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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
(Score: 3, Insightful) by TheLink on Tuesday December 08 2015, @02:28PM
See, the problem is you just told the entire nation "you do not have to work if you're okay getting by on this much or can scam some more under the table".
But isn't that what the dream future is supposed to be like? Robots doing most of the jobs and people not having to work if they don't want to?
So basically Finland has started down a better path towards such a future.
In contrast the "upgrade" path for countries like the USA seems a bit more dystopic - the robots do most of the jobs, the 0.1% get most of the wealth and those without jobs get "spare change" or worse. Yes a lot of stuff will get cheaper, but if you have no job and no income how much cheap stuff can you buy for free? In the "expensive countries" more and more people would be unable to get steady decent jobs - they may find crap jobs, and the jobs will get crappier[1].
A significant number of poor would have it really bad. The rest may be able to afford lots of virtual stuff (circuses) so they can save their money for food (bread). So if you're one of the poor you can have lots of virtual clothes, wallpapers, houses, fashion accessories, but there won't be much "real stuff" for you. If you're unlucky and the path is worse, with all the oligopolies, copyright protections and DRM, you might not be able to afford that much virtual stuff either.
The biggest issue I see with a guaranteed income even if you don't work is you may eventually have to institute breeding limits. Stuff like you are not allowed to have more children than you can afford (based on your basic income + other income + donations + gifts etc). So for example if the country is poor and you only have basic income, you might be allowed up to 1 child or maybe even zero, but if the country is rich your basic income is higher so you can have 3 children. Or if the country is poor, and you are poor, but other people/organizations think you should have more children (great genes, great parenting skills etc) and commit $$$$ upfront for them or donate their child support quota to you, then you can have more children. And if you keep having children indiscriminately despite not being able to afford to raise them you are sterilized.
Yes I'm an evil fascist pig. But if you don't have such limits, you would be breeding for indiscriminate breeders. There will be a few who will have 10 children where many of whom will also have 10 children and so on and eventually those few will be many (think selection and evolutionary pressure). After a number of generations of this you would hit more unpleasant limits than my fascist limits. It's not like we don't have enough people on this planet already. With 7+ billion around we are more likely to have mass deaths due to problems related to overpopulation than due to people not being allowed to have many children.
And remember I'm not saying don't allow people to have children at all, I'm just saying don't let people have more children than they can afford to support. Most won't be affected by such rules - since most parents want their children to have a decent life. But there are some people who don't think or care about such stuff, and frankly I don't think we should feel so sorry about such people not being allowed to have very many children. If you really do feel so sorry for them, you could go donate your child quota and $$$$$ to them so that they can have more children.
[1] Lots of vehicle drivers would lose their jobs once the AI driving stuff gets good enough - and there are millions of such workers. When automobiles were invented, what happened to the horses? Did most of them get new nice jobs? When AI drivers arrive who will be the horses? Are most truck/bus drivers horses or buggy whip makers?
(Score: 1) by TobascoKid on Tuesday December 08 2015, @02:53PM
Yes I'm an evil fascist pig.
In which just claim "it's their own fault" and let the poor starve. It's a lot less work (though I'm guessing not having a go at violating basic human rights might be a downer for you).
(Score: 2) by TheLink on Tuesday December 08 2015, @03:44PM
I'm a poor evil fascist pig, not a rich and powerful evil fascist pig. So I'm not going to suggest letting the poor starve.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Wednesday December 09 2015, @01:36AM
China. Imposed a limit on the number of children a couple can have. Running out of children to support their parents and grandparents in old age.
Japan. Imposed no such limit, and births per woman has voluntarily dropped way below the replacement rate, lower even than the rate China imposed.
Japan is an extreme example because of widespread misogyny, but birthrate reduction happens in just about every industrialized country. Educating women appears to be a key factor,
(Score: 2) by TheLink on Wednesday December 09 2015, @03:53AM
My point still stands that without those limits you would be breeding for indiscriminate breeders. The majority you are talking about who persist in not breeding would eventually be bred out of the population. You are unlikely to have to introduce these "election losing" policies and limits till it becomes a visible problem - which would probably take a few generations as I mentioned so it's not a problem for the politicians who implement Basic Income.
In many cases a lot of people aren't breeding due to economic concerns (too busy trying to survive), if the basic income gets high enough they may start breeding.
Japan is not a good example to use. From what I see the Japanese are very different from other countries in very many ways. I actually used to joke about Japanese fans leaving stadiums cleaner than when they arrived and I've friends who have lived in Japan who said "I can believe that". And seems like it's true: http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/international/world-cup-2014-japanese-fans-clean-stadium-after-losing-2-1-against-ivory-coast-9539793.html [independent.co.uk]
There's plenty of misogyny in some countries that are growing, and low misogyny in some countries that aren't, so I don't think it's that correlated.
As for China's "Running out of children to support their parents and grandparents in old age.", how many children directly support their parents and grandparents in Finland or similar welfare states- as in live with them and provide care and $$$? There's no basic income in China, so parents suffer if they get old and they have nobody to help them. So the problem with China is there's no basic income and China is not rich and developed enough yet (high productivity per capita due to increased automation and other stuff) to have such a thing.