Universal Basic Income

Agreed. Once everyone's basic needs are met (house, heating and food) anything else over and above that would have to be met by some sort of paid work. The more work the more luxuries you can afford. Of course, eventually when AI has taken over ALL jobs, we will all be living like that, there will be precious few jobs left, mostly in hospitality. Bar jobs will be highly prized and IT professionals like I was will be thought of like we think of the bloke that used to go round emptying cess pits in the night in old London Town....

 

UBI would cause a huge drop in productivity and I don’t see how such a small trial achieves anything.

Unless we want the nation to be significantly poorer it could only be implemented when AI can offset any productivity drop. That might be in our lifetimes but I’d guess not for at least 20 years.

 

Decades ago I thought the majority of jobs would be done by computers or machines. It's happened more slowly than I thought but certainly one role I used to do has been more or less automated out of existence. Going forward if companies can make more profits using automation than human labour that's fine in my book. As long as the increased profits are used to subsidise the humans that are replaced.
Sooner or later, if we haven't blown ourselves or the planet up, we are going to have to deal with the fact that very few people are required to work. That's not something to throw our hands up in horror at. It's a good thing. I've never understood this idea that work is good and we need to yoke ourselves to jobs for 45 years of our lives. It's perfectly possible to occupy your body, brain and maintain self esteem outside of work rather than standing at a conveyor belt 8 hours a day putting flanges on widgets.
I've ben retired seven years. I wish I'd been retired forty seven.There is nothing that I need for good mental and physical health that I can't get outside a work environment.
All that being said the reorganisation of society, of some peoples' attitudes, the taxation of businesses and the super wealthy will require huge political will and indeed political goodwill. That's the huge stumbling block. We can't even organise an equitable tax system now much less fundamentally transform the way we operate as a society.

 

AI is not going to replace millions of jobs. We currently only have machine learning models - which are far from being an actual AI, or more importantly Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). They said decades ago that computers would take millions of jobs - but they've also created far more jobs than were removed - and the jobs that are left are higher skilled and paying than many of those they replaced.

We do need much better education to take advantage of it properly - although competing with the 1million+ Indian and Chinese STEM graduates each year is going to be a battle we can't win, so we probably need to specialise in niche areas (like our manufacturing already does).

And I'm surprised they are trialing UBI for only 30 people - given that Wales started a pilot scheme for 500 people last year, and the Tory ideology would probably prefer negative income tax to UBI.

 

And for those interested, with ~50 millions adults at £1600 pcm, UBI would cost ~£80bn pcm or ~£960billion per year - roughly 1/3 of GDP. Currently benefits (~£77bn) and pensions (~£136bn) would account for about £213bn, so there would be a big shortfall. Removing the tax allowance would help, but it would likely need tax rises across the board depending on how much was covered by an increase in VAT and other indirect taxes.

 

Funnily enough that's what i tried to say to you when you were advocating Biden's disastrous quantitative easing programme.

I do agree with you on this one though. Equally Barnsley Reds is correct though - full wmployment will look like a pipe dream sooner rather than later

 

We're on the cusp of self-driving vehicles replacing taxi drivers, bus drivers, train drivers, lorry drivers, delivery drivers. It will happen as quickly as cars replaced horses. The technology already exists. Companies who don't adopt it will quickly go out of business because it's impossible to compete and pay wages against a company who isn't paying wages.

 

On a Philosophical level I have a problem with it, once you remove a person's agency to control their future - either perceived or actual - I think you get massive problems with mental health and overall wellbeing. If you're saying, there's no work for you but here's £35K a year, I get how that could look attractive on paper, and I know obviously this is how retirement "works", and also there are a disputed number of people who do genuinely seem happy to sit around being economically inactive, but for the majority of people some kind of useful activity which has value is important. Why bother getting a degree or workplace qualification? Why bother turning up for school at all? Why bother getting out of bed? Why bother with anything?
Also, who decides what the value of your time is based on a universal income value? Rishi Sunak? I don't trust anyone in politics to get it right either deliberately or not.
I'm not convinced.

Additional:

I do think that people in capitalist society work too much, if you go back before the industrial revolution, people worked but it wasn't seen as the be-all and end-all of life - family, community, were all more important - yes, it was more agriculture based - so seasonal, but they certainly didn't work 37 hours a week on average. So maybe if we can get to a 3-4 day week but retain the same standard of living that would work. Unfortunately un-regulated market capitalism won't create that model, it would have to be enforced on companies, otherwise they would just have less people working 5 days and everyone else can toodle off.

 

Can't remember that conversation, TM! (I struggle to remember last week most of the time).

But how is the US economy doing just now?

 

£1,600 now is not the same as £1,600 if everyone gets it. There's no point even trying to predict what effect it will have. It's not a UBI trial if not everyone gets it - it's a selective basic income trial.

If it were brought in the economy would go absolutely barmy for a year or so before beginning to settle. Inflation would spike, house prices would jump up massively etc. I've no idea whether it would be good or bad when it eventually settled down, but trying it with 30 people is a waste of time and money if the aim is to figure out whether it would work on a universal basis.

 

Always amused that such is the indoctrination of the Capitalist system that people can't see any alternative to it. It's as if the natural law of the entire universe after all these billions of years of evolution is for people to work for 50 years or more, then pop their clogs. I mean, how could there be any alternative?

 

Didn't the Truss government's fate demonstrate the lack of appetite for untested radical alternatives?

 

It definitely demonstrated how the rest of the capitalist world quashes your radical ideas by crashing your currency if you move away from the status quo.
I mean she was an absolute moon, but even if there was a well thought out, fully costed alternative, I don’t think you’d see it make it to government as the banks/business would never allow it.

 

The clue is in the word 'trial'. It has also been trialled in Finland.

Edit:

Report by that well known hotbed of radical alternatives, McKinsey

https://www.mckinsey.com/industries...n-experiment-to-inform-universal-basic-income

 

I've commented on this thread already but having reflected I think the best thing would be to stop the two trials of UBI and divert all the money to me. The resultant increase in happiness would be massive.

 

Interesting.

How do you think it will drive up prices?

 

Demand-pull inflation. People will have additional money available to spend, demand will quickly and significantly increase, resulting in higher prices.

 

It’s yet another Tory policy aimed at raising the living standards of the working class. I mean, they’re known for their benevolence aren’t they.

 

I could do with a benevolent fund. I'd love it to come in. Wage for enjoying living off the benevolent fund.

As long as CSA don't find out.

 

I imagine the Tory system being akin to Logan's Run. Thirty years of UBI, then you're culled.