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UBI will not happen. Not because free money are not good for the people — they are. Not because everyone will suddenly get lazy and stop working — they won't.

Because UBI is unsustainable and won't last more than a year. There is not enough money for any plausible scenario. That's why.

And yes, let's give people "free" money and do nothing about hugely overpriced and corrupt healthcare system, education and things. In fact, let's introduce new obligatory payments for everyone!

Who, do you think, might be the most interested in lobbying for _that_?

I upvoted you because you're right with regards to UBI as it's argued for in places like this forum. The same arguments were true the first time these ideas were proposed when it was called Social Credit. However, I suspect that replacing patchwork welfare and social programs with a simplified negative income tax[1] or expansion of the earned income tax credit is a plausible path that could lead towards something like a UBI. This would be welfare-level support, not provide a 'living wage', and not pay out money to anyone who was earning above a basic threshold (at which point they would be paying a positive income tax, just like today).

Once something like this is in place I could see the needle being moved over time if the sort of automation that machines give us in the coming decades really is categorically different from the sort of automation that machines have given us in the past 2 centuries (debatable).

[1] http://www.economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2006/11...

I despise bureaucracy as much as the next person, but replacing welfare programs with negative income tax will not work. There are just too many people and too little money. Welfare programs are specific and target select audience; targeting broad audience will just spread the money to wafer-thin levels.

Concerning the automation and sudden increases in productivity — but this was exactly the very same promise that full-scale Communism was expected to deliver in Soviet Union. It was reiterated in internal propaganda endlessly (I still remember that). As every ex-Soviet person knows well, the full-scale Communism (with free basic income, fully automated factories and cities of the future) was promised as early as 1980. Now it is called "post-scarcity".

It wasn't delivered then, and I doubt it will be delivered this century.

In the USA, it is entirely possible to institute a reasonable UBI, on the order of $10k/adult with some fractional amount for their dependents.

The question is politics: it'd also require scrapping most of our current welfare programs and instituting Scandinavian levels of taxation. This ends up goring {Republican,Democratic} {donors,clientele demographics}, so I agree that's presently an impossible lift in the USA, but that's a matter of politics, not economics.

I'm with you on fixing our broken healthcare and educational systems, but if you think that's any more practicable than a UBI, I've got a free government subsidy to sell you.

You either get Scandinavian welfare and taxation, or (very modest) UBI without any welfare, but still Scandinavian taxation. Will $10000/year cover any medical expenses? It is barely enough for food.

Also, taxes in Scandinavia (I lived in Denmark) are not that high. True, there is 50% tax, but no other hidden payments like social security or medical insurance. And medicine and education are free. I'd rather run business with 50% tax and no bureaucracy and no social security payments than pay all this.

One of the most expensive and problematic countries to run businesses is France. Scandinavia is piece of cake compared to France.

There's more than enough wealth in society to redistribute it from the top 1% to the bottom 50% and give them a living wage.

Yeah, the Koch brothers would only be worth 5 billion instead of 40, but somehow I don't think their lifestyle will be altered in any way shape or form.

I expect this is probably an unpopular opinion on a forum for entrepreneurs

> There's more than enough wealth in society to redistribute it from the top 1% to the bottom 50% and give them a living wage.

No it isn't. Get an Excel and calculate. It will last about a year.

"Giving up liberty.." No. Liberty doesn't mean anyone has the right to harm other people. We should be encouraging more liberty, not less. We are not and should not ever be the Soviet Union. The Bolsheviks said the exact same things you are saying -- almost exactly. And no, it won't be different this time. Man is man.

Suffering additional government bureaucracy? No way. It's interesting because I would bet you're opposed to government surveillance yet you are unopposed to increasing the power and thus the tyrannical potential of government. Those things are one in the same.

In a freshman dorm room late at night, we've all had the discussion that communism would be good if it were implemented correctly. However most of us grew up. We realize that human nature will never change no matter how many rainbows we wish upon. Every single time some perfect society attempt has been made, it turned into millions of dead people. Increasing the power of government is to increase the potential for tyranny.

Utopia doesn't exist and it will never exist.

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The freedoms that you are asking for necessarily involve the coercion of other people in order to ensure them.

That's suspect to me.

There is a middle ground between Joseph Stalin killing millions in Siberia, and dying homeless on the street in San Francisco because you can't afford your HIV medication.

And it looks like Canada, Switzerland, or The Netherlands. Utopias? Hardly. And that's not the point ("Utopia" is a black-and-white concept. The world is gray). The point is incremental improvements forward, sometimes 2 steps forward and 1 back (e.g. turns out legalizing prostitution doesn't automatically eliminate human trafficking. But it doesn't mean the idea is bad, just that it's not enough on it's own.)

You are correct, I am against warrantless government surveillance. But again, middle ground. Why can I not be against blanket all-encompassing communication surveillance with no oversight, but for regulation that protects my drinking water from factories dumping untreated waste? Or are you trying to tell me that it's both or neither? Because if so, I do not want to live in your Randian Utopia.

Reminds me of a conversation I had as a teenager visiting Michigan while I was growing up in France. A friend asked: "What's France like? Don't you guys have less freedom?"

This was in the post-Iraq War context when Freedom fries became a thing. Still, I was baffled. And wondering why I wasn't allowed to buy a beer...

You forgot something about society. It's about civility and the coming together to make every persons life better than if there were no joint society. It is, fundamentally, a value proposition at the individual level for every single part of society. A society that fails that basic tenant will fail.

> appalling to Canadians and Western Europeans

Having lived in Vancouver's downtown east side, and spent time in the neighbourhoods of various Western European cities that have high addict and homeless populations, I find your moral superiority breathtaking.

Actually, I've lived there too.

These addicts and homeless have access to: * 3 meals a day at various food banks * Safe injection sites to decrease disease risk as a result of intravenous drug use * Universal health care for when any of the above fails * A sympathetic and protective police force that ensures people do not hurt themselves or others.

As a result I've never felt unsafe living there like I do when I wander through San Francisco.

Is the system perfect? No. The legacy of conservative governments meant that mental health assistance budgets were severely cut, and so there are a lot of people on the street that really need more government help, not less.

And let's not even get into the fact that Vancouver has most of the homeless population of Canada because it's the only city in the country where you can be homeless through the winter and not die from exposure.