That's not quite how prices work. There is always a demand for labor. If the price of labor fell low enough there would be plenty of jobs. Though no one would want to work at those wages, it's even illegal to do so. The point is just that the price will never really fall to zero, even if it gets low.
>If everybody stops working, the price of services skyrockets. But the problem (soaring cost of services) and the solution (soaring reward for labor) are one and the same. This is how the free market is supposed to work. In fact, I'd go so far to say that BI presents a closer approximation to a free market than the system we have now (where the government price-controls labor).
That's not the intention of guaranteed minimum income at all, and not a good thing either. You are just cutting off one place (higher prices) to feed the other (higher wages). At least if I understand what you mean correctly, which I'm not sure. But the idea of the system is that it will balance out wealth disparities over time, but not too unfairly on people who do succeed. As well as provide a safety net. And get rid of all the bad incentives and complications created by other systems which attempt to do the same.
Aside: there's a difference between "guaranteed minimum income" and "basic income", at least as I've seen them discussed here on HN. As I understand it, an $X guaranteed minimum income encourages laziness because the first $X worth of one's labor is essentially wasted. Basic income, on the other hand, is added to whatever a person earns from labor, so there's no disincentive to work.
We need to fix the market in a new way, so that the market can be free? What the what?!
A free market is one where price accurately reflects the mix of supply and demand.
A free market is NOT and NEVER one where supply and demand are manipulated to produce a "better" result.
You are arguing supply side good, demand side bad but consider zooming out and asking first if manipulation of either variable will really produce a predictable, desirable result.
I've heard lot of arguments that say "but this is GOOD market manipulation" but it always ends in tears.
Supply and demand will always win out in the end. The market is faster, smarter and stronger than you.
The winners are the ones that can ride the waves, see what the result of manipulation this way to that will be, and position themselves accordingly. Increasing the ability of the participants in the system to react in these ways makes the system more rational, and in turn more stable.
Juicing one variable or the other makes people build knowledge/lives/decisions on a pseudo foundation that will eventually be undercut by market forces. It teaches people the wrong things and makes the system less rational and therefore more bubble prone.
Yes, I was being sloppy with terminology. The price wouldn't fall exactly to zero and minimum wage appears to stop it well above 0 but unemployment makes up the difference. This is quibbling and distracts from the analysis.
> hat's not the intention of guaranteed minimum income at all, and not a good thing either. You are just cutting off one place (higher prices) to feed the other (higher wages). At least if I understand what you mean correctly, which I'm not sure.
I don't know what you mean by "cutting off one place." If you mean that the prices of some services would go up in this picture, you're exactly right, but that's the point -- the prices would better reflect the desirability of the labor required to produce the good. The flip side of that is that undesirable labor gets payed better under the BI system and then there is the BI itself. What good are low prices if wages are even lower?
The price of labor has not decreased since 2001 (the beginning of the data series). Wages have not decreased either.
I don't consider it abstractly good for someone to live on society, while able to work, and not working. However, the cost of that is pennies compared to what we pay by having terrible leadership (parasites at the top).
Nonono, you have it backwards. We NEED more parasites! The supply of labor exceeds demand right now which sends the price to 0 (minimum wage paints the problem a different color but doesn't fix anything). We need to decrease the supply of labor so that the market can start pricing it rationally again.
If everybody stops working, the price of services skyrockets. But the problem (soaring cost of services) and the solution (soaring reward for labor) are one and the same. This is how the free market is supposed to work. In fact, I'd go so far to say that BI presents a closer approximation to a free market than the system we have now (where the government price-controls labor).