With coronavirus causing more talk about Universal Basic Income, here’s a little rant from me about why everyone should get something like £1,000 per month.
UBI is cool because people who don’t want to work can sit at home and play video games and drink beer and still *support the economy by doing so*. They will still buy shit. People who do want to work and start businesses will have more options and the ability to take some risks, since their minimum living needs will be met. Employers will have to offer better jobs to attract workers – no more exploiting people who are struggling to get by.
UBI also need not diminish personal responsibilities. It could be tweaked to encourage certain behaviours. Finished highschool? You get slightly more. Doing some volunteering work to help your community? Here’s some extra UBI money.
I don’t believe at all that it would be bad for the economy if the parameters are tweaked correctly. Poor people spend literally all of their income, while rich people spend a tiny fraction, and invest/hoard the rest. All of that UBI money will still go back to businesses, one way or another – they’ll just have to work a bit harder to get it! Capitalism exists to encourage competition (not to make a small number of individuals very rich), and I think UBI would achieve that very well by giving workers and consumers more options.
As a game developer, I think UBI would be amazing for our industry. We’d probably have many more customers, and niche game developers could make their obscure products without starving to death.
Most successful business people started with something similar to UBI (me included). Their parents paid for everything while they were free to get a good education, try out different hobbies, and take some risks starting a business. Imagine if everyone had those opportunities – if they could take as long as they wanted to figure out what to do with their life, and to build some skills before jumping into the workforce. Imagine if making niche creative products was a viable way to make a living, but you’d still consider stacking shelves at a supermarket, because the pay would be a lot better than it is now.
And from what I understand, UBI doesn’t even cost very much to implement due to how simple it is. There’s not a lot of paperwork, no means-testing. It would be much more efficient than existing welfare plans. Everyone who’s over 18 gets it. Some rich folk may pay more taxes. But who cares? The advantages for the other 99% massively outweigh that.
Edit: I even forgot to mention automation! Robots will take all of our jobs sooner or later, might as well get ready for that too. No, there won’t be new jobs. There will be one guy overseeing 10 robots that replaced 10 workers.
Hi there Matt. You most likely don’t remember, but I’m the guy who wrote you an email a while ago as a response to you posting on Twitter that “people who say taxation is theft are at the same level as anti-vaxxers”.
Regarding what you’ve just posted about UBI, I will say this:
1. UBI would be awesome and great… as long as it is funded VOLUNTARILY.
For instance, if the biggest businesses on Earth (Microsoft, Coca-Cola, Amazon, etc.) allied with the biggest charitable NGOs on the planet, and together decided to give everyone $1000 or whatever amount of money per month, for nothing in exchange, no strings attached…
Then that’s great! If businesses and private charities want to give money away, they have every right to do so.
Also, if YOU in particular want to give some of your monthly income away to support the UBI of other people, that is pretty cool too. Everyone has the right to give as much of their own money as they WANT to finance something like that, if that’s what they want to do.
The issue is that the UBI you are advocating for is not financed voluntarily, but COERCIVELY. You want the government to FORCE peaceful people to give up part of their earnings, even if it’s against their will, to finance something even if they don’t want to finance it, and would rather keep their money.
Someone can be hyper-rich and have insane amounts of money, and as long as they obtained their money fair and square, offering to others products and services they wanted, all through voluntary transactions…
Then NOBODY has the right to take their earnings away from them through force (a.k.a theft). And calling yourself a “government” doesn’t give you that right either.
I vehemently disagree with your defense towards UBI, NOT because I think people will misuse the money or whatever – I disagree because you are defending that I’m FORCED, with violence if necessary, to pay for something that I should have the freedom to decide if I want to support or not.
You wouldn’t like it if Unicef came knocking to your door and started threatening you to donate to them, would you? If so, then you shouldn’t advocate that me and others are forced and threatened to pay for something we might not want to support.
2. If you care about progress at all, then you should be hoping that we all lose ALL of our jobs to automation so that robots do all the work and humanity doesn’t have to work anymore. Here, I strongly suggest that you read this article: https://mises.org/library/let%E2%80%99s-hope-machines-take-our-jobs-we-want-wealth-not-jobs
3. I hope that you at least think about these points, instead of rejecting them immediately just because they go against what you believe. And maybe… JUST maybe… I hope you take a look into the libertarian position. Here is a neutral introduction to it: https://youtu.be/2AtpXnIiEWo
Whatever happens, I still look forward to buying and playing the Kupo Games Collection once it comes out on Steam 🙂 Take care, and be well Matt.
What you’re suggesting will just result in people giving money to their friends. That already exists, and it doesn’t help the people who need it most. It also means that the greediest people will become the most powerful by not sharing.
I also believe that 99% of the ultra rich didn’t earn it fair-and-square, but instead did it by exploiting workers, bribing politicians to earn favours, or inheriting insane amounts of money. I think that ranges from unfair, to outright theft. No one “earns” a billion dollars.
And yes, you should be forced to pay taxes. The alternative is that we all live like cavemen.
> “What you’re suggesting will just result in people giving money to their friends.”
Well… people have the right to give money to their friends, or give to a charity that they believe in, or give money to whomever else, if they want to. Or not. It’s up to each person.
> “That already exists, and it doesn’t help the people who need it most.”
Private charity exists to help the people who need it the most. And if you are worried that private charity is not enough to help everyone, then what you want is for the economy to be more prosperous in general, so that poor people are better off, and more people have the capacity to give more to charity. That prosperity can only happen when a society has high economic freedom.
In any case, your fear that private charity is “not enough” to help everyone in need is NOT a justification to advocate stealing property from the ones who have more to give to the ones who have less. If I did get my money fair and square, and you coerce me into giving part of my property to someone who has less, against my will, that is abusive and it’s economic authoritarianism.
> “It also means that the greediest people will become the most powerful by not sharing.”
First of all, powerful in what sense? In having a lot of money?
In that sense, you have the right to obtain and have as much money as possible, as long as you obtained it all through voluntary transactions. Also, if you are super-rich you have the capacity of buying many, many things, but you don’t have the power to control people by force (like the government does).
Now, if by power you mean that people with a lot of money can bribe people in the government to do their bidding… that is a problem produced by GOVERNMENT, not by the super-rich having money. If the government doesn’t sell power (or better yet, if the gov doesn’t exist), then the super-rich cannot control people by force.
> “I also believe that 99% of the ultra rich didn’t earn it fair-and-square”
Do you have any reliable statistics to back that up, or is it just a personal belief?
> “but instead did it by exploiting workers”
If by “exploitation” you mean when workers could be paid much more, and have better working conditions for what they do, that is once again something that is solved through economic freedom:
When it’s easier to create businesses to compete in the marketplace, existing businesses have to improve the salaries and working environments of their workers, or the employees will simply go and work somewhere else where they can get better pay/conditions, leaving the businesses which don’t adapt “worker-less”.
> “bribing politicians to earn favours”
Again, a problem caused by GOVERNMENT selling favors, not a problem caused by rich people having money. When government is separate from the economy (or the gov doesn’t exist), all rich people can do is try to sell you stuff, and you can refuse and just buy from many other competitors.
> “inheriting insane amounts of money.”
If you believe gifting money is ok, then inheriting money is a completely fair and square way to obtain money, as long as the original earner didn’t steal all that money or something like that.
> “I think that ranges from unfair, to outright theft.”
Well, if you refer only to the corporatists who get in bed with government to benefit each other, screwing society in the process… then sure, what they do is completely unfair, and whenever they receive bailout money and whatnot they are benefiting from theft.
However, the entrepreneurs who obtained their riches fair and square without getting involved with the government to get special favors or advantages? No, they didn’t steal anything – what they obtained was the product of voluntary interactions.
> “No one “earns” a billion dollars.”
Is that from Bernie Sanders or AOC? Anyways, as before, if they obtained it all through voluntary transactions, then yes – they earned that billion or whatever dollars. All that money is theirs.
> “And yes, you should be forced to pay taxes. The alternative is that we all live like cavemen.”
It’s a shame that you think that way, since I believe you shouldn’t be threatened and forced to pay for stuff that you will not use, and/or that you don’t wish to support.
However, if you want to be consistent with your position, then you’ll have to agree that Unicef should have every right to break into your house, and force you at gunpoint to give them money to help children in need. Otherwise, according to you, those children in need will NEVER be helped, and thus Unicef is justified in forcing you to help them.
And regarding that comment about how everyone should be forced to pay taxes otherwise we would all live like cavemen…
Do you have any actual evidence to show that’s what would happen? Or do you just ASSUME and FEEL that’s what would happen?
Because it makes absolutely no sense. Why would humanity live like cavemen when technology has advanced so much from such ancient times? Just because we are not forced to pay for things we don’t use, or that we don’t want to support?
And finally, on the same “antivaxxer” tweet you also mentioned that without taxes there would be zero public services. And you’d be right! Instead we would have private services of much higher quality, and much more affordable, than what governments currently provide.
Again, instead of just immediately dismissing these ideas, I encourage you to mayyyybe take the time to read and/or watch videos about them. For instance, regarding this issue, I recommend this video by Walter Block: https://youtu.be/b-nE5XChP-M
Take care, and be well 🙂
My mother worked for a high-tier marble imports business which I will not name (it operated in italy) and she has first-hand accounts of the shady shit that went behind every deal. Forged papers, briberies, political in-roads with local politicians to get big projects and drain subsidies, evading tax in plenty of creative ways (they have entire law firms dedicated to push boundaries on fine-prints), bullying competitors out of business just on sheer resource power-struggles that they couldn’t afford since they were newly established, backroom deals to spike prices, etc, etc. People who idolize millionaires don’t know how they get there but I’m telling you it’s not clean. Some of them built their fortunes on their own and didn’t have daddy money but usually they’re the cornerstones that founded a new industry and once they manage to accrue their wealth they use it as a bludgeon to keep everyone at bay so that they can provide subpar services to spike profits and create pseudo-monopolies that can’t be challenged through shady legal voids.
I’d encourage you to try and climb the ranks of any business with a big hefty chunk of a market and see their backroom practices first hand if you can, I guarantee you that if you’re in the know you wouldn’t say what you’re saying.
Voluntary payment (crowdfunding, etc) works well enough on small scales but I’ve yet to see it perform well on large ones *at all.* National budgets are about seven orders of magnitude bigger than your favorite crowdfunding campaign. Good luck with that.
> You wouldn’t like it if Unicef came knocking to your door and started threatening you to donate to them, would you? If so, then you shouldn’t advocate that me and others are forced and threatened to pay for something we might not want to support.
This isn’t a comparison. When the government collects taxes they’re supposed to do things with it that benefit either me or the community that I live in (and indirectly me). I’m sure you’re aware that in reality this isn’t usually what happens, but that’s a separate thing to be pissed about and not the fault of the concept of taxation itself. The things I want are for teachers to be paid, environmental regulations to be enforced, and protections for people who are out of work due to the pandemic, and so on down the line, and all of that requires that tax money be not be flushed down the golden toilets at Mar-a-Lago, as opposed to deciding taxation is theft and abolishing it.
> The alternative is that we all live like cavemen.
In other words, that. It’s the price of living in a society.
> “Voluntary payment (crowdfunding, etc) works well enough on small scales but I’ve yet to see it perform well on large ones *at all.* National budgets are about seven orders of magnitude bigger than your favorite crowdfunding campaign. Good luck with that.”
First of all… what “budget” if almost all governments on Earth are sinking in debt? They are always spending more than what they recollect in taxes.
Second, let’s assume for the sake of argument that at the moment, voluntary charity is not enough to reach the same level of money recollection possible as through taking money from people by force.
Well, turns out that if what you actually want is to help people in need, what you should advocate for is more economic freedom. In a more economically free country:
a. People are more prosperous overall, have more opportunities to earn income, and the cost of living is cheaper. Therefore, poor people are much better off in such a society. Or as they say, I’d rather be poor in Chile than in Cuba.
b. In such a prosperous society, people would have much more disposable money to give to charity, and thus help people in need.
Third: Even IF it were true that private charity is not enough to help people in need even in such a prosperous society (which is not true), that still does NOT justify taking property by force from other people – it’s abusive, and it’s economic authoritarianism.
> “This isn’t a comparison. When the government collects taxes they’re supposed to do things with it that benefit either me or the community that I live in (and indirectly me). I’m sure you’re aware that in reality this isn’t usually what happens, but that’s a separate thing to be pissed about and not the fault of the concept of taxation itself.”
It sure is a comparison! For instance, Unicef can easily say that they are taking money from you by force to help children in need within your area. Helping those children in your area will benefit your community, and therefore what they are doing will help you! And if Unicef doesn’t force you at gunpoint to help those children, then nobody will!
Therefore, are they justified in taking money from you by force?
> “The things I want are for teachers to be paid”
You are free to use your own money to support them – just don’t force me to support them also if I don’t use their services, and would rather use my money for something else.
> “environmental regulations to be enforced”
Enforcement of property rights without taxation is another whole topic. I invite you to learn about it here: https://youtu.be/jTYkdEU_B4o
> “and protections for people who are out of work due to the pandemic”
Again, private charity in a more prosperous (i.e. economically free) society can provide this better than any government can.
> “and so on down the line, and all of that requires that tax money be not be flushed down the golden toilets at Mar-a-Lago, as opposed to deciding taxation is theft and abolishing it”
Why do you assume that all those things you want won’t also exist in a society where people only pay for what they get and use, and for what they decide they want to support?
It’s just like Bastiat said:
“Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society. As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all.
We disapprove of state education. Then the socialists say that we are opposed to any education. We object to a state religion. Then the socialists say that we want no religion at all. We object to a state-enforced equality. Then they say that we are against equality.
And so on, and so on. It is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain.”
> “In other words, that. It’s the price of living in a society.”
If a mafia were to invade your neighborhood, and demands that you pay tribute to them every week, you could say that tribute is the price you pay to live in your neighborhood. But that price you are paying is an unjustified abuse.
It’s the same thing with governments – the most successful mafias in the world. The taxes they impose are the price you pay to live in the society they control… because if you don’t, you are jailed and don’t get to live in that society anymore.
You believe the politicians have the right to impose their will on society, and that they somehow have the divine right to tax people… but they don’t. Nobody can get rights that other people don’t have: https://youtu.be/0k4pXwmis7A
Like I told Matt, instead of just immediately dismissing these ideas I encourage you to mayyyybe take the time to read and/or watch some videos about them.
Wish you and Matt well!
Yeah, that guy went full anarcho-capitalist. Not that i think all of his points are wrong. But the idea that human beings can build a proper and functioning society without hierarchy and authority. Even though there’s not only never been a society like that, that works in all of human history. But also that there’s never been anything like that in all of nature. (bees have queens, wolf packs have alpha males etc.) Yeah that’s not happening anytime soon. If it can even happen at all.
Also when you destroy the order of the day. A new order just fills in the void. Kill the government, it gets replaced by corporations. Kill the corporations, they get replaced by the church. So on and so forth until the end of time.
“I dunno man, America seems to attract the most business, and yet their infrastructure sucks, and working people are struggling. If a country can attract business but not provide a decent standard of living for the average citizen, then that country is a failure in my opinion. I think those socialist European countries may be onto something – the average person seems to be happier there.”
(for some reason it wouldn’t let me reply to that)
1. Yes America does have pretty bad wealth inequality. But the U.S. does have welfare systems to work on that. Not to mention Canada literally does have social healthcare, too. But still has wealth inequality. Not that wealth inequality is even that bad. Remember: wealth inequality is not poverty. A lot of those uber rich billionaires who make up the 1% own large companies. Large, international companies. Ever eaten at Mc-Donalds? cause if you did that money is often times going to an american billionaire. Regardless of what country that Mc-Donalds was in. Same thing if you order stuff from Amazon. Amazon is an American company so all profits will end up there.
2. Yes, those socialist systems in Europe do appear to be working, and maybe they’re happier countries too. But that doesn’t change anything that I was saying because those countries still don’t just make the rich pay for it. And they still don’t use UBI either. Not to mention the fact that a lot of those European countries can afford their socialist policies, because they spend less on other parts of their budget, like the military for example. In fact, a lot of European countries spend under the 2% military budget amount required to be spent when your in NATO. Guess who pays for that? Oh yeah it’s the U.S. who pays for it. Jeez guys I wonder why America is the richest country in the world but can’t spend that money on improving it’s own education and healthcare systems? Man America why can’t you spend more on your citizens bro?
3. Poverty is not as simple as “Well they don’t have socialism so they must be impoverished.” That kind of argument is so flat and hollow, I’d imagine most Americans would have warning signs going off in their head about how that’s clearly communist propaganda. Why somebody is impoverished is not always due to the same reason. Nor is it often due to just one reason alone. For instance: In Alberta, a good chunk of the economy relies on oil. Remember a couple days ago when oil prices literally went negative? Yeah i imagine that didn’t scare the hell out of thousands of people. Also sometimes there’s just not enough jobs, leading to unemployment and low wages. Obviously there’s the people complaining about immigration. But also there’s the whole thing about jobs going over seas. Remember all those manufacturing jobs? Detroit does.
You don’t support the economy by buying things, you do so by creating value, which people sitting on their ass all day do not do.
I want to work but nobody want to hire me without 996/007.
UBI is cool because people who don’t want to work can sit at home and play video games and drink beer. 🙂
Except that there’s no more beer because all the beer makers sat at home and decided to play video games and drink beer.
Don’t worry, beer making will soon be automated, if not already.
People will still like to have more money.
UBI isn’t enough to live comfortably.
Could be – I do feel like asking a company to pay income taxes made in the countries they do business in would be less drastic than kicking them out if they don’t comply with everything, though.
But, the whole thing’s tied in a great big knot and I’m not going to bother making a fool of myself by pretending I know about international tax codes. Remember the time Google made the news because they avoided paying billions of dollars in taxes in the EU?
https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/2/16842876/google-double-irish-tax-loopholes-european-billions-ad-revenue
> “And from what I understand, UBI doesn’t even cost very much to implement due to how simple it is.”
To generalize a bit, there’s two kinds of suggestion going by the same name of UBI.
The one is to give everyone a bunch of money, in addition to existing programs. This will cost very much.
The other is to give everyone money, _instead_ of existing programs. This will cost very little, _but_ it screws over a lot of people heavily dependent on existing programs, who are currently getting more than the UBI amount.
I think the problems with the second option are obvious.
Let me try to put in perspective the cost of the first option: if the American government were to confiscate and liquidate the entirety of Google, this would pay for about two weeks of UBI for each adult American (at a rate of $1000 a month). If the government next confiscated and liquidated the entirety of Walmart, that would pay for another three weeks.
The only thing I worry about that is, “if everyone stops working, will it still be possible to keep it up ?” also the fact that you can most likely buy things from foreign places.
The concept of a UBI is to prevent you from starving, and give you a few other essential needs. Not many people are content with not working, but living at an almost minimum wage rate. Most people would still work, and those who are preoccupied or just too lazy would probably just buy things from here. I can’t imagine most people flying somewhere else just to avoid paying purchase taxes.
When was the last time you flew to Brazil to avoid paying 10% extra on your pineapples?
I think that the only thing I disagree with is that “some rich folks pay more taxes” usually translates to “some rich folk emigrate to tax havens”.
UBI would be a godsend.
Yeah, but I’m sure politicians could legislate against that if they tried. Just need the political will to do it.
Like they would pass anything like that with billionaires giving money to politicians and basically controlling them.
I agree, it’s an uphill battle in some places (like America!), but I don’t think some European countries are far away from UBI.
But that would get rid of our freedom of movement. If the government has the authority to do it to the rich, they can totally do it to the poor. How would you like it if the government told you, you had to pack up and relocate to Northern Ireland, for economic reasons.
Also if they didn’t tax the rich, (for reasons seen above) the only other real option would be a high business tax. A very, very high business tax, since paying for literally everybody in the country to get $1000 would be expensive as all hell.
Well, the poor outnumber the rich 100 to 1, and we live in a democracy. Governments can’t do whatever they want. They still need our votes.
I don’t think a high marginal tax rate for huge businesses would be a bad thing. They could simply avoid it by paying workers more, since only profits are taxed, which would likely result in better workers anyway. Smaller businesses would be taxed less and have a better chance to compete. I’m talking about Google and Walmart sized businesses being taxed more.
Or of course they could just leave. This is the real issue here: There is always some other country who will take in a business, because just having a business in your country who you can tax (even if it’s really low taxes) is still better than not having those businesses. Hell! Even during the age of banana republics, those companies still invested money into the infrastructure of the country, if only to their benefit.
The only real ways of preventing these businesses from leaving your country is to either stop them from leaving, (leading to the human rights violation stated above) or to straight up just start invading these tax haven countries. Which would probably lead to world war 3, if not by invading countries like Haiti. than definitely when those businesses relocate to China or some other major power like that.
Look at any country that has large socialist policies and systems, not just UBI, but social healthcare, social welfare or any system like that. Those systems are paid not by the rich, but by everybody: the poor a bit less than the working and middle class, and the rich a bit more. Really think about that. Why is it that France doesn’t just “make the rich pay” the costs for it’s expensive social healthcare systems. I mean it’s not like France has any issues with stepping all over the rights of it’s own citizens or anything. The obvious answer is to say they’re all greedy and self interested, and I can’t say that politicians aren’t greedy and self interested. But when there are countries as different as say: Israel and Canada, or Ireland and South Korea, who all do socialism the exact same way. Seems a bit odd to say that literally all those countries are just filled with greedy lying politicians. Seems like you’d have at least one good apple among that many people.
I dunno man, America seems to attract the most business, and yet their infrastructure sucks, and working people are struggling. If a country can attract business but not provide a decent standard of living for the average citizen, then that country is a failure in my opinion. I think those socialist European countries may be onto something – the average person seems to be happier there.
The “obvious” answer is to say “if you want to make money off of the people in our country, you need to pay taxes on it, we don’t care what part of the world you’re based in” but as far as I know that idea’s got decades of being rules-lawyer’d around, ignored completely, or in some places (greetings from the United States) just not being a rule.
Speaking of which, good ol’ Citizens United vs FEC. Who’d have thought “unlimited campaign donations are free speech” would have tipped the scales in favor of money? 😛
“if you want to make money off of the people in our country, you need to pay taxes on it, we don’t care what part of the world you’re based in”
I get where your coming from, but I don’t think that THAT specific suggestion might work too well, since trying to punish foreign companies is hell, especially if they’re protected by previously mentioned tax haven countries like china. The U.S. can’t even touch Chinese companies currently, so trying to tax them would be basically impossible without some sort of gunboat diplomacy, which wouldn’t work very well on China.
Better in my opinion to just not allow foreign companies to operate in your country unless they comply by your regulations and standards. You could then apply this to U.S. Companies that are technically based in the Caribbean. Basically putting them into a catch 22. However this is kind of a nuclear option that would produce a lot of collateral damage. For instance: Tim Horton’s is a Canadian fast food company (basically dunkin donuts) They’re slowly trying to expand out into the U.S. If the U.S. put my plan into place, Tim Horton’s would then have to balance trying to comply with both U.S. and Canadian regulations. And over all they would probably just stay in Canada.
Another downside, is that companies could just leave for greener pastures, which while it would open up opportunities for new businesses. It would also cause mass unemployment and if enough of them leave, full economic recession. Thirdly it wouldn’t actually allow you to gain money from foreign businesses. these methods serve as a stick which governments can use to poke companies, to more effectively regulate them. And if the company is willing to pay the price, to profit off of them. And lastly, other countries could do this too. Of course, all’s fair in love and war.
I accidentally posted this reply in response to the root blog post, that’s awkward.
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Could be – I do feel like asking a company to pay income taxes made in the countries they do business in would be less drastic than kicking them out if they don’t comply with everything, though.
But, the whole thing’s tied in a great big knot and I’m not going to bother making a fool of myself by pretending I know about international tax codes. Remember the time Google made the news because they avoided paying billions of dollars in taxes in the EU?
https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/2/16842876/google-double-irish-tax-loopholes-european-billions-ad-revenue
To be fair my idea wasn’t really a means of getting money out of companies. It was mostly designed to prevent them from just walking around anti trust laws and other regulations like they currently do.
It was actually done as a means of trying to stop the shady practices of google and other big tech companies. Since all the U.S. can currently do to them is give them light slaps on the wrist. And trying to implement harsher measures would simply make them move their headquarters to a micro-nation, or worse, China.