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Basic Income

DotCommunist said:
the idea that people won't take the grim jobs unless economically coerced is a big fat fucking lie though. Decent recompense for those roles is what is asked.
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Didn't you know? It's only the rich that get motivation by increasing rewards, everyone else requires wage cuts the fear of destitution to get their lazy arses to work. :rolleyes:
 
DotCommunist said:
given that we don't operate work camps that is implicit to your statement.

You know where this is going to end up. More and more people laid off then taken on via the work program to do their former job at dole rates and then fucking cthullu will rise and armed biker gangs will terrorise the few remaining waged people, brother will stab brother for an irradiated grain of rice while sea levels rise and the end of all things comes upon us. The skies will darken and the beasts of the field will roar for justice as they birth three-headed progeny. The fucking minnows will rise from their servitude and kill the stickle backs while we cry 'oh lord oh lord, deliver us from evil' but he won't. He'll just heap more evil, monsanto will copyright all grains and have us all slaving away in dim lit factories fed on a barley and algeal slop and we will fucking thank them for it.
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That's so 2012.
 
New Statesman have another article extolling Basic Income as society's medicine. Nothing new there really, except for this claim when talking about robotics doing away with jobs:
It would be irresponsible to predict that “jobpocalypse” is around the corner. The T-800 is unlikely to replace dentists, rabbis and gym instructors: a recent Oxford University study found that “only” 47 per cent of US employment is at risk of computerisation within the next decade or two.
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:eek:
 
Perhaps not the right thread for it, and maybe it deserves a wider audience than this thread's readers (if there are any left :) ) but Sweden is about to trial a 6-hour workday for municipal workers. They say it'll boost efficiency, cut down on sick days and save them money.

http://www.thelocal.se/20140408/swedish-workers-to-test-six-hour-work-days

Crucially, the workers will still receive the same amount of money as when working 8 hours. Could be interesting to see how it's reported here. If successful, it could catch the eye of some bosses/govt officials here. Although I imagine it's more likely they'll see the efficiency gains and reduce hours and pay together, rather than keep wages where they were.
 
Never been convinced by the argument that technological advances cause a higher rate of unemployment. New technologies might make certain jobs redundant, but they also open up new industries in which people can find alternate employment.
 
Fez909 said:
Did you read the study linked above from Oxford university?

http://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/publications/view/1314
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I didn't sorry, no. Reading the abstract however, all the study says is that certain types of job will become unnecessary due to computerisation, but does not make the claim that these jobs will not be replaced by other types of job. Technology was a death knell for horse and carriage makers, but think of all the industries that were made possible by the same technology that ended that profession.
 
cynicaleconomy said:
I didn't sorry, no. Reading the abstract however, all the study says is that certain types of job will become unnecessary due to computerisation, but does not make the claim that these jobs will not be replaced by other types of job. Technology was a death knell for horse and carriage makers, but think of all the industries that were made possible by the same technology that ended that profession.
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It's not comparable, though. The technology that replaced horse and carriage makers was still labour intensive and required many many implementations.

Computer technology can be written by a handful of people and one can replace the jobs of millions of workers worldwide.
 
besides, after the era of production line mass factories, the processes became mechanized,people got laid off. Look at detroit- a carworkers city built for thre million that now houses a third of that.
 
saw this in a tangentially related article (an urbs blog had this article hosted)

Like Weeks, Standing is a proponent of an unconditional basic income—a regular payment provided to every individual regardless of whether or how much they work—as a way of providing income security without locking people into jobs. Yet he still grounds his appeal on the concept of work, now expanded beyond the boundaries of wage labor. “The fact that there is an aversion to the jobs on offer does not mean that . . . people do not want to work,” he argues, for in fact “almost everybody wants to work.” Subsequently, however, he speaks of “rescuing” work from its association with wage labor: “All forms of work should be treated with equal respect, and there should be no presumption that someone not in a job is not working or that someone not working today is an idle scrounger.” This evokes the notion of a social factory in which we contribute various kinds of productive activity that is not directly remunerated, ranging from raising children to coding open source software.

But no amount of redefinition can escape the association of work with the capitalist ethos of productivism and efficiency. The contrast between work and “idle scrounging” implies that we can measure whether any given activity is productive or useful, by translating it into a common measure. Capitalism has such a measure, monetary value: whatever has value in the market is, by definition, productive. If the critique of capitalism is to get beyond this, it must get beyond the idea that our activities can be subordinated to a single measure of value. Indeed, to demand that time outside of work be truly free is to reject the call to justify its usefulness. This is a central insight of Weeks’ consistent anti-asceticism, which resists any effort to replace the work ethic with some equally homogenizing code that externally validates the organization of our time. Time beyond work should not be for exchange or for use, but for itself. The point, as Weeks puts it, is to “get a life,” as we find ways “to sustain the social worlds necessary for, among other things, production.”
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http://thurnundtaxis.blogspot.co.uk/2014_01_01_archive.html
 
I contend that introducing the citizens income would not just make people more financially secure but would cause a change in social priorities so that people focussed on what was important. We wouldn't need tossers like Nev Wilshire and the likes of his grubby call centre, for example. people could still work there if they wished, but that would only be their choice. Theire would be no coercion on the part of rich and pwoerful people (ie tory governments) to make them do it. That would mean the bosses would have to offer better wages and so we'd get more money paid into the economy from those people.

Communities could work out how best to do the crappy jobs, deciding who and how and when the toilets and streets get cleaned etc. I think it could work the way a household deals with such jobs. Noone likes the washing up but it gets done because it needs to be done, and it's not then done by someone being chained, through wage slavery, to the kitchen sink for endless soul destroying shifts.

Artistic people could pursue their art and contribute to the culture and perhaps that, if it must be, monetised - people could sell music they've written etc.
 
Can't believe I have missed this thread up until now.

A basic income has become a very common demand on the left in Spain, it is one of the key policies of Podemos which is forecast to be the third biggest party there in the next election.

779875_1.jpg


images


fotonoticia_20140403220947_500.jpg
 
A guy in Germany, after quitting [paid] work and spending more time with his family and on non-profit work, has realised that UBI is the way forward. So he's set up a Kickstarter to fund someone's income for a year to see how it works. They'll get €1,000 a month for 12 months and there's no expectation on them whatsoever. They'll be chosen at random from those who apply on his site. There's a second Kickstarter on the go now for a 2nd person to get a UBI.

It's obviously not gonna be representative of what would happen if it was rolled out nationally, but an interesting experiement I guess?

http://www.mein-grundeinkommen.de/
 
Fez909 said:
A guy in Germany, after quitting [paid] work and spending more time with his family and on non-profit work, has realised that UBI is the way forward. So he's set up a Kickstarter to fund someone's income for a year to see how it works. They'll get €1,000 a month for 12 months and there's no expectation on them whatsoever. They'll be chosen at random from those who apply on his site. There's a second Kickstarter on the go now for a 2nd person to get a UBI.

It's obviously not gonna be representative of what would happen if it was rolled out nationally, but an interesting experiement I guess?

http://www.mein-grundeinkommen.de/
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Kind of a crap experiment, tbh. Critics of the BI would reject a positive outcome because it's not a representative sample, and supporters of BI would reject a bad outcome for the same reason. It proves nothing and will convince no one to change their mind. Nice for the lucky person to be picked, however.
 
cynicaleconomy said:
Kind of a crap experiment, tbh. Critics of the BI would reject a positive outcome because it's not a representative sample, and supporters of BI would reject a bad outcome for the same reason. It proves nothing and will convince no one to change their mind. Nice for the lucky person to be picked, however.
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True.

It's also a poor pool of people from which to choose the winner as they will all have a personal interest/stake in a BI and would be under pressure to do things which reflect positively on a BI.
 
If chosen, I'd probably carry on as normal and pay off a chunk of mortgage. Not sure what that would say about BI...
 
I'd live in the pub for a year. Not sure they would appreciate that either. Still a worthwhile enterprise, if you ask me.
 
A universal income for all adults will feature prominently in the Green party’s pitch to voters in 2015, the party’s leader has said.

In an interview with BuzzFeed, party leader Natalie Bennett revealed that the Greens will be campaigning on the policy at the general election next May.

“It’ll be more prominent than it’s ever been before,” she said. “It’s really risen up the public agenda. We’ll be talking about it during the election.”

The exact level of the income has not been set, pending manifesto costing, but a Green party source said it would likely be higher than existing social security payments. Jobseeker’s Allowance is currently £72.40 a week for adults, or £3,765 a year.

The payment would replace existing unemployment benefits, but would be paid to people with jobs as well as the unemployed.

The party says the policy would benefit the unemployed because they would not lose benefit income when they found work. It would also reinforce the incomes of people in work.
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http://www.buzzfeed.com/jonstone/greens-to-lead-on-universal-basic-income
 
The eurozone needs an alternative solution to its economic woes
guardian. Sunday 24 August 2014
Mark Blyth, economics professor at Brown University, and Eric Lonergan, a London-based hedge-fund manager, have come up with an alternative: print the money but cut out the middlemen and hand the cash straight to the people instead.

In the US magazine Foreign Affairs, Blyth and Lonergan write that instead of pursuing policies that ramp up asset prices and make the financial system less stable, central banks should write a cheque to every household – or, if they wanted to tackle growing inequality, just to the poorest 80% of households.

Unlike the banks, consumers, especially the hardest pressed ones, would spend rather than hoard.
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The ECB, in other words, could learn from the QE programmes in the US and the UK and become the guinea pig for what Milton Friedman called helicopter drops of money. Higher interest rates could be used to counter any inflationary pressure, Blyth and Lonergan say.

Germany, clearly, would try to strangle such a plan at birth. For Angela Merkel, it is redolent of the hyperinflation of 1923. But the numbers do not lie. France: 2006. Spain: 2003. Greece: 2001. Italy: 1997. The eurozone is an economic disaster area.

Draghi knows that pressure for a different approach is becoming irresistible, which is why he is preparing more unconventional measures. So, say Lonergan and Blyth, why not try something unconventional that might actually work?
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More pie in the sky stuff from the guardian. Nice to see it being discussed though.
 
ska invita said:
Could an oil-rich independent Scotland afford to pay a ‘citizen’s income’?4
https://www.the-newshub.com/stories...dent-scotland-afford-to-pay-a-citizens-income

^^^not a good article but supposedly the Green Yes group says it could afford to pay a basic income of up to £15,000 a year post-independence. http://www.theguardian.com/politics...alt-oil-drilling-trident-ban-yes-independence
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Sounds great but the Greens lack support up there. They only have two MSPs and a handful of councillors. Of course that could change after a yes vote when existing loyalties and voting patterns would likely change.
 
Fez909 said:
Sounds great but the Greens lack support up there. They only have two MSPs and a handful of councillors. Of course that could change after a yes vote when existing loyalties and voting patterns would likely change.
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whats important about Basic Income to me isnt how close or far it is from being implemented, its that its a new and potentially revolutionising policy around which to struggle for...

There was a time when the 5 day week and the 8 hour day were radical demands but in my lifetime i feel that movement for better conditions has been reduced to pay rises and health and safety - in reality real pay has gone down and working hours up. Basic Income to me is a return to more idealsitic demands where work is something to be ultimately escaped from....

It doesn't matter for me how many Green MPs there are (at least Scotland has proportional representation), more that Basic Income continues its upward trajectory into the public consciousness....

on that note Huffington Post have something on it and Scotland here too



Scottish Independence and Welfare Reform
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/dr-simon-duffy/scottish-independence-welfare-reform_b_5753996.html
The most important failures of the current UK welfare system are set out in a new report published by The Centre for Welfare Reform this week - Let's Scrap the DWP - The Case for Basic Income Security in Scotland.

This report outlines a series of major problems:
1. Deep and growing income inequality - the UK is the 3rd most unequal developed country in the world. The poorest 10% of families must live on less than £100 per week after tax. Middle-income families earn 5 times more, the top 10% earn 14 times more.
2. Aggressively regressive taxation - the poorest 10% pay nearly 50% of their income in tax - 15% more tax than the rest of the population (see the chart below).
2014-09-02-AverageTaxRates01-thumb.jpg

3. Perverse and damaging incentives - the tax-benefit system is a confused mess that places marginal tax rates of 100% on the poorest, damages family life, reduces economic efficiency and reduces social contribution.
4. Incoherent systems - the division of the system between tax and benefits, each working to totally different models, and the existence of the ineffective Department of Work and Pensions, has created a stigmatising, chaotic and unmanageable system.

There is no need for this. There is nothing rational or inevitable about the current design of the welfare system; and the current UK Government has already shown that you can radically change the welfare system (although unfortunately its 'reforms' are making the system much worse). So it must certainly be possible for Scotland to develop a better system, and in our report we propose one - Basic Income Security.

(more in the article)
 
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