A universal basic income is a program that provides each person a specific sum of guaranteed social income every year. Recently, debates about the value of such a program reignited here on the left (see, among others, Max Sawicky, Steve Randy Waldman). I was too busy with the new wealth and poverty data to enter into the fray, but I want to do so now.Demos Policy Shop
The Universal Basic Income As Social Insurance's Insurance
Matt Bruenig
Max Sawicky responds at Maxspeak, For lack of social insurance.
4 comments:
Sawicky:
"Would you say $10,000 is an adequate UBI? If you would, then the cost for the U.S. is upwards of $3 trillion-with-a-T. As I’ve noted in the past, this exceeds the entirety of Federal revenue expected next year. How would any UBI — you tell me for how much, blah, blah..."
But obviously Fed deposits would respond by an increase of about 86% which is the current year return percentage of Federal spending...
So 86% would be returned, 14% would be saved... so it would be estimated to result in additional (.14 x 3T) 420B of savings in the non-govt (mostly foreigners...)
While Federal deposits should increase by 86% or 2.58T....
So we could do a lot of good with this and the only effect would be an addtiional $420B in savings (mostly by foreigners...)
Doesnt seem like too big a deal....
I should say 'the only FINANCIAL effect....'
Dan has a nice comment over at Interfluid:
" I just can’t see why we should accept the idea that an able-bodied individual is entitled to some share of that output with no formal balancing requirement to contribute something back to the combined national work effort."
So Dan is coming at this from the 'wages & debt' side ...
While he got this response:
"This defence is a joint effort, and the result of the joint effort is joint property, that will shared on the basis of social interaction within the group."
Coming from the 'rations' cohort...
so this distinction between the 'wiring' of these two cohorts is going to have to be recognized imo before some sort of compromise can be reached on this...
"all men are created equal"? obviously not...
rsp,
I see this more as a rights-based issue than an economic one.
The economic liberal aka propertarianism case is based on priority of alienable right to self-ownership and unlimited private property.
The social liberal case is based on human rights and civil liberties, which admits an alienable right to limited private, but denies that there is any alienable right of self-ownership, which reduced personhood to property.
Social liberalism is based on inalienable human rights and civil liberties based on equality of persons. The right to share the commons equally among persons and the historical recognition that the commons was enclosed not by popular agreement but by force and positive law by a few is the basis for redistribution. There is no practical way to redress this at present through title revision for the most part, but it can be addressed by distribution of the fruits to those currently at a disadvantage owing to existing institutional arrangements, based on a right to equal share in the commons and subsequent enclosure practices that violated this right.
This is the basis of addressing social, political and economic inequality owing to the class structure involving privilege, power, status and wealth that developed from enclosing the commons by force of arms and law. These issues are addressed economically through progressive taxation, for example. A case can be made on this basis for a BIG and JG also.
While this assumes equality of person before the law, that is a point that has been granted in Western countries since the Enlightenment. Since then the concept of human right and civil liberties has been further specified and extended, and is accepted by all other than those on the far right. They also base their argument on equality of rights but limit rights to alienable property rights.
For this reason, I think that the "wages" vs. "rations" argument is insufficient in that it is not based on the foundational issue, which is equality of persons and equal rights, which are the basis of contemporary constitutional law and Western society. This is the basis for the supposed "freedoms" the West is fighting for and creating a world based on. Without addressing this issue, that world would under the boot of oligarchic "democracy," which is democracy is name but not substance.
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