From another point of view, all three are forms of socialism; BI, particularly, is very easy to see as a form of the public as a whole owning the means of production in society and receiving rents from them, and the naturally-arising communes are the doubleton of bottom-up approaches to socialism.

For that matter, the whole modern mixed economy which has pretty much entirely replaced the 19th century system that socialist critics named "capitalism" is nothing but the result of progressive introduction of socialist elements into the preexisting capitalist system. A big socialist evolution -- punctuated, to be sure, and not without upheaval at some points -- in most developed countries rather than a socialist revolution. I should not be surprised to see it continue.

> Some alternatives to socialism: > basic income

You may want to check the definition of "socialism" that you're using, as basic income (along with group healthcare) is one of the canonical examples of socialism. Which is a good thing, as long as we remember to regulate it properly (just like how we need to regulate capital-focused ideas - any pure ideology will eventually cause problems if left unchecked)

I wanted to engage with this but I'm having a hard time getting past:

the internet almost certainly improved the viability of social economic systems by a factor of 10 or so

Certainly for me, arbitrary, dimensionless quantification of an essentially unmeasurable factor casts the rest of your post in a bad light.

Still, basic income isn't entirely good: it denies people the ability to meet a basic need - that of being valued for their contribution to society or some other enterprise. In other words, it replaces the good feeling of doing honest work with a kind of glorified unemployment benefit. While it would be good culturally (by allowing those of an artistic bent to pursue their craft, for example), it's not going to do much for the mental well-being of most of those laid-off factory workers.

As far as your point on communes, can you elaborate on how rent seeking is going to get comparatively more costly? What particular types of rents were you referring to?

> In other words, it replaces the good feeling of doing honest work with a kind of glorified unemployment benefit. While it would be good culturally (by allowing those of an artistic bent to pursue their craft, for example), it's not going to do much for the mental well-being of most of those laid-off factory workers.

We need to move away from the meme that your 'honest work' determines your worth. It was very instrumental in the past, so it's not a surprise we've integrated it culturally, but it makes no sense in a post-scarcity world. Humans do have a need to do something worthwhile, but it doesn't necessarily have to be put inside the current "slave away your life for the right to live" framework of jobs.

Come to think of it, how much of that "good feeling of doing honest work" do people have today, when more and more are employed doing bullshit jobs that are artifacts of various zero-sum games existing in our economic system?

This is a great point but it's not orthogonal to mine. Basic income doesn't provide a framework for self worth; it simply replaces a need to toil for money with a state-provided guarantee of a reasonable standard of living. If you have some side project or external, monetarily low-valued way of spending your time (full-time parenthood, art, a cottage business) then you've solved the worth problem on your own. If you're a displaced factory worker, you now have a new (admittedly nicer) problem.

To your coda, I think a lot of contemporary angst comes from precisely that - a sense that jobs really are basically worthless. Most of us behind a desk have felt that at some point. Even my frontline public servant friends in the military, healthcare, and police report similar feelings from time to time.

There's nothing about basic income that prevents working. In general, having more money gives people better options. For example, it can make it more practical to go back to school, or to take a rewarding but low-paying job such as teaching.

On the margin, there may be people who choose not to work. For example, they may decide that staying home to raise the kids is a better choice than a job that's barely worth it. Businesses might need to pay people somewhat more or treat their employees somewhat better to fill positions. I don't see how this is a bad thing.

> Still, basic income isn't entirely good: it denies people the ability to meet a basic need - that of being valued for their contribution to society or some other enterprise.

No, it doesn't. Basic income does not prohibit people from working and being paid for their work; in fact, one of the arguments for BI is that it among the things it can replace is the minimum wage, allowing work that has positive value but which is not viable in an environment with a minimum wage to be done. Including, e.g., jobs that have a low short-term net value to the employer because they have a high investment in training, but which also prepare people for the higher-paying jobs which are available in society.

> In other words, it replaces the good feeling of doing honest work with a kind of glorified unemployment benefit.

BI is not anything like an unemployment benefit. Particularly, because you don't have to be unemployed to get it, and because it doesn't have the behavioral testing associated with unemployment insurance.

That feels like an artificial distinction. Probably I misunderstand BI, but doesn't it play out like this:

No BI scenario: Company pays 50 groats a year to a worker to create TPS reports based on its sense of the value of having those reports completed. 100 groats annually, maybe.

BI scenario: State pays everyone 10 groats a year. Company now pays 40 groats to its TPS writers (or maybe 35, plus 5 groats extra in tax to help pay for BI.)

The net for the worker is, optimistically, the same. Therefore, it's basically a livable cushion for those who don't have jobs. Basically, unemployment protection without the conditions.

I can see significant benefits for small nonprofit organizations who might not be able to pay staff to do necessary things; in these cases, BI covers payroll and people can work on altruistic activities and find their self worth that way. BI creates a level playing field, so now those nonprofits can choose the most passionate or skilled people for any given position. The flip side of that is that you now have full funding for all the agitators and malcontents who want to create all kinds of nasty pressure groups, something ordinarily limited by most people's need to put food on the table.

> No BI scenario: Company pays 50 groats a year to a worker to create TPS reports based on its sense of the value of having those reports completed.

[...]

> BI scenario: State pays everyone 10 groats a year. Company now pays 40 groats to its TPS writers

How does that conclusion work?

We've already established that in the absence of the BI, the intersection of the supply and demand curves for companies to hire people to write TPS reports is at 50 groats a year. Howe does giving everyone 10 groats per year of income independent of groat writing decrease the market clearing cost of groat writing? Considering the supply (labor) supply alone, it shouldn't decrease the marginal utility cost of groat writing, but given that, like most things, income has a declining marginal utility, the baseline income should increase the financial equivalent to that cost, and thus shift the demand curve in a way that would increase the market clearing cost. Where's the countervailing supply side effect that more than makes up for this? I suppose its possible depending on tax rates and how they are distributed that the marginal value to the company of TPS reports could be decreased, resulting in a shift in the demand curve that has the effect of reducing the market clearing price, but that's not obviously correct.

In any case, at the same time, work that has a marginal value to the employer less than the pre-BI minimum wage becomes a viable form of employment with BI if the minimum wage is removed. (The BI provides the minimum condition guarantee, removing the need for a minimum wage to provide an assurance that at least those employed have a minimum condition guarantee.)

My conclusion is simply that the going rate (market clearing price) for TPS writers is 50 groats a year, meaning that our TPS clerk can expect 50GPY for his labor. Since the employee gets 10GPY from the state, the company now only needs to pay him 40GPY to ensure he's equally well compensated. The money for BI has to come from somewhere, so I don't think it's a plausible conclusion that salaries would stay the same while everyone gets a chunk of extra money from the state. Further support comes from the rationality of employers who would prefer to ensure employees were equally paid in total in both a no-BI and BI scenario.

I think your point is that declining marginal utility of income in a BI scenario means that companies have to pay proportionately more to make up for the decline in utility caused by everyone having more income. I don't have what I assume is your background in economics to argue that point with theory, but it fails a basic plausibility test for me: your claim is that it's more likely that employers will pay more in direct salaries to workers who are receiving money from the state than it is that they will pay less. It doesn't hold up in today's world either: compare salaries in Scandinavian countries, where the state provides huge benefits to citizens against the USA where there is essentially no support from government.

Please elaborate on what you mean by "communes." Sounds good to me.

There is a commune (Arcosanti) about an hour south of where I live: low environmental footprint. I would like to see more places like Arcosanti be created that are tailored to different industries: writing/editing/content creation, software development, educational centers, etc. A common theme would be a low environmental footprint with a community farm. It makes sense to cluster people working in similar industries together.

edit: people would work in/at these communes, when possible, to avoid cost and energy use of commuting to work.

One interesting aspect of basic income is that it would create a large number of people who are now free to become politically active. People can sit in the streets with no end in sight en masse. Sounds like a revolution in the making.

How about Less People. Most of the worlds problems would be reduced with fewer people. This is only a partial solution if you think about it.

> How about Less People. Most of the worlds problems would be reduced with fewer people.

Less people is not a policy, its a policy outcome.

(IIRC, the evidence suggest that the best policy to get fewer people and reduce natural rate of population increase is stronger social safety nets that reduce people's reliance on family -- usually children -- for security against financial misfortune. So, actually, the things discussed upthread like BI might reasonably be seen as likely to contribute to "less people".)

Ok. You first.

Go on...

You see now why this is not a viable solution. At least, it isn't until planetary emigration becomes possible.

No, birth control is an option. Make it available to anyone who asks for it (permanent kinds included). China has a rather more authoritarian approach. I prefer voluntary methods (without incentives). It isn't a complete solution because: 1) there will always be variation in skills among people even if the population is reduced. 2) With few enough people (extreme case) mass production of goods is not necessary. 3) I think there's an old argument that with robots providing everything, eventually there is no incentive for people to even become smart enough to maintain them and the system falls into disrepair. I'm not sure when or what equilibrium might be reached. I am sure that less people would help the problem and does not require planetary emigration. It is a viable partial solution. It is not a complete solution.