A UBI that is economically viable, even internally in a developed country, in the near term would struggle to replace more than some subset of existing poverty support programs with something with less perverse incentives (particularly, by reducing the disincentive to additional income -- and the incentive for any additional income to be "off the books" income -- for those on the poverty support programs.)
We're a long way from anything like being able to support a "comfortable middle class life" (even if by that, you actually mean something like a middle income lifestyle in a typical developed nation, which is more working class than middle class.)
> In developing economies in general you often have a lot of people who have just gotten out of absolute poverty -- in a few generations their descendants may think differently, but they are often grateful enough that they can feed themselves and advancement beyond that is a pretty distant concern.
Even in developed nations, it will be a few generations before a UBI that can supply "a comfortably middle class life" would be viable.
Awesome to know that. We have same thing in Poland. Not sure if there's any proverb or a saying. There was a joke that in hell you don't need to watch a boiling tar cauldron full of Poles. If any of them tries to get away others will hold him down.
I guess that's a human thing then. Funny that USA doesn't have that.
The only idea I can think of that expresses same sentiment in USA culture is keying someone's car. Not exploitation. Just general malice with only being better of as the reason for it.
Nowadays, "comfortable middle class lifestyle" means a 40 hour work week, and gets you a nice 4+ bedroom house with hot and cold running water, two indoor toilets, heating and air conditioning, 2+ motor vehicles, bigass television, internet, mobile phone, nice clothes, as much food as you can eat, and spare money and leisure to go on regular holidays. "Poverty" (for most of the world) is about on par with "middle class" 300 years ago. Working lots of hours, usually enough to eat, usually warm enough.
In a hundred years, "poverty" will probably mean "only has enough compute power allocated to simulate one virtual environment at a time", whereas "comfortable middle class" will be having your own actual cloud palace with stadium-sized holodeck.
I don't think the UBI would provide all of that; instead it would be a means to avoid destitution (e.g. starvation, homelessness, unmet medical needs etc.) in the present. For all the luxuries that most of the middle-class hopes to achieve (luxury car, nice house, investments, vacations abroad etc) you would need more money than UBI.
Australians talk about the "tall poppy syndrome" -- that there is an Australian cultural tendency to cut down anyone who has been very successful.
In developing economies in general you often have a lot of people who have just gotten out of absolute poverty -- in a few generations their descendants may think differently, but they are often grateful enough that they can feed themselves and advancement beyond that is a pretty distant concern.
Then there is the Japanese proverb that "the nail which sticks out will be hammered down" -- the meaning is nuanced but is meant to convey that envy is an outcome of success and caution people against being ambitious or nonconformist.
These are all reasons why UBI might encourage some people not to work. And while these lines of thinking may be stronger in certain cultures than others, inevitably there will be some people thinking like this in any culture. Those people probably just won't work.