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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: 2, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday December 09 2015, @05:24AM
Ah, and here you have hit on the problem: loss is socialized. Cronyism. We do NOT have capitalism in this nation. And something I wish to hell you people would wrap your minds around: we never will.
Got it? Humans do not work that way. Purity of ideals is nice and all, but humans are imperfect. Power goes to power, money to money, privilege to privilege. Without some kind of countermeasure, laissez-faire inevitably results in feudalism. The things you decry as socialism are all that's holding us back from a dystopian nightmare. And so long as you speak out against them, I challenge you to quit driving on the interstate, quit drinking treated water, wave the snowplows away from your street, and so forth. What Obama meant by "you didn't build that" is that no man (or woman!) is an island.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...