Re:The Libertarian Case for a Basic Income
by yummyfajitas on Thursday December 05, 2013 @02:40PM
(#6856647)
With a BI you have three options while still getting paid - productive work, unproductive work or Halo 3.
With a BJ, you have only two options - productive work or less productive work. Some of the people who would (given the option) choose Halo 3 will now choose productive work. That will be a net gain for society.
Further, we will get some value out of the Basic Jobs. We might pay $7.25/hour for the DMV to be $3.00 cleaner, for a net loss of only $4.25 rather than $7.25. We tried this scheme once already and got a national park system for our trouble: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_Conservation_Corps
It's also vastly cheaper than a BI because most people will choose not to use the BJ. Rather than giving $7.25 to 300 million Americans you only give it to 30-40 million.
If the work they are doing has little value — which seems like it would have to be the case, since otherwise we'd already be paying all these people $7.25 an hour to do it — I don't see how it's substantially different from idleness. It seems like you're basically replacing "Do whatever you want and we'll pay you a basic income" with "Do a meaningless ritual as half-heartedly as possible and we'll pay you a basic income."
In fact, I'd say a Basic Job program might disincentivize meaningful work more than a Basic Income. Somebody could start a business using their Basic Income, but a Basic Job would not provide the same opportunity.