If there's actually nothing useful for some people to do (they can't find a job that supports them) then we should stop thinking of employment as a requirement for survival.
They could fix our crumbling infrastructure, provide child care for working women, in-home care for our elderly, reduce overcrowding by making prisons larger, build community gardens, or a hundred other popular left wing causes.
The claim that we couldn't get productive labor by drafting the unemployed is also the claim that there is nothing else useful that the government could do even if the cost is $0. Do any basic income proponents really believe this?
> They could fix our crumbling infrastructure... reduce overcrowding by making prisons larger
Unskilled people make crappy engineers and construction workers.
> provide child care
These days, child care workers need a lot of paperwork and a bit of training. Not to mention that you kind've have to be good with kids; it's not really a job just anyone can do.
> in-home care for our elderly
And this is in the same bucket. Forcing people into a caring role makes for bad carers.
> build community gardens
This one could work... but then again, how many gardens can you have, and how many folks would they support the work for?
Throw in also that all of these things are not 'free labour'. You still need to manage and train that staff, and you're going to have higher overhead costs because you'll have higher turnover. It's not as simple as just saying "labour = free, so go do something".
But suppose you are right - there are no unemployed people out there capable of fixing our crumbling infrastructure. Suppose we were to just throw money at the problem via ordinary government spending. How would the work actually get done, i.e. who would do it?
Forcing people into a caring role makes for bad carers.
No one is forced into anything. You do work and you get money, same as any other job. In any case, the folks who make bad carers can do other things, e.g. pick up trash in the park or work as janitors in government buildings.
This one could work... but then again, how many gardens can you have
When I hear this, I immediately think of Great Cultural Revolution in China, and Pol Pot in Cambodia. Also there the joys of gardening and agricultural work were supposed to cleanse the bourgeois people.
And while we are there, let's shoot anyone with eyeglasses for trying to be too intellectual.
Basic income frees people to do private work. Government projects, to be comparable, would have to pay people for their work, as you know,and also add a premium to cover the time spent.
Basic income and government spending on projects are separate ideas that are only related because they compete for budget.
They could fix our crumbling infrastructure, provide child care for working women, in-home care for our elderly, reduce overcrowding by making prisons larger, build community gardens, or a hundred other popular left wing causes.
The claim that we couldn't get productive labor by drafting the unemployed is also the claim that there is nothing else useful that the government could do even if the cost is $0. Do any basic income proponents really believe this?