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posted by martyb on Tuesday December 08 2015, @11:28AM   Printer-friendly
from the handouts-instead-of-gov't-jobs-or-worker-owned-cooperatives dept.

Common Dreams reports

As a way to improve living standards and boosts its economy, the nation of Finland is moving closer towards offering[1] all of its adult citizens a basic permanent income of approximately 800 euros per month.

[...] The monthly allotment would replace other existing social benefits, but is an idea long advocated for by progressive-minded social scientists and economists as a solution--counter-intuitive as it may first appear at first--that actually decreases government expenditures while boosting both productivity, quality of life, and unemployment.

[...] The basic income proposal, put forth by the Finnish Social Insurance Institution, known as KELA, would see every adult citizen "receive 800 euros ($876) a month, tax free, that would replace existing benefits. Full implementation would be preceded by a pilot stage, during which the basic income payout would be 550 euros and some benefits would remain."

[...] Under the current welfare system, a person gets less in benefits if they take up temporary, low-paying or part-time work--which can result in an overall loss of income.

[...] As Quartz reports, previous experiments with a basic income have shown promising results:

Everyone in the Canadian town of Dauphin was given a stipend from 1974 to 1979, and though there was a drop in working hours,[PDF] this was mainly because men spent more time in school and women took longer maternity leaves. Meanwhile, when thousands of unemployed people in Uganda were given unsupervised grants of twice their monthly income, working hours increased by 17% and earnings increased by 38%.

[1] Link to The Independent in TFA was redundant IMO.

...and, before anyone shouts SOCIALISM!, this is actually Liberal Democracy (of the Bernie Sanders type).

An actual move toward Socialism would subsidize the formation of worker-owned cooperatives. An initiative to do that was floated in 1980. 5 percent of taxes would have gone into a pool (kinda like USA's Social Security fund). The Finns rejected it. Source: Prof. Richard Wolff


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  • (Score: 1) by TobascoKid on Tuesday December 08 2015, @01:54PM

    by TobascoKid (5980) on Tuesday December 08 2015, @01:54PM (#273329)

    Of course, we need to fix the tax system so a bigger share of that "sweat" is getting paid by people on 7-digit salaries plus a $2M bonus for successfully blaming your screw-ups on someone else.

    At which point the 7-digit salary people leave, taking their companies with them. There's always some semi-developed nation that will be more than happy to have the world's wealthy move their businesses into special tax zones, complete with high skilled though low paid labour.

    I really think the solution requires something other than wealth transfer (beyond maybe an initial transfer to build up a sovereign wealth fund).

  • (Score: 3, Informative) by q.kontinuum on Tuesday December 08 2015, @02:22PM

    by q.kontinuum (532) on Tuesday December 08 2015, @02:22PM (#273347) Journal

    I had a colleague who earned not too far away from the 6 digits and went back to Finland, getting less income and increased cost of living, because he appreciated the social peace caused by better social benefits for the poor and more homogeneous income distribution. He's not a natural born Finnish guy, nor German, was an immigrant in both countries. For me I could imagine the same. Also, I think the point the article makes is that there are good reasons to expect overall productivity to increase with this concept.

    --
    Registered IRC nick on chat.soylentnews.org: qkontinuum
  • (Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Tuesday December 08 2015, @02:27PM

    by GreatAuntAnesthesia (3275) on Tuesday December 08 2015, @02:27PM (#273350) Journal

    Yeah well those 7 digit salary people prepared to take their ball and play elsewhere tend to be (a) avoiding their personal taxation responsibilities (b) running companies that avoid their taxes or even claim corporate welfare and (c) underpaying their employees to the point where those employees are actually a drain on the economy.

    Let them go live in Elbonia, they aren't contributing anything positive here. Any hole left in the economy will soon be filled by smaller, more ethical businesses.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 08 2015, @02:49PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 08 2015, @02:49PM (#273366)

    The rest of the world is catching up and there won't always be the third world country to exploit. Also, a lot of modern work now requires more education and skills which the average third worlder won't have. Once they DO have the skills it doesn't take long for them to "correct" the system. Ugh, the apologist comments rationalizing greed and theft are almost worse since they try and drive out any resistance.

    • (Score: 1) by TobascoKid on Tuesday December 08 2015, @03:00PM

      by TobascoKid (5980) on Tuesday December 08 2015, @03:00PM (#273378)

      The rest of the world is catching up and there won't always be the third world country to exploit.

      The exploitation will then move to de-industrialized first world nations clawing at anything to get a working economy again.