Re:Universal basic income: A nonprofit is about to test it i...
by wpietri on Friday April 15, 2016 @10:35AM
(#11504616)
> A more realistic test would be to take those 6,000 Kenyans, tax them in some way (e.g. take 2x from 3,000 people), then distribute the money equally.
Not at all. The theory of UBI is that in the West we're wealthy enough that we produce way more than we need. Ergo, we can afford to give everybody the basics. Doing the same experiment in a much poorer context would produce a very different outcome.
As an aside, I think your theory of ownership is throwing your intuitions off. You seem to think of all resources as being owned entirely by some set of current individuals. That's certainly the default model in the US, but that's not the only way to look at it.
Much of the wealth in the US was created by previous generations or in large part derived from that inheritance. Instead of capriciously assigning that to current individuals based on blood ties and other luck, you can also look at that as being a joint inheritance. Thus, something like the UBI can be viewed not as taking from individual A to give to individual B, but to use our joint inheritance to make sure everybody has the minimum necessities of survival.
I hasten to add that I don't see either of these models as "right". Fitting the complexities of a modern economy into a primate's model of territoriality will never work all that well. But there's historical precedent in things like the Spanish ejido, the Aztec calpulli, and English commons.
Not at all. The theory of UBI is that in the West we're wealthy enough that we produce way more than we need. Ergo, we can afford to give everybody the basics. Doing the same experiment in a much poorer context would produce a very different outcome.
As an aside, I think your theory of ownership is throwing your intuitions off. You seem to think of all resources as being owned entirely by some set of current individuals. That's certainly the default model in the US, but that's not the only way to look at it.
Much of the wealth in the US was created by previous generations or in large part derived from that inheritance. Instead of capriciously assigning that to current individuals based on blood ties and other luck, you can also look at that as being a joint inheritance. Thus, something like the UBI can be viewed not as taking from individual A to give to individual B, but to use our joint inheritance to make sure everybody has the minimum necessities of survival.
I hasten to add that I don't see either of these models as "right". Fitting the complexities of a modern economy into a primate's model of territoriality will never work all that well. But there's historical precedent in things like the Spanish ejido, the Aztec calpulli, and English commons.