On April 24, 2017, Calum Chace writes on Linkedin.com:
One out of three ain’t good
Universal Basic Income (UBI) is a fashionable policy idea comprising three elements: it is universal, it is basic, and it is an income. Unfortunately, two of these elements are unhelpful, and to paraphrase Meatloaf, one out of three ain’t good.
The giant sucking sound
The noted economist John Kay dealt the edifice of UBI a serious blow in May 2016 in an article (here) for the FT. He returned to his target a year later (here) and pretty much demolished it. His argument is slightly technical, and it focuses on UBI as a policy for implementation today, so I won’t dwell on it. But if you are one of the many who think UBI is a great idea, it is well worth reading one or both articles to see how Kay demonstrates that “either the basic income is impossibly low, or the expenditure on it is impossibly high.”
To put it more bluntly than Kay does, if UBI was introduced at an adequate level in any one country (or group of countries) today, there would be a giant sucking sound, as many of the richer people in the jurisdiction would leave to avoid the punitive taxes that would pay for it.
UBI and technological unemployment
But what happens a few decades from now if a large minority – or a majority – of people are unemployable because smart machines have taken all the jobs that they could do? We don’t know for sure that this will happen, of course, but it is at least very plausible, so we would be crazy not to prepare for the eventuality. Kay explicitly ignores this question, but tech-savvy and thoughtful people like Elon Musk and Sam Altman think that UBI may be the answer.
Imagine a society where 40% of the population can no longer find paid employment because machines can do everything they could do for money cheaper, faster and better. Would the 60% who remained in work, including those in government, simply let them starve? I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t, even if only because 40% of a population being angry and desperate presents a serious security threat to the others.
Many people argue that UBI is the solution, and will be affordable because the machines will be so efficient that enormous wealth will be created in the economy which can support the burden of so many people who are not contributing. I describe elsewhere a “Generous Google” scenario in which a handful of tech firms are generating most of the world’s GDP, and in order to avoid social collapse they agree to share their vast wealth by funding a global UBI.
I suspect there are serious problems with the economics of this. Exceptional profits are usually competed away, and companies which manage to avoid that by establishing de facto monopolies sooner or later find themselves the subject of regulatory investigations. But putting that concern to one side, in the event of profound technological unemployment, should we ask the rich companies and individuals of the future to sponsor a UBI for the rest of us?
This is where Meatloaf comes in. (Yay, Meatloaf!)
Universality
The first of UBI’s three characteristics is its universality. It is paid to all citizens regardless of their economic circumstances. There are several reasons why its proponents want this. Experience shows that many benefits are only taken up by those they are intended for if everyone receives them. Means-tested benefits can have low uptake among their target recipients because they are too complicated to claim, or the beneficiaries feel uncomfortable about claiming them, or simply never find out about them. Child benefits in the UK are one well-known example. There is also the concern that UBI should not be stigmatised as a sign of failure in any sense.
But in the case of UBI, these considerations are surely outweighed by the massive inefficiency of universality. In our scenario of 40% unemployability, paying UBI to Rupert Murdoch, Bill Gates, and the millions of others who are still earning healthy incomes would be a terrible waste of resources.
Basic
The second characteristic of UBI is that it is Basic, and this is an even worse problem. “Basic” cannot mean anything other than extremely modest, and if we are to have a society in which a very large minority or a majority of people will be unemployable for the remainder of their lives, they are not going to be happy living on extremely modest incomes. Nor would that be a recipe for a stable, happy society.
Many proponents of UBI think that the payment will prevent everyone from starving, and we will supplement our universal basic incomes with activities which we enjoy rather than the wage slave drudgery faced by many people today. But the scenario envisaged here is one in which many or most humans simply cannot get paid for their work, because machines can do it cheaper, better and faster. The humans will still work: they will be painters, athletes, explorers, builders, virtual reality games consultants, and they will derive enormous satisfaction from it. But they won’t get paid for it.
If we are heading for a post-jobs society for many or most people, we will need a form of economy which provides everyone with a comfortable standard of living, and the opportunity to enjoy the many good things in life which do not come free – at least currently.
Income
UBI isn’t all bad. After all, it is in part an attempt to save the unemployable from starving. And the debate about it helps draw attention to the problem that many people hope it will solve – namely, technological unemployment. So UBI isn’t the right answer, but it is at least an attempt to ask the right question.
Perhaps we can salvage the good part of UBI and improve the bad parts. Perhaps what we need instead of UBI is a PCI – a Progressive Comfortable Income. This would be paid to those who need it, rather than wasting resources on those who have no need. It would provide sufficient income to allow a rich and satisfying life.
Now all we have to do is figure out how to pay for it.
https://futurism.com/canada-has-unveiled-the-details-of-its-highly-anticipated-ubi-program/
Let me address what is avoided in all articles about a universal basic income – alternatives.
While a Universal Basic Income sounds appealing to those solely dependent on a job or welfare, there is a far better way for EVERY child, woman and man to EARN more income by providing equal opportunity to acquire personal ownership in future wealth-creating, income-producing capital formation using insured (lending protection) capital credit, repayable out of the future earnings of the investments. This would not require anyone to pledge as collateral (past savings/equity as security for repayment).
Using such new owner-creation financial mechanisms would enable EVERY citizen to contribute productivity to the economy, create demand for a higher standard of living, while not taking from those who already are capital owners through taxation to support otherwise non-productive citizens.
We should be looking at how “the rich are getting richer,” not on how we can take and redistribute the earnings of the rich and middle class. Obviously, the distinction between the rich and the non-rich is that the rich OWN wealth-creating, income-producing capital assets, the very essence of technological progress, and the poor only have their labor to sell to the wealthy capital ownership class.
The fact that the core function of technological invention and innovation is to invent “tools” to reduce toil, enable otherwise impossible production, create new highly automated industries, and significantly change the way in which products and services are produced from labor intensive to capital intensive, should surprise no one who is conscious and who has even causally observed the constant shift to non-human productive inputs in the manufacturing, distribution, and sales of products, as well as the delivery of services, that has been occurring during their lifetime.
The urgency is to figure out means for people to earn an income without dependency on jobs. The focus should not be on a pro-job growth future but an alternative to wage dependency as economists across the board predict further losses as AI, robotics, and other technologies continue to be ushered in.
Such future invention and innovation should be financed using mechanisms that create new owners simultaneously with the growth of the economy, while respecting the private property rights who now own, and ensuring that any further concentrated capital ownership acquisition will be abated.
The fundamental challenge to be solved is how do we reinvent and redesign our economic institutions to keep pace with job destroying and devaluing technological innovation and invention so not all of the benefits of owning FUTURE productive capacity accrues to today’s wealthy 1 percent ownership class, and ownership is broadened so that EVERY American earns income through stock ownership dividends so they can afford to purchase the products and services produced by the technology economy.
A National Right To Capital Ownership Bill that restores the American dream should be advocated by the progressive movement, which addresses the reality of Americans facing job opportunity deterioration and devaluation due to tectonic shifts in the technologies of production.
The question that requires an answer is now timely before us. It was first posed by Kelso in the 1950s but has never been thoroughly discussed on the national stage. Nor has there been the proper education of our citizenry that addresses what economic justice is and what capital ownership is. Therefore, by ignoring such issues of economic justice and capital ownership, our leaders are ignoring the concentration of power through monopoly ownership of productive capital, with the result of denying the 99 percenters equal opportunity and access to become capital owners.
The question, as posed by Kelso is: “how are all individuals to be adequately productive when a tiny minority (capital owners) produce a major share and the vast majority (labor workers), a minor share of total goods and services,” and thus, “how do we get from a world in which the most productive factor—physical capital—is owned by a handful of people, to a world where the same factor is owned by a majority—and ultimately 100 percent—of the consumers, while respecting all the constitutional rights of present capital owners?”
There is a solution, which will result in double-digit economic growth and simultaneously broaden private, individual ownership so that EVERY American’s income significantly grows, providing the means to support themselves and their families with an affluent lifestyle. The Just Third Way Master Plan for America’s future is published at http://foreconomicjustice.org/?p=5797.
The solution is obvious but our leaders, academia, conventional economist and the media are oblivious to the necessity to broaden ownership in the new capital formation of the future simultaneously with the growth of the economy, which then becomes self-propelled as increasingly more Americans accumulate ownership shares and earn a new source of dividend income derived from their capital ownership in the “machines” that are replacing them or devaluing their labor value.
The solution will require the reform of the Federal Reserve Bank to create new owners of future productive capital investment in businesses simultaneously with the growth of the economy. The solution to broadening private, individual ownership of America’s future capital wealth requires that the Federal Reserve stop monetizing unproductive debt, including bailouts of banks “too big to fail” and Wall Street derivatives speculators, and begin creating an asset-backed currency that could enable every man, woman and child to establish a Capital Homestead Account or “CHA” (a super-IRA or asset tax-shelter for citizens) at their local bank to acquire a growing dividend-bearing stock portfolio to supplement their incomes from work and all other sources of income. Policies need to insert American citizens into the low or no-interest investment money loop to enable non- and undercapitalized Americans, including the working class and poor, to build wealth and become “customers with money.” The proposed Capital Homestead Act would produce this result.
The end result is that citizens would become empowered as owners to meet their own consumption needs and government would become more dependent on economically independent citizens, thus reversing current global trends where all citizens will eventually become dependent for their economic well-being on the State and whatever elite controls the coercive powers of government.
Support Monetary Justice at http://capitalhomestead.org/page/monetary-justice.
Support the Capital Homestead Act (aka Economic Democracy Act) at http://www.cesj.org/learn/capital-homesteading/, http://www.cesj.org/learn/capital-homesteading/capital-homestead-act-a-plan-for-getting-ownership-income-and-power-to-every-citizen/, http://www.cesj.org/learn/capital-homesteading/capital-homestead-act-summary/ and http://www.cesj.org/learn/capital-homesteading/ch-vehicles/.
