Yeah, once again, Althouse has found an interesting link and I’m playing copycat. According to a NYT report, there’s a group in Switzerland promoting a guaranteed minimum income. Everyone in the NYT comment section loves it (they promise that they’ll do great things to benefit the world if only they didn’t have to earn a living); Althouse commenters are skeptical.
A minimum income would fix a lot of what’s troubling about the social welfare system — the fact that there are so many layers of adminstration, so many complex benefit structures (and the arbitrariness of whether you move off the waiting list for the housing voucher, for instance), cases where work pays less than welfare. But at the same time, we don’t really know exactly how large a percentage of the population is, basically, so lazy that they’d accept the minimum and watch Jerry Springer all day. Plus — one commenter raised the issue of the kids — how do you ensure that Mom uses the money to feed the kids rather than buy meth, if not for a food stamp voucher that can only be used to buy food?
Anyway, I thought it’d be fun to think through the pros and cons, and impacts on the economy as a little exercise in thinking and writing, but right now there’s dinner to be made and homework to be supervised. But I wanted to at least put that out there for anyone who’s not simultaneously reading Althouse.
UPDATE:
Just read more of the NYT comments; here are some snippets of what they have to say:
“A guaranteed income will also unleash a torrent of altruistic projects. It will free people to work for the good of society without fear of starvation.”
“It would reduce the bureaucracy and I think unleash a massive amount of creative energy since people could do what they wanted instead of worrying about a roof over their heads. Society would be focussed on what matters instead of the endless pursuit for money.”
“I thinks it’s a terrific idea. And those who are irresponsible with money will stimulate the economy.”
“We are often told that the housing projects and welfare payments of the 1970s to 1980s were a disaster, resulting in a deadbeat underclass producing nothing of value. In fact, that welfare generation largely produced hip-hop culture in all its varieties, which has become a multi-billion dollar industry and one of America’s biggest exports.”
“This is an interesting idea, helping people and even re-birthing a sense of community, because if the cutthroat competition necessary to survive in this society were softened, mutual trust and aid would increase. But it doesn’t deal with questions underpinning our entire system: Why work? Why accept the five day work week as if etched in stone? The forty (or more) hour work week is for the benefit of the ruling class only. It’s arbitrary. Why not work for two days and be off for five? If we all agreed, it would happen easily.”
“At the very least, this is a serious conversation that needs to begin: what societal function is served by tying people’s basic needs to employment? As more and more jobs are removed – think of all the people who were once employed in auto factories – without being truly replaced, why do we stick to this idea that someone absolutely *must* work? There are benefits to working, and no one advocating this is suggesting that we should just all kick back, take our $10,000 and do nothing. But by removing the strict Puritanical ethos of “work = life = purpose,” we may be able to provide people with more opportunities, rather than less. How many people would rather volunteer for a living, rather than work minimum wage at McDonald’s? Who knows, but in our system as it exists, we’ll never know.”
“It seems to me that this would be virtually self-funded – almost all of the money paid out as minimum income would flow right back into the economy for food, shelter, clothing and other spending. Very little would be removed from the economy in the form of savings, as the primary reasons for savings (a safety net or to leave money for heirs) would be negated. The money flowing back into the economy would generate the increased tax revenue needed to fund the program.
Additionally, with people able to reject work that pays too little, employers would be forced to provide more competitive salaries which would release more of their profits back into the active economy.”
Now, I should say that not all the commenters were as dreamy-eyed and optimistic that everyone would use this benefit for the good, but it’s still startling to see how many are!
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