Comment by DickingAround | Hacker News Reader

Comment by DickingAround | Hacker News Reader

It makes sense if-and-only-if that basic income isn't being doled out by the same organization which also runs the military-industrial or prison-industrial worlds. As an American, I think it's safe to say our federal government can't be trusted to not turn into a tyranny if it's everyone's primary employer.

We would get even more massive corruption almost instantly. For example, some people would lobby to get those tax-revenue intended for the basic income to be redirected to other projects. The people wouldn't fight the loss of a $1/year/person here or there. There would also be reams of special cases to give some people more and some people less. And like today, some people would continue to carve out exceptions so they didn't have to pay those taxes to feed the basic income. That money would be divvied up every way except as a basic income and people would spend all their time fighting over who got it instead of generating the value that backs it.

I don't live in the countries trying this so I can't say if it's safe to give their government that much power, but I know the US government is no where near ready for any more power than they already have.

EDIT: Fixed a typo

> The people wouldn't fight the loss of a $1/year/person here or there.

I'm not sure. Around here, people fight [EDIT: against] the 1 cent local sales tax add-on that goes to schools (and can only go to schools).

That's because the normal shell game with the "only for schools" taxes often involve adding 1 cent to school budgets with the new tax and subtracting 1 cent of school funding from some existing source.

That's possible. But it's also a tax and people generally fight against them. Cut people's subsidies (in the form of a UBI) and it's a de facto tax. They'll fight it.

The US is 16th in the world in perceived corruption. If the US is too corrupt for this, then it likely isn't workable on any real scale.

And I agree, at least at the federal level and likely at most state levels, the US is far too corrupt to do this (and by corrupt I mean pork style politics where representatives horse trade favors and perks for votes, all at the behest of lobbyist who support their campaigns).

https://www.transparency.org/cpi2015#results-table

Just to clarify for anyone who is puzzled: a higher ranking in that survey means that a nation is perceived to be less corrupt. So the U.S.'s 16th-place ranking means that it is perceived to be the 16th least corrupt nation.

Saying that "[t]he US is 16th in the world in perceived corruption" seems to imply the opposite, to my ears.

In some respects, wouldn't a UBI also decrease corruption? There is no more pandering to special interests on either fringe of the social spectrum. There is a much smaller bureaucracy. And on the personal level, you don't have poor citizens trading food credits for drugs - they just buy whatever they want.

In theory, yes. In practice, it will be corrupted beyond that basic idea because there's no system/incentives to protect it from being corrupted.

Unfortunately, in the US the alternative to government power is corporate power.

> Unfortunately, in the US the alternative to government power is corporate power.

What's the alternative elsewhere? Warlord power?

Well, there are plenty of countries ruled by competing warlords...

Ideally in a functioning democracy you can replace the government for one which represents the people, but in the US the 'establishment' controls them anyway.

Simply put, better to demand a guaranteed income from the government, then to put it off for fear of them abusing power, only to cede control to entities who are worse...

There's a difference?

Without government power, corporations don't have any power. They only exert their power through the government. What, is Apple coming to my house to tell me what to do, how I can work, or to collect a tax? Just like Disney keeps you from file sharing by using the government, so does the your local health insurance company keep out the competition by excessive government regulations they helped write.

Without government intervention, corporations control the labour market. With no minimum wage, no basic income, and increasing automation, do you really think corporations wouldn't drive wages down to zero?

There are countries with little to no government intervention, and countries with lots. The latter are objectively much better places.

This is always the response to any libertarian argument of even mild government reform "If you don't like it, then go live in Somalia". As if rolling back government intervention in the economy to something like say the booming 1950's isn't a rational proposal.

It's because history shows that more government intervention, especially in the domain of education, health and labour, creates better societies.

Two words: New Deal.

Most of the US' prosperity since has been as a result of this. Then in the 1980's it was rolled back and guess what? Things are going to shit again. Maybe not in NY and California, but large swaths of the US are mired in poverty, poor employment prospects, crumbling infrastructure and shitty education.

How about Europe? Here's a bunch of tiny states with different languages, pretty much zero resources, very little land, who accept unprecedented amounts of immigration (partially to their detriment), who are still able to provide their citizens with the highest standards of living in the world.

Show me a single large, prosperous, libertarian state. Not a city-state that cannibalises their neighbours' resources and acts like a tax haven (Monaco, Luxembourg, Lichtenstein, Singapore, etc...) - but a large, prosperous, diverse state that is libertarian. The problem is, there are none.

Only 6 European countries have a higher GDP than the US's poorest state, and none are close to the US GDP. And the US GDP has grown significantly faster than Europe's since the 1980's.

I don't consider my state that rich, but we're 4 places above Germany.

https://www.aei.org/publication/us-gdp-per-capita-by-state-v...

GDP divided by # of people doesn't accurately reflect quality of life... Especially when a good portion of GDP is derived from resources, and not necessarily spread to the population.

There's plenty of indexes that offer better insight.

http://www.numbeo.com/quality-of-life/rankings_by_country.js...

https://www.economist.com/media/pdf/QUALITY_OF_LIFE.pdf

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/11/04/these-countries-h...

Even indexes that do rate the US highly, generally weight income highly. In life expectancy, health, education, and metrics which don't take into account income, the US doesn't do great.

Also without government intervention, there is competition between firms in the market. If firms wish to stay innovative (and in business), they must compete for high-quality labor. They must provide a safe product to consumers, or they will lose reputation in the market. Without government barriers to entry (regulation), when firms act in non-competitive ways or fail to innovate, competitors arise to keep them honest or put them out of business.

How did the countries with lots of government get where they are ("objectively much better places" according to you)? Did the USA always have a government that took such a massive percentage of total output? Only by extracting the wealth of capitalism can the socialist/progressive agenda even exist. We have so much prosperity in market economies that we can contemplate things like basic income.

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