When you automate production, prices go down. That's something that can be verified empirically, and hardly anybody will disagree. But when you automate the entire economy, prices should go down towards zero nearly everywhere¹ - that's because when capital freely creates capital, all restrictions on production and competition become meaningless.

When you automate the entire economy, salaries also go down toward zero. That's even part of what allows prices to go down.

So, did workers become richer or poorer on the process? It's a 0/0 situation, and the answer to that question will depend entirely on the path both curves take into 0. But UBI makes that all irrelevant by adding a minimum bound on the numerator. For the purpose of fighting the problems of automation any reasonable amount will do, it doesn't matter that it looks too low today.

But of course, there are other goals that one can reach by UBI, and none of the above apply to those ones.

1 - There are obvious exceptions, some things are truly limited, and some things are limited by the government, culture, or other such forces. The cost of those are the real limit that will say whether the UBI value is too low, not today's cost of living.

> that's because when capital freely creates capital, all restrictions on production and competition become meaningless.

Not at all. There are still plenty of limited factors in the production function. The capital itself isn’t unlimited, so you need to price in opportunity costs for using it. Much of the capital needs to support people providing services, so you’re still limited by the labor force for doing things that people prefer having humans do, like knowledge work or personal services.

And then you have to contend with the fact that resources are finite and capacity to extract them is too. We’re a very long way away from automated labor being so effective and so ubiquitous that it fully realizes all the benefits you’re talking about.

In the foreseeable future, it’ll probably be rather unpleasant as shitty robots replace competent humans, meaning the quality of services and products we get are bad but the good versions are prohibitively expensive. And the jobs making things start going away so nobody has the money income to get quality versions of things.

Do you mean that production costs (prices) go down with automation or that the selling price to consumers goes down? If you meant the latter this is wrong. The selling price depends on the pricing power that the producer has. Consider for example monopolistic pricing power, cartel pricing power, and regulatory capture.

Also, for marginal prices to approach 0, you need a true commodity.

Even if this happens for most other needs / products, housing isn't a commodity, and I expect won't ever be. It will generally be demand driven in terms of relative housing costs, and if you're of the mindset that inequality in and of itself is the problem, the lowest tier housing will never be enough, no matter how sufficient.

Which will just lead to a larger part of newly disposable income being spent on housing.

We already know people pay based on what they can afford.

On the one hand you're saying 15K/yr isn't enough to live on, and on the other you're worried it will prompt people to quit their jobs.

Unemployment isn't our major problem right now. The problem is that the jobs available for many people pay very little. Back when I made $18K/year, that extra 10-15K/mo would have been enormously helpful. I certainly wouldn't have stopped working; I would have paid down my credit cards and had an easier time training myself to write software.

I think you misunderstood... I don't think it will cause people to quit their jobs. I didn't say that in my post. I assume UBI goes hand in hand with automation straight up eliminating jobs. There are no jobs for people.

That will probably happen eventually but at that point, with UBI in place, we could increase the level to something people can live on. If, say, we get to a point where 90% of people can't find jobs, we really won't have a choice. Essentially we'll need to give the general population a share in the productivity of the robots.

In the meantime, with most people having at least low-paying jobs, we can start with something more modest.

How does it go hand-in-hand? UBI comes from the government, automation comes from businesses. No business is holding back automation waiting for UBI to be implemented.

Are you kidding? Median household income in the US is ~$60,000/yr. $10,000/yr/household would be enormous to over half the population.

That depends on where the higher taxes kick in. For a lot of people it would be getting some of your own money back, like a tax refund. This makes UBI seem both much more expensive and a much higher benefit than it actually is.

For the combination of higher taxes and UBI you need to look at how the net effects vary across the population. This isn't easy to do without understanding the taxes, and those tend not to be emphasized. (Yang's proposal has a big hole in it; the taxes aren't enough and he relies on economic growth to make up for it, which is a common dodge many politicians use for big proposals. Not that economic growth can't happen but it's not that predictable for something that hasn't been tried. You don't know when the next recession will be.)

In a zero-sum redistribution scheme intended to reduce inequality, if you're of average or high income you might not directly benefit at all, but that's no reason not to support it. You buy fire insurance for the worst case, not because you plan to make money at it in the average case. You get security from it that's not shown in the estimated average payoff.

If nobody has a job because they've all been automated away and you're just getting 10K/yr from the Government then your median income is.... 10K/yr not 60K + 10K.

His point is that given that half of the population makes less than $60k/year, $10k/year would be a 16% or more income boost for those people.

The statement was about the people who are no longer earning other income because their labor is not needed.

When people say "household" in these cases how many (adults) is it? 1? 2? More?

The consumer products and services economy (and its enablers in government) is what happens when basic production gets way more efficient and the elite needs a new way to trap the underclasses in wage slavery and keep all the profits for themselves.

It's unsustainable nonsense, and incompatible with any sort of long-term stable future. The economic battery whose poles are the first-world consumer and the third-world sweatshop worker will run down eventually, and it's long past time to start thinking about how we'll adapt when that happens.

"giving people free money" is how the macro-economy has functioned for a long time now, except the people are banks.

I fail to see the major disaster if it becomes somebody else instead.

E: to the downvoters, look up how money gets "printed" in the USA