Capitol Hill Blue Forums Political Issues Finance, the economy & Economics Universal Basic Income? Guaranteed Job?

Resiliance

I like the idea as a step toward building community and as an organizing tool for those left out (the overwhelming majority of the people). I'm sure there could be much learned from developing these kinds of programs.
The critique that the author mentions is a valid one: they may serve as temporary relief but one would need to incorporate into the program the notion that lasting change will only come from structural changes to the system itself.
And the argument about budget deficit is spot on.

I find the discussion fascinating. We really do need to have an in-depth review of our modern economy and is future. I've long been a fan of/intrigued by the concept of UBI as a new paradigm and its practical impact on the existing economy. One great advantage is the need for a much smaller bureaucracy. There would need to be three organizations in such a scheme: a dispensing administration; a policing agency (to prevent fraud); and some kind of oversight/review apparatus to study its impacts in the real economy.

One hitch on my thought experiment on its implementation is whether a limited-scale pilot program would be possible. In some respects it could be argued that paradigms exist in Alaska's Permanent Fund and some Indian tribes' gaming revenue distribution schemes (e.g. Tribal Gaming Revenue Sharing in California - some tribes distribute gaming revenues directly to members as a dividend as well). Those funds, however, vary from year to year. I'm not aware of any long-term implementation of UBI in any discrete community.

While the CCC and WPA were examples of JG-like programs, their duration and historical circumstances have not been duplicated since. America Corps is so limited in scope I'm not sure it counts. Further, I'm not sure how that would work on the scale that JG would require today. Moreover, SOME unemployment is necessary in a functioning economy to allow for job transition.

But this is the kind of thinking that has to be done to address our future economy.

I remember going through this intellectual exercise back in the 1960s. IMO this is at core a moral issue and goes to the nature of our relationship as humans to one another.

We live in a competitive nation culture and the very best of it is in admonitions of religious leaders to help those who are downtrodden. But what if we removed competition as a key force in society? What if the core of our way of living were, instead, cooperation?

That is the root of it, in my opinion.

Indeed there is a moral issue.
Some would argue that humankind is, by nature, competitive hence, a cooperative society is utopian and not achievable.
This is belied by aboriginal human groupings that demonstrated a greater trend toward cooperativism.
I am unsure of how much of the current competitiveness is due to technological progress and how much could truly be considered innate (if any). But I believe that a cooperative society would be the answer. If it is attainable and what the path would be are matters that merit discussion.

It seems to me that human nature (and the survival of species) are comprised of both - competition in order to ensure survival and cooperation for the same purpose. If any society were to be entirely one or the other it would likely become extinct. And the species that knows best how to use competition (not individual but as a species) to survive would do so to defend against threats of other SPECIES (not humans).
However, since we are the dominant species on the planet, we wind up competing against ourselves by creating false divisions - black vs white, gay vs straight, male vs female, country A vs country B, etc.
So the question in my mind is, are we not at a stage of evolution that should favor cooperation over competition?

Read this when much younger and has in part shaped my ideas of human nature

The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind

I, too, believe that there is a dichotomy between cooperation and competition, and that both are necessary for a person, or a species, to survive. The truth is, we "compete" for resources. Sharing resources, while morally laudable, is not as inherently preferable to most people - yet we do it on the grandest of scales! (Think banking, insurance, taxation, Social Security, hospitals, fire protection) Too often (think Trump) we emphasize competition when it is not the best solution. Too much "competition" leads to many untoward effects.

Therein lies the rub. How much of this reluctance to cooperate comes from an economic system that encourages competition for its own furtherance? Which would mean that the current economic system is obstructing progress.