It did not lead to any explosion of creativity, arts and science there. People are morbidly obese and spend their money on gambling, drugs and sex.
I am not very optimistic about human nature when exposed to easy life.
So it did not bring about nirvana and human nature is well human nature but did it eliminate suffering to a noticeable degree i.e homelessness, poverty, food security, healthcare?
It seems to me the two are not directly tied, people are always going to seek out the vices because they are the roots of pleasure but that does not mean that the other side of the equation is negative, if it does eliminate suffering then it would be a net positive. I am not advocating for UBI, I am completely ignorant on the subject, just trying to understand if it did produce positive results against suffering.
That said, I think that rich Gulf states show us that it can be overdone, that a completely sheltered life of plenty sucks. It sucks in a very different way than hunger or homelessness, but it gnaws on human psyche too.
If you were financially independent, what would you do or build? I know I'd never stop producing useful things.
> I know I'd never stop producing useful things.
I think few people are this driven.
This is also why governments or any form or redistribution is inferior to a perfect market without human interference: you will always have bad apples stealing resources or being as inefficient as they can be. I know this because I'm a psychopath, I feel zero guilt or empathy and the thought that someone like me could be in a position of power is downright scary.
Do you happen to have some of this evidence on hand? Everything I've read on it suggests the exact opposite: that (at least here in the US) it'll not only work better than existing welfare systems, but would end up being cheaper.
I think it's a terrible idea for (at least) three reasons: - More money is being forcefully redistributed from people that produce work to people who don't produce. This will make people lazier and less entrepreneurial. Yes, I'm against any form of taxation for the same principle and I think the terrible corporate lifecycle is caused primarily by people not being entrepreneurial enough. - Taxes will increase, pushing businesses even more outside of here. - The more money you give to bureaucrats the more they will keep for themselves, the more they will waste, the more will not go to the economy.
I think it's a bit presumptuous to declare that the people footing the bill are even most of the time (let alone all of the time) producing more work than the people receiving a net income from UBI. I would, indeed, argue the exact opposite: your average warehouse or restaurant or farm worker is almost certainly putting in significantly more labor than your average landlord or C-level executive or Bitcoin hodler while receiving a fraction of the income. This might not be the most popular opinion on a website that revolves specifically around the worship of venture-capital-backed get-rich-quick schemes, but I really have close to zero sympathy for those in the latter category; "won't you please think of the poor billionaires" is, frankly, insulting to those actually working for their money.
In any case:
> Yes, I'm against any form of taxation for the same principle
A land value tax wouldn't have this "problem"; it's arguably the one form of taxation that ain't "theft", since it's actually a service payment (i.e. you pay rent to the government that actually owns land - that is, the basis of a "fee simple" title system as used in e.g. the US and other common-law jurisdictions - in exchange for said government recognizing and enforcing your claim on that land). Even if it came from income taxes (which I'd agree would be a worst-case scenario), I've yet to see a single proposal that taxes anyone other than people who can readily afford those taxes. Taking things to an extreme, a billionaire with a 99% income tax is still overwhelmingly richer than (I suspect) the both of us combined.
But this all assumes we'd be pursuing UBI in addition to other welfare systems; I'd argue that ain't necessary. That is:
> Taxes will increase, pushing businesses even more outside of here.
There's every indication that the overall tax burden for all but the absolute wealthiest Americans would decrease substantially by replacing existing welfare programs with UBI.
> The more money you give to bureaucrats the more they will keep for themselves, the more they will waste, the more will not go to the economy.
By replacing existing welfare programs with UBI, you eliminate a considerable amount of that bureaucracy. Most of that bureaucracy revolves specifically around determining eligibility; if literally every US citizen is unconditionally eligible for a fixed income, we can immediately replace those bureaucrats with a pretty simple system:
def redistribute_tax_as_ubi(amount):
for c in citizens:
c.send_check(amount / citizens.count)
As an added bonus:
> I think the terrible corporate lifecycle is caused primarily by people not being entrepreneurial enough
UBI would directly enable all Americans to pursue entrepreneurial ventures without putting themselves in danger of starvation. People would be more entrepreneurial than ever when they know that even if their startups flop (because let's face it: the vast majority of startups crash and burn) they still have food on the table and roofs (rooves?) over their heads.
> on poor billionaires
I'm not talking about poor billionaires, they pay (almost) zero taxes through loopholes that their friends in the government allow to exist. I'm talking about middle class who can't setup a foreign entity to pay zero taxes. The problem with taxation (and progressive taxation in particular) is that it applies only to people who are too poor to meddle with the government.
I think middle class people are probably creating more value for society than poor people, which is way they're rewarded with more money.
> on land value tax
I would consider a land tax immoral as well, why is the land owned by the government? We're talking about a group of people who got everyone to agree they decide for everyone and they decide everyone needs to pay some money or they'll end up in jail.
> UBI would reduce burden for all but wealthiest
Does that account for wealthy people structuring their wealth in a different matter to avoid that? When progressive income tax in the 60-70s reached 90% (for high tax rate payers), rich people just started getting loopholes added to the law to exempt specific cases.
> UBI would reduce bureaucracy
That sounds like an improvement Given how much the government managed to grow in the last 2 centuries, I'm not very optimistic on this being the case for a long time.
> UBI would make people more entrepreneurial
Something I personally found in my entrepreneurial journey, is that living on passive money (MRR in my case, but a passive business nonetheless) doesn't affect positively my willingness to do much. When I was a broke engineer counting how much proteins I could buy and living in a basement after having spent all my money on a startup that failed, I definitely had a different grit.
I think need is a powerful motivator, but I don't really have a cross population study on the subject.
No problem :) Geolibertarianism is something I've become pretty passionate about over the last couple years.
> I'm not talking about poor billionaires, they pay (almost) zero taxes through loopholes that their friends in the government allow to exist. [...] Does that account for wealthy people structuring their wealth in a different matter to avoid that?
Well that's the great thing about LVT: you can't exactly move land overseas, so there's no room for loopholes there. If you hold land, you pay tax on its value; if you don't, you don't.
Wealthy people could certainly end up getting rid of their land holdings (particularly vacant or otherwise-unused ones), and I'd argue that's a good thing, since it opens up that land for use by others (provided they're willing to pay LVT on it), thus better achieving equality of opportunity than the current system. LVT, in other words, would promote land ownership as a means to an end rather than as an investment in and of itself, thus discouraging the sorts of speculation that promote NIMBYism and housing crises and all that jazz.
That is, indeed, the crux of why those billionaires are unjust in their holding of wealth: it's specifically around their ability to hoard finite resources - like land - without justly compensating the other members of society prevented from having that same opportunity to claim those resources.
> I think middle class people are probably creating more value for society than poor people, which is way they're rewarded with more money.
I disagree, at least in a general sense. There are certainly people in both groups creating a lot of value for society; the difference is usually whether they're adequately compensated for that value. This is a big reason why corporations tend to be hostile to unionization: because workers have an easier time negotiating for fair wages and treatment as a group than as an individual, especially when they work for large corporations.
And likewise, there are certainly people in both groups who don't create much value at all. One nice thing about UBI is that it makes it a lot easier to tell the difference between those who are just lazy and those who are victims of circumstance. That is: it maximizes equality of opportunity, and better ensures that the people who deserve to move from the lower to middle class actually get to do so.
> I would consider a land tax immoral as well, why is the land owned by the government?
Because it's within the territory of that government. All land "ownership" derives from a government granting someone a title to that land, be it indefinite (e.g. with a "fee simple" title) or limited-duration (e.g. the 99-year leases some countries use). This is, indeed, exactly why things like eminent domain are legally permissible in the US and other nations: land is really owned by the state, and leased to landholders.
That is: unless you have an allodial title (hint: if your land is in the US, you almost certainly don't), your land is already de jure leased to you by a superior landlord (that is: the state), and the recognition and enforcement of your claim to that land is a service provided to you by that government. Without that service, "land ownership" would be limited to what you can physically defend against trespass yourself (since land titles would be worthless pieces of paper without some authority backing them - much like paper currency, come to think of it).
> and they decide everyone needs to pay some money or they'll end up in jail.
Who said anything about jail? If you stop paying rent on something you're leasing, you don't go to jail (at least not for that reason); you simply lose access to that thing being leased. Land would be no different: a land value tax is simply the fair rent to lease that land ("fair" due to it being a tax on the land's value).
And indeed, the goal of Georgism and derived philosophies (like geolibertarianism) is to ensure that a land value tax is a "single tax" - i.e. the tax anyone ever pays, replacing taxes on sales, income, capital gains, payroll, inheritance, you name it. Therefore, the only possible punishment for tax evasion in a Georgist single-tax system would be eviction.
(Sometimes Pigovian and severance taxes (i.e. taxes on pollution and natural resource extraction, respectively) get thrown in by Georgist/geolibertarians, too; I'd argue pollution should be a criminal or civil court matter (i.e. treating it as reckless endangerment and property damage, and fining/suing accordingly) rather than a taxation matter, and that natural resources are an extension of land and thus would be included in LVT)
> I think need is a powerful motivator
That's definitely a fair assessment, and I agree with it. However, that raises a question: if the only reason you're doing something is because the alternative is to starve or freeze to death, are you really doing that thing voluntarily? This question is what underlies the socialist concept of "wage slavery", and socialists' perception of capitalism as inherently reliant on coercion (namely: by threatening risk of starvation or homelessness unless you submit to a corporation's terms, regardless of whether or not those terms are actually in your best interests). Seems to me the best way to address that concern (without abolishing capitalism entirely) is to make sure nobody has to do things just to survive.
That is: the only just motivator, in my opinion, is one's own happiness - which is consistent with the pursuit thereof being one of the three inalienable rights specified in the very rationale for this country's existence. People should do things because they actually want to do them - either because they enjoy doing that thing or because they're (fairly) compensated for it and using it as a means to achieve things they want.
And that's the other thing, too: since UBI would provide an option besides "work myself to death", you'd see interesting dynamics on wages. On one hand, jobs that few people want to do would command higher wages (or other benefits) to make it worth folks' while to take on those jobs. On the other hand, workers would be more willing to work for low or nonexistent wages (e.g. as volunteers) if the work itself is interesting. The free software movement, as one example relevant to this post, would flourish; so would the arts, education, and numerous other fields where people would be participating if it weren't for such activities not exactly paying the rent.
I think capitalism is fine and we need more of it. We need to get rid of governments and minimise centralisation of power instead. I don't want any more wars, jailing of people committing victimless crimes or people being forced to give up half of their economic output to bureaucrats.
Every service offered by the government should be offered by multiple private companies. People in need should get money through voluntary donations, not through taxes forcefully stolen from people.