Bill Mitchell — UBI–the hopeful not the surrender

I have long disagreed with Guy Standing about the solutions to unemployment. 20 years ago we crossed paths on panels and in the literature where he would argue that UBI was the way forward and I would argue that it was a neoliberal plot and that, instead, we needed to push for job creation. My view has always been that to surrender to the neoliberals on their claim that governments cannot generate sufficient jobs to satisfy the desires for work of the unemployed was a slippery slope. Standing continues to publish his fiction. In his latest Social Europe article (January 15, 2020) – Building a progressive alliance in Britain – he seeks to integrate UBI proposals with a recovery plan for British Labour. My view is that would not help Labour recover from the shots they fired into their own feet in the period before the December election by listening to the likes of Standing and those who advocated the Fiscal Credibility Rule and the reneging on the Brexit commitment. Standing’s aversion to job creation is in contradistinction with a recommendation from the Wetenschappelijke Raad Voor Het Regeringsbeleid (WRR or in English, The Netherlands Scientific Council for Government Policy) to the Dutch government to deal with the challenges of achieving “good work”, in part, by introducing a ‘basic job’ which in my parlance means by introducing a Job Guarantee. They are motivated by a deep vein of social science and medical research that extols the virtues of work beyond its obvious income generation qualities. Pushing a UBI in the light of that research is just a pitiful bailout...

Bill Mitchell – billy blog
UBI – the hopeful not the surrender
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

Universal Basic Income–Combined With What Else? — Timothy Taylor

The major problem with a UBI is that it is a shotgun approach that is not addressed to a specific socio-economic need and it is insufficient to meet all socio-economic needs. The other issue is, cui bono? That is, for whose good? And how does that actually work? What happens if it is inflationary, as some economists have warned? If it is indexed, it becomes more inflationary. If it is not, the good it was supposed to do is undone.

Sounds good until you go to the spreadsheet.

Conversable Economist
Universal Basic Income--Combined With What Else?
Timothy Taylor | Managing editor of the Journal of Economic Perspectives, based at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota

Laura Tyson and Lenny Mendonca — Universal Basic Income or Universal Living Wage?

Asking the right question.

The challenge for the future of work is not really about the quantity of jobs, but their quality, and whether they pay enough to provide a decent standard of living. In the US, ensuring that they do starts with raising the minimum wage and ensuring that other existing tools don't go unused.

Pavlina needs to get in contact with Laura and set her straight.

Similarly, proposals in the United States for a federal jobs guarantee have been gaining momentum on the traditional left. But while such a program could employ millions of workers to deliver basic public services and rebuild and modernize the country’s dilapidated infrastructure, it is no more feasible than a UBI, given current federal budget constraints.

BTW, government spending is now going full blast, deficit and debt be damned. What constraint?

But this is correct.

The challenge for the future of work is not really about the quantity of jobs, but their quality, and whether they will pay enough to provide a decent standard of living.

Workers don't want "bullshit jobs" (ht David Graeber). They want good jobs.

Overall, it's a good article.

Project Syndicate
Universal Basic Income or Universal Living Wage?
Laura Tyson, Interim Dean, Distinguished Professor of the Graduate School
Faculty Director, Institute for Business & Social Impact, Haas Business and Public Policy Group at the University of California, Berkeley, and former chair of the US President's Council of Economic Advisers Group; and Lenny Mendonca, Chairman of New America, ands Senior Partner Emeritus at McKinsey & Company

Jeff Epstein — The Federal Job Guarantee Is Not Just “Better” Than a Universal Basic Income. It’s the Only Reasonable Option. Universal Basic Income Is Sinister.

Yves here. Another way to think about the warning of this post is: Beware of Silicon Valley libertarian billionaires bearing gifts.

Naked Capitalism
The Federal Job Guarantee Is Not Just “Better” Than a Universal Basic Income. It’s the Only Reasonable Option. Universal Basic Income Is Sinister.

Jeff Epstein, an independent and progressive journalist with Citizens’ Media TV

Originally published on Citizens’ Media TV

Tyler Prochazka — Professor argues for job guarantee over basic income

Universal Basic Income (UBI) is gaining more traction in mainstream discourse, but the academic debate has been heating up for years. One scholar with a sympathetic but critical eye towards basic income still believes it is not the best priority for activists.

Philip Harvey, a professor of law at Rutgers, wrote that a job guarantee could eliminate poverty for a fraction of the cost of UBI — $1.5 trillion less.
Harvey argued in 2006 that the focus on UBI may be crowding out more realistic policies that could achieve the same ends.

“[Basic Income Guarantee] advocates who argue that a society should provide its members the largest sustainable BIG it can afford – whether or not that guarantee would be large enough to eliminate poverty – are on shaky moral ground if the opportunity cost of providing such a BIG would be the exhaustion of society’s redistributive capacity without eliminating poverty when other foregone social welfare strategies could have been funded at far less cost that would have succeeded in achieving that goal.”

When I interviewed Harvey this month, he said his views have largely stayed the same and he still sees a fundamental difference between the advocates of UBI and job guarantee.

“The most important driver of that difference is the inherent attractiveness of the UBI idea. It really is an idea that captures the imagination and admiration of all kinds of interested parties with different kinds of agendas. The job guarantee idea, on the other hand, attracts people who are more into the weeds of policy analysis.”....

Bien

Professor argues for job guarantee over basic income

Tyler Prochazka

Bruce Lesnick — The Unemployment Conspiracy

JG v. UBI

Counterpunch
The Unemployment Conspiracy
Bruce Lesnick

Daniel Little — Erik Olin Wright on real utopias

Erik Olin Wright is one of the genuinely important contributors to a progressive sociology in the United States. He was one of the first wave of social scientists and philosophers who created the movement of analytical Marxism in the 1970s and 1980s, and for more than thirty years he has organized much of his own thinking and the collaborations of a number of other scholars around the idea of a "real utopia." Essentially the idea is to make use of good social science research and theory to help to formulate visions of the future of society that incorporate an emancipatory vision of human community while imagining institutions and social arrangements that are feasible and attainable. Erik's book Envisioning Real Utopias provides a manifesto and extensive development of the ideas (link).

The general perspective that Wright has taken in the Real Utopias project is egalitarian and emancipatory. The project has focused on a number of key topics: universal basic income, market socialism, deliberative democracy, alternatives to capitalism, and gender equality, to name just a few. (Earlier posts on UnderstandingSociety have highlighted some of the goals of the real utopias project (link, link). Erik's webpage provides more details….

Understanding Society
Erik Olin Wright on real utopiasDaniel Little | Chancellor of the University of Michigan-Dearborn, Professor of Philosophy at UM-Dearborn and Professor of Sociology at UM-Ann Arbor

BIEN — History of UBI: From Hunter-Gatherers to the 21st Century

Backgrounder. Links to an Investopedia paper.

Seems to reinforce the conclusion that sharing requires a more advanced level of collective consciousness or necessity for social cooperation to survive than exists in most places today.

BIEN
History of UBI: From Hunter-Gatherers to the 21st Century

Benjamin Lascia — The American Enterprise Institute releases a proposal for a universal basic income

The paper’s proposal is a budget-neutral form of a UBI, meaning instead of implementing a basic income in addition to the existing American social welfare system; most existing programs like Medicaid, Veteran’s Benefits, and Social Security for the elderly over 65 are repealed and replaced with a UBI. Using data from the Federal government’s budget outlays from 2014, the paper finds that the repeal of large programs in America would yield about $2.54 trillion dollars. In addition to this, the proposal repeals 23 different tax benefits like the Student Loan interest deduction and Earned Income Tax credit, bringing in more revenue and freeing up a grand total of about $3.21 trillion for a UBI.

With additional taxes coming in from the UBI itself, and increased tax liabilities on all income tax brackets, the proposal finances and prescribes a basic income of $13,788 for individuals over the age of 18 and $6,894, or half the income of adults, for individuals under the age of 18.

Using Federal government tax data, the paper analysis the net benefit gain or loss by tax bracket and age. Using the parameters described, the findings show that some of the most adversely affected by this system are in the lowest tax bracket ($0-$10,000). This is unsurprising, because many of the programs this proposal had repealed to finance the basic income are concentrated on this tax bracket.

Another group adversely affected by this proposal are individuals 65 and older, also because their benefits, such as Social Security, have been repealed and distributed among the rest of the population. When excluding age groups of 65 and older, however, nearly all tax brackets see a net benefit in this proposal, with the brackets seeing the greatest benefits being those in the middle.…

The important findings in this proposal from the American Enterprise Institute show that, if a UBI were to merely replace the existing social welfare system in the United States, by repealing existing welfare programs and tax benefits, there would be an overall redistributive impact from the old to the young, and from the poor to the middle class; though there would be a gain in efficiency overall.

BIEN

UNITED STATES: The American Enterprise Institute releases a proposal for a universal basic income

Benjamin Lascia

Bill Mitchell — A basic income guarantee is a neo-liberal strategy for serfdom without the work

A reader pointed out the other day that a good idea remains a good idea even if bad people advocate it. This was in relation to my blog – Why are CEOs now supporting basic income guarantees?. It reprised an issue that has a long history in culture and the arts. Should we hate Wagner because it was symbolic for the Nazis? What about the work of Budd Schulberg who produced the screenplay for ‘On the Waterfront’ but was simultaneously dobbing people into the House Un-American Activities Committee? There are countless examples of this sort of quandary, or not, depending on your viewpoint. As I wrote in the earlier blog (cited abive), I am always suspicious when the elites advocate something. It is not just a taste for Wagner they are articulating. Generally, they are advocating further pathways that they can shore up their control and power. Which means bad things for the rest of us! The BIG is one of those pathways and it leads to impoverishment and an on-going capitalist domination. A basic income guarantee is not a path to nirvana – I see it as just a neo-liberal strategy for serfdom without the work....

Ccapitalism is not as much about private ownership of the means of production as it is about favoring capital, that is, ownership of real and financial assets, over the other factors of production — labor, that is, workers, and land, that is, the environment.

Capitalism is about capital accumulation and this occurs through expropriation and exploitation of workers and the environment by means of the application of power and control.

In democratic republics, the people have the opportunity to confront this through the electoral process. But they have to know what the alternatives are and how to proceed. Presently, they are being kept in the dark and misled.

MMT shows what some of the economic options are and how they would work to produce an economic system in which the factors of production are integrated harmoniously, with the top priority being people and the planet.

I know that BIG-toting progressives will respond and say their intent is different to Friedman’s. Sure enough. But structures are structures.

The BIG is very susceptible to neo-liberal manipulation. Once you abandon the narrative that it is the government’s responsibility to ensure full employment and agree that all the government is required to do is guarantee a bare existence then the slippery slope has been erected.

A moment’s reflection tells us that the CEOs and their lobbying organisations typically oppose any form of social assistance being provided by governments, in the same way, they tend to oppose wage rises.

Capital-labour conflict remains a central dynamic in our societies and only naivety would lead one to conclude it will go away, or rather, be ‘outside’ this dynamic by giving the unemployed a bare minimum BIG.

Once those who were formerly workers – in direct opposition to capital – become meagre consumption units, then the balance of power is tilted further towards capital....

Bill Mitchell – billy blog
A basic income guarantee is a neo-liberal strategy for serfdom without the work
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

Ben Schiller — Economists Are Not Very Enthusiastic About The Idea Of A Universal Basic Income

These days, all kinds of sensible and brilliant people, from Elon Musk to the prime minister of Finland, are voicing support for universal basic income. The idea of giving everyone—or at least some people—enough to lift them out of poverty without having to work some menial job is very of the moment. Executives like Musk are asked about it all the time, and executives like Musk generally think it's a good call; the tech elite are some of the idea's most enthusiastic supporters.

But among economists—who presumably would need to be on board if a basic income were to become mainstream policy—support is far from universal. They generally see the idea as appealing in theory, but unworkable, expensive, or creating the wrong type of incentives in practice. They worry it will stop people from working, and generally from participating in society. When the IGM Economic Experts Panel—which surveys economists from "the most elite research universities" on policy questions—asked economists about basic income, the response was noticeably negative....

Co.Exist
Economists Are Not Very Enthusiastic About The Idea Of A Universal Basic Income
Ben Schiller

Alexander Douglas —— For Policy Sexy Times, Make it Basic Income Time??

Although UBI proponents speak in monetary terms, their proposal is useless unless it guarantees people real income. You can give people money, but there has to be enough real stuff they can buy with their money in order to live....

Alexander Douglas at Medium
For Policy Sexy Times, Make it Basic Income Time??

Alexander Douglas | Lecturer in Philosophy, University of St. Andrews

Steve Randy Waldman — The economic geography of a universal basic income

UBI and the productivity puzzle.

Interfluidity
The economic geography of a universal basic income
Steve Randy Waldman

Jason Furman — Is This Time Different? The Opportunities and Challenges of Artificial Intelligence

Is This Time Different? The Opportunities and Challenges of Artificial Intelligence

Jason Furman

Chairman, Council of Economic Advisers

Remarks at AI Now: The Social and Economic Implications of Artificial Intelligence Technologies in the Near Term

New York University New York, NY July 7, 2016

This is an expanded version of these remarks as prepared for delivery. 

ht Brad DeLong

Scott Ferguson — universal basic income: a laissez-faire future

My claim, here, is that Srnicek and Williams’s Inventing the Future errs in the way it poses the problem of unemployment under neoliberalism and that this confused formulation generates a desire for UBI that is not only politically wrongheaded, but also contradicts the book’s professed goal of systemic transformation. The UBI may provide relief from some contemporary ills. But I suggest that it cannot bear the weight of the total transformation Srnicek and Williams are after.…

the unheard-of center
universal basic income: a laissez-faire future

Scott Ferguson

Jonathan Coppage — The terrible cost of universal basic income

Backdoor argument for a JG by implication rather than mention. But the rationale is there.

And, no, the "terrible cost" is not inflation.

The Washington Post
The terrible cost of universal basic income

Jonathan Coppage | Associate Editor

Christine Emba — Universal basic income: A primer

Getting legs?

The Washington Post (September 28, 2015)
Universal basic income: A primer
Christine Emba

Sandwichman — UBI Caritas

The miraculous Max Sawicky resumes wrestling with Universal Basic Income at MaxSpeak. This time the incitement comes from Dylan Matthews at Vox, who argues that a secondary benefit of basic income would be that "it enables a transition to a world of less work and greater leisure."

That would indeed be a good thing. But as the Sandwichman pointed out two weeks ago, advocates for basic income seemingly make exactly the opposite argument. Guy Standing, co-president of the Basic Income Earth Network, cited a recent experiment in India -- and earlier experiments in North America and Europe -- as evidence for the claim that a basic income guarantee "would not reduce labor supply... The simple fact is that people with basic security work harder and more productively, not less."….

You may wish to read the Dylan Matthews and Max Sawicky posts first if UBI is your thing. Even it it isn't best to read Sandwichman anyway. When you finish his post, take a look at Greatest mass extinction driven by acidic oceans, study finds. The likely consequence of this is that capitalism as we know it has hit the wall and needs overhaul. Or else we are headed down the tubes.

Econospeak
UBI Caritas

Sandwichman

Filip Spagnoli — Let’s Get Rid of Wage Labor

Post-capitalism.

Actually, as Daniel Ellerman addresses this in Does Classical Liberalism Imply Democracy? If life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are inalienable rights, ruling out selling oneself in to slavery, for example, how is it not a violation of an inalienable right to sell one's a portion of one's life for a wage since this is an alienation of one's liberty?

In other words, what the inalienable rights of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness means legally is that these are not property, which is a right that is alienable in that the right to exclusive or partial use of property can be exchanged, thereby alienating (excluding) the original owner from use and conferring exclusive or partial use to another through transfer of ownership.

Spagnoli's post may seem far-fetched but read in terms of Ellerman, who is a proponent of social democracy, it makes a lot more sense. No surprise there, since Ellerman is one of the smartest guys around. If you haven't yet read that article, I strongly suggest doing so as a counter to neoliberalism.

Incidentally, the irony of the phrase. "inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," as a partial enumeration of human rights, and which are also asserted as divinely endowed, is the hypocrisy of its author, a slave holder.

P.A.P.-BLOG // HUMAN RIGHTS ETC.
Let’s Get Rid of Wage Labor
Filip Spagnoli

(h/t Mark Thoma at Economist's View)