Basic income as an answer to all out automation

http://www.newstatesman.com/economics/2013/06/basic-income-versus-robots

by dietervds • 13 years ago

105 153 13 years ago

netrus2• 13 years ago

Basic Income has been a hot topic in Germany for years, and while it is radical, I still think it's worth a try. It completely shifts the labor market, and has the potential to raise average life quality tremendously.

bayesianhorse2• 13 years ago

It's not a topic in Germany at all. At least not for the majority of citizens and the parties making up at least 90% of parliament seats.

netrus2• 13 years ago

I have not claimed that it is wished for by a majority of the population. It is a serious thought for both the established Die Linke and the (until recently) rising Piratenpartei, and discussed at the main stage of SPD conventions. Not sure about die Grünen, but I can easily see some potential there. The peak of the idea in the public discussion was about 2-3 years ago, but obviously there is no perspective in a conservative-right-liberal coalition.

As soon as aggressions between die Linke and SPD fade away, I can easily see this as an realistic way to take.

muuh-gnu2• 13 years ago

It was a widely debated topic inside the Pirate Party during their heyday 1-2 years ago. They declared basic income as one of their core goals, which rendered them unelectable for many people and accelerated their downfall.

martin_k• 13 years ago

Not true. With the exception of CSU perhaps, every party with a seat in the Bundestag either has internally passed its own concept for a basic income or is discussing the idea: [1] http://www.die-linke-grundeinkommen.de/WordPress/ [2] http://www.gruene-partei.de/cms/partei/dokbin/207/207470.auf... [3] http://www3.fdp-bundesverband.de/files/363/Abschlb-Buergerge... [4] http://www.kas.de/wf/de/33.20403/ [5] http://library.fes.de/pdf-files/wiso/06193.pdf

jerrya• 13 years ago

Jeremy Rifkin - 1995 - The End of Work: The Decline of the Global Labor Force and the Dawn of the Post-Market Era

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_End_of_Work

In 1995, Rifkin contended that worldwide unemployment would increase as information technology eliminated tens of millions of jobs in the manufacturing, agricultural and service sectors. He predicted devastating impact of automation on blue-collar, retail and wholesale employees. While a small elite of corporate managers and knowledge workers would reap the benefits of the high-tech world economy, the American middle class would continue to shrink and the workplace become ever more stressful.

As the market economy and public sector decline, Rifkin predicted the growth of a third sector—voluntary and community-based service organizations—that would create new jobs with government support to rebuild decaying neighborhoods and provide social services. To finance this enterprise, he advocated scaling down the military budget, enacting a value added tax on nonessential goods and services and redirecting federal and state funds to provide a "social wage" in lieu of welfare payments to third-sector workers.

--------------

Jeremy Rifkin - 2005

http://www.foet.org/press/interviews/Spiegel-%20August%203%2...

European politicians often like to blame outsourcing for the disappearance of jobs. But in reality the work isn't going to the Chinese --it's going to the robots.

kenster072• 13 years ago

In the future, even this small elite of corporate managers and knowledge workers (to which I belong) may not be needed either, as computers will become self-deterministic.

What will be the real long-term solution when the value of a person to society can no longer even be roughly approximated by his income?

rjtavares2• 13 years ago

Why would we need a solution? I find it tragic that the lack of need for forced labor is seen as a problem...

cclogg• 13 years ago

Maybe the future of the planet involves no humans (ie we all die off eventually)... just robots that can create themselves.

Or maybe we stay on board, reaching a point where technology lets us live forever, and we just sun-tan all day with robots massaging us.

JoshTriplett• 13 years ago

In the future, even this small elite of corporate managers and knowledge workers (to which I belong) may not be needed either, as computers will become self-deterministic.

If that ever happens (and I hope that it does), the solution space will look more like "post-scarcity non-monetary economy" rather than "basic income".

iSnow• 13 years ago

as computers will become self-deterministic

[citation needed]

Also, the most problematic will be the transition phase, where 50% don't find work at all, most others only find low-paying jobs and a small elite has the highly-payed jobs and has to either support the others or emigrate.

kokey• 13 years ago

When this topic comes up, I tend to refer people to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_unemployment

Rifkin's work also gets a mention there.

What I find weird about the article posted here is that it treats it as a new thing, as if this time is so different that the only time it can be compared to is the industrial revolution.

Joeri• 13 years ago

They have been predicting automation will destroy jobs for centuries, and it hasn't happened. Looking at the unemployment statistics for the past century, the trend line seems very weak: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:US_Unemployment_1890-2011....

The history of technological innovation is that new job categories are created faster than old ones are lost. There are many job categories which will be opened up as a result of automation. We will see a shift to creative / performance jobs instead of mechanistic / routine jobs. Demand will be artificially created for the products of these new categories, just like it has been for more than a century (without artificially created demand the economy would collapse, as we consume a multiple of what we need). The demand will be focused on "unique", on products tailored by a human for an audience of one, but produced using mass-production technologies. The more renowned the bespoke designer, the higher the price tag will be.

Still, if the singularity does happen and we end up in a true post-production society, I imagine it will look like the Culture (Iain M. Banks). Or at least, I hope it will.

Sven7• 13 years ago

Take a look at state government employees most of whom are middle class. A major portion of this labor force is involved in managing data. Rough guess ~30000 * 50 states=1500000. Pretty sure its a much bigger number.

Facebook can manage the data of a billion people with 5000 employees.

ThomPete• 13 years ago

And yet slowly it has happened. It's the underlying reason why we haven't yet recovered from the financial bubble.

A shift to creative/performance means talent an even more scarse resource than people with high education.

Less jobs are created than lost. It is a real problem and can't just be brushed of this time.

aaron695• 13 years ago

They have been predicting automation will destroy jobs for centuries, and it hasn't happened.

We have replaced jobs by consuming more. This concept growth is infinite is not practical(Or mathematically possible), and it's probably not linear either, when it hits and growth stops being able to replace lost jobs it could be sudden.

Bespoke is interesting, but I'll probably only visit 1000 different houses in my lifetime etc 'Bespoke-esque' products will be able to be mass produced and appear unique, currently they are limited by space time, small markets overseas trips will have little meaning to goods in the future.

Once 3D printers/scanners work well I can copy anything that an artist creates why would I buy it off them personally, especially since I'll probably be unemployed myself.

Sure I'll go to a fancy humans serve me restaurant every now and again, probably when I'm young and hip, but normally I'll do what everyone else will do, get a excellent, cheap hassle free meal made to order served by automatons.

Building and driving are dangerous jobs, it won't take many lawsuits before they get shut down for humans.

More of a dystopian fan myself.

phryk7• 13 years ago

We already now have a lot of jobs that simply aren't necessary. I mean look at all the bureaucracy… Haven't you ever looked at some buraeucrats' job and just thought "Wow, I could replace that guy with 200 lines of perl."?^^

scotty793• 13 years ago

There is much hidden unemployment. Prisoners, guards, government white collar workers. All those people and the like should count towards unemployment because they do no benefit to the economy and are occupied with government sponsored busy work.

genwin• 13 years ago

Basic income could pay for itself with the things created by people who are doing what they want, as a result of losing their fear of falling below a basic level of living.

vixen99• 13 years ago

Yes, the four million in Britain who have never had a job in their lives are immensely productive and make an outstanding contributon to cultural life. Five million would be even better.

rbanffy4• 13 years ago

They never had a job, but, still, they need to make ends meet. They live under the pressure to make some money. Removing that pressure may allow them to find more interesting things to do.

nhaehnle7• 13 years ago

I am assuming your comment is meant to be sarcastic.

Be careful about assigning cause and consequence properly. Mass unemployment is an involuntary, macroeconomic problem. [1]

I am not an expert in the British economy, so I don't know whether your numbers make sense. But just taking them at face value, it is quite likely that those millions of people are unproductive precisely because they have never had a job. So it's not their fault.

Incidentally, I partly agree with you in that I think that basic income advocates are too starry-eyed about what people would do on basic income.

This is part of why I prefer a Job Guarantee, as I have explained here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5931534

[1] http://alittleecon.wordpress.com/2013/06/19/the-parable-of-1...

nhaehnle7• 13 years ago

Basic income is a nice idea, but as long as we cannot automate everything, I do feel that it misses the point somewhat because it doesn't address unemployment.

As long as somebody has to work, unemployment is very divisive for society. Those who are employed tend to be valued over those who do not work, even when the unemployment is involuntary (actually, unemployment is usually defined to be involuntary).

This can have jarring psychological consequences. It also reduces the overall size of the economy. If somebody wants to work, shouldn't we make it possible for them? Finally, it means that a basic income is always going to be a politically unstable proposition. It will always be easy for those who hate basic income to attack it with "welfare queen" type smears. This attack will likely be even more effective than it is with current welfare programs.

This is why I believe a Job Guarantee to be a better policy. Basically, have a program that ensures infinite demand for labor at a fixed wage.

One can still have Basic Income on top of a Job Guarantee, of course. The two proposals aren't mutually exclusive. But I think the Job Guarantee is better at addressing the real issues, at least as long as we cannot automate everything.

anigbrowl• 13 years ago

I have never liked the concept that you 'have a job,' I prefer that you 'sell your labor' and someone else chooses to buy it. The phrase 'having a job' suggests it's some sort of privilege to work for someone else, rather than a simple economic transaction.

This is why I believe a Job Guarantee to be a better policy. Basically, have a program that ensures infinite demand for labor at a fixed wage.

But how does it do this? I'm not disputing that it could, I'm just uncertain how you are proposing to implement this. For example, will I have a choice over the sort of work I like to do? What if I feel like changing that? I also a see a bit of a problem when people who are much more competent at some particular task feel unhappy that they are not able to earn more than someone who is unskilled or lazy and does inferior work.

Dewie3• 13 years ago

I have never liked the concept that you 'have a job,' I prefer that you 'sell your labor' and someone else chooses to buy it. The phrase 'having a job' suggests it's some sort of privilege to work for someone else, rather than a simple economic transaction.

In my language, "employer" is an concatenation of "work" and "give": "workgiver". While "employee" is an concatenation of "work" and "take": "worktaker". :)

huherto• 13 years ago

Having a job is a privilege. just think of all the people who need one but don't have one.

nhaehnle7• 13 years ago

Yes, semantics can be fun...

As for the implementation, I am partial to the proposals of MMT economists like Bill Mitchell. They boil down to an arrangement where certain institutions - mostly local and regional government and non-profits, but the details vary - can post jobs. Those jobs will administrated by the institution itself with minimal central oversight. However, funding comes from the central (monetarily sovereign) government at an hourly wage that is fixed by law.

So it is simply an offer that you can take or not. If there is nothing that you like, don't take anything. The theory is that there are so many useful things that could be done once money stops being the limiting factor, it's extremely unlikely this would happen.

Basic income advocates like to say that it allows you to do whatever work you want to do. Well, the Job Guarantee intends to allow essentially the same freedom as long as what you want to do provides some public benefit.

That said, there are other proposals for how to generate infinite demand for labor at a fixed price, e.g. this one: http://www.morganwarstler.com/post/44789487956/guaranteed-in...

scarmig5• 13 years ago

If somebody wants to work, shouldn't we make it possible for them?

The point of a basic income is that it allows people to work. Because it's unconditional (at least in the variant I support), there are no marginal disincentive effects.

If you want to call having people dig holes and fill them back in "work," okay, fine. But at that point I don't see why we shouldn't just call simply living a job and call it a day, because at least that way people can focus on valuable economic tasks that a government can't necessarily see or effectively plan.

And it's harder to attack because it is universal and unconditional. Compare foodstamps and Medicaid to a program that's available to all income classes, such as, say, Medicare or Social Security. One class is constantly attacked, while attacking the other ends political careers.

yummyfajitas4• 13 years ago

Because it's unconditional (at least in the variant I support), there are no marginal disincentive effects.

If you believe in diminishing marginal utility, there certainly are.

Compare foodstamps and Medicaid to a program that's available to all income classes, such as, say, Medicare or Social Security.

These programs are not universal - no one under 65 receives them. Those programs are popular because the beneficiaries of redistribution vote for them at high rates, while the people being redistributed from vote at lower rates.

It's nothing but a standard "pay some people to vote for us" scheme.

nhaehnle7• 13 years ago

If you want to call having people dig holes and fill them back in "work," okay, fine.

Well, it is work, but it's not what I want people to do. Why on earth would you assume that that is what I want?

Whatever happened to giving the benefit of the doubt, and perhaps showing some curiosity as to what the other person really intends?

I have explained that a bit in response to another comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5936103

flyinRyan5• 13 years ago

This is why I believe a Job Guarantee to be a better policy. Basically, have a program that ensures infinite demand for labor at a fixed wage.

Oh good lord no. First of all, this means the creation of countless "dig a hole, fill it back in" jobs. Second of all, it will leave us stuck in this barbaric form of living once we can automate everything because the mega-rich with their robot work force aren't going to want to contribute "their" earnings to basic income.

And finally, basic income is just that: it's income for everyone. It doesn't mean you can't work if you want to. In fact it's better because it means you can truly choose what you want to do with your life instead of being under pressure to avoid starvation or living on the street.

chii12• 13 years ago

The mega-rich will _never_ want to contribute any significant amount of their money (gained from the output of their automated robots and factories/greenhouses) towards feeding those who are not working, unless forced to. They might pay lip service, and donate to some charity/feed the poor program, but they don't do it due to the goodness of their hearts - they do it due to the need to look to be charitable (i.e., marketing/PR reasons). Its a business cost. I bet if you asked them to make these donations completely anonymously, and never admit to having made them to anyone, most would not comply (and note, not like this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqncCjxGqGw).

nhaehnle7• 13 years ago

Why do you assume that a Job Guarantee would mean the creation of "dig a hole, fill it back in" jobs?

Out in the real world, there is a wealth of useful things that could be done, especially at the local level but also in non-profits, but that are currently not being done because of a "lack of money".

Just put one and one together.

kaoD• 13 years ago

The economy cannot be controlled nor manipulated by external means. Job Guarantee will only lead to people working in unproductive jobs such as brooming highways (ok, I know it's an extreme example, but you get the idea).

The productive economy assimilates a number of jobs naturally, and forcing it won't fix the issue, just like a basic unconditional income will only lead to inflation.

michas14• 13 years ago

I am from Poland and I've seen that Job Guarantee policy in action when our country was ruled by communists. It ends in disaster: companies are forced to hire more people than they need to do the job, employees come to their workplace and have nothing to do so they spend a whole day chatting, doing nothing, sometimes even drinking alcohol as a way to fight boredom. At the end of the month they all receive a paycheck, which quickly leads company to bankruptcy but since goverment promised everyone Job Guarantee it has to support bankrupting company with some money to continue operating. This leads to a huge debt and eventualy bankruptcy of a whole country, as it was the case of Poland in 1980s

Tichy3• 13 years ago

I guess something like that will be inevitable. Unfortunately it will have to be combined with a control of population size or it will be unsustainable.

1123581321• 13 years ago

Population will continue to stabilize and possibly fall in the developed world and population growth will lessen in the developing world.

Also, a life on basic income would probably be similar psychologically to unemployment -- more depression, disease, shorter lifespans, etc. These things contribute to a reduced rate of childbirth.

Tichy3• 13 years ago

Not sure - unemployment would cause a lot more anxiety, I would imagine. Are pensioners especially depressed (if age and diseases are factored out)?

bayesianhorse2• 13 years ago

I don't see countries with a growing population being able to implement that at all, not because of the rising population, but because they are poor.

hn1000• 13 years ago

It has to be only for adults. Or else people are going to have many children to get more money.

And it has to be only for native citizens, to avoid mass immigration.

Tichy3• 13 years ago

It would be difficult to let kids live in squalor, though. Presumably parents would receive at least some extra money, but perhaps it would decline with the number of children.

vacri• 13 years ago

More people requesting entrance isn't going to magically increase the quotas all developed nations have for residence.

cinquemb2• 13 years ago

I think these things tend to miss that work is not only about providing sustenance for oneself (and family) but also about what people want to do with their lives.

Also these things assume the role of some centralized entity in this age when governments have been cutting back massively on things considered to be for the public benefit (because of their own financial short falls eg. Detroit). We seem to be thinking of doing more of the same in this paradigm when its falling apart around us…

Who is going melt the PVC to build this pipe dream?

scarmig5• 13 years ago

It's unclear what your argument is, here.

Are you saying it's financially unsustainable? I agree that that's the big question, but saying "Detroit" isn't an argument.

Government expenditures aren't decreasing or being cut back massively: they're consistently rising, year on year. This isn't merely some artefact of Democratic administrations (which are hardly anomalies and can't be ignored anyway), because even the Ryan budget included year on year increases, albeit at a slower rate (that didn't keep pace with medical inflation, for better or for worse).

After medical costs, I would argue that people becoming unemployable is the main cause of this increase. That's why we see spiraling post-secondary education expenditures, massive SSDI increases, neverending unemployment benefits. Even SS itself reflects this a bit. If you buy the automation thesis or a variant--the zero marginal productivity worker--this tendency will not only continue but accelerate in the coming years and decades.

How do we deal with it? The contours of the issue is that automation simultaneously makes the world richer but also, because of increased skill requirements and increased human and informational capital management costs, makes some people too expensive to hire at any (positive) wage.

What do we do with them? Horses we just turned to glue, but thankfully no one is suggesting that. But ignoring them effectively does the same. So the question is how do we most efficiently provide them with the necessities of life?

If you buy into mainstream economic theory, cash payments are superior to in-kind ones. And also according to mainstream economic theory, giving benefits that phase out creates sharp disincentive effects to marginal labor, creating a welfare trap.

A basic income is the simplest answer to this. People not only have the same incentives to work as they do today, but indeed more if they're poor, as additional labor will not cost them benefits. It also undermines employer monopsony power in the marketplace. Those two things substantially increase the efficiency of the market.

That doesn't even touch on the possibility of an "entrepreneurial explosion" that some argue a basic income will allow for, which I'm cautiously optimistic about.

So, costs: the question as always. I did a rough calculation awhile back, and if I recall correctly swapping out Medicare, Medicaid, and SS for a basic income gets us to around $6k/adult citizen in the USA. That's more than halfway there. The rest? Well, there's the tricky part: some will come from increased economic efficiency and removing bureaucratic administrative costs from Medicare and Medicaid, but I'd like some other programs to be cut and, yes, taxes to be raised. My preferred version is a flat federal income tax comparable to what the well-off pay as their marginal rate now.

We can debate all the particulars, but the inexorable logic of the world's economic development demands we do something. A basic income is, in my view, the something that lets the market do its magic in the most unimpeded and efficient way possible.

cinquemb2• 13 years ago

It's unclear what your argument is, here.

Because I'm not making one. I'm stating what current "mainstream" economic thinking has been doing.

Government expenditures aren't decreasing or being cut back massively: they're consistently rising, year on year. This isn't merely some artefact of Democratic administrations (which are hardly anomalies and can't be ignored anyway), because even the Ryan budget included year on year increases, albeit at a slower rate (that didn't keep pace with medical inflation, for better or for worse).

That is very true! But the prices of commodities and other equities is going up faster, while wages and salaries have been stagnant for decades (gas for example when I was a kid in the 90s was around a dollar, now its 4x that). We can automate all the things in the world, but if the masses can't afford them without massively leveraging themselves to the point they can't make payments (or without refinancing their houses), the economy isn't going to do any better.

Printing money and giving it to people and expecting things to be stable is like trying to make two sides of an equation balance out by adding more to one side than the other, it's just inherently unstable. In markets, if consumers have more to spend on things they supposedly need, then sellers will be incentivized to raise their prices on their goods. Boom, your printing just did jack shit for stability. My IB friends talk to me about this all the time… just look at corporate balance sheets vs the DOW (can you say POMO?)…

Until the value of things robots will be manufacturing is closer to the range where people can actually afford to buy them (and meet their needs comfortably), you will only see things getting worse.

Until then, my crystal ball is for CDS backed by securities student loans/housing/faltering governments and municipalities, Defense Distributed/3-d printing/urban-ag, and cheap valuable land, and writing code to integrate these things…

chii12• 13 years ago

So the question is how do we most efficiently provide them with the necessities of life?

the problem is this question begs the question - why do we need to provide for those who is unable to provide for themselves? The moral argument is that you must help your fellow human being, but i don't think you can use morals, when logic dictates that it may not be possible to do so.

RivieraKid• 13 years ago

Another solution would be to shrink the work week to 4 days.

antoinevg2• 13 years ago

This would be my preferred solution as it would provide a clear benefit to both the unemployed and the employed!

ronaldx3• 13 years ago

Doubtful on the latter: most employed people spend more than 80% of their income and most employers would not be willing to increase their rate of pay by 25% (especially now, with salaries increasing below inflation).

Although it's often claimed that trade unions were instrumental in reducing the work week to 5 days, I'm curious to know what their stance would be on this now.

yason• 13 years ago

Progressive taxation that starts from negative tax rate and goes upwards from there as more income is generate by working more is quite reasonable.

You always get something but most people want slightly more or much more, so they can choose to work just enough to get what they wanted. The tax rate goes up as the more work you do, so at some point you actually start paying taxes instead of receiving money as negative taxes. In this scheme, if you work more then you always get more money. Currently it doesn't always make sense to go to work because welfare/unemployment subsidies will disappear at some point.

scarmig5• 13 years ago

Progressive taxation has always been something of a hack: it's easier to get a greater proportion of someone's money when they're relatively well off than when they can barely pay for food and housing.

Perhaps for good reason. But one of the compelling parts of a basic income is that it cuts away the moral argument for progressive taxation: the basic income amount people are provided is enough to pay for the necessities of life, which is what progressive taxation tries to allow for. Replacing the progressive income tax with a basic income funded by a flat tax on all earned income combines the respective moral appeals of progressive and flat taxation while also being more economically efficient.

keithnoizu2• 13 years ago

The premise for the progressive tax is that those that have benefited the most from the infrastructure provided by the government should repay the most. I don't think that tenant disappears the second you include a basic income allotment.

fulafel• 13 years ago

one of the compelling parts of a basic income is that it cuts away the moral argument for progressive taxation: the basic income amount people are provided is enough to pay for the necessities of life

It doesn't provide for necessities in many (most?) of the basic income proposals. Many proposals still leave a lot of the circumstance dependent benefits in place (eg providing for kids if you have them) so the basic income can be kept fairly low.

But yes, tax progression it does replace.

masklinn• 13 years ago

welfare/unemployment subsidies will disappear at some point.

Indeed, as a houseworker my parents employed discovered a decade or so ago (she had been completely out of the loop and on welfare for a decade or so, started trying to fix things by doing housework in order to "re-integrate") who one day found out she'd gone above the magical threshold and had lost a number of benefits including holidays subsidies for her children which her income wouldn't compensate by a very long shot.

Sharp cutoffs on welfare are a disincentive, because they create a serious discontinuity in which your effective income craters as you lose all benefits but your income doesn't come close to compensating, and thus you work harder but your quality of life declines.

josephlord• 13 years ago

I think this is the sensible implementation of the basic income. You get basic payment and then you can get rid of not just many benefits but also tax allowances and thresholds and pay a flat rate on all earned income.

This would eliminate further the cliffs/incentive changes with the basic income payment added to the tax the actual effect would be pretty progressive while everyone (who earns anything above the basic) would feel they are contributing.

What I have never done is really make an attempt to calculate the necessary rate of tax to support a useful basic income. I suspect it would be quite high.

jayfuerstenberg• 13 years ago

The transition is rough but I would like automation to reach 100% and nobody having any jobs.

At that point money is no longer needed, as long as there is an abundance of things (what the 100% automation is all about).

People spend their days doing what they like and the robots do the heavy lifting.

scanr• 13 years ago

A couple of questions:

It currently appears that further automation concentrates income to a smaller and smaller group of folk, how do you propose we mitigate that?

While automation will provide for an abundance of some things, we are running out of other things (oil, rare metals, bluefin tuna). How should scarce resources be allocated?

nhaehnle7• 13 years ago

It currently appears that further automation concentrates income to a smaller and smaller group of folk, how do you propose we mitigate that?

You know, every time I read such discussions I think that the communists probably have it right. The answer is to make the means of production (i.e., the robots) owned by the community rather than by individuals.

This could even be achieved without changing any laws: http://www.demos.org/blog/how-about-us-sovereign-wealth-fund

ronaldx3• 13 years ago

Yes, that's what everybody would like, I think. The article rightly points out that (in our present capitalist structure) this type of society exclusively benefits the robot-owners: why should my robot do heavy lifting for you?

The economically powerful see the benefit and the economically weak have no access to robots and no escape route from poverty.

michas14• 13 years ago

Question "why should my robot do heavy lifting for you?" is pointless, because it literally costs you nothing to let your robot do the job. The only reason we now have to pay for anything is because there's always someone (human) who spent his time and effort to make it. Once everything is made by robots it can cost nothing

mcantelon2• 13 years ago

It will be cheaper to engineer a die-off via covert bioweapons and such. From the perspective of the superclass, why give useless eaters money when that money could be invested in the consolidation of power?

flopunctro• 13 years ago

Power over who? If you as an elite kill your subjects, who will provide for your needs? Who will work the fields that provide your food, who will repair your cars and house automations, who will mow your lawn? We're still far from a sustainable fully-automated food cycle.

So I believe the superclass don't want their subjects dead; they want them submissive, healthy enough to work without dying, and happy enough to not be motivated to try to change the system.

P.S. from a certain POV, money itself is a consolidation of power. The superclass uses money as an enslavement method -- see how most of middle-class are constrained to wage-work for paying back their debts.

michaelochurch3• 13 years ago

It will be cheaper to engineer a die-off via covert bioweapons and such.

That's not easy-- how does one keep that kind of secret while setting it up?-- and the precedent it sets is dangerous. If the non-elite are all killed off, then most of the remaining people (formerly elite) are non-elite and the cycle repeats.

mcantelon2• 13 years ago

how does one keep that kind of secret while setting it up?

The same as with any controversial program. Claim the program is intended for non-domestic purposes, compartmentalize the development into different complimentary components, perform controlled leaks about the development that allow you to frame the public perception of the program (and makes it "old news"), and discredit any public "conspiracy theorists".

If the non-elite are all killed off, then most of the remaining people (formerly elite) are non-elite and the cycle repeats.

Enough non-elite should be retained to keep the lights on, provide security, and serve any unforseen purposes in the future.

pchristensen• 13 years ago

When I saw the first X-Men movie where Magneto tried to kill all the humans, I told my wife "I hope the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants likes subsistence farming"

Fuxy• 13 years ago

He does have a good point and this is going to happen eventually the question is how it's going to happen. Are the big corporations going to accept this or are the going to lobby their asses off to stop it. If they do and they win then we will most likely have another massacre of the rich and greedy. Seems World War 3 is inevitable if corporations are going to fight this. Hope nobody uses the nukes or we're all screwed.

chii12• 13 years ago

The poor do not have the means or capabilities to "fight" a war, because it isn't a war in the traditional sense. Its more like boiling a frog alive - little things slowly happen, and at every step, most people don't think much of the laws being passed. Until one day, they wake up and see that the world they live in no longer gives them the freedom they remembered having, and any efforts to organize change is quickly stamped out by those who rule.

Things like information gathering and surveillance is the first step. In the name of fighting "terrorism". I predict in 2100, fighters who revolt against greed/riches of the elite will be called terrorists.

frobozz2• 13 years ago

and it allows for a recognition of the value of certain types of non-market labour, like caring or raising children.

How? It looks like a full-time carer and a full-time layabout would be equally rewarded.

That said, I agree with the idea in general, the removal of the claim stigma is pretty important.

Dewie3• 13 years ago

How? It looks like a full-time carer and a full-time layabout would be equally rewarded.

I don't think any basic-income scheme has anything to do with paying the people that work and the people that don't work the same. It's just about giving the unemployed a basic income, while those who actually work can have any income that people are willing to pay them (like now).

frobozz2• 13 years ago

I'm not talking about paying everyone the same, I'm talking about the difference between non-market-work and non-work.

The article states that Basic Income allows for the recognition of the value of non-market-work. I can't see how.

In order to "recognize the value" of non-market-work, such workers must be treated differently to non-workers (unless the value is recognized to be zero). Any difference in the treatment of non-market-workers and non-workers is equally possible without a Basic Income system.

If those who do non-market work (e.g caring for their disabled partner) get paid the same as people who do no work at all, then it is valued identically to non-work. I don't necessarily have a problem with that, but it can hardly be said to be "recognition of the value" of non-market-work.

This means that a parent who takes time away from market-work to raise children; a person who provides full-time care for their disabled spouse; and a person who divides their time between playing CoD and watching Jersey Shore; are all paid the same.

Dewie3• 13 years ago

If we envision an eventual time with mostly-automation or full automation, there will be a transitioning period. Say that there are jobs for 50% and the rest have basic income: how will those two classes look? The people that are working will probably want to be compensated fairly well, since they are dedicating their time and sometimes taking on heavy responsibilities (like doctors). But how will the folks on basic income handle this new income-divide? Will they be content with their hobbies, non-profit work etc; or will they be jealous of the people with (I'm guessing) a substantially higher income and all their status symbols and trappings? Will this mean a much, much more competitive labour market, starting from early school and continuing into university and eventually a more demanding wokplace? Will the "jobless" be seen as a new low-class, being looked down on not simply for having low-skill jobs while at the same time working hard, but truly being people with no responsibilities (like I said, non-profit work and such might be a possibility)?

In short; will human nature be able to gracefully handle the transitioning period?

nkoren• 13 years ago

There are two answers to this:

First of all, the idea of basic income is that it is universal: there won't be a divide between those who have basic income but not work, and those who have work but not basic income. Everybody will have basic income; the divide will merely be between those who have work and those who don't.

The solution this divide is to eliminate the minimum wage, which acts as a significant hurdle to creating employment. In a basic-income world, there is no more moral argument for minimum wage to exist, because basic sustenance no longer comes from labour. Everybody will have sufficient food and shelter whether they work or not, so the exploitation of labour is no longer possible, and the safeguard of minimum wage is no longer needed. In a basic income world, labour becomes a privilege for both the employee and the employer.

Eliminating minimum wages means that employment can become a much smoother continuum of activities, rather than the sustenance-or-nothing proposition that it is right now. This opens up a vast range of lower-wage job opportunities, which people could purse when they want to, not actually because they need to. Want to earn £2/hr working in a community theatre? No problem. Want to earn £50/week helping to organise a supper club or being an assistant at a hackerspace? Go for it. Under a minimum wage regime, it's not even legal to employ people in this capacity; under a basic income regime, the distinction between "hobby" and "job" will blur into irrelevance. This means that you will be able to create dramatically more work -- and higher-quality work, because it would only be things that people pursue out of choice rather than necessity -- with a basic income than you could ever have without one.

EDIT -- As to how to handle the transition period: phase in the Basic Income at the same rate that you phase out Minimum Wage and all other forms of income support. A good Basic Income should be roughly equivalent to a good minimum wage; in most countries this works out to be about 50% of the mean individual income. If the Basic Income payments are phased in at the same rate that the minimum wage and other benefits are phased out, then there will be virtually no "losers". High-earners will get a little bump from the Basic Income; low-earners will see their take-home pay unchanged, but they will be increasingly less reliant on their jobs for it. This will put them in a better bargaining position vis-a-vis undesirable jobs, while new types of low-wage desirable jobs will become possible as the minimum wage is reduced. Do this transition over a course of a decade and it should be relatively smooth.

chii12• 13 years ago

Arguing by your logical suppositions, i claim that what would happen is that jobs that is required for society to function, but nobody wants to do, but is not automate-able (does toilet cleaning count? it might be automate-able...) would mean either an increase in the cost of performing that job, or it doesn't get performed at all at any cost because the benefit doesnt outweight the cost of getting it done.

THis could mean one of two things - if the job is really really essential, then the BI income will eventually not be able to cover the cost of that job (because people would be using their share of BI to cover it). If the job isn't really that essential, then it will end up being undone, much to the detriment of society perhaps.

My basic argument for BI's probable failure (i'd very much like to be proven/convinced otherwise tho), is that the resources invested in the infrastructure to replace labour must make some sort of return on investment (especially if it is made by private individuals). In this case, taxing these automation investments will either make it not worthwhile, or that the owners of these investments will just raise the price of the goods created to counteract the tax, thus raising inflation rate, and doesn't really do any good. The only way it will work is if the investment into automation doesn't "earn" much profit, and produces goods almost at cost. I doubt that would happen at all.

flyinglizard• 13 years ago

I see more problems than benefits.

1. Poverty is a relative term. Giving the entire population a basic income would shift everyone up, but ultimately it's a zero sum game. Obviously, the additional income will be marginal for high earners and the income gap will largely remain.

2. Massive distribution of money tends to be inflationary. As purchasing power and demand go up, so does the market pricing. Think of rent prices around poor neighborhoods for example.

3. It will not mitigate the "reverse Darwinism" that occurs across the socioeconomic layers. High earners have neutral or negative population growth, while the poor are procreating at a much higher rate. This phenomena crosses communities, countries and continents. It's the reason some rich European countries have declining indigenous population, with any growth attributed to poor immigrants.

4. It reduces the incentive to adapt to the new employment situation.

5. It does nothing to curb to social unrest that will happen due to income gaps. I don't want to sound like "The Man", but in effect this has the potential to make the income gap much more volatile; a large portion of the population that's idle and feels neglected is a massive unrest waiting for a cause.

The talks of automation as if it's the end of the materialistic society - as everything is produced effortlessly and cost effectively - are premature. We'll be there when we ultimately master the matter at a particle level (think of the Culture novels). Society can, and will adapt to the added manufacturing capabilities with strong demand for better products and services. In fact, I think automation will be the saving grace of manufacturing in the first world nations.

As controversial as it sounds, I think the solution lies in balancing the growth across the different socioeconomic levels. There should be a policy of encouraging growth across the upper echelons of society, while discouraging the growth among the lower ranks:

1. Immediately, it will reduce poverty levels;

2. It will provide a better opportunity to take care of low income families, including government sponsored education, health and food programs;

3. In the long run, it will be the most effective redistribution tool of wealth. For every kid the Walton family had, each of the others had billions less in inheritance. Accumulation of individual wealth is greatly amplified when successful families make 1 or 2 children. If they have an average of 4 children, the transfer of wealth between and across generations will be more reasonable.

The current situation of the financially weakest population multiplying in the quickest rate is bad for everyone (first and foremost to themselves); it is a demographic and economic dead end. No matter how much you try patching it with wealth redistribution, you WILL eventually "run out of other people's money".

michas14• 13 years ago

Income redistribution is just a fancy name for stealing. Everyone should have just as much money as he is capable of earning. There is nothing wrong in high income gap. It's existence is just an evidence that society works as expected.

Redistribution is just a way of punishing smart and hardworking people for their success and reward the rest of society for their laziness. This would surely end in a disaster: people loose motivation to do anything, because they cannot see any correlation between their effort and income. This is also known as "learned helplessness" and will occur in most of middle class people.

Also, nothing depraves people more that money got without effort.

dasil0032• 13 years ago

Income redistribution is just a fancy name for stealing.

And many of world's greatest fortunes were and are created by stealing and other equally immoral practices. Your apparent ideology that government taxation is inherently evil, and capitalist markets are inherently good is incredibly naïve.

dasil0032• 13 years ago

So we should just breed away poverty? For all the assumptions and various levels of truthiness in your five enumerated problems, this is awfully optimistic pie-in-the-sky thinking.

Have you considered how long it would take the 1% families to achieve meaningful growth relative to population sizes even if every woman has 15 children starting at age 18? On the flip side, have you considered how hard it is to get poor people to stop getting pregnant? What would the incentives look like?

Tycho2• 13 years ago

As existing jobs get automated, why would be stop seeing new roles which the automation cannot service?

chii12• 13 years ago

The argument is that as more work gets automated, the rate at which new roles get created slowly decreases (indefinitely - as i m sure theres an infinite amount of roles out there). But population increases at a rate faster than new roles come out, and so the logical conclusion would be that there are going to be displaced people that have no roles for them.

michas14• 13 years ago

Also, consider how many people would be incapable of fulfilling such role: if something cannot be done by robot it probably means it requires creativity, intelligence and other assets that are in shortage even in humans.

Tycho2• 13 years ago

But isn't this just rephrasing the question? AFAICS, there is no general trend towards global unemployment, and we've been automating things for a long time already. Why should we now suspect that redundancy will outstrip the volume of new roles?

burgerz• 13 years ago

Now, redistribution is already, prima facie, one of the absolute best things a government can do. Simply put, rich people don't need money, and poor people do. All else being equal, taking some money from rich people and giving it to poor people is therefore the absolute best way to improve worldwide welfare we know of.

This is the most bullshit paragraph I have read all year.

scotty793• 13 years ago

I like that they point out that alternative to basic income isn't business as usual but rather all out communist-like revolution like the last time.

decasteve• 13 years ago

We are continually being pushed into the territory that distinguishes us from machines: emotion, relationships, synthesis, abstraction, beauty, art, meaning, and more.

Our future depends on the humanization work: http://rossdawsonblog.com/weblog/archives/2013/02/our-future...

We still have the idea of a discrete education, that once we obtain a skill, we can be employable using that skill. Such specialization is not going to cut it going forward. We have to view learning as a life-long continuous endeavour of an experimentation of ideas.

Start by making university free. Pay people to study. Don't let young people go 30K+ in debt just to get a basic education. That load of debt starting out limits possibilities. Mostly limiting the ability to be creative or entrepreneurial but it can also hinder one's ability to be mobile and to travel and acquire new perspectives.

tehwalrus• 13 years ago

As a Briton, I never thought I'd see a New Statesman link on the Hacker News front page - especially not to see that people are defending it in the comments! (It's the leftest of left wing magazines, save the SWP rags, even a wooly liberal like me finds it a bit much.)

There must be fewer Americans on here in the middle of the night or something...

dho• 13 years ago

In Switzerland there will probably be a voting about introducing a basic income. At least if the initiators manage to get 100'000 signatures for their initiative until October (so far they have about 90'000 valid signatures).

zwieback• 13 years ago

Basic income is an interesting idea but the argument that automation and robots will replace all our jobs is no more true now than it was when I started my career as an engineer 20 years ago or when the Luddites smashed the power looms. Anybody who has worked in manufacturing knows that introducing robotics is expensive and a lot less flexible than you would hope. I guess it would be a scary prospect for believers of the singularity.

rafski• 13 years ago

I am not sure whether I find it more disturbing to see that people here think it is in any way fair to pay people for not doing anything, or that they think it is economically possible to take something with a perceived value, exchange it regularly for zero on a mass scale and for this thing to retain its value.

Suppose you give a bar of gold to everyone, for nothing, every month.

Question: what's gold going to be worth on the market in half a year?

Basic income as an answer to all out automation

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