The real thing UBI must be paired with is a Land Value Tax. This helps prevent landlords from extracting the wealth, since their land-based monopoly won't give them profits; it gets recycled back into state programs (like UBI).

Most places do have property taxes. Many of them are significant.

Some of the UBI proposals are extremely expensive. It’s not as simple as extracting wealth from a tiny fraction of wealthy people. The only way to make UBI work will require increasing taxes all the way down to middle class tax brackets.

A middle class person might receive $10,000 of UBI, but see their taxes go up $11,000. Meanwhile a broke college student would receive the $10K UBI with $0 tax increase (or maybe a decrease in taxes)

I believe they mean Land Value Tax [0] in the Geoism/Georgism [1] sense, not in the traditional property tax sense; the main difference being that a land value tax does not take into account improvements to the property (e.g. buildings, parks, or any other development).

Personally, I would be in favor of UBI, even as someone who would see a net loss on it after taxes, since it would mean that if I ever lose my job (or choose to quit), I will still have the UBI to support myself with while I look for a new one, making it a less stressful event.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_value_tax [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism

Modern property taxes are a superset of pure Land Value Tax schemes.

In most jurisdictions, land and improvements are appraised separately and can be taxed at separate rates. Moving to a pure Georgism-style LVT would simply remove the taxation on the improvements.

> Personally, I would be in favor of UBI, even as someone who would see a net loss on it after taxes, since it would mean that if I ever lose my job (or choose to quit), I will still have the UBI to support myself with while I look for a new one, making it a less stressful event.

UBI isn't really targeted at someone like you. If you were laid off, you'd collect regular unemployment benefits. Many UBI proposals do away with unemployment benefits and replace them with UBI. If UBI was instituted at poverty level (about $1000/month) it would actually be less than the unemployment benefits in many locations.

However, that increased tax rate would also reduce your personal savings rate, meaning you'd have a reduced opportunity to build a personal savings buffer. If you're an engineer making engineer wages, you're definitely not coming out ahead under a UBI scheme. You are the source of the UBI money, not the recipient.

UBI isn't really meant to cover for things like people voluntarily quitting their jobs. It's meant to stop people from starving and going homeless in the event that they're unable to work.

UBI is vastly more expensive than many people estimate. To simply pay poverty-level UBI to the 330 million people in the United States, we'd need to spend $4.2 Trillion annually. That's about equivalent to the entire 2020 federal budget. In other words, just to keep UBI at poverty levels, we'd have to double the federal taxation across the board. Paying 200% of poverty levels would require tripling taxation.

We're not going to get there by simple Land Value Taxes.

LVT isn't sufficient to fund UBI, it's necessary to make sure UBI doesn't have additional distortionary effects. Property taxes are really not a good comparison for LVT, since they tax property improvements too much and the land itself too little. Calibration is important.

> A middle class person might receive $10,000 of UBI, but see their taxes go up $11,000. Meanwhile a broke college student would receive the $10K UBI with $0 tax increase (or maybe a decrease in taxes)

Is that a problem?

>... Think about how much time is wasted in middle management, working on ad tech, marketing...

While I agree about the prevalence of “bullshit jobs” in general, who are you to decide what jobs are “productive?” I wouldn’t trust any central authority to determine that, but rather the decentralized mechanisms that already exist in private enterprise / markets to determine that.

> While I agree about the prevalence of “bullshit jobs” in general, who are you to decide what jobs are “productive?”

I don't think OP stated which jobs are important or unimportant. There is some interesting research regarding this issue. I'm paid 6 figures, and the case for my job wouldn't stand up to a lot of scrutiny. There is an entire team of me.

No central authority has to decide which job is bullshit. I don't think people like doing these bullshit jobs, they do them to survive. Give people UBI and they'll simply quit their telemarketing, soulless middle management, ad tech job...

Some of those people will play video games all day, some will create new tech, some will create art... and as you say, no one is in a position to judge which of those are "productive". It's just important to free people from the need to enrich others just to survive.

> It's just important to free people from the need to enrich others just to survive.

Before I criticize, in full disclosure: I support UBI experiments. I have my concerns, but until we have data they’re just theory.

That out of the way: I don’t think it’s wildly out of line to assume a social contract that you need to provide some value to society to get access to resources (food / shelter / etc.) created by others. If I’m making food from a farm, you can’t just get food from me by existing, you need to offer something of value: working on my farm (services,) or exchanging goods I want to use, like better equipment. Or you give me money so that I can access those other two things.

And at the end of the day, we still need janitors, waste management, customer support callers, etc etc - jobs people hate, but must be done. And they will continue to be done regardless of UBI.

I don't agree that a social contract that requires that you provide value before you receive the bare necessities, is a good one. I think humanity as a whole benefits when everyone is alleviated of the need to worry about basic survival. We've reached the stage in our technological evolution where this is starting to be possible.

Also, I'm not advocating for the complete erasure of private jobs and enterprise. Just that base level needs be met for all. You're free to take a customer support job if you want more money or it's your passion.

> I think humanity as a whole benefits when everyone is alleviated of the need to worry about basic survival.

Why do you think this? I really have no clue how it will turn out. However thinking logically about it I think a great many good things are done every day BECAUSE of the need for survival in one sense or another.

Not many good things are done in the name of survival. In fact being on the edge of survival is much more likely to drive you to crime through desperation. Take care of these needs on the other hand and people start spending time on things they care about.

Open source is a great example of this, if software engineers were struggling to put a roof over their heads and food on the table do you think we'd have the level of open source ecosystem we have today? The very fact we're both paid enough and have enough free time to contribute to that work has had produced great benefits for society. The goal of UBI is simply to extend that same freedom to everyone.

Not everyone will contribute back, but we'd free up a lot of people to create art, businesses, software etc. that would otherwise have been behind a fast food counter or stuck in an office.

I don't think most people would ever get as far as being able to create anything worthwhile without a job forcing them to work. It's easy to see in young people who haven't found the right job. They waste their lives plating video games or netflixing all day. Without to pressure to do anything no open source developer will be born out of this. No artist will emerge. They will Just stay in their comfy situation.

I've seen it dozen of times in my social circle and even with myself. A job provides perspective and can show you that you are truly worth something before you even believe it yourself. I'm quite certain that I and many of my peers would still play CS and whatever the current MMO is all day if I was never forced to get a job.

> A job provides perspective and can show you that you are truly worth something before you even believe it yourself.

People feeling worthless for not having a job is entirely down to society telling them that they're worthless if they don't have a job. This is exacerbated by the fact that not having having a job currently adds a great deal of stress by putting you in a position where you're highly likely to lose food and shelter.

> I don't think most people would ever get as far as being able to create anything worthwhile without a job forcing them to work. It's easy to see in young people who haven't found the right job. They waste their lives plating video games or netflixing all day. Without to pressure to do anything no open source developer will be born out of this. No artist will emerge. They will Just stay in their comfy situation.

I think you're vastly underestimating how creative most people can be and I find the fact that you believe the only path to self worth is by selling your labour to someone else very sad. There are plenty of people with ambition to create out there that are instead busy flipping burgers. The current work oriented approach does a really good job of suppressing the expression of that creativity, but it still doesn't manage to get rid of it. There are millions of artists, musicians, and hobbyists churning out bland corporate shite instead of the work they'd rather be doing and we'd be better off if they were free to pursue that instead.

Of course not everyone would immediately go out and start contributing new things, but I don't see how you can imply it wouldn't lead to a great number of more people doing so.

Human history would disagree with you. We've had art as long as people have been able to create it.

There's nothing wrong with playing MMOs all day if that's what you want to do. In fact, you'd be providing social currency for the developer who created it, motivating them to create more art.

Also, don't forget that most people will still want to attract a mate, which is more of a positive motivation that trying not to starve to death.

And for as long as we had human history we had to work to survive. Also I'm not saying there would be no art. I'm saying the quantity of people doing art would sharply decrease.

There is nothing wrong with playing video games all day. Except that in general it doesn't truly make people happy. I would say its a local maximum.

Attracting a mate is allready too hard for many people right now. Going jobless and ensuring a lot of people will never find a reason to belong will probably that issue only worse.

I disagree that the majority of jobs give people happiness or a reason to live. Like you say, it's been a necessity for all of human history to work. Only now it's not, which is why so much work is meaningless.

Alleviating the threat of death due to unemployment is going to be a positive for most people.

You don't need UBI for "Alleviating the threat of death due to unemployment". You can have welfare systems that encourage you do get a job and only pay the minimum for you to live. These systems allready exists in some countries.

That's not what UBI is about.

It’s definitely part of what it’s about. No one should have to struggle to survive or work an exploitative job.

I think that’s where we’re at as a species. We should be able to provide baseline survival to all.

// I don't agree that a social contract that requires that you provide value before you receive the bare necessities, is a good one.

Ok let's think this through. I deserve potatoes but I hate my job picking potatoes so I quit. And so does everyone around me.

Where do we get the free potatoes we are entitled to?

You get them from the same farm, picked by your replacement or the robot automation that's inevitable.

Short of the robot replacement, you are saying someone else has to do the dirty work I don't want to do but I should still get their produce.

The question is what happens when they don't want to work either - from where do we get potatoes?

Yes, everyone should get produce. We have the resources to make that happen.

Automation is inevitable, hence why UBI is necessary. UBI also doesn't mean that people can't get paid for work. It just means they don't die if they don't have a job.

I can't tell if you are intentionally or unintentionally obtuse.

Today before we have potato robots. If I don't want to pick potatoes and neither does anyone else, from where do we get potatoes?

I suspect you can't answer this because the answer is we both starve to death.

I don't agree with your premise that no one wants to pick potatoes. Just because you can survive without a job, it doesn't mean people won't want more money and use the skills they have available to earn it (even if that's just physical labor).

Again that's temporary though as automation will happen, which you seem to not believe? It doesn't seem like rocket science to pick a potato. Self-driving cars seem like a much more difficult challenge.

//Just because you can survive without a job, it doesn't mean people won't want more money and use the skills they have available to earn it

Oh I see.

I can get $X without working and that should suffice to buy potatoes.

You are willing to pick potatoes but you need to get paid more than $X now (cuz you can get that free.) You'll pick potatoes for $2X.

Now potatoes cost $2X. I can't afford them with my $X UBI. Now what?

If I want extra money I’ll do it for 1X not 2X. Not sure why you think it would be twice as much. When automation took that job, I’d find something else.

Providing potatoes to people is some real low hanging fruit. In fact it seems like a great thing to pair with UBI.

I can't tell if this is a masterful troll or not. Let's not get hung up on the 2X factor, it's just shorthand for "More than X" (though to be honest I'd expect you to hang with that by the time you're proposing new economic theory)

So let's go back.

Today:

We both pick potatoes. A day's worth of potatoes costs $X UBI pays $X I decide, fuck work - I'll eat free potatoes.

Tomorrow: You say - I can get $X for free, so I need "more than $X" to keep picking potatoes. Now potatoes cost "more than $X" because of labor cost. You can't buy potatoes with your $X UBI.

>> "potatoes .. is some real low hanging fruit."

At least that much we can agree on.

If you go back to my original comment you'll see that I don't propose paying for food with UBI, it should also be supplied.

> I can get $X for free, so I need "more than $X" to keep picking potatoes. Now potatoes cost "more than $X" because of labor cost. You can't buy potatoes with your $X UBI.

Why do you need more than $X to do the same job? Anything you get paid with be on top of UBI. People picking potatoes today are hardly living the life of luxury, pay their basic needs and they'll most likely just keep doing their same job and spending that extra money on stuff one level above survival.

>... I don't propose paying for food with UBI, it should also be supplied.

This is the frustrating circular logic here...someone HAS to pick the potatoes! They don’t just show up magically, and you can’t just extrapolate and say that robots will handle all production of basic resources for an entire massive populace.

Normally, socialist economies get around this problem by some combination of slavery, extremely high taxation, forced labor (I.e. not enough farmers - so I’m going to force you to farm regardless of your desired occupation) and/or starvation. Clearly none of those are ideal.

> Normally, socialist economies get around this problem by some combination of slavery, extremely high taxation,forced labor (I.e. not enough farmers - so I’m going to force you to farm regardless of your desired occupation) and/or starvation.

What happens to you today if you don't farm? Starvation and/or homelessness.

I'm not suggesting socialism (as a first step). Like I said, people who are currently doing these jobs, will most likely continue to do them. It's just an upgraded base level of living for all and no one has to starve.

Bullshit jobs and unpleasant jobs aren't the same.

>I don't think people like doing these bullshit jobs, they do them to survive. Give people UBI and they'll simply quit their telemarketing, soulless middle management, ad tech job

I think you're forgetting half the equation...with the possible exception of telemarketing, those jobs go quite a bit beyond mere survival in terms of pay.

People will still take those kinds of jobs because the value they get from pay. And that's fine.

People value their free time and that's fine too. But I think it's not realistic to think that people in general value their free time so much that if they have enough for survival that they wouldn't take jobs that exchange hard currency for that time.

What some combination of UBI/Basic Needs welfare will do, though, is prevent survival from weighing down that choice so people will demand more hard currency than they actually value that time without the infinite value sink of avoiding pain or death.

I know plenty of well off people that don't have to worry too much about affording to survive who spend a lot of time working hard and it's perfectly rational considering that they consider themselves better off with the trade.

I agree with you, sorry I didn't state that clearly. I think private enterprise will continue to exist and people will willingly take jobs to make more money, accomplish something with others... the thing is with UBI, they won't have to, like you say.

And some of them will be re-hired in the same fields but to do those jobs that are not bullshit because of course some middle management jobs, advertising, etc., are useful.

It might also allow people to take jobs that are currently not done because they have low status or are simply regarded as uninteresting by employers.

I can easily imagine someone being willing to be a street cleaner if they had enough leverage to ensure that it was not a grindingly horrible job.

>Some of those people will play video games all day, some will create new tech, some will create art... and as you say, no one is in a position to judge which of those are "productive". It's just important to free people from the need to enrich others just to survive.

I'm really not interested in funding this personally. And if I received UBI I would definitely play video games all day.

Many bullshit jobs pay more and have better working conditions than many non bullshit jobs. Don't assume UBI would mean fewer people working in ad tech.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion. They didn't say anything about banning specific jobs.

Good point indeed. Healthcare related expenses can derail one’s finances regardless of income level. How to finance both will be difficult for most countries but it is worth to experiment around the concept and fine tune over time.

What exactly then is the point of humanity? To sit around and consume bread and circuses?

Isn't this immensely dysgenic, where the productive members of society labour all day to produce goods and services for the unproductive, who will use their ample spare time to reproduce and vote for an expansion of UBI?

What need is there to even behave decently and civilly, when all of your needs and income are taken care of by the State? Why study or work hard as a child when your future (I will be a UBI recipient, as is my father, as was my father before him) is already established?

If we wish to help the working classes of the West, then we need simply eliminate all unskilled immigration and refugee programs. Demand for workers will rise and pressure on infrastructure, Government services, agriculture and housing will decrease - boosting quality of life without UBI.

The other major factor of poverty is of women having children out of wedlock. We should stop incentivizing single-motherhood, and offer universal access to family planning including further development of vasalgel.

There are plenty of financial motivations to labor other than the threat of shame, lack of healthcare, homelessness & starvation.

There are even plenty of non-financial motivations to labor!

Why not just stop all immigration and tighten and enforce anti corruption laws and close loop holes that allow the 1% and multinational corporations to cheat the system.

Immigration is a big part of the growth economic Ponzi scheme. It's not sustainable and it has been horrible for the environment. It also keeps business running profitably.

We have a growing homeless problem. We have racial ghettos. We have Indian reservation. We have an entire manufacturing belt that has been gutted. We have a growing problem of deaths of despair, including suicide and drug addiction. Instead of casually replacing these people with immigrants and allowing the wealthiest 1% to pay little to no taxes and allow companies like Apple and probably all the big tech companies to play offshore tax games, why not help America keep jobs here and increase the pay for those jobs?

This whole growth economics and emotionally manipulating people into accepting immigrants "to do the jobs Americans don't want to do" is one of the most horrific lies I have become aware of. There is no job an American won't do at the right (fair) price. The economy will not crumble if business has no choice but to take less profits and pay better wages.

Nothing will change until the incentive structure changes. I don't see anyone talking much about these things. I see monied interests pushing mass propaganda in order to ultimately keep wages low and keep income gains from increases in productivity going to the top.

Not everyone should or can program. I would rather live in a world where my COL increases if that means that the people around me, city workers, grocery baggers, etc. are payed better. I'm not even sure my COL would increase. I think through above mentioned changes to incentive structures money can be redirected in a more egalitarian way with very little downside.