How many people have you met who were happy doing nothing, living with nothing, AND who made good employees doing anything at all?
I've met exactly zero.
The ambitious won't want to stay there; the unambitious may "unfairly" get their basic needs met, but they're hardly living the high life, and the lost -useful- labor to society is negligible. Almost certainly more than offset by the ambitious who can now take risks they otherwise couldn't, knowing that if they fail they at least aren't going to end up hungry and homeless.
This is in line with the results of Canada's early UBI experiments; substantially nobody left the workforce except to pursue liberal arts or stay-at-home parenting, both of which have intrinsic value. People are motivated by a combination of intrinsic and extrinsic factors, including their social group at work, finding meaning in their lives through their work, and so on.
UBI and unemployment isn't provide enough for a lavish lifestyle, you can achieve that through work.
> The ambitious won't want to stay there; the unambitious may "unfairly" get their basic needs met, but they're hardly living the high life, and the lost -useful- labor to society is negligible.
Certainly true, and of course, automation will replace the missing labor in the pool, and the continued march of development will lead to even lower birth rates (already well below replacement rate of 2.1 is almost every developed nation), and there will be fewer and fewer of these folks in time.
Canada's most recent UBI experiment, cancelled recently (2020) by Ford & co, was showing excellent results [1], and so did the earlier one in 1974 [2].
I think the major fault with these studies is there participants know the benefits will end. I think this biases them towards continued working because they view it as a short term windfall that won’t sustain them rather than a long term solution. It would be incredibly hard to design an experiment to control for this.
Conversely, I think the hard part about implementing UBI is that it would be incredibly hard to roll back once people become accustomed to it
The question I always wonder, when people bring this up, is if they've applied it to themselves.
If they had a basic UBI of, say, $20k, would they quit their job, and not look for work, not work on personal projects, not look to go back to school, nothing, just do what they are assuming others will do, sit around, watch TV, that sort of thing? Rather than keep striving, keep working, and have both an extra $20k being paid to them currently, and that safety net in place in case they lose their job?
Because I can't imagine doing that. I -like- having a higher quality of life. I desire to do things, to affect things. In fact, the most frustrating jobs I've had were the ones that felt like they handcuffed me from leaving due to the salary (not to mention things like equity cliffs and paying back signon bonus), but deprived me of any real empowerment or responsibility to affect change. If this logic applied to me, I should be thrilled; I barely have to do anything, am barely expected to do anything, and am paid through the nose. But I end up hating it and wanting out.
Even something like working McDonald's; would the additional pay of working there on top of UBI be worth it? If not, what would have to change? Better working conditions? More pay? I'd be interested to find out; why -don't- people find service industry jobs desirable? Why would someone choose to be unemployed, if their disposable income is higher working there? Are they just lazy, as America likes to paint it, or are there institutional problems that could be addressed, but remain unaddressed due to the inability for people to just quit and walk away?
We actually have some anecdotal data to this; people who inherit money sufficient they could live the rest of their lives doing nothing.
If it's multiple millions, yeah, people do decide not to work, "trust fund babies" and the like.
But plenty of people get a few hundred thousand and a house. That's enough that, if invested, they could pay property taxes and live a basic life without working. They could sell the house and move out of the country, and live even cheaper. How many do it in lieu of working? Very few. Why? Because they desire something more.
Anecdotally I’ve seen both sides. I’ve seen people get social security or disability benefits and coast for the rest of their lives without working even though they have the ability to do so without affecting their benefits. I assume they value sleeping in and not having to answer to anyone. Their idea of a good time is spending hours hiking or watching tv or various other things that have negligible cost.
I’ve also known those who get said benefits and either use it as a leg-up to get ahead or just donate it while they keep working. Honestly, I’ve seen more in the former category than the latter.
I suspect it cuts down along the industriousness subset of the Big Five personality traits. Those who get intrinsic satisfaction doing/building are probably likely to be in the latter group. I bet HN skews towards this which is why so many find it difficult to comprehend why somebody would want to just loaf around with their life. To your very thoughtful questions about why someone wouldn’t want to continue working, my guess is the roles they qualify for aren’t intrinsically satisfying to them because it’s a poor mating of their personality and the jobs society has deemed necessary or they don’t pay enough to make the juice worth the squeeze
Yeah; I wasn't saying one side doesn't exist. It was more in tandem with my parent post - the people who are happy to watch TV, hike, just kinda bum around, doing nothing else, desiring nothing else...how often are they great workers?
I meant the question in response to the observation that "we don't know what happens long term if people are promised this kind of money" - right, but the presumption there is that it will cause people to quit en masse, that they won't look to work, or use it as an excuse to better themselves in a way that society values as well. But will you? I mean, you're on HN; you likely care about bettering yourself, likely have some ambitions. If people with those things aren't dissuaded from working...what's the concern? That we won't have enough checked out people in useless administrative tasks, or poorly performing manual labor or service jobs that we then collectively complain about, while also refusing to pay well for?
I think the concern is there may not be enough “ambitious” people to maintain productivity to sustain the non-ambitious folks.
Thinking back to a previous job that most people would probably assume employees incredibly driven people, I can honestly say many were not. Hours wasted on long lunches/breakfasts/breaks, surfing the Internet for auctions, bouncing from office to office for hours to gossip, really anything to distract them from the work that needs done, all the while complaining there wasn’t enough time in the day to get it completed. If a “world class” organization is like this I don’t want to know what a “lesser” one is like.
The best employees are always those who value the work itself. I think very few people find their work intrinsically motivating and are only doing it because of an extrinsic reward (status, money, whatever). Unfortunately, after talking to many in that former organization I don’t think they have a very good grasp on what is intrinsically motivating to themselves.
Your example kind of makes my point? Those people you mention...how much were they really adding to the org?
If a company is happily paying white collar worker wages to people who are that big a waste of space, why not pay them $20k in UBI and let them go, $20k to someone who needs it, and not waste everyone's time? Let those people have the safety net necessary to find themselves, so to speak. Worst case is they stay on and we're in the same situation we're in now; best case they leave and figure out what motivates them.
If they were fired, their net utility can go to zero. I may not think they are worth their wage, but they are still providing some marginal value. Not having a slow morphine drip of money is all that seems to keep them providing any value whatsoever.
>Worst case is they stay on and we're in the same situation we're in now
I think I disagree with this. Similar to point above, they can go from providing a marginal amount of value to justify being a net negative on the balance sheet by staying home and collecting UBI. Ideally, they will find a way to contribute to society but I’m not convinced many or most would, given anecdotal observations. I’m not taking some Randian stance here, but I can at least imagine a scenario where there are more takers than providers because it’s the easier path and we seem wired to prefer to minimize personal costs. I don’t think it’s a situation where there’s next to no downside as you suggest.
Most game theory seems to devolve when freeloading is not kept in check. With all the talk about the benefits of UBI, I hear very little about checks and balances if it doesn’t work. I’m currently in favor of it but would like to see a bit more due diligence in terms of guardrails
It's not about them being great workers or not. It's about them carrying their own weight at minimum instead of offloading that burden to the productive members of society.
There's no lack of jobs society needs filled that provides utility to society even when done by bad employees.
I don't think it is unreasonable for the productive to be fully decoupled and unburdened from the willfully unproductive.
> If they had a basic UBI of, say, $20k, would they quit their job, and not look for work, not work on personal projects, not look to go back to school, nothing, just do what they are assuming others will do, sit around, watch TV, that sort of thing? Rather than keep striving, keep working, and have both an extra $20k being paid to them currently, and that safety net in place in case they lose their job?
Depends on person and their situation.
Would I quit my job and go on UBI if I could?
Me before marriage and a kid: in my line of work and with my hobbies, sure! I'll fulfill my need of doing crazy hobby projects and after few years of doing just that (and social life) I'd probably get bored and get back to work somewhere. Or spin one of my projects into a business. Or start contracting half-time to have some more spending money.
Me now: I'd probably cut down work a bit, but I can use the extra cash to ensure good conditions and financial safety for my kid.
Me if I worked in just about any other field: fuck no, not if I knew the benefits would end. Software industry is special (and still will be for at least a couple of years) - a programmer with decent skills can just find a job or start a company. For every other field, the many years long gap in your CV will scream "not good worker material". Keeping the working history continuous is something on the minds of majority of westerners; failing to do that is likely to result in being hireable only for jobs not much better than the UBI.
There's also nothing stopping people from accumulating all the things they need for a pleasant life of leisure and hobbies and then once they achieve that deciding to freeload off UBI and enjoy those hobbies. I'm less than a decade out from having most of the physical belongings I need for the myriad hobbies I enjoy. Once I get there free time plus 20k a year will be more valuable than being a contributing member of society. This is basically the basis of the entire "dirtbag" lifestyle that many partake in. I've known many dirtbaggers in my life.
The entire idea behind FIRE is achieving a passive income that you earn by being a productive member of society versus UBI giving you for free with no obligation to contribute to society.
>There's also nothing stopping people from accumulating all the things they need for a pleasant life of leisure
I think it’s a stretch to say this is available to most. To say it’s available to anyone doesn’t acknowledge the poor circumstances many are born into simply by chance. While still technically true, the possibility is vanishingly small for many. Policy should be based on what’s best for the general welfare and not a smallish subset
I’ve noticed people sometimes confuse what is valuable to the economy with what is valuable to society. We should defer towards the latter when they are in conflict
>So we are left with something people like and don't want to give up, and that's bad because... :)
Sorry, I should have taken the time to elaborate.
There’s certainly a conceivable scenario when the situation is either unsustainable or not providing a net benefit.
For the first case, consider a petrostate whose population is heavily subsidized by its oil sales. If oil price drops, whether by lack of demand or over supply, they may not have the funds to continue these benefits without debt, regardless if the populace “likes” them.
In the second scenario, it’s possible that it creates unintended consequences (like spikes in drug use, drop in life expectancy, reduced productivity) that become a larger social ill than what it was trying to prevent. Despite society being worse off, it becomes hard to scale it back because of the psychological endowment effect.
I’m not saying its likely, just as a counter point that just because people like a benefit it means it should continue. I think it’s important to do a “pre-mortem“ on these kinds of policies to make sure we have the guardrails in place before implementing them.
> So we are left with something people like and don't want to give up, and that's bad because... :)
... other people are burdened with providing it against their will.
A Southern plantation owner in the pre Civil War southeast US had something they liked and didn't want to give up and it was most certainly very very bad.
UBI is universal, everyone gets it. I’d wager if you asked slaves if they were enjoying it they’d say no. One of the many problems is they weren’t being asked.
I think the counterpoint is that, while everybody receives the same amount, people contribute differing levels so the net benefit is very different for individuals.
I think this is an affront to some people's ideas of fairness even though it aligns with progressive tax schemes.
> How many people have you met who were happy doing nothing, living with nothing, AND who made good employees doing anything at all?
Several members of my partner's family meet this description. They fit the welfare queen stereotype to a T. That's just immediate family. I've met plenty. Maybe you just don't have contact with people who would?
> Almost certainly more than offset by the ambitious who can now take risks they otherwise couldn't, knowing that if they fail they at least aren't going to end up hungry and homeless.
This is a completely unsubstantiated claim. How are you measuring this and where's the evidence? Yeah, it sounds great and is something people want to believe is true, but where's the hard evidence?
It's funny how these sort of questions are always being used to counter a safety net for the poor, but at the same time nobody does anything about rampant tax evasion and avoidance, which is much much more money.
It guarantees a certain level of means. Obviously. It's not intending to address people who live outside their means; there are other controls for that. It's to ensure that a person's means is sufficient to cover their basic needs.
A person who is responsible with $10 a month may not be a credit risk, but clearly can't cover their needs; a person spending $10k a month when their job pays them only $8k is clearly a credit risk, living outside their means, despite earning enough to cover far more than their basic needs. You're strawmanning.
How many people have you met who were happy doing nothing, living with nothing, AND who made good employees doing anything at all?
I've met exactly zero.
The ambitious won't want to stay there; the unambitious may "unfairly" get their basic needs met, but they're hardly living the high life, and the lost -useful- labor to society is negligible. Almost certainly more than offset by the ambitious who can now take risks they otherwise couldn't, knowing that if they fail they at least aren't going to end up hungry and homeless.