involved are. Firstly they obviously had very little understanding of African / 3rd world culture, secondly they haven't considered what we do when people offer us free stuff.

Consider if somebody walked up to you and offered to pay you 6k/mo, you would be insane not to question it. And in a country where "free stuff" doesn't happen, where corruption and entrapment are common, you would also be insane to accept it.

Several of my friends have spent time in 3rd world countries. Most had the modern, egotistical, charity tour and I would suspect that their particular brand of experience is what the experiment used.

There are many well run charities and organisations operating in these countries which fully understand the problems of interacting with people there and would have seen this situation a mile off. Those that have spent time with these charities have rightly laughed at my naivety and false superiority when talking about problems those countries face.

The upshot is - this is not a surprising result, this could have been expected and appears not to have been due to the poor practice of the organisation running the experiment. They are jeopardising their own experiment and have dealt a blow to both its credibility and the credibility of other BI experiments which already suffer from accusations of low quality science and superiority complexes. This is the long term concern.

Dylan16807• 10 years ago

you would also be insane

Your hyperbole really bothers me here.

whack2• 10 years ago

You seem to have some axe to grind with GiveDirect. They've already run many Basic Income experiments in many parts of Africa, with great success. The fact that they are hitting some snags in a few counties, doesn't diminish them as an organization in any way.

dilemma4• 10 years ago

How their local representative responds is troubling:

They find it "hard to believe that a new organization like GiveDirectly would give roughly a year's salary in cash, unconditionally," Le writes. "As a result, many people have created their own narratives to explain the cash, including rumors that the money is associated with cults or devil worship."

Le creates his own narrative about the locals as less educated and less civilized than himself - why else would they refuse his charity?

It is clear that neither he nor his organization see the locals as equals.

ktRolster• 10 years ago

or profit from its prevalence,

How on earth do you profit from people who won't take money because they think you are a cult/devil?

Kliment• 10 years ago

You sell them devil repellent or a countercult. It's an ancient and well-established business model.

Todd3• 10 years ago

I meant profit in non-monetary terms, but in terms related to the experiment. When you run an experiment, and you get a result you didn't expect, there may be a new discovery or a silver lining if it's an undesirable discovery.

ced• 10 years ago

From the article:

"We've done a lot to try to understand what has led to this increase in refusals," Le wrote in the post.

From the blog post:

We’ve found that people typically refuse out of skepticism. Potential recipients find it hard to believe that a new organization like GiveDirectly would give roughly a year’s salary in cash, unconditionally. As a result, many people have created their own narratives to explain the cash, including rumors that the money is associated with cults or devil worship.

We’ve debated how much effort to expend trying to address the refusal issue. We considered leaving Homa Bay since working in an area with lower refusals would be better for efficiency targets and staff morale. However, ultimately we decided to stay because we are in the process of implementing a large scale research project in Homa Bay, and leaving the area would result in meaningful delays and cost overruns for our research partners. We also believe it’s important to try to address the issue here or else rumors could spread to other areas we’ve not yet been.

Todd3• 10 years ago

Yes, they've taken pragmatic steps to deal with it, given the current situation. It seems that there may be another aspect to basic income refusal that isn't immediately evident. Perhaps the suspicion that is prevalent here for reasons related to local culture and customs are actually more universal. Maybe there is a way that UBI can be tweaked to accommodate for that. I know that one of the cornerstones of UBI is unconditionality. However, it may need to be adjusted if this is a more universal phenomenon.

rusanu• 10 years ago

I'm speculating and have no evidence, but my thinking is that offering money with no strings attached is a threat to those that offer money (or other help) with strings attached. Spreading rumors would be a defense strategy to protect those interests.

fsiefken• 10 years ago

Hi Rusanu, some people or subcultures have a higher propensity to magical thinking. In Kenya for example all kinds of conspiracy theories exist about the origin of AIDS. There doesn't need to be an extra agency that intentionally spreads disinformation to explain this phenomenon. That there are agencies involved in this type of manipulations in general is a fact though, not sure who the parties would be that are threatened by this. NGO's would welcome reliable results I think

Also read this: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/427625/no-fbi-didnt-cr...

PostOnce2• 10 years ago

Counterpoint: https://harpers.org/archive/2016/04/legalize-it-all/

Nixon's Chief Domestic Advisor, quote:

“You want to know what this was really all about?” he asked with the bluntness of a man who, after public disgrace and a stretch in federal prison, had little left to protect. “The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”

This is not the only thing the government did, or continues to do, to destroy various peoples' faith in it.

calibraxis• 10 years ago

While magicial thinking is pretty universal, it's true that the US (where GiveDirectly comes from) has ridiculous amounts of it. For example, 42% believe "God created humans in their present form 10,000 years ago." (http://www.gallup.com/poll/170822/believe-creationist-view-h...)

Even those who aren't climate change deniers still seem committed to running us off the cliff with climate change. Perhaps because they believe in an "invisible hand" of Providence.

The posted article is an example. They could've simply quoted what at least one Kenyan thought about it. Anyone operating within a culture which values rationality would've done so. But not these people.

dilemma4• 10 years ago

What makes you think there's no strings attached in this case? For one, these Kenyans are being experimented on.

lagadu• 10 years ago

I believe he means that there's no expectation of them doing something in return for that money at a later point in time.

sksnxjis• 10 years ago

GiveDirectly is an extremely transparent organization and there's nothing secret about the experience of people who have taken money from them in the past. For them to suddenly start demanding organs or labor or votes or whatever it is you are worried about would be way out of character and not in the best interests of the continued existence of the organization. This behavior would not by tolerated by GiveDirectly's unusually high-minded and picky donors.

tim333• 10 years ago

My experiences of accepting free stuff is it is often followed by a salesperson trying to sell you on an iffy course, timeshare or a religion. Being wary may not be totally irrational especially given that many of the Kenyans will not have been following the basic income debate and so not know what it's about.

pipio21• 10 years ago

"Too good to be true" is a valid concern. When someone gives you something for free, this person could have further objectives that you don't see now, but will become evident later.

It is well know the drug dealer strategy of "The first dose is free, until you become hooked. This equally applies to a lot of products we use today.

For example when Facebook started giving a very good service for free it was a bargain. Basically a useful service for free with no strings attachment, no advertising, all paid with investor's money.

Then they started gradually monetizing the people to levels that a new participant in Facebook would consider obnoxious, but being gradual people has gotten used to it and consider totally normal. In some ways now you are forced to be in Facebook because your social circle is in Facebook, you are hooked now.

For a service like Facebook I certainly prefer to pay and my data or personal-social information be mine.

In the same way, making your income dependent on some external entity makes yourself lose your independence and your freedom from this entity.

Never forget that an entity powerful enough to give you most of your income has to be equally useful to take, steal, or seize the income of someone else, those who create the wealth.

This has been done and it is called "socialism". It is nothing new. Part of my family had to ask for a car or a house or a TV to the Government because "everybody had equal rights to it". Of course some were "more equal than others" and my family will wait for years for his totally shit car or house, but the people near power will get it instantly, and their houses, cars or TVs will be great because whatever excuse(like because you are in the Party's dome you need the best TV or car for your job).

For my family to have this "right" meant giving away most of their income in taxes and earn a misery compared to other West societies for equal jobs like being engineer or University teacher.

As an example today you can't earn more than 30 dollars or so in Cuba, that is the limit you have, you can be a doctor or engineer. The only rich people in Cuba are the Communist, but not officially of course, officially they earn 30 dollars like everybody else.

I consider this movement to "basic income" neosocialism. There are powerful entities like Central Banks that want to go back to a centralized economy, they being in charge of the new system, of course.

In my opinion, the way to face the "robots taking our jobs" is to share the ownership of the means of productions(the robots and computers), locally, but never globally.

dajohnson89• 10 years ago

You lost me at the last paragraph. Could you elaborate on what you mean by local means of production?

hacksonx2• 10 years ago

Perhaps not the biggest reason behind the refusal but the fact that it is mentioned warrants discussion. Che Guevara is said to have travelled to the Congo to train Guerrilla militia there and stopped when instead of focussing on training, the people focused on voodoo magic to protect them. A similar phenomena was witnessed in South Africa with the Marikina massacre of 2012, where miners believed that herbs provided by a witchdoctor would make them invisible.

The best approach to such situations is, as the organisation is following, to educate the people. It might be hard with low literacy levels but it's possible, especially for a cash studded organisation such as theirs.

edit: Fixed Gorilla to Guerrilla

gotofritz• 10 years ago

train gorilla militia

that's a hell of a freudian slip...

babuskov• 10 years ago

travelled to the Congo to train gorilla militia

I'm sure there are many gorillas in Congo, but I doubt he was there to train a gorilla militia.

Guerilla, perhaps?

hacksonx2• 10 years ago

Fixed. Thanks.

gioele• 10 years ago

A similar phenomena was witnessed in South Africa with the Marikina massacre of 2012, where miners believed that herbs provided by a witchdoctor would make them invisible.

The US market for homeopathic products was $6.4 billion in 2013: http://www.pharmacytimes.com/publications/issue/2013/Septemb...

In Italy, post-earthquake survivors are being provided homeopathic products: http://www.ilpost.it/2016/08/27/regione-marche-terremoto-ome...

Credulous people are everywhere.

zdkl4• 10 years ago

Surely you understand the difference between middle class people taking some sugar and people believing unwaveringly that herbs will protect them from that shotgun.

welder• 10 years ago

Seems your info is wrong. The invisible herb was just a myth among news outlets [1].

1. https://ceasefiremagazine.co.uk/south-africa-marikana/

labster• 10 years ago

When I first read the headline, I saw "Many Keynesians refusing basic income experiment", which confused me because I thought Keynes fans would totally go for UBI.

But yeah, free money looks a lot like colonialism if you squint. I can see people avoiding it. You get $500 a month now, and then 3 months later, they come asking for a "favor" in return, and it would be a shame if something happened to your kneecaps. This is not reality of course, but let's just say I've been trained to avoid emails offering me free money in the past.

elementalest2• 10 years ago

That is something I had never considered. If many people become dependent on UBI, they are entirely dependent on the state - to the point they can be taken advantage of if power is abused. UBI in some ways does take an element of freedom from people, granted it may provide other forms of freedom.

What is to stop the government from changing the laws to require everyone only on UBI (no job) to perform some form of community service for a set number of hours per year. What i to stop the government from increasing it further? So whilst you may gain security for the basic living needs, you may trade it for a less freedom.

ahoy• 10 years ago

The same thing that, presumably, stops government from doing those things now - voters.

That's not to say that system of checks works. Places like Florida have enacted mandatory drug testing for welfare recipients, so there's obviously some political will to punish and regulate the poor.

undersuit• 10 years ago

Not that it's a real deterrent... but if you have a requirement for UBI... it's not UBI. Attacks at the universal component of BI must be stopped else it is nothing more than a variant of today's arbitrary and maligned welfare.

What is to stop the government from changing the laws

The citizens. The hope is citizens can be more active in community efforts(like protesting government actions) when their continual employment(and employment usually hinders midday government protesting) is no longer a necessity for continued life.

bsbechtel3• 10 years ago

Maybe people really do have an innate sense of ethics that tell them if they're receiving free money, it means it's being taken from somewhere else.

SolarNet• 10 years ago

Well that sense would be wrong. Since this is charity.

Also it seems like the problem is assuming strings are attached, so more like survival instinct.

bsbechtel3• 10 years ago

Do the Kenyans really know it's charity? Also, if BI is ever to be implemented as policy, coming from the government isn't charity.

Noseshine• 10 years ago

The world is not a zero sum game and handing out free money is a proven concept - as long as the recipients are big firms and banks... you already forgot the "financial crisis" and the entire last decade?

Money does not work in such simplistic ways except for on a tiny scale, for example within the circle of family and friends. Already when you take out a credit your sentence becomes untrue: Debt is created by commercial banks out of thin air - you yourself "pay" for it, because the "debt" promise you give is worth as much as the money you get (plus interest).

When a government hands out "free money" the promise is not direct but indirect but essentially the same: They think that the money will "pay for itself" in the end through economic activity that would otherwise never happen. This is the same thing that happens with every single credit, only that then the responsibility for "repayment" is only one step removed instead of an indefinite amount.

In this context (about the nature of modern money, not UBI), before anyone wants to tell me money for credit comes from other people's savings, I recommend reading "Money Creation in the Modern Economy" (2014) written by the Bank of England. I link to the Guardian article by Graeber, the actual PDF is linked near the beginning of that article though, but it has a summary on page one where it already supports the main points of the article.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/mar/18/truth-...

    > It's this understanding that allows us to continue to talk about money as if it were 
    > a limited resource like bauxite or petroleum, to say "there's just not enough money" 
    > to fund social programmes, to speak of the immorality of government debt or of public 
    > spending "crowding out" the private sector. What the Bank of England admitted this 
    > week is that none of this is really true.

wcummings• 10 years ago

The world is not a zero sum game

This is only true as long as there is economic growth.

PieterH3• 10 years ago

Given the "gift in one hand, gun in the other" history of western actions in Kenya and other African countries over the last centuries, it's hardly surprising there's going to be the random pocket of paranoid skepticism, no matter how good the UBI marketing/education.

I'm personally confused as to why anyone would think it's a good idea to trial UBI in Kenya, as a sort of private charity initiative, given the sordid historical background. It cannot be feasible to get any meaningful data from such projects. There is so much background noise.

Put the funding into microloans or (unfashionable in the west and yet a vital layer in Africa's commercial middle class) labor organization (= unions). Protect the free media and lobby for laws against corruption in politics. Invest in documentation of the continuous crimes against the public interest. Help break the sociopathic power elites that run most African capitals and national economies. Invest in schools. Pay families that keep their children in school. Create demand for local high technology skills, by looking for local partners & experts before flying in foreigners. Name and shame organizations that don't do this. Name and shame national and international companies that overcharge for Internet, for transport, for medicines, for books.

There are surely so many ways to spend money to help Africans continue to break free of the grip of generations of thieves in power (as they are doing in many countries), and pull themselves out of poverty.

In this context, UBI seems... extraordinarily misplaced, and I can't fault people for refusing it.

michaelt• 10 years ago

  There are surely so many ways to spend money
  to help Africans

Give Directly works on the theory (and they have some studies that seem to back this up [1]) that the Africans know what they need better than you and I do; and that they have the incentive to see donations spent in the most effective way.

[1] http://blog.givewell.org/2012/12/26/the-case-for-cash-2/

semi-extrinsic• 10 years ago

On the contrary, there are a large number of examples from e.g. South African shanty towns that if people living in tiny metal shacks with dirt floors get a bit more disposable income, many prefer to stay where they are and buy satellite TV and the latest iPhone rather than save that money to try and move to a better place.

MarkMc3• 10 years ago

Among other reasons, GiveDirectly chose to operate in Kenya because of the widespread use of M-Pesa money transfer system which allows poor people to directly receive money by phone text message. This is a very efficient way to transfer money and eliminates opportunities for graft.

MarkMc3• 10 years ago

Some people say giving money directly to poor people is best. Some people say paying poor families to keep their children in school is best.

It seems to me that in this case a randomised controlled trial (RCT) would be an ideal way to determine who is right: A third of people get free money, a third of people get stay-in-school money, and a third of people get nothing. Then see which treatment, if any, is more effective at increasing the standard of living.

But you seem quite certain that data from such an experiment would not be meaningful. What kind of problems do you think would prevent an RCT from producing an accurate answer? Could we avoid these problems by instead running the trail in, say, South East Asia, or are RCTs doomed to produce unreliable data?

PieterH3• 10 years ago

No single local action can increase the standard of living in any measurable way. To even think in those terms is to utterly misunderstand the scale and depth of the problems that face Africans as they work to construct a functioning economy and its institutions.

Do you even understand what creates a "standard of living"?

It is things like, "if I start a business, and people don't pay their bills, can I take them to court?"

If the answer is "no" then you are stuck with a cash economy, no credit, no trust. Everything becomes more expensive.

How do you create functioning courts? You need honest politicians. How do you get honest politicians? You build coalitions of power that boot out the thieves. How do you build such coalitions? You spend decades slowly growing your economy so the commercial middle classes get wealthy enough to become politically relevant and interested. How do you grow your economy? You cut the cost of transport and communications. How do you do that?

Etc. etc. I'm not giving a recipe, I'm giving examples of how complex this is.

The scale is such that you'd need absolutely staggering amounts of money and political will to run studies that would show useful data. I'm talking entire regions, even countries, changing policies. Cases like Rwanda focussing on the Internet. Give it a decade, then compare to Burundi, which focusses on (e.g.) child health and political stability.

Anyhow, there are no easy answers for this and forgive me if it sounds like I think there are.

PieterH3• 10 years ago

Downvoting a comment you disagree with is not polite.

I've actually lived and worked in Africa for much of my life. I'm married to a Congolese and have been surrounded for a dozen years by that culture. My family has worked and works in Africa. I've spent years working for organizations that ran projects across Africa. My questions and cynicism doesn't fall out of the air.

If you take issue with points I've raised, good manners dictate that you reply to those points without trying to punish me for raising them, as some of you did, which is cool.

mulle_nat• 10 years ago

Some people want to live their own lives and not be dependent on "gifts" from someone else.

sangnoir2• 10 years ago

Different cultures have different attitudes towards gifts and favors: which the Basic income could be classified as one by the recipients. I suspect the researchers did not take this into consideration.

In some cultures, gifts are just that, and have no strings attached. Yet in others, gifts create an obligation to the recipient to 'return the favor' at a later date, so accepting a gift is a liability. A lot of research has been done in this area, comparing different cultures[1] or focusing on a specific one [2]

1. http://web.stanford.edu/~jacksonm/socialquilts.pdf

2. http://www.japanintercultural.com/en/news/default.aspx?newsI...

DanielBMarkham2• 10 years ago

Interesting.

I have no desire to dump on UBI -- I want to see how these various experiments pan out -- but I am reminded of a thought experiment.

Imagine it's 10,000 years ago. You arrive in pre-history with all of the technology of today: electricity, communication, medicine, automation, and so on. Your mission? To destroy mankind.

Assuming infinite resources, how would you go about doing it? Sure, you could build out an infrastructure, create a robotic army, and begin hunting humans down. Or, you could build out about the same amount of infrastructure and just give people whatever they want: food, housing, warmth, and so on. After all, what would a bunch of hunter-gathers really want? It'd probably be easier than hunting them all down and fighting them. As long as you're not under any time pressure, what's the difference between killing them immediately and waiting four or five hundred years for them to stop breeding?

The premise of UBI is that this would not eventually eliminate the species, that individuals here and there would still learn new skills and advance knowledge. The main criticism of UBI (aside from the moral one) is that while stress and struggle for individuals can be a terrible thing, for the species as a whole it results in evolutionary survival.

It will be interesting to watch these populations over time to see how adaptive they are compared with control groups.

skybrian5• 10 years ago

Oh come on, what is this crap? You are talking about people like they're almost subhuman. People more more adaptable than that. Maybe not everyone, but at least some will take any advantage they get and put it to good use, and the rest will follow.

"Primitive" people are most likely smarter and harder working than you. Surviving off hunting is not easy - you have to know a lot about the environment you're in.

Also, historically many scientists were well off people who did it as a hobby. By this theory they should have done nothing with their lives.

DanielBMarkham2• 10 years ago

"...You are talking about people like they're almost subhuman...."

Anything but. The fact is, I am not looking at individuals. I am looking at the population. A population is not a human.

You make a good point. When we talk about UBI, the relevant examples should be the independently wealthy. Many have done great things with their lives. Some have destroyed themselves. Some have had positive effects on others, encouraging them to also do better. Some have had negative effects on others, causing despair or disillusionment.

Why the difference?

Beats me. So let's experiment.

On a personal level, we should always be kind and treat people with respect and love. But that doesn't make any of these population questions go away.

known• 10 years ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_syndrome

dilemma4• 10 years ago

Ivan Illich's To hell with good intentions is applicable here:

http://www.swaraj.org/illich_hell.htm

zzzcpan• 10 years ago

Aren't those basic income experiments kind of useless?

Giving people money for a limited time doesn't give them the notion, that they can rely on the money supply for the rest of their lives. They still have to earn an equivalent sum once the supply stops and make their decisions accordingly.

UVDMAS• 10 years ago

This UBI experiment is novel because, GiveDirectly, the non-profit implementing this experiment, plans giving recipients UBI for more than 10 years.

zekevermillion• 10 years ago

I just got an email from Shroud of the Avatar last night -- apparently the developers are worried about unequal SotA gold distribution and are implementing some sort of UBI-like scheme in that game. Would be interested to see how that works out, given the ideal virtual circumstances for enforcing such a law (ie, no cheating or corruption possible).

DavidWanjiru• 10 years ago

"Many Kenyans refusing basic income."

I'm not sure how representative this project is. I mean, if someone tried a pilot project in San Antonio, would the results of that project be taken as a representative outcome for Texas or the United States? Remember, this "sampling," such as it is, is different from the kind of sampling they do on opinion polls, why they query a small but representative sample of the population.

My guess as to why they're failing is that they're not clearly elucidating their purposes and intentions. For instance, I can confirm to you that if you came to Kenya where you gave, say, high milk-production breeds of cows to dairy farmers, or any other similar thing with a clear quid (if not pro quo), then the uptake would probably overwhelm you.

But with free basic income, it's a very counter-intuitive idea. What do you mean you're giving me free money? Where is it coming from? What's your intention? What do I have to do for it?

If they were to explain that they're conducting an experiment (I bet they're not clear on that point) where they want to see what people would do with their lives if they had a certain basic income guaranteed by someone (say, government), then Kenyans would take you up on the offer, I'm sure. After all, many Kenyans expect and often call upon the government to help in all kinds of areas, so if you took that basic-income-provided-by-government angle as your ultimate goal, I think people would listen.

That lack of clarity is what is most likely causing people to shun the money.

It's not that Kenyans don't want free money. We probably do. After all,we seem to be very keen, for example, on these churches where you "plant a seed" (give money to the church in exchange for "blessings"), and money given out during political campaign seasons (we have one coming up next year) always seems to be taken up very well. But in these cases, the financial logic is not clear.

Where is the logic with free basic income? If you don't clearly and understandably explain that to people, you're going to fail. Especially if when they ask you to explain and your response is something along the lines of "Why do you care? It's free money, you sucker living below the poverty line." (I'm not saying that's what happened. But I wouldn't be surprised if it was).

PS: Just because I'm Kenyan doesn't make me an expert, or even basic informed, on Kenya. Just because you live in a country doesn't necessarily mean you understand it. Exhibit A: Trump supporters. Exhibit B: Brexit.

Edit: typo.

skybrian5• 10 years ago

This isn't the first time GiveDirectly has given Kenyans free money and they haven't had this much trouble before. It's probably not a beginner mistake. Something is different this time.

ilaksh• 10 years ago

I agree on both points. First I think the headline is wrong because this only happened in one area of Kenya rather than reflecting the whole country. Also I think it is almost certain they did not successfully communicate the purpose and context.

Part of the context they might mention, since apparently it was only $30 per month, is the income difference in the United States where even some relatively lower-income individuals can afford to donate that. So to me a program like this could partly be about reducing the overall income inequality between countries. But at least if that income difference (how much money it actually is in rich countries) is part of the explanation it may seem like it is less likely to be an obligation.

dahart• 10 years ago

I think just as many Americans would refuse basic income too.

"experts say that Americans –- going back as far as Colonial times, when Elizabethan poor laws were in vogue — have never favored unlimited government handouts that are not contingent upon work."

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/12/10/why-do-american...

Personally, I'd also be afraid to start something like that, since it's would end abruptly, and could easily end early if research funding runs out.

Plus, we're all conditioned to know there's no free lunch - someone who offers one is probably hiding something. There are probably strings attached, any reasonable person might be forgiven for thinking.

It doesn't seem surprising at all that people in Kenya or elsewhere are skeptical.

skybrian5• 10 years ago

I can understand some skepticism because when people offer free money it's usually some kind of scam. But would you really refuse free money just because you don't think you could handle it responsibly? You couldn't even handle giving it away?

Rustydave• 10 years ago

I understand why people don't want to take this money. Basically, here in Kenya we're brought up in a way that there is nothing for free, you have to work to get what you want. So someone giving you free money is very suspicious there must be something they want in turn.

skybrian5• 10 years ago

Yes, it's understandable that people are suspicious. But before, GiveDirectly was able to convince them that it's not a scam so it's a bit surprising that it didn't work this time.

zouhair2• 10 years ago

White people giving free money never ends well most of the time, especially in Africa.

norea-armozel2• 10 years ago

I think it's true anywhere poverty is a common economic status for folks. You live with less, so every thing you get you want to own 100% of. Gifts are just deposits (implicit) on favors in the future, so I always avoid them unless they're from family or good friends. Strangers and gifts aren't a good mix in my opinion here from the US side of things.

norea-armozel2• 10 years ago

I think the fact that strangers are giving "free money" anywhere in the world results in rejection isn't surprising. I don't think the specific excuses aren't unusual either because how many times have we've seen similar scams in the US? I know as someone who's been poor I've had people try to give me supposedly "free money" only later on ask me a favor or try some other nonsense like proselytize me. It's just not worth the risk if you think about it. I hope the organization continues to improve how they inform people because I think UBI is a good idea. I just think you have to think like a poor person where every gift is just a deposit on a favor in the future.

zouhair2• 10 years ago

This is not a Basic Income experiment. This is a foreign entity giving money for a certain amount of time.

Falkon1313• 10 years ago

One thing to note about these experiments is that they tend to paper over or ignore both the Universal and the Basic parts of Universal Basic Income. (Those are the hard parts.) They end up just experiments to see what happens if you give some people a little money. In this case, what if 6,000 out of 45,000,000 people get $1 per day (which is about 1/9th the GDP PPP per capita) for a limited time.

I don't know about the cost of living or employment situation in Kenya, but by GDP PPP per capita, that calculates to about the equivalent of $17.42/day in the U.S, or $522/month ($6,264/year). That's way below poverty level, and not likely to cover housing, utilities, food, and healthcare anywhere in the U.S. Of course, that would be helpful to anyone with low income, but it is not a basic income. The situation may be different in Kenya, but by the math it doesn't sound promising.

If it only affects 1/100 of 1% of the population, there is no way to observe the societal effects of a universal income. That's a long way from universal. Also, because it is an experiment rather than a social contract, there is no way to observe what people will do if they have it as a safety net, because they can't rely on it. To be fair, if it is going to run for 10 years, that's something, but still not representative of lifetime security.

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Regarding the comments about poor people buying TVs and cellphones, etc. - there are many reasons for this, but it really is utility and value. These people aren't stupid. The economy works completely differently when you are poor. Thinking that they should invest their $300 tax refund in a diversified stock portfolio is nonsense. With fees of $10/transaction, they would lose 1/3rd of their money just buying into 10 cheap stocks, and an equivalent amount selling it. They would need > 100% return just to break even.

Likewise, money in the bank is a liability. It detracts from foodstamp allowances etc. But they don't send people around to appraise your TV when they're calculating your foodstamps. And in a pinch, you have things that you can trade, sell, or pawn. If you leave the money in the bank, it will be lost to bills, bank fees, etc. And sure, you could have caviar and shrimp instead of ramen and rice cakes, but it'd be gone as soon as the meal is done. A stereo will still be there tomorrow.

Generally speaking, if you are working poor, trying to save up to improve your position costs you and you lose. Buying things saves you money, maintains the status quo, gets you things which you can sell in an emergency, and makes your life better until then. Consider states of matter - solid, liquid, gas. Things work quite differently depending on the state of matter. Likewise, the economy works quite differently if you are lower class, middle class, or upper class.

Telling someone poor that they should spend their money more wisely is often like telling someone trapped in ice that they should just swim up to the surface. In the latter case, physics just doesn't work that way. In the former case, economics just doesn't work that way.

Noos• 10 years ago

I'm curious at about how much freedom the Kenyans have after they accept it.If it's an experiment, there will be data collected. Having someone record every purchase you make and giving you constant interviews or more for ten years might be a lot of hassle.

Many Kenyans refusing basic income experiment

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