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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 bradley13 on Tuesday December 08 2015, @01:43PM
The giant plus - if true - is eliminating bureaucracy and bureaucrats. If you have seventeen different, overlapping programs, each with its own rules and conditions, you keep a lot of bureaucrats busy, and also open the way to gaming the system. It may well be cheaper to replace all of that with a simple, flat payment to everyone. If you really, truly get rid of the seventeen programs, their rules and their bureacracies.
The disadvantage is simply that EUR 800 is not enough to live on, not in Norway, and not in most of the EU. Which gives lie to the idea that all other programs will stop.
Moreover, people forget that a large part of the poor lack basic life skills. Give them EUR 800, and it will be gone in the first week. Blown on drink, loaned to "friends" who never will pay it back, there are a million ways for it to disappear, and it will. Then what? I don't see the Norwegians saying "tough, go freeze to death". So, again, those other seventeen programs are not going to end. All you've done is add an eighteenth, overlapping program, with its own accompanying bureaucracy [xkcd.com].
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 08 2015, @03:04PM
You are assuming the worst of everyone. It turns out that most people on welfare programs (in the us) are families that work but don't get enough income. The true scammers, drug addicts, etc. are the minority. You've obviously bought the propaganda being sold to you by the media.
The poor lack basic life skills? Jesus, you have your head stuck somewhere... Substance abuse problems are more often a symptom not a cause. Our entire system sucks, and the myth of pulling yourself up by the bootstraps falls apart when you do the math.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 08 2015, @04:53PM
Sounds like a libertarian paradise