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Universal Basic Income: The Ultimate Tool of Social Control
Finland is on the verge of replacing most of its welfare system with a Universal Basic Income, a guaranteed monthly check to every adult citizen (such proposals also go by other names, including “Guaranteed Basic Income”). Some champion UBI as a way of deconstructing the welfare state and enhancing individual freedom, as people can spend their checks however they please. Others tout the economic incentives since, in contrast to traditional welfare programs, people won’t lose benefits by taking low-paying or part-time work. Others worry that that — even if UBI were to pass — the welfare state will come roaring back as politicians seek to buy votes with other people’s money.
But, here’s the thing: Within a couple of decades, our economy is going to consist of robotic factories producing goods that are loaded by robots onto self-driving trucks to be delivered to automated warehouses where they are distributed by other robots. Also, artificial intelligence will likely make increasing numbers of white collar jobs — accountants, financial analysts, logistcians, engineers, software developers — obsolete. With worker displacement on that scale, it’s inevitable that governments will implement some form of Universal Basic Income, along with onerous taxes on those still working in order to finance it.
Worse yet, UBI could easily become the ultimate in social control. Refuse to share a bathroom with the transgendered? Lose your UBI. Question climate change orthodoxy? Lose your UBI. Commit a microaggression? Report for re-education or lose your UBI. Putting on a little extra weight? Report for your new diet and exercise regimen or lose your UBI.
When large majorities of people are completely dependent on the government for their income, is there any way to ensure that the state does not use that power to enforce conformity to the dominant governing ideology?
The premise is sound. I’m waiting for travel or distance allotments on all these driverless cars (if it’s under 1/4 mile, walk fatty!). The State will be “nudging”, as Cass Sustein states, in all sorts of ways. Also looks for what foods your buying with that EBT like income. The Brave New World is here friend.
No.
Assuming that’s an inevitability, is there a better solution than UBI?
In many ways, a UBI is just another form of the Earned Income Credit, isn’t it?
I’m not saying I support it, for the exact reasons you lay out- it results in the government owning you, and in that respect, a lot more progressive/liberal/Democrat voters. Dependence on government does not induce a belief in limited government. I’m just saying we are almost there already here in the USA.
That’s what I want to know.
It seems more like a replacement for both the EIC (which I believe requires employment) and welfare (which does not).
The problem is always incentive and human nature (and moral hazard). If we provide a minimum standard of life for everyone, what will people do for themselves? What obligation will they have to at least try to do for themselves – to be contributors, not just takers?
And, if robots (or the like) take over jobs currently done by humans, we could replace this with a check, but will this keep people from innovating and “entrepreneurializing” ? (yes!)
But VtheK is right – the government will use it as a means to control people, won’t they? Of course they will.
While I understand the fear, past experience does not really bear this out. The classic argument was the buggy whip industry being destroyed by the automobile, or the computer age making human accountants and record keeping obsolete.
In the end, someone has to build the automobile, program and maintain the computer, and build, program, maintain, and supply the robots.
AI may well replace humans, that much I agree with. But until then, I think the way humans spend their life’s work will evolve, but they won’t be useless for a long time yet.
Besides, if there are no humans making enough money to buy products, what will the robots do with what they make?
Wealth is always relative . If everyone was given a million dollars and some made another million on his own, the person with only one million would consider himself poor.
Agreed, although this prediction has been around for a long time, and like many SciFi scenarios (Robert Heinlein was an advocate, once upon a time) it has continuously failed to materialize.
I think a lot about this issue. The robot apocalypse is not going to be The Terminator or The Matrix.
It is either going to be a war of out of work Luddites against the robot owning capitalists. Or it is going to be Idiocracy or Wall E.
I somewhat already think we have reached the point of post-scarcity.
For the millennial generation the lower classes are populated by people who are basically satisfied with their 45″ flat-screens, cable, an Xbox, their iPhone, and a night out to a concert or a ball game every once and while. A UBI would let them live the dream.
Sounds inflationary
Yet it remains a popular politically motivating fear.
(And here’s at least one example of it being put into practice.)
a) If the gov’t can take away your UBI, that means it’s not truly universal. It’s simply yet another welfare program like all the others we’ve already seen. The whole point, and the reason some conservatives/libertarians like it, is that it’s universal.
Of course, I sympathize with the idea that no truly universal program can survive political interference. Up here in the Great White North, any time a Conservative government implements a universal program (the Universal Child Care Benefit, for example), the next Liberal government can be counted on to replace it with a “targeted” version allowing them to favour Liberal voters, or a “service-based” program, that gives them more control over recipients (government-run daycare, for example).
b) I’m under no illusions.For it to really work well, it would require serious discipline on the part of politicians to set hard caps on how much money gets doled out. We all know how easy it is for bureaucrats/activists/politicians to keep defining up what “basic” actually means.
Still, despite the risk of Liberal shenanigans, I’m pretty convinced that UBI is a better option than what we have now, assuming that it’s implemented as a replacement for the status quo rather than a supplement:
c) For it to really, really work well, it’s not enough for UBI to merely replace “welfare”. It should replace most every other government service, like medicare, public schools, arts funding, business subsidies, etc.
Has this ever been predicted before? How did it work out? The issue is, has always been and will always be, adjustment. So the relevant question isn’t what will we do with all these people with the wrong skills in the wrong place, but how do we make the economy and people flexible enough so that adjustment is quick and easy. Universal basic income replacing all forms of welfare and unemployment insurance may be worth thinking about. But it must replace everything else that’s free or subsidized, except perhaps training and education and to be constitutional it must be at the state level and hence it will vary from state to state and the state must be free of all other mandates and programs and the Federal taxes that pay for them. Not likely I think. Just move all welfare to the states and let them sort it out free of federal interference and with reduced federal taxation or mandates.
As long as the government keeps providing those great spectacles in the coliseums, provides free bread and some UBI cash for beer and condoms, what is there is worry about? Some President named Commodus who lets inflation run wild? Some robot named Sparticus? Unlikely. Once the enlightened get a chance to take care of us it will all be fine.
Milton Friedman was one of the first people to advocate what he called a “Negative Income Tax” (NIT), in his 1962 book Capitalism and Freedom. Here is a discussion of the history of the NIT in the U.S.
Here is 1968 discussion of the NIT by Milton Friedman on William F. Buckley’s Firing Line.
That is a horrible idea. Giving people money to do nothing is never a good idea – with the exceptions of the truly disabled. It’s understandable, though bad policy, to give out money for doing nothing to the destitute. But to give out money on a mass level no matter the need for doing nothing is horrendous. The incentives are all wrong.
When Obama was reelected, Sarah Hoyt asked David Weber how he liked living in the People’s Republic of Haven. Apparently we’re going to go full Peep and start handing out the Basic Living Stipend too …
This discussion makes me scared and a little queasy.
Let’s not give up before the battle begins.
Exactly. Giving everyone extra money will only mean everything will cost more. No real economic gains will be made. Ultimately it will do more harm to the poor, and the elderly who will have the value of their savings reduced.
Don’t believe me. Play a game of Monopoly. When you are done play again, but this time start everyone with an extra $1000 and increase the “Pass Go” reward to $500. Note the difference that players will pay to buy property from other players between the two games.
Yes, but that’s just a means of calculating a handout for the poor. That’s different than what the OP presented as a mass level of distribution.
Yes, the free market.
When the first reaper was invented, it took 12 men to operate, but could produce the output of 50 men. 38 men had to find new jobs, and learn new skills. They did so without government taking care of them. One man with a modern combine can do the work of what used to take thousands of men. However, new higher paying jobs were created to build the combines.
There are similar stories for telephone operators, and hundreds of other occupations.
Ultimately, this kind of innovation leads to a higher standard of living, because the price of products go down, and wages go up. It is why we live better than our grandparents.
This type of change shouldn’t be feared, he should be embraced.
No.
No.
Woah. Hold up. You’ve got two flawed premises here:
1. Government benefits (and I’ll include tax deductions here too) already are a means of government control.
2. You’re assuming that somehow technology will put people out of work and on the dole. We literally have two centuries of data that contradicts this. While there’s some short term displacement, technology improves work efficiency and the overall standard of living. It basically creates new jobs, it doesn’t leave long lines of workers forever stranded without work
I guess I’m busted for not reading all the comments before responding. But I must say that Brandon seems remarkably perceptive.
Well, so long as we don’t pay them to remain stranded …
And yes, I count the subsidies for home ownership as incentives to stay stranded.
WEll, the whole idea, Amy, is that those benefits become a control mechanism because there’s no alternative because those damn dirty robots took all the jobs and nobody can work.
But we know that’s not true. Technology creates new jobs and new industries.