How does UBI differentiate itself from socialism, a welfare state and/or communism? Where is the money for UBI going to come from? What incentive would there be for people to work?
Tax rates on the rich are at historically low levels. Rich people would still get UBI but the top level tax rate would effectively cancel it out (and more). Current welfare wastes a lot of money on admin/staff/fraud investigations and none of that would be needed with UBI since everyone gets it.
People would still want money. UBI isn't going to be enough for a lavish lifestyle, people will still want to work. It would make lower-paying activities like art/open source more viable though.
> Tax rates on the rich are at historically low levels
Not really. The income tax didn't exist before 1913 and the government was way smaller so there wasn't a even need to collect a lot of taxes. Are you thinking of the 50s? Because even in that time people just avoided to declare all their income (it was easier back then) or used other loop holes to avoid paying taxes [1]
> Current welfare wastes a lot of money on admin/staff/fraud investigations and none of that would be needed with UBI
Not to mention a lot of other social programs that would be folded into UBI and eliminated overnight. Social security, food stamps, rent assistance.... That's not enough savings to pay for UBI, but it's an appreciable chunk.
And the existence of UBI would imply the existence of a national registry, which would drastically change the equations regarding illegal immigration. Border enforcement becomes a lot less important to some anti-immigrant demographics, if those immigrants cannot receive any welfare. Police for fraud, sure, but maybe you don't need as many fences and armed guards patrolling the border?
I'm just saying the knock-on effects of such a drastic shift in society would be huge, so expecting a simple comparison of current costs and revenues is so simplistic that it's guaranteed to be off by a lot.
> How does UBI differentiate itself from socialism, a welfare state and/or communism?
From welfare state: By giving it unconditionally.
From socialism/communism: You're still allowed to own "means of production", and you're also still allowed to try to maximize profits etc. as a company. Private property, especially owning a business privately, is still a thing.
> What incentive would there be for people to work?
You work because you want to lead a somewhat nice life, where you're able to afford things. UBI (at least the more serious proposals) would cover just the very basics: You'll be able to afford a roof over your head, food and other such basics. Want to afford some nice things? Need to work.
And this is in my opinion the beauty of UBI. Doing a crappy job until the end of my life for a crappy salary that doesn't get me anywhere? No way. Doing a crappy job for a while until I've saved up enough cash to afford something I want? Why not. It incentivizes to make crappy jobs that nobody wants (unless they must) more attractive; accelerating their automatization (see e.g. the garbage truck examples in this thread - people running behind it vs. having an automated crane to do it); giving power to those who currently have no option than to work whatever they're given, no matter how much they dislike it.
I think I get it now. Basically in the current system you can chose between being on welfare OR working and not receiving welfare. In the UBI system everyone gets a base pay that gives you the option to live life at a minimum however you're not de-incentivized to work like in the welfare system where you have to chose between either working and losing all your welfare benefits or not working and living life on welfare. In the UBI system everyone gets a base pay, you can chose to improve your life standards by working but don't have to. Either way there is a redistribution of wealth from the ultra rich to the rest of society that gives them more buying power to in turn move the economy forward. Am I sort of getting it now?
> [..] base pay that gives you the option to live life at a minimum however you're not de-incentivized to work like in the welfare system where you have to chose between either working and losing all your welfare benefits
Exactly! I think there was an Article in the NYT a few months back about some Scandinavian experiments with UBI - they gave a bunch of people UBI to see what happens. If I remember correctly, there was a story about one guy who was previously on welfare, and creating some sort of hand drums was his hobby and he was occasionally asked by others if they could buy some from him, however he wasn't allowed to sell them because otherwise he would lose his welfare benefits. But risking to start a business wasn't really an option either, because it wasn't making enough/as much/as reliably as welfare did so he was really kind of in a crappy situation where he could have improved his life conditions on his own but sort of wasn't allowed to for legal reasons. UBI totally took this kind of pressure from him.
Of course, there were also those who essentially took a year off to essentially do nothing. And if UBI is introduced, there will certainly be a percent of people that decide that they'll just stop working (will be interesting how many come back, once they get bored). But I believe that those kind of people always have and always will exist - thanks to progress and automation, we're in a spot where society doesn't really need everyone to work anymore and still be able to function.
Not parent but yes. In addition people would also be incentivized to work part-time (or project-based) jobs without fear of losing their welfare benefits.
Edit: Or like parent just wrote, it can allow you to bootstrap a small business.
> You work because you want to lead a somewhat nice life, where you're able to afford things. UBI (at least the more serious proposals) would cover just the very basics: You'll be able to afford a roof over your head, food and other such basics. Want to afford some nice things? Need to work.
Situation in Germany for unemployment / welfare: 450sqft apartment, utilities included, TV, smart phone, 400€/mo cash. Where are those serious proposals that suggest making the UBI pay less than the current social programs?
I think the main difference with UBI is that in order to receive unemployment welfare you have to not work, they are de-incentivizing working essentially. In the UBI system everyone gets a minimum paycheck and that would basically be like living on welfare however if you want you can go work somewhere else in addition to earn more money and improve your living standards if you want to. Probably minimum wage would have to be raised so that people would want to work as a maid or McDonald's but the economy would adjust to the supply of workers I assume.
> Probably minimum wage would have to be raised so that people would want to work as a maid or McDonald
The beauty of UBI is that government mandated minimum wage, with all its drawbacks, wouldn't be needed anymore. People would be able to refuse shitty job offers and not starve. Ultimately, employers would have to raise wages but not because of the law but because of workers' better negotiation position.
I consider the things you mentioned basics, but YMMV. I reckon that the majority of people would like to have more in their life than that, and would be willing to work to that effect, at least I would be.
> Where is the money for UBI going to come from? What incentive would there be for people to work?
Ideally the money should come from the elite class that is accumulating the capital thanks to automation and monopolization. A huge part of this capital is currently spent in non-productive ways like speculation, lobbying and luxuries. This is what some socialists and social democrats are proposing, though most agree we have not reached the needed level of automation and advancement yet.
Neoliberals don't really want the UBI anytime soon, they just hijacked the term and are now bastardizing it just like they did with many other good leftist ideas because they found them either threatening to their interests or useful for their power games.
As other posters here have already noticed, "neoliberal UBI" will most likely be used to incite conflict and division between the lower and middle class. They will make the middle class pay the bill while promoting victim mentality and degeneracy among the lower class. This should produce a shitshow that will help keep the wage slaves distracted for the next decade or two until a true UBI becomes a possibility.
"Ideally the money should come from the elite class that is accumulating the capital thanks to automation and monopolization."
Have you done the math on this? The scale of UBI is so large that it has to mostly come from the middle class. A meager $20k UBI for all 300 million Americans would cost $6 trillion. Even if you liquidated the 100% of wealth of the top 400 Americans you'd only get $3 trillion, and you're only able to do that once, not every year.
>Ideally the money should come from the elite class that is accumulating the capital thanks to automation and monopolization. A huge part of this capital is currently spent in non-productive ways like speculation, lobbying and luxuries.
The incentive for people to work is that $1000/mo would provide for a pretty meager existence. (This level is already an unaffordable level of UBI if paid to every US adult citizen; this is coming from someone philosophically aligned with UBI but also able to multiply and compare numbers.)
I still see this as a redistribution of wealth, tax the rich and give to the poor which is socialist in nature, not saying that's bad thing just that it's nothing new. In Poland this sort of thing is already happening, e.g. parents get 500 PLN/month per child, it's not called UBI here though.
It’s absolutely and definitionally socialist in nature, but I don’t find the use of labeling to be especially helpful (and often harmful to shutdown discussion).
I’m interested in whether something tends to create a society that I think should exist for my children and their great-grandchildren (whom I’ll surely never meet).
Most of those things happen to have market-based outcomes in mind, but I’m open to good ideas that happen to be socialist, anarchist, communist, or any other broad label.
So for Germany, that'd mean it ought to be lower than our current social programs? They provide an okay living, and there's not a lot of incentive to work, which is why we have a lot of long-term unemployment.
~1000€/mo, regular VAT is 7% for essentials like groceries, 19% for anything else, with a few exceptions.
The average worker's income tax rate is ~40%, but they'll also have to pay for health insurance (included in welfare at a subsidized rate), pensions etc.
Thanks for the data. To me, that sounds like the end result is within a whisker of $1000/mo after deducting the VAT “rebate” to the German government when that 1000€/mo is consumed almost immediately on a mix of 7% and 19% items.
Sure. The problem is there's little incentive to work. To achieve that, to make it uncomfortable to rely solely on UBI long-term, we'd have to make UBI lower than our current welfare programs. I don't see any proposals for that, much less any support.
