Private money being wasted due to inefficiencies at the office (as you say, a misallocation) is surely entirely different than a government-granted right to not produce anything yet still be supported.
There's basically no way you can start a new state if you'd want to opt out of the existing ones, and even moving from one to another is quite the undertaking. Imagine Atlassian saying "sure, you're free to stop working with and paying us, but we believe that we've been instrumental in building your company, and we believe that entitles us to 20% of your company if you want to work with someone else".
But even if it actually was millions of completely unproductive jobs, I fail to see how that would be an argument for adding a few dozen millions more and not a reason to get rid of the ones that exist and cost us money that we could otherwise invest into important things that are currently underfunded.
I wasn't making the argument that every government job is useless, I was simply reminding that it's not true that unproductive private jobs can be weeded out simply with competition or customer care.
Why?
If you are in the camp that think companies sole purpose is shareholder profit then this is perverse.
If you are not in that camp you can probably agree that we should aspire to the best life for most people.
(As a European this comment really dissonates. I do realise that it does not for Americans)
As a European, odds are that you're used to a monoethnic country where "most people", "society", and "government" are kind of interchangeable, and people find it easier to sacrifice themselves for the greater good -- as you say, aspire to the best life for most people, even if it might mean that the decisions being made are not optimal for one's own circumstances.
I myself hail from such a country (though outside of Europe), and you are right that the American viewpoint, or that of any other large, multiethnic country, is quite different. Implementing policies that require taxpayers to support others that are culturally different and therefore harder to empathize with is an order of magnitude more difficult; and it is becoming yet more difficult in America as time goes by, due to the reduced emphasis in assimilating to the mainstream ("white") culture.
go buy treasury bonds, they pay almost 5 percent. ibonds pay more. why? they just do. and companies and rich people buy them all the time.
... sidenote; I personally think that something completely inefficient "is not that bad". Much worse is work that is directly detrimental for society as a whole, even if it does make a few people rich. Now that is terrible.
They then buy food, housing, medical, transportation, fuel, entertainment, (optionally) raise kids, by things kids want, take vacations, have hobbies
They're still most likely a net positive to the economy.
The important thing is that people are prevented from enjoying themselves for at least eight hours a day.
True UBI would create the largest useless indolent consumption class the world has ever seen.
The wealth and culture gap would become nearly insurmountable for anyone otherwise capable of upward mobility out of the UBI class.
UBI is a yearly recurring expense in the trillions.
Lots of people would work less, (remember COVID?) lowering tax revenue.
This means higher demand for workers, who will require even higher pay because of supply constraints and high taxes.
Unlocked demand, decreased labor supply and higher taxes means inflation. Lots of inflation, specially in services.
Businesses will offshore or automate to try and reduce cost, but that will push even more workers onto UBI.
What will the new equilibrium be? Nobody knows. It could stabilize with extreme income inequality creating a permanent underclass, It could drive the United States into hyperinflation, creating civil unrest and destabilizing world security. Nobody knows. It would be a society wide experiment that would be politically impossible to undo democratically.
If you think BS jobs are bad, how about no jobs in a bankrupt United States, sliding into Venezuelan hyper inflation?
Imagine China, Russia, and North Korea undeterred and the death and human suffering that would follow.
The US may not be perfect, but the world is a harsh harsh place and people have no idea how good they have it right here, right now.
So good that professionals not only demand high pay from their employers, but think it's totally reasonable to require "meaning" as well.
Were he still alive, I would pay good money to see the author try and read his essay out loud to Victor Frankel.
We can't possibly re-allocate the trillions of dollars the federal government spends, or the more trillions the collective states spend, because it would lead inevitably to mass die-offs comparable to soviet-era famine conditions.
Existing UBI programs don't directionally move that way? Pandemic productivity actually rose, despite a couple of quarters of setbacks? The actual evidence doesn't support gloom and doom? Just make the claims of potential harm bigger! Nobody can counter hyperinflation, civil unrest, or world war!
Covid did not create Universal Basic Income. Everyone knew that Covid money will run out, so most people didn't quit their jobs (although still many did, which was GP's point). Also, the amount of debt raised during covid was no joke, and we don't know the long term effects. But even disregarding that last point Covid isn't a useful datapoint for disproving GP's claim. The fundamental issue is with UBI is people will not want to work and that is GP's central claim.
If Covid isn't a useful datapoint for disproving GP's hysterical claims, then it definitely isn't a useful datapoint for supporting them.
The number of people who quit their jobs to depend on "Covid money" rounds down to zero. There just wasn't enough "Covid money" for that. Many people were unemployed during the early days of the pandemic, but not voluntarily.
Your "fundamental issue" lacks evidence and the counter-evidence from limited trials of UBI points the other way. But carry on. Civil unrest and a world war await.
Obviously, becasue the cause is unemployment, not whether it is voluntary or not.
>but me using voluntary employment numbers to demonstrate the falsity of the original claim did?
Yes, because it is a logical error, as I explained above.
>Your "fundamental issue" lacks evidence
The evidence is that most people don't like working. I've never met anyone who went to work on a day off; I've seen countless people to get out of it.
>counter-evidence from limited trials of UBI points the other way.
They are as you say: limited. We would only see the effects after UBI becomes "a thing" that allows people to slack off, not a trial. And then children won't take eduaction seriously as there is no more carrot.
> And then children won't take eduaction seriously as there is no more carrot.
From the misspelling of education to the apparent breathlessness with which this prognostication is offered up as a fait accompli, it's perfection itself!
We live in a world in which for some strange reason people try to educate children and work at jobs making more than subsistence wage, and even try to get raises and promotions, and even when they get a job making six times the average, they keep working and advancing, but no, if UBI is enacted, civil unrest and world war will be the least of our problems. CHILDREN WILL CEASE TO LEARN!
Hahahahahahahaha! Okay, NOW carry on.
[0]https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2022/05/who-is-receiv...
Amen.
A slightly different version of the arguments you write here could have been made against pensions or a 40h work week when they were introduced. I'm not saying UBI would not massively change society and potentially include risks, I am just questioning your certainty that implementing it would lead to disaster.
Oh, and it's Viktor Frankl by the way.
But I agree that with UBI people who have actually important jobs might also quit, or demand higher salaries.
Some would say that sounds fair and sensible compared to the current status quo.
About software development specifically: Note how many of the most valuable software projects have grown not from profit driven corporations, but from open source maintainers working in their spare time.
I'm not saying that nationwide UBI would be a good thing but your logic isn't clear.
That should would be a frightening and radical departure from today.
They dislike UBI because either
a) It's financially impossible. Assuming the basic income is "enough to live a basic life", say £1500/month in the UK, that is totally impossible.
b) They don't like the idea of people getting free money and not having to work when they do work. I mean you see that already with benefits/welfare, but UBI makes it more extreme.
Although obviously with UBI the people paying lots of taxes have the option of stopping work and moving somewhere cheap. Which is what a huge number of people would do, and the whole system would collapse.
But yeah, nobody is against a magical utopia where nobody has to work. They just know it can't exist.
Absolutely. I've worked in multiple different companies, of different sizes, since about 2011 with breaks in between. One common theme was the amount of pointless work going on, stuff that could've been streamlined or automated, or manual reports that no-one reads or acts upon.
One of the mistaken beliefs underlying the UBI argument is that the fulfillment part will come automatically for most people. Who wouldn’t want to spend every day painting, writing, or playing music? The problem is that most people who are not ideologically self-motivated are unable to find sources of fulfillment without some sort of economic influence.
this is why i think its kind of funny that people object to the idea of Universal Basic Income, when it's already being experienced in so many aimless offices. I do think this is a gross misallocation of resources, but insofar as moral judgment goes it's not obviously less moral than many other inequities in society.