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this post was submitted on 26 Oct 2023
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Showerthoughts
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Why not just guarantee those things for everyone?
Guaranteed housing, guaranteed food, guaranteed clothing. No work required. I agree with you, I think most people will still work with all of that taken care of. Because it's just basic.
That's what a universal basic income does. It's way simpler and more likely to succeed than a hundred different programs for everything people need. Studies show that poor people, when given money, don't misuse it, like some would have you believe. They use it on things they need, but otherwise couldn't afford, like housing, healthcare, car repairs, things like that. It's even good for the economy
I'm sure there are already answers to this question l, but wouldn't a basic universal income lead to some inflation/price rises?
I live in the most expensive city in my country and rent is insane. It's not about finding a cheaper apartment or a smaller one because there are none or you won't get them. They are not taking in a family of three into less than a three room apartment and sometimes even three room apartments are considered too small for a family with one little kid. And to be clear, if you are long term unemployed, the government pays for your housing. Theoretically. You still have to find a suitable apartment and there.are.none.
I would much rather have someone provide me guaranteed housing for free than to fear that my basic universal income will at some point not even be enough to cover my rent, even if it is just "basic". But to me, "basic" in this sense would equal survival. It would mean housing, food, healthcare. I much rather take these things directly than make use of a small amount of money that will always be too little and end up having to choose between the cheapest cereal or the cheapest bread because I cannot afford both this month. Money and freedom to spend it as you wish is great, but I just cannot imagine how this would work. Apartments won't magically keep their prices or appear out of thin air.
I'm sorry if this comment is too focused on housing, it is just the most anxiety evoking example I have. (And also we are moving in two weeks so maybe I am a bit preoccupied.)
It would lead to increased demand for goods poor people consume, and decreased demand for goods rich people consume. It’s a continual wealth transfer down the hierarchy.
In the short run the increased demand would probably lead to increased prices. In the longer run it would lead to more market investment, more production, more innovation, and by those two factors, lower prices.
Now if your basic income takes the form of newly printed money, that’s a whole new thing and would suck a lot.
I am sure there is an official answer, but I am going to wing it.
Inflation is from too much money chasing too few goods.
UBI will free you from having to live in a specific place. Or if not you, some of your neighbors.
Guaranteed housing tends to be shitty. Think of the worst people running the program and them hitting the lowest standards most times.
With money, you can decide the housing trade-offs. Save money on rent and spend more elsewhere, or the reverse. With money, you have flexibility.
Except there's no reason it needs to be.
It can be good, and there are parts of the developed world where public housing is not only abundant, but decent. And it has a cooling effect on the housing market, making all housing more affordable for everyone.
If we provide, decent, low cost housing to enough, everyone that needs housing prices to come down benefit.
That’s the crux of the matter. It’s easy to say “there’s no reason it has to turn out that way”, but there actually are some reasons for that to be the case. There’s a theory about how that works and that theory’s predictions hold up pretty good in reality.
More importantly than the theory (which involves modeling people as responding to incentives), imo, is the basic understanding that the world is far more complex than any person understands. This means that statements of the form “There is no X” aren’t very well founded.
Saying “There’s no reason that it has to be” is one of those statements, which asserts the non-existence of a thing, as if the entire space where that thing might exist has been thoroughly explored and mapped.
The way politics and society are presented in school, it’s often like a empty room. One could say “is there a chair in this room”? You look around the room. Potted plant, small rug, bicycle, no chair. Done.
But reality is more like a room of unknown size that’s absolutely full of stuff. You can’t see very far, you can’t inventory the room without massive undertaking to move all the stuff.
Saying “there’s no chair in this room” is less well-founded in that second room. It’s less wise to say that in that second room, where you can’t see everything.
Well, society is ultra complex. Group behavior is ultra complex. Construction projects are ultra complex. Politics is ultra complex. You shouldn’t just glance over all that complexity and say “nothing in there that behaves like X, no sir”.
So (a) some people think there are very concrete and predictable reasons why it has to be bad, and (b) others don’t know what reasons are operating, and accept that it’s beyond their comprehension, but look at the outcomes so far, and it certainly looks like there’s a reason it has to be.
I wonder how they operationalized the proper or misuse of money in those studies.
The reason UBI is better than that is it still allows market forces to operate on those goods, improving them over time due to competition and innovation.
Also if someone wants to use their housing money for extra clothes instead and just couch surf, they should be allowed to do that. Granting money provides freedom of choice with it.
Who says the market can't operate there? Providing a basic version of anything doesn't mean an organization can't compete. They just have to compete with basic. Most people will want something better.