A good read. Again, imagine such a government in charge of universal basic income distribution and the majority of 'citizens' dependent on that. Not a bright future.
With such a government, any future wouldn’t be desirable. Imagine such government in charge of unemployment benefits, health services, the military, anything really: it’s grim in any case.
Moreover, universal basic income is universal, by definition. If a government denies it to some particular citizens according to some criteria, it is not universal anymore. It becomes an income provided to anyone who is in favor of the government, which is a very different thing.
So, if universal basic income existed, even the Chinese government would have to give it to everyone... or otherwise give it another name.
What you are not allowing is that the “universality” will not be inalienable... which we already see in terms of, you have a right to free speech, but it’s not “consequence free” which was how the soviets treated free speech. Their constitution also enshrined free speech, but as the joke went, they could also say “Reagan is an idiot”, not only Americans.
The likelihood of universal basic income being completely strings free is very low. You get convicted of some felony, you lose it, you are guilty of domestic violence you lose it, you say something very un-PC you lose it. And you may say, yeah, so what, those are bad people. But it would be like “hate speech”. Hate speech in the 90s was one thing, today it means someone disagrees with you on policy.
This isn't a technology problem. Congress could put whatever restrictions on UBI it wants to. The technology would be required to implement whatever kind of UBI system Congress made into law. Congress could also change the law any time in the future -- and every time party control over congress changes, you can bet they will push for tweaks to UBI that they promised to their base.
The most likely outcome, which happens with many other kinds of government programs, would be for Congress to delegate significant authority over UBI to some regulatory bureaucracy in the executive branch.
Similar to the way the IRS, EPA, and FDA work, there would be some department of UBI with broad discretion over how the law is interpreted, the ability create additional regulations and fine people who do not obey them, etc.
You can't solve this problem with code. It's a political problem.
If you had crypto that used biometrics to generate unique secret keys and automatically mined X amount of coins (based on a set of public economic inputs) to evenly distribute to all participants, and made it part of the constitution that the distribution mechanism can never be changed you'd be as close as you can to solving this issue.
Any group trying to take it away once people have it will find out it won't go well.
God, I hate the rhetoric around the 3/5ths compromise.
Not because I support it, but because in the circumstances in question the implication that they should have been treated as "full people" (in the only place 3/5 applied) is the pro slavery position.
Of course the slaves should have had freedom. Of course they should have had the vote. But they had zero of either of those. Increasing the power of the society that enslaves by 3/5 the number of slaves isn't treating them as 3/5 of a person! Morally speaking the number should have been zero (or negative!) if it had to be a question at all.
Slaveholders were taxed, but slaves were not represented. The taxation compromise was intended by Feds to delay the same forces that led to the Civil War. It was not a pro slavery position, but it definitely kowtowed to pro slavery positions predominantly held by slaveholders. Unintended consequences of negotiating with slavers were that the compromise was interpreted by slaveholders as increasingly punitive and untenable as time went on.
That’s why you don’t negotiate with terrorists. Sooner or later, they will leverage their position into a better deal at your table, or they will find a better deal at a different table, one which may render any leverage against them moot.
Oh, right! I focused on the representation (which remains tied to the computed number) bit and forgot about the impact on taxes (which are no longer).
To the degree that increasing that fraction from 3/5 would raise the taxes paid by slave holders, it is not "pro slavery".
Having said that, IIUC, the restriction only applied to "direct taxes" whereas the bulk of US Federal Government revenue at the time was from tariffs and excise, and in any case was a much smaller portion of GDP than today (although to some degree that extends to representation as well, as a limitation of the power being controlled).
My general point stands that the great injustice was all the ways we were treating people as 0/5th of a person, not that we could have taxed some states a little more or given them a bit more power.
Imagine such a government in charge of your basic healthcare determining if you get health care or are put on a waiting list to die, determining what drugs are distributed and what are not and the majority of 'citizens' dependent on that. Not a bright future.
Repeat your exact comment replacing the word “government” with “employer and its chosen for-profit insurance provider” and you’ve described the United States.
My employer can fire me for any or no reason and no notice and I’d be left with a short COBRA runway of suddenly-expensive healthcare, which I now can’t afford because I was just fired.
My employer can (and does) change my insurance provider, add or remove benefits, and I have zero say over that process. I certainly can’t vote for a new CEO or request a different provider from my company. Take it or leave it.
My health and well-being is tied up with the same entity that tells me what to do for 8 hours a day. That doesn’t feel like “freedom” to me.
Universal healthcare as a concept is not by itself related to authoritarianism. Indeed, guaranteeing healthcare (whether it be state-run like the UK or all-private like Germany) and paying for it through tax revenue rather than through employment subsidy is a feature of many Western democracies.
>Repeat your exact comment replacing the word “government” with “employer and its chosen for-profit insurance provider” and you’ve described the United States.
You can thank government for that as well, as Price Controls from WWII, and ongoing regulations and tax burdens are the leading reasons employment and healthcare are linked in the way they are.
>Universal healthcare as a concept is not by itself related to authoritarianism.
If you do not believe that is authoritarianism then I shutter to think what it would take for you to recognize an authoritarian system
> Indeed, guaranteeing healthcare (whether it be state-run like the UK or all-private like Germany) and paying for it through tax revenue rather than through employment subsidy is a feature of many Western democracies.
That is a false dilemma, I support neither system nor is employer provided vs government provided the only choice we have as a society
Using the Authoritarian nations (though I am sure your going to disagree describing them as authoritarian) of the UK and Germany to support your position is not going to win me over.
I support individual liberty, and individual rights, and generally only Negative forms of right.
the UK, Germany, and most of the EU have adopted a position of Collective rights, and a whole host of Positive rights which are Authoritarian in nature. Sure they are not NK or China, but simply because they are not full on Totalitarian regime's does not make them libertarian either
Medicare has worked pretty well for the elderly for years. Old people and their families don’t lose everything for routine care anymore. Until it comes time for long term nursing home type care.
Everyone else is one car accident or cancer diagnosis away from ruin.
Literally every senior has Medicare and has access to many types of care that requires private insurance for anyone else. There are overlay private plans as well that vary. The big complaint about Medicare is that the results-driven approach and reimbursement model for nursing and rehabilitation incentivizes unethical providers to purge people who need more rehab, and to provide substandard rehab in nursing homes.
If you are unable to work, you’re unable to maintain coverage in many circumstances. Many many people will be terminated within days or weeks of being out of work.
I used to setup Medicaid enrollment systems as a consultant — big counties have contractors to liquidate the assets of sick people driven into Medicaid every day.
Ok, but that in no way means it is "good", you seem to operate under the flawed belief that universality == good, when it can be universally bad
has access to many types of care that requires private insurance for anyone else.
That is clearly false, as an example when my parents got on medicare they had to find new providers and new doctors as their long time doctors did not accept medicare at all largely due to the substandard payments they would receive.
It is false to say the medicare offers the exact same access as private payers. There are many many many doctors in private practice that do not accept medicare, you almost exclusively have to enter a large health network for it to except medicare largely because those health networks have the ability to increase the prices on their non-medicare patients to make up of the loss they experience by accepting medicare and/or they end up with a HUGE patient / doctor work load for medicare patients requiring them to schedule appointments months or some times a year or more in advance
To highlight medicare as model we should all have shows either A) your ignorance of medicare or b) your willingness to accept a standard of care far lower than what we have today in private medical treatment
>big counties have contractors to liquidate the assets of sick people driven into Medicaid every day.
it is ironic that you talk about people being on illness away from ruin in the private system when you understand and know that if you end up with a illness bad enough the government will seize all of your assets to pay for that care. Does not seem like a vary fair system to me but I am sure you do not believe in private property either most socialist do not
I'm sorry that your parents were inconvenienced. Why didn't they just pay for private medical care? Nobody forces you to use insurance.
When my dad had a stroke, requiring extensive hospitalization and rehabilitation, the biggest expense that they faced for the hospitalization and rehab phase was ambulance/ambulette service. They were fortunate to have had the means for private supplements for things like homecare and physical therapy beyond that Medicare, private insurance and family could accomodate. Most folks do not.
it is ironic that you talk about people being on illness away from ruin in the private system when you understand and know that if you end up with a illness bad enough the government will seize all of your assets to pay for that care. Does not seem like a vary fair system to me but I am sure you do not believe in private property either most socialist do not
I've spent most of my career in finance, so I doubt that I would fit in well in socialist circles. I would agree with you that the system that requires people of modest means to either self finance care that costs $300-700/day, or become indigent to receive Medicaid social benefits is fundamentally unfair and arguably cruel. Ultimately it's draining the wealth of the nation away, and will impact the earnings potential of our fellow capitalists - how will consumers buy my products if 60% of their cashflow is rent/health/transportation?
Comments
A good read. Again, imagine such a government in charge of universal basic income distribution and the majority of 'citizens' dependent on that. Not a bright future.
Sorry, what does this have to do with UBI?
With such a government, any future wouldn’t be desirable. Imagine such government in charge of unemployment benefits, health services, the military, anything really: it’s grim in any case.
Moreover, universal basic income is universal, by definition. If a government denies it to some particular citizens according to some criteria, it is not universal anymore. It becomes an income provided to anyone who is in favor of the government, which is a very different thing. So, if universal basic income existed, even the Chinese government would have to give it to everyone... or otherwise give it another name.
What you are not allowing is that the “universality” will not be inalienable... which we already see in terms of, you have a right to free speech, but it’s not “consequence free” which was how the soviets treated free speech. Their constitution also enshrined free speech, but as the joke went, they could also say “Reagan is an idiot”, not only Americans.
The likelihood of universal basic income being completely strings free is very low. You get convicted of some felony, you lose it, you are guilty of domestic violence you lose it, you say something very un-PC you lose it. And you may say, yeah, so what, those are bad people. But it would be like “hate speech”. Hate speech in the 90s was one thing, today it means someone disagrees with you on policy.
UBI gives government a lever to control people by threatening to reduce or stop payments as a form of punishment.
We have the technology to not build that lever into the logistics design of UBI
This isn't a technology problem. Congress could put whatever restrictions on UBI it wants to. The technology would be required to implement whatever kind of UBI system Congress made into law. Congress could also change the law any time in the future -- and every time party control over congress changes, you can bet they will push for tweaks to UBI that they promised to their base.
The most likely outcome, which happens with many other kinds of government programs, would be for Congress to delegate significant authority over UBI to some regulatory bureaucracy in the executive branch.
Similar to the way the IRS, EPA, and FDA work, there would be some department of UBI with broad discretion over how the law is interpreted, the ability create additional regulations and fine people who do not obey them, etc.
You can't solve this problem with code. It's a political problem.
If you had crypto that used biometrics to generate unique secret keys and automatically mined X amount of coins (based on a set of public economic inputs) to evenly distribute to all participants, and made it part of the constitution that the distribution mechanism can never be changed you'd be as close as you can to solving this issue.
Any group trying to take it away once people have it will find out it won't go well.
We do, and that's an insightful comment.
I've never seen anyone point that out before.
Imagine China’s social credit system, except add to it that the government is entirely responsible for giving or not giving you a living allowance
You are perhaps imaging a scenario where UBi is provided by a NGO?
Maybe they'll define some people as being 3/5ths of a person. It's been done before.
God, I hate the rhetoric around the 3/5ths compromise.
Not because I support it, but because in the circumstances in question the implication that they should have been treated as "full people" (in the only place 3/5 applied) is the pro slavery position.
Of course the slaves should have had freedom. Of course they should have had the vote. But they had zero of either of those. Increasing the power of the society that enslaves by 3/5 the number of slaves isn't treating them as 3/5 of a person! Morally speaking the number should have been zero (or negative!) if it had to be a question at all.
Slaveholders were taxed, but slaves were not represented. The taxation compromise was intended by Feds to delay the same forces that led to the Civil War. It was not a pro slavery position, but it definitely kowtowed to pro slavery positions predominantly held by slaveholders. Unintended consequences of negotiating with slavers were that the compromise was interpreted by slaveholders as increasingly punitive and untenable as time went on.
That’s why you don’t negotiate with terrorists. Sooner or later, they will leverage their position into a better deal at your table, or they will find a better deal at a different table, one which may render any leverage against them moot.
Oh, right! I focused on the representation (which remains tied to the computed number) bit and forgot about the impact on taxes (which are no longer).
To the degree that increasing that fraction from 3/5 would raise the taxes paid by slave holders, it is not "pro slavery".
Having said that, IIUC, the restriction only applied to "direct taxes" whereas the bulk of US Federal Government revenue at the time was from tariffs and excise, and in any case was a much smaller portion of GDP than today (although to some degree that extends to representation as well, as a limitation of the power being controlled).
My general point stands that the great injustice was all the ways we were treating people as 0/5th of a person, not that we could have taxed some states a little more or given them a bit more power.
Imagine such a government in charge of your basic healthcare determining if you get health care or are put on a waiting list to die, determining what drugs are distributed and what are not and the majority of 'citizens' dependent on that. Not a bright future.
Repeat your exact comment replacing the word “government” with “employer and its chosen for-profit insurance provider” and you’ve described the United States.
My employer can fire me for any or no reason and no notice and I’d be left with a short COBRA runway of suddenly-expensive healthcare, which I now can’t afford because I was just fired.
My employer can (and does) change my insurance provider, add or remove benefits, and I have zero say over that process. I certainly can’t vote for a new CEO or request a different provider from my company. Take it or leave it.
My health and well-being is tied up with the same entity that tells me what to do for 8 hours a day. That doesn’t feel like “freedom” to me.
Universal healthcare as a concept is not by itself related to authoritarianism. Indeed, guaranteeing healthcare (whether it be state-run like the UK or all-private like Germany) and paying for it through tax revenue rather than through employment subsidy is a feature of many Western democracies.
I guess the benefit is that it's easier to change employer than government.
I certainly don’t change my employer as often as I vote.
You can thank government for that as well, as Price Controls from WWII, and ongoing regulations and tax burdens are the leading reasons employment and healthcare are linked in the way they are.
If you do not believe that is authoritarianism then I shutter to think what it would take for you to recognize an authoritarian system
That is a false dilemma, I support neither system nor is employer provided vs government provided the only choice we have as a society
Using the Authoritarian nations (though I am sure your going to disagree describing them as authoritarian) of the UK and Germany to support your position is not going to win me over.
I support individual liberty, and individual rights, and generally only Negative forms of right.
the UK, Germany, and most of the EU have adopted a position of Collective rights, and a whole host of Positive rights which are Authoritarian in nature. Sure they are not NK or China, but simply because they are not full on Totalitarian regime's does not make them libertarian either
Don’t be a clown.
Medicare has worked pretty well for the elderly for years. Old people and their families don’t lose everything for routine care anymore. Until it comes time for long term nursing home type care.
Everyone else is one car accident or cancer diagnosis away from ruin.
I believe my parents and my grandparents, and likely my greatgrand parents all have a different view of medicare than your rose colored take.
Further, no everyone is not one car accident or cancer diagnosis away from ruin, have been involved personally with both this is a false statement
Literally every senior has Medicare and has access to many types of care that requires private insurance for anyone else. There are overlay private plans as well that vary. The big complaint about Medicare is that the results-driven approach and reimbursement model for nursing and rehabilitation incentivizes unethical providers to purge people who need more rehab, and to provide substandard rehab in nursing homes.
If you are unable to work, you’re unable to maintain coverage in many circumstances. Many many people will be terminated within days or weeks of being out of work.
I used to setup Medicaid enrollment systems as a consultant — big counties have contractors to liquidate the assets of sick people driven into Medicaid every day.
Ok, but that in no way means it is "good", you seem to operate under the flawed belief that universality == good, when it can be universally bad
That is clearly false, as an example when my parents got on medicare they had to find new providers and new doctors as their long time doctors did not accept medicare at all largely due to the substandard payments they would receive.
It is false to say the medicare offers the exact same access as private payers. There are many many many doctors in private practice that do not accept medicare, you almost exclusively have to enter a large health network for it to except medicare largely because those health networks have the ability to increase the prices on their non-medicare patients to make up of the loss they experience by accepting medicare and/or they end up with a HUGE patient / doctor work load for medicare patients requiring them to schedule appointments months or some times a year or more in advance
To highlight medicare as model we should all have shows either A) your ignorance of medicare or b) your willingness to accept a standard of care far lower than what we have today in private medical treatment
it is ironic that you talk about people being on illness away from ruin in the private system when you understand and know that if you end up with a illness bad enough the government will seize all of your assets to pay for that care. Does not seem like a vary fair system to me but I am sure you do not believe in private property either most socialist do not
I'm sorry that your parents were inconvenienced. Why didn't they just pay for private medical care? Nobody forces you to use insurance.
When my dad had a stroke, requiring extensive hospitalization and rehabilitation, the biggest expense that they faced for the hospitalization and rehab phase was ambulance/ambulette service. They were fortunate to have had the means for private supplements for things like homecare and physical therapy beyond that Medicare, private insurance and family could accomodate. Most folks do not.
I've spent most of my career in finance, so I doubt that I would fit in well in socialist circles. I would agree with you that the system that requires people of modest means to either self finance care that costs $300-700/day, or become indigent to receive Medicaid social benefits is fundamentally unfair and arguably cruel. Ultimately it's draining the wealth of the nation away, and will impact the earnings potential of our fellow capitalists - how will consumers buy my products if 60% of their cashflow is rent/health/transportation?
Sounds a better future than your basic healthcare being solely determined by your bank balance. You can always go private in both cases.