Could a Universal Basic Income (UBI) work?

[najaB]

mods note - split from the Conservative Party thread.

To those opposed to UBI, how would you feel about a minimum living standard instead? Basic housing and sufficient food to ensure nutritional needs are met so that nobody starves or goes homeless?

 

[duncanp]

To those opposed to UBI, how would you feel about a minimum living standard instead? Basic housing and sufficient food to ensure nutritional needs are met so that nobody starves or goes homeless?

I am not opposed to UBI as such, but we do need to decide how much it will be, who will be entitled to receive it, and how it will all be financed.

If AI does away with many jobs in the future, then that means that the tax base will get smaller, and the government will have to find alternative sources of revenue in order to finance its expenditure, of which UBI will be one item.

Personally I would prefer that help is targeted at those who need it most, rather than given to people who already have sufficient income and capital to support themselves.

 

[PsychoMouse]

who will be entitled to receive it

Everybody, that's the point, its Universal.

It's paid for in savings (both time and money) in government processes taken over by AI.

 

[duncanp]

Everybody, that's the point, its Universal.

It's paid for in savings (both time and money) in government processes taken over by AI.

Do you think it is an effective and equitable use of taxpayers money to pay the same amount to someone who has no other source of income as to someone who is on a salary of £50,000 a year and who has £200,000 in savings?

I don't, and you can bet your bottom dollar that if such a scheme were introduced there would be complaints about wealthy people receiving money from the government for nothing.

I am also somewhat sceptical about the savings in time and money that arise from government processes taken over by AI. Has there been an objective study into how much money could be saved, and whether the savings would be sufficient to pay for UBI in the long term.

 

[Tetchytyke]

When you look at the staggering complexity of our welfare benefit system, and the number of staff and the huge bureaucracy required to manage it, I don’t see why anyone would be against UBI.

In my previous work I dealt with the poorest people. A minority undoubtedly were content to not work and remain on benefits. But when you look at the size and scope of the bureaucracy created to try and dissuade “skiving”, one questions whether it’d just be cheaper to let them crack on.

Most others wanted to work but either couldn’t- disability, family commitments, caring commitments- or, to be brutally honest, were essentially unemployable due to illiteracy, etc.

 

[Gloster]

Much as I think that some form of UBI is a good idea, I fear that it would run up against one insuperable problem: human nature. Those who do have jobs, whether or not AI has reduced the number of jobs available, will object to paying money to those who are ‘lounging around on benefits’. (And if they didn’t already, the Daily Hate Mail would quickly make sure they did.) The rich and very rich do not have a good record of unquestioningly paying their taxes, however worthwhile the destination. You would quickly have mass tax avoidance and powerful lobbying to emasculate the principle. So where does the money come from?

It's paid for in savings (both time and money) in government processes taken over by AI.

Ah, yes, a variation on the never-ending belief that it is always possible make savings in the civil service and government responsibilities.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

And this is why I think there needs to be regulation. I realise it isn't very fashionable in a free-market society, but jobs need to be preserved, by legislation controlling unethical uses of AI, including using it solely to cut the wages bill without any actual tangible benefits

If you cut the wages bill because fewer man-hours are required to make whatever you sell, that is a tangible benefit! It means you can sell your product more cheaply, which benefits your consumers - and ultimately is the driver of making just about everyone better off. The fundamental reason why just about all of us live lives that would seem unbelievably luxurious to almost anyone from the 19th century is that automation etc. has over and over again allowed companies to produce products - and new and better products - with a lower wages bill.

I'm not convinced that new jobs will "just appear", and if you're relying on people becoming entrepreneurs and dreaming up their own business idea, not everyone has the aptitude to do this. Many people just want to follow the conventional route of applying for a job, starting work and getting a steady and reliable income.

Of course not everyone wants to be an entrepreneur! And that's just as well because the people who do set up their own businesses and innovate inevitably end up wanting to take on employees. That's how things have worked with every piece of new technology that has emerged since - well, at least the middle ages. You still haven't come up with a convincing reason for why it should be any different today.

The food business isn’t competitive, though, it’s controlled by a small number of suppliers. Companies like Heinz and Unilever are making record profits, both in raw numbers and as a percentage margin. Heinz were troughing so much Tesco pulled their range. Greedflation is very much a thing.

That sounds to me like competition working and rather demonstrating my point. Without making any comment on the level of profits Heinz makes, Heinz wanted to charge a certain amount for their products. One of their customers, Tesco, in effect said, 'no, thanks, we'll get a similar product more cheaply elsewhere instead. Cue various negotiations about what price Tesco were willing to pay.

(Although there may be wider issues with supermarkets themselves being an oligopoly and so being too powerful).'

 

[najaB]

Do you think it is an effective and equitable use of taxpayers money to pay the same amount to someone who has no other source of income as to someone who is on a salary of £50,000 a year and who has £200,000 in savings?

Equitable, no. Effective, yes. The administrative costs of the current benefits system are immense - the DWP employs almost 100,000 people and running the department costs on the order of £6B annually.

It wouldn't cost anything close to that to administer UBI, since the entitlement basically boils down to "Are you a citizen/resident? Are you currently/do you intend to be alive?"

 

[DustyBin]

To those opposed to UBI, how would you feel about a minimum living standard instead? Basic housing and sufficient food to ensure nutritional needs are met so that nobody starves or goes homeless?

I don't think any reasonable person would oppose this, certainly not in principle anyway. It's really the minimum we should expect in a developed country IMO.

 

[duncanp]

I don't think any reasonable person would oppose this, certainly not in principle anyway. It's really the minimum we should expect in a developed country IMO.

A minimum living standard is perfectly reasonable.

The question is how do you provide for those who don't have this minimum standard.

 

[DustyBin]

A minimum living standard is perfectly reasonable.

The question is how do you provide for those who don't have this minimum standard.

With great difficulty when there are too many people in that category.... That's the underlying problem as I see it.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

I don't think any reasonable person would oppose this, certainly not in principle anyway. It's really the minimum we should expect in a developed country IMO.

Personally, I would modify that to say, minimum living standard PROVIDED a person demonstrates a willingness to contribute to society. And I'd probably do that by offering something like guaranteed jobs: So it would work something like, anyone can ask the Government to provide them a basic income (and perhaps you could also throw in, some basic accommodation to live in too, if the person needs it). But in return they are expected to show up at certain agreed times to do some work, from a reasonable choice of tasks that help the community, and which take account of the person's abilities: Being willing to do that is a basic condition of getting the basic income.

(Of course, if the worse fears of people who think AI will destroy all our jobs come to pass and there is almost never any work to be done, than a guaranteed job will reduce to, in return for the basic income, you merely have to make yourself available to do some work - if the Government finds any for you. But I don't really think that scenario is likely to happen).

 

[Gloster]

Personally, I would modify that to say, minimum living standard PROVIDED a person demonstrates a willingness to contribute to society. And I'd probably do that by offering something like guaranteed jobs: So it would work something like, anyone can ask the Government to provide them a basic income (and perhaps you could also throw in, some basic accommodation to live in too, if the person needs it). But in return they are expected to show up at certain agreed times to do some work, from a reasonable choice of tasks that help the community, and which take account of the person's abilities: Being willing to do that is a basic condition of getting the basic income.

(Of course, if the worse fears of people who think AI will destroy all our jobs come to pass and there is almost never any work to be done, than a guaranteed job will reduce to, in return for the basic income, you merely have to make yourself available to do some work - if the Government finds any for you. But I don't really think that scenario is likely to happen).

Interesting. This isn’t far from the comment popularised by Karl Marx (although it is older): ‘From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.’

 

[DustyBin]

Personally, I would modify that to say, minimum living standard PROVIDED a person demonstrates a willingness to contribute to society. And I'd probably do that by offering something like guaranteed jobs: So it would work something like, anyone can ask the Government to provide them a basic income (and perhaps you could also throw in, some basic accommodation to live in too, if the person needs it). But in return they are expected to show up at certain agreed times to do some work, from a reasonable choice of tasks that help the community, and which take account of the person's abilities: Being willing to do that is a basic condition of getting the basic income.

(Of course, if the worse fears of people who think AI will destroy all our jobs come to pass and there is almost never any work to be done, than a guaranteed job will reduce to, in return for the basic income, you merely have to make yourself available to do some work - if the Government finds any for you. But I don't really think that scenario is likely to happen).

I think whichever way it works, we need to remove the option of doing nothing by choice. In my previous response to @najaB I was thinking basic accommodation and some kind of voucher scheme to prevent people literally starving on the street. Perhaps if as you suggest they join some kind of government-run work scheme they could be rewarded financially, but I certainly think that there should be a programme to educate and upskill people. Too many people are consigned to the socio-economic scrapheap as soon as they leave school (arguably before!) and can't find a way back, even if they want to.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Interesting. This isn’t far from the comment popularised by Karl Marx (although it is older): ‘From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.’

Yeah I guess there are similarities. I think the main difference is that Karl Marx - as I understand it - imagined that just about everyone would be working in Government-provided jobs on the 'to each according to his needs' basis, with little need for the market or for private sector jobs: I on the other hand would envision that the guaranteed job would be a safety net, only actually taken up by a small proportion of the population - those who are unable to get (better paid) work elsewhere or who for some reason decide that they prefer the Government scheme. If more than a small proportion of the population are using the guaranteed job scheme, then I'd regard that as a huge failure of the market, and/or a sign of significant economic mismanagement by the Government.

 

[WelshBluebird]

But if someone isn't willing or interested in doing anything to play a part in their community or to work to help other people, then why on Earth should everyone else pay out of their taxes to provide that person with a living?

I'd challenge you to separate out "playing a part in their community / helping people" and "work". Someone who doesn't provide any economic benefit (via paid work) could still very much provide value to their community and to society (think things like art / music, helping out charities or places like repair cafes or youth clubs, etc etc), there's lots of activities that provide benefits to a community or to society but doesn't pay financially which people are currently massively disincentivised from pursuing.
And I'd also say that I don't agree that everyone should need to join the rat race so to speak either. I have enough belief in our human want to better ourselves such a system could easily support a number of people who want to just live a quiet simple life too.

Do you think it is an effective and equitable use of taxpayers money to pay the same amount to someone who has no other source of income as to someone who is on a salary of £50,000 a year and who has £200,000 in savings?

I don't, and you can bet your bottom dollar that if such a scheme were introduced there would be complaints about wealthy people receiving money from the government for nothing

The usual answer to this is that we use the tax system to claw that money back. Basically those who earn enough anyway pay the equivalent of it back in tax. There's an argument there of that not being "proper" UBI but you still get the benefits (saving money on the overheads of the current system and providing a base level of income so people can live whatever their situation) but you don't fall into the issue you bring up.

I think whichever way it works, we need to remove the option of doing nothing by choice.

Why exactly? Why should everyone be forced to join the rat race? We shouldn't people be free to enjoy life and they see fit? Why shouldn't people be able to pursue art, music, crafts and other hobbies? As a society we miss out on so much because people who could be exploring creative endeavors are unable to afford to do so because they have to work crappy minimum wage jobs instead (and before someone asks who would do these jobs - it is those jobs we should be trying to automate, not the creative / highly skilled work we are seeing AI being focused on). It is worth remembering before the benefit system started to get so strict many musicians and other artists (some of whom went on to become very famous) were only able to practice their art because they were on the dole and could use their time on their art instead of working.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Why exactly? Why should everyone be forced to join the rat race?

I'd hardly equate having a job as 'joining the rat race'

We shouldn't people be free to enjoy life and they see fit? Why shouldn't people be able to pursue art, music, crafts and other hobbies?

Working shouldn't stop you enjoying those things. There are 168 hours in each week. A reasonable full time job does (or should) only occupy 35-40 of those hours. Personally I've worked in a couple of high pressure jobs that demanded more hours than that AND had a 1-hour-plus commute to work. Didn't stop me from finding some time to enjoy life.

But if you mean, why shouldn't people be able to enjoy life without working, the answer is because you're only able to enjoy life thanks to the efforts of other people who do work and create the things that give us all a good life. If one person decides not to work and just 'enjoy life', consuming the things that other people have produced, that means everyone else has to work slightly harder in order to provide for everyone. Is that fair?

It is worth remembering before the benefit system started to get so strict many musicians and other artists (some of whom went on to become very famous) were only able to practice their art because they were on the dole and could use their time on their art instead of working.

What proportion of people claiming benefits became successful artists on account of that? 0.1%? 0.01%? Do we lack artists now that the benefit system is stricter? As far as I'm aware, UK culture seems to be continuing just fine.

 

[Tetchytyke]

That sounds to me like competition working and rather demonstrating my point.

Not really- Tesco had to back down. And if the largest supermarket in the country, with all its power, has to back down then that says everything about the dysfunction in the industry.

The supermarkets get the flack as they’re the public face of price rises, but the root cause goes much further up the chain.

There is very little actual competition in the food industry. What looks like competition is usually no more than market segmentation by the same company.

Heinz, to pick on them, obviously owns Heinz. But in the condiments sector it also owns HP Sauce, Lea & Perrins, Daddies, and Amoy. Arla own both Lurpak and Anchor. Ariel, Bold, Daz, and Fairy are owned by Procter and Gamble. P&G also own the shampoo brands Aussie, Head and Shoulders, Herbal Essences, Olay, and Pantene.

And it goes all the way up the chain. 90% of the world’s grain trade is controlled by just four companies.

If one person decides not to work and just 'enjoy life', consuming the things that other people have produced, that means everyone else has to work slightly harder in order to provide for everyone.

If “hard work” and income were linked you may perhaps have a point. But they’re not- they never have been and never will be. It’s probably the single most damaging myth peddled by the economic right wing that income and effort are linked, that anyone can do well if they just try hard enough.

If anything, it’s the rentier class who sit around enjoying life and consuming the fruits of others’ labours. The Duke of Westminster is rich because his ancestors inherited a lot of land in London in the 17th century. Now he just glides around in luxury based on the rental income from his land. The richest guy in the world- Bernard Arnault- inherited his wealth too.

 

[duncanp]

If UBI were introduced, how lnog would it be before employers used this as a justification for giving employees a lower pay increase?

 

[najaB]

If UBI were introduced, how lnog would it be before employers used this as a justification for giving employees a lower pay increase?

If anything, UBI should work in the employee's favour. There are a lot of people currently stuck in jobs that they hate simply because they can't afford to quit. If employers know that their staff aren't dependant on them, they're likely to make jobs more attractive to keep good staff from leaving.

 

[nw1]

Of course not everyone wants to be an entrepreneur! And that's just as well because the people who do set up their own businesses and innovate inevitably end up wanting to take on employees. That's how things have worked with every piece of new technology that has emerged since - well, at least the middle ages. You still haven't come up with a convincing reason for why it should be any different today.

I may be wrong (I hope I'm wrong) but I fear that AI is a bit different in the sense that it threatens to reduce more skilled, more intellectually-demanding jobs (the whole term "artificial intelligence" suggests something that could partly replace human intelligence). This is something which other advances in technology in recent times have not. And if you add AI and automation together, that's potentially a lot of jobs lost.

I'm most concerned for those who do not have such strong "soft skills" but might have very strong, but potentially replaceable by AI, "hard skills". I suspect the jobs that are safest are those for which real human contact is important, whereas "backroom" jobs are more threatened.

Don't get me wrong, I do see a great many genuinely beneficial uses of AI (in the sense of benefitting society as a whole, rather than just profits of large companies), and such uses should be fully supported - but if it's just replacing human workers for the sole benefit of boosting profits, to my mind it's more questionable.

Perhaps in the future if it's been shown that AI actually isn't removing too many jobs, we can become more lax. But I think we should be cautious in the short and medium term.

 

[Yew]

Personally, I would modify that to say, minimum living standard PROVIDED a person demonstrates a willingness to contribute to society. And I'd probably do that by offering something like guaranteed jobs: So it would work something like, anyone can ask the Government to provide them a basic income (and perhaps you could also throw in, some basic accommodation to live in too, if the person needs it). But in return they are expected to show up at certain agreed times to do some work, from a reasonable choice of tasks that help the community, and which take account of the person's abilities: Being willing to do that is a basic condition of getting the basic income.

I think that on the balance of probabilities that will happen naturally, I would question whether the beurracracy and enforcement you suggest would be cost effective though.

 

[nw1]

Heinz, to pick on them, obviously owns Heinz. But in the condiments sector it also owns HP Sauce, Lea & Perrins, Daddies, and Amoy.

I realise it's a bit beside the point, but don't Kraft own Heinz these days?

Arla own both Lurpak and Anchor. Ariel, Bold, Daz, and Fairy are owned by Procter and Gamble. P&G also own the shampoo brands Aussie, Head and Shoulders, Herbal Essences, Olay, and Pantene.

I first became aware of these sorts of global corporations on a school industry trip to Unilever on the Wirral. On the coach on the way up we had a video explaining who Unilever were and what brands they owned. Even way back in the 80s they seemed to own a very high proportion of household brands.

 

[Tetchytyke]

I realise it's a bit beside the point, but don't Kraft own Heinz these days?

It’s Kraft-Heinz, yep, more of a merger than a takeover.

There’s an old joke that you develop your own competition before someone else does it for you, but buying it also works. It’s the logical outcome, big fish eating the small fish.

Away from the post I’ve quoted, I’m well aware I come across as a crusty old lefty who thinks we should eat the rich, but I’m not. It’s just I don’t think the myth of entrepreneurship and competition actually exists in the real world, and I really don’t like the inequality that this myth has created. I have a decent job and my household income is comfortably in the top 10% but I’m aware enough to know I’m not so very far away from my old clients who had nothing. It certainly isn’t because I worked hard and they didn’t and I’m certainly not going to end up as rich as the Duke of Westminster if I just work a bit harder.

He’s inherited it- I’m neither jealous nor bitter about that- but I *do* resent being told he’s simply worked harder.

Excuse me, I’m off to listen to my old McCarthy records now. We are all bourgeois now…

 

[DustyBin]

Why exactly? Why should everyone be forced to join the rat race? We shouldn't people be free to enjoy life and they see fit? Why shouldn't people be able to pursue art, music, crafts and other hobbies? As a society we miss out on so much because people who could be exploring creative endeavors are unable to afford to do so because they have to work crappy minimum wage jobs instead (and before someone asks who would do these jobs - it is those jobs we should be trying to automate, not the creative / highly skilled work we are seeing AI being focused on). It is worth remembering before the benefit system started to get so strict many musicians and other artists (some of whom went on to become very famous) were only able to practice their art because they were on the dole and could use their time on their art instead of working.

To be honest I think @DynamicSpirit has covered this, but people don’t need to join the “rat race”, they simply need to earn enough money to pay for the things they enjoy.

I have a particularly expensive hobby which, as a young man free of any real responsibilities, was my main motivation to work hard and get on in life (or one could say join the rat race!). If I wanted it I had to earn it, and I don’t see why the same shouldn’t apply to everyone, regardless of the cost of pursuing a particular interest.

The other issue of course is that people earning and contributing nothing still use the NHS for example, increasing the burden on those who do contribute. Surely you can see the problem with that?

 

[najaB]

The other issue of course is that people earning and contributing nothing still use the NHS for example, increasing the burden on those who do contribute. Surely you can see the problem with that?

Anybody living purely off UBI is going to be putting most or all of it back into the economy.

 

[DustyBin]

Anybody living purely off UBI is going to be putting most or all of it back into the economy.

Which does generate some revenue, but they’d still be net beneficiaries by a considerable margin.

 

[najaB]

Which does generate some revenue, but they’d still be net beneficiaries by a considerable margin.

No doubt, but that's kind of the point of a benefits system.

The point I was making is that, overall, it is better for the economy to have money circulating rather than sitting in the bank/investment accounts of the top tier in society.

 

[ainsworth74]

The point I was making is that, overall, it is better for the economy to have money circulating rather than sitting in the bank/investment accounts of the top tier in society.

I was told that this would trickle down?

 

[Gloster]

No doubt, but that's kind of the point of a benefits system.

The point I was making is that, overall, it is better for the economy to have money circulating rather than sitting in the bank/investment accounts of the top tier in society.

Exactly, but the top tier has the money and they will decide what to do with it. They need to be encouraged to put it to the benefit of society rather than just themselves. Who decides this? They do.