While we're heading towards a labor reduction if not an all out collapse, we're definitely not to the place where no jobs need doing. Trying to inject freeform communism into a capitalistic economy creates arbuably the worst combination of incentives possible.
A UBI will not eliminate jobs, but will mostly likely effect a necessary reform on the job landscape.
A UBI will eliminate some portion of people willing to do jobs. The higher the UBI the higher the proportion. If that proportion gets too high, then we will have a different kind of labor collapse as needed labor goes undone.
There are presently certain kinds of jobs that people do because either they must do so to live, thus giving most or all bargaining power to the employer, or that they might otherwise want but have no leeway in seeking education or looking for other work because they can't afford to lose a shift if they want to pay the rent.
Most people work because they need money to live. That's not a revelation or a mistake of the system. It's a design feature that we force the exchange of goods for services, because we both need certain tasks completed and a reason for people to trade. It's necessary consequence of believing in private property that you have legitimate methods to encourage it to transfer. It's also a liberal delusion to translate that into a mandatory wage serfdom that doesn't reflect the reality that motivated people can and do find their way out of such jobs with regularity. That doesn't reflect the generally free basic education system that becomes more free the less resources one actually has, and that easily allows someone to move out of wage peonage.
There's virtually no circumstance that is inescapable, even living below minimum wage can be exited. Hard to imagine the person who could not live with a roommate to save capital, who could not work a second job to do the same or for whom they would live at such a level and not be entitled to any services or benefits.
To me, if you hang your theory on this faulty premise you've just assumed your conclusion. Because you believe at some level its impossible for people on the bottom to improve their own lot, you have no choice but to conclude the only solution is to provide help from above. However, if you're wrong, and I think you are, then you need to justify why that method provides the best solution since there are any number of other possibilities.
For such people, a UBI wouldn't magically make them want to stop working because they'd not be prepared to live with that little money, but it would enable them to take certain days off to do things like vote or go to the doctor without being unable to pay their bills, and it will also force wage negotiation between the employer and worker since the worker no longer has a clear and present danger to themselves if they don't take the job.
Would it? Would a worker gain a new ability to negotiate with an employer to maintain a job they still need to stay alive simply because they have a back up source of income on which you posit they still can not live? Particularly for people at such a marginal level of existence the inflationary pressure you undersell is going to wipe out any gains they get for a UBI. I'll flat out say, my prediction is that real income will be largely stagnant, possibly increase slightly, but just likely decrease slightly,for the poorest families after you put in UBI.
Implicit in your assumptions is that wages are not fairly compensating people for their labor, notwithstanding that offering and accepting wages for specific tasks has been the fairest system for determining how people value their labor over time. Minimum wage laws invariably eliminate from the compensatable universe whole categories of jobs and uniformly those losses are born by the least skilled and least employable people in the country.
Putting your thumb on the scales in wage negotiations is very unlikely to result in fairer wages. If you have evidence of a slave wage, prosecute the slaver.
This kind of buffer will create a natural wage hike without the need for government minimum wages, since if people have a baseline income they won't be so quick to accept the minimum wage for a difficult job.
There's nothing "natural" about that. There's lots of reasons to believe that the end result will be that certain jobs are left undone, or will get done by marginalized populations. We see that today. Infrastructure projects that were trivially easy to complete 40-50 years ago are so expensive today that they don't get done. Illegal immigrants are employed in massive numbers to work for the wages that certain industries will support, which don't line up with the mandatory wages, and literally everyone turns their eyes away because its the only way to get it to work.
Like it or not, the UBI would also help the financial sector, since more aggregate cash means much more investing potential.
This is based on an actual false premise. For this to be true the value of the units of cash needs to hold steady. However, what will actually happen (and you can see this in multiple countries around the world as they have destroyed their own currencies) is that inflation will devalue the currency you create to the point that only a sucker will take it.
You should consider that this is not an unintended effect by people who support UBI. They want to redistribute wealth because they don't believe in personal property and believe a difference in current situations is a wrong that has to be corrected. Devaluing all current savings pushes the middle class down much faster than it raises up the lower class.
So in short, devalued currency does not create new investment potential. Besides which, you'd be replacing the existing way we inject ridiculous amounts of capital into the system (through fractional reserve lending), which in most cases directly supports financial growth (again at a hidden cost) with an indirect method that at best may have a knock on effect.
If you really believe this is a good idea, do it openly and seize the cash and property of the wealthy and redistribute it. If you don't find that palatable, ask yourself why you've signed on to do it with a prettier gloss.
For retail businesses it would likewise be a boon, since many people currently spending most of their money on rent would now be able to spend some of the UBI on commercial goods and even luxuries.
With the inherent inflation in your proposal any short term boon would be wiped out when the retailers have to pay higher prices to replace their depleted stocks. Effectively you cleared out their inventories at a net loss, when you consider replacement.
Communism (ie UBI) does not cause retail success, it leads directly to shortage and black markets (and not just because of the central planning aspects though that makes it worse, and UBI is intended to mitigate that part of it).
So rather than eliminating the market and jobs, as you suggest, it will only boost sales and if anything create new jobs.
So show us the examples of where communism did as you suggest?
I'll say it again. No UBI system has shown success unless its based on capital injections from outside the closed system (ie, a federal government running a local level test) or exploiting a non-renewable resource (like Oil or mineral wealth).
What does't work in creating jobs is trickle-down - giving money to corporations. What does work is giving it directly to the consumer to get that full multiplier effect.
You both correct and not correct. Adding money to any system, if you hold the value of money relatively constant, will create jobs. This is true even in a trickle-down system, we've gone a bit off the rails on that because a big chunk of our investing is being directed into financial products and not hitting actual operating companies, but it would work if the incentives were on investing in operating companies.
There is literally zero evidence that handing people money causes them to work more. In fact, it's pretty settled that the opposite occurs, that the more you hand to people they less of them work or are willing to work. There's certainly a line, we already give people refundable tax credits (ie really basic income), but to do what you're saying you have to get a heck a lot closer to the line where people can actually live on the hand out. When you do, some of them are going to stop working.
Bad analogy.
Not a bad analogy, it's directly related to the point I made. It's not a complete analogy and it was never intended to be one.
Giving a blank check to regular citizens would not enable any particular business to jack up prices because they'd not know whether the consumers will even have much of an increased demand for their goods anyhow.
Even if I posited that no business will actively exploit people and their new found wealth (which is a fundamentally ridiculous postulate), it's the inevitable consequence that
all businesses will increase their costs. You've already noted that you believe this will force wages up (and even if you discount what I said about also shrinking the labor pool) that's a simple cost that has to be absorbed. Physical resources are not unlimited, this will redirect and call on them and increase the competition for them, which will be particularly bad short term but also bad long term. When every product sold can only be replaced by the vendor with a 25% or 50% markup there's no way not to pass that cost onto the consumer.
I think there might be a marginal % increase across the board, but not the kind of thing where the populace would effectively have no more spending power than before.
That's the question isn't it. I have seen nothing that makes me believe forced redistribution of wealth will create net positives.
That's early 20th century thinking and isn't how business works any more. No more randomly raises prices because they think they can get away with it; competition would bury them if they tried.
Honestly the part I find most frustrating is when you try to explain how communism is really free market capitalism. Businesses only work because they trade value for value, if you kill the currency, that's going to mean black market currency or barter. Has any communistic system not had to impose price controls? Heck, even in the US our health care system has rigid price controls because the government ruthlessly requires that certain services must be provided but isn't willing to let the actual cost hit the consumer.
Unless there was a price-fixing cartel in some sector, each business would have to keep prices low to avoid being swept away by a more effective competitor. This is how it's been for the last 25 years, when even back when the economy was great prices were hitting rock bottom due to outsourcing labor and cheaper manufacturing.
So because in a free market competition leads to lower prices, you think you can claim that post communist revolution the same will apply? Why didn't it work in the communistic countries?
Explain to me the magic that causes lower prices where you have higher wages and increased resource competition. This is basic econ.
The only time prices go up is with limited-supply situations, and in most manufacturing areas the supply is nigh-infinite.
This is really the other implausible assumption that you hang your hat on. The belief that but for some inherent and unfair built in inefficiency everyone would have more stuff because there are no real constraints on resources. Again, all you're advocating is redistribution under a different name. The market we already have has filled people's homes with consumer merchandise and multiple cars, why exactly do you think we need to prop that up even more? Is it really the best use of resources and the resulting environment harms to put two PS4's in every house? Why should we be subsidizing that?
The real problem is you live in a society with property rights, and the only way you achieve your goals is to nationalize property. How do you encourage anyone to work, or do more, when they face the very real risk of having the benefits nationalized?
You seem to have pulled this idea out of the air. What have you read that made you think this has anything to do with a UBI?
What do you think UBI is other than a "soft" way of nationalizing wealth and redistributing it? You devalue the savings of the wealthy and hand new cash to the poor. How is it any different than seizing a portion of their accounts and doing the same? Of course its not a true full solution, because it has an arbitrary and disproportionate impact on capital and savings, and leaves wealth tied up in real property and commodities largely untouched, so it'll also have the "fun" effect of bringing back the landed gentry and ensuring that property is never sold to the common man only rented at usurious rates (Sharing cropping! Yay!).
The idea that most people are only rich by random luck, is purely a liberal fantasy. It's never been the case. Systems that provide for the most social mobility are the best way to "correct" the relative wealth of the people in them. If you can make a fortune, then its on you to do so.
I guess you don't believe in the adage "the rich get richer"? Because it's true.
I don't believe
only the rich can get richer, which is most certainly not true. But after UBI it'll be closer to reality.
Sometimes an entrepreneur in a new field (like computing) can make a killing and end up a tycoon, but by and large social mobility isn't what you seem to be claiming it is; and the rates of social mobility have been trending downwards.
Social mobility trending downwards is a direct result of policies that disfavor self reliance and the importance of education. We literally have made it more possible than ever before for people of modest means to get the educations that make it a virtual certainty their lot in life will improve.
If you want to find places where social mobility is trending down most sharply, just look for the same places that have implemented the policies of the left to the greatest degree. The places where people don't believe that they can improve their lives and most strongly believe they are entitled to have the government take care of them. The places where while everyone graduates from the union run schools no one can pass a basic proficiency test when they do so, but any attempt to make a change is "harming our kids."
Being able to leverage money to generate more money is not merely an advantage, but is effectively the only way to snowball a 'good' income into being real wealth. This can come from investments, ownership, etc etc, but you don't get rich by "working hard". This is only true within certain very narrow parameters.
There's a nugget of truth there, but only a nugget. Most leverage literally comes from leverage these days. Essentially free money from banks for favored policies of the political elite. It's not just the rich who have access to essentially free capital.
What would happen to the value of the currency is an open question, but I suspect your belief that the deflation would be significant wouldn't end up being the case.
Inflation, not deflation. Currency becomes worthless not more valuable. Feel free to "suspect" all you want, but it's occurred left and right in communistic societies and places that have given in to the urge to print themselves out of debt, so it's not like you don't have real world cases you can look at.
Money literally only has value because we believe it has value. When you make it obvious to the common man that you'll print more if they need it or want it, then that belief gets degraded and starts to disappear.
This is less a theoretical thing to debate rather than something that would have to be observed experimentally because - let's face it - experts in the field of economics know approximately zero about anything and there's no way to tell what would happen.
Or again, you could just look at the places communism has already failed.
