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[Zimmy64]

Noticed that some people in the RNC/DNC fundraising thread were perplexed by the idea of a libertarian case for Universal Basic Income. Rather than try to discuss it there I figured a new thread would be more appropriate. Matt Zwolinski has a great piece on it.

This morning, I did a short interview with the Cato Institute about the libertarian case for a Basic Income Guarantee. The immediate stimulus for the conversation was the recent Swiss proposal to pay each and every and every citizen 2,500 francs (about 2,800 USD) per month. But conversation quickly turned to the question of whether some form of basic income proposal might be compatible with libertarianism. Some of my colleagues at Bleeding Heart Libertarians have certainly expressed enthusiasm for it in the past. And over at Reason.com, Matthew Feeney recently published a short but favorable writeup of the idea.

Of course, as with any policy proposal, the details matter a lot. And the Swiss proposal is problematic in a number of ways. For starters, 2,800 USD a month means that a married couple could get $67,200 per year for doing nothing. And while it’s true that Switzerland is one of the richest countries in the world in terms of per capita income, that’s still an awful lot of money. Furthermore, the Swiss proposal seems to involve implementing a basic income in addition to their currently existing welfare system. Few libertarians would be willing to sign up for that deal. But as a replacement for traditional welfare programs, there is a lot for libertarians to like about a basic income.

Still skeptical? Well, here are three libertarian arguments in support of a Basic Income Guarantee. I begin with a relatively weak proposal that even most hard-core libertarians should be even to accept. I then move to stronger proposals that involve some deviation from the plumb-line view. But only justifiable deviations, of course.

1) A Basic Income Guarantee would be much better than the current welfare state.

Current federal social welfare programs in the United States are an expensive, complicated mess. According to Michael Tanner, the federal government spent more than $668 billion on over one hundred and twenty-six anti-poverty programs in 2012. When you add in the $284 billion spent by state and local governments, that amounts to $20,610 for every poor person in America.

Wouldn’t it be better just to write the poor a check?

Each one of those anti-poverty programs comes with its own bureaucracy and its own Byzantine set of rules. If you want to shrink the size and scope of government, eliminating those departments and replacing them with a program so simple it could virtually be administered by a computer seems like a good place to start. Eliminating bloated bureaucracies means more money in the hands of the poor and lower costs to the taxpayer. Win/Win.

A Basic Income Guarantee would also be considerably less paternalistic then the current welfare state, which is the bastard child of “conservative judgment and progressive condescension” toward the poor, in Andrea Castillo’s choice words. Conservatives want to help the poor, but only if they can demonstrate that they deserve it by jumping through a series of hoops meant to demonstrate their willingness to work, to stay off drugs, and preferably to settle down into a nice, stable, bourgeois family life. And while progressives generally reject this attempt to impose traditional values on the poor, they have almost always preferred in-kind grants to cash precisely as a way of making sure the poor get the help they “really” need. Shouldn’t we trust poor people to know what they need better than the federal government?

2) A Basic Income Guarantee might be required on libertarian grounds as reparation for past injustice.

One of libertarianism’s most distinctive commitments is its belief in the near-inviolability of private property rights. But it does not follow from this commitment that the existing distribution of property rights ought to be regarded as inviolable, because the existing distribution is in many ways the product of past acts of uncompensated theft and violence. However attractive libertarianism might be in theory, “Libertarianism…Starting Now!” has the ring of special pleading, especially when it comes from the mouths of people who have by and large emerged at the top of the bloody and murderous mess that is our collective history.

Radical libertarians have proposed several approaches to dealing with past injustice. But one suggestion that a lot of people seem to forget about comes from an unlikely source. Most people remember Robert Nozick’s Anarchy, State, and Utopia as a fairly uncompromising defense of natural-rights libertarianism. And most people remember that Nozick wrote that any state that goes beyond the minimal functions of protecting its citizens’ negative rights would be itself rights-violating and therefore unjust.

But Nozick’s entitlement theory of justice is a historical one, and an important component of that theory is a “principle of rectification” to deal with past injustice. Nozick himself provided almost no details at all regarding the nature or proper application of this principle (though others have speculated). But in one fascinating passage, Nozick suggests that we might regard patterned principles of justice (like Rawls’ Difference Principle) as “rough rules of thumb” for approximating the result of a detailed application of the principle of rectification. Here’s what Nozick has to say:

Perhaps it is best to view some patterned principles of distributive justice as rough rules of thumb meant to approximate the general results of applying the principle of rectification of injustice. For example, lacking much historical information, and assuming (1) that victims of injustice generally do worse than they otherwise would and (2) that those from the least well-off group in the society have the highest probabilities of being the (descendants of) victims of the most serious injustice who are owed compensation by those who benefited from the injustices (assumed to be those better off, though sometimes the perpetrators will be others in the worst-off group), then a rough rule of thumb for rectifying injustices might seem to be the following: organize society so as to maximize the position of whatever group ends up least well-off in the society (p. 231).

In a world in which all property was acquired by peaceful processes of labor-mixing and voluntary trade, a tax-funded Basic Income Guarantee might plausibly be held to violate libertarian rights. But our world is not that world. And since we do not have the information that would be necessary to engage in a precise rectification of past injustices, and since simply ignoring those injustices seems unfair, perhaps something like a Basic Income Guarantee can be justified as an approximate rectification?

3. A Basic Income Guarantee might be required to meet the basic needs of the poor.

The previous two arguments both view a basic income as a kind of “second-best” policy, desirable not for its own sake but either as less-bad than what we’ve currently got or a necessary corrective to past injustice. But can libertarians go further than this? Could there be a libertarian case for the basic income not as a compromise but as an ideal?

There can and there has.

Both Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek advocated for something like a Basic Income Guarantee as a proper function of government, though on somewhat different grounds. Friedman’s argument comes in chapter 9 of his Capitalism and Freedom, and is based on the idea that private attempts at relieving poverty involve what he called “neighborhood effects” or positive externalities. Such externalities, Friedman argues, mean that private charity will be undersupplied by voluntary action.

[W]e might all of us be willing to contribute to the relief of poverty, provided everyone else did. We might not be willing to contribute the same amount without such assurance.

And so, Friedman concludes, some “governmental action to alleviate poverty” is justified. Specifically, government is justified in setting “a floor under the standard of life of every person in the community,” a floor that takes the form of his famous “Negative Income Tax” proposal.

Friedrich Hayek’s argument, appearing 17 years later in volume 3 of his Law, Legislation, and Liberty, is even more powerful. Here’s the crucial passage:

The assurance of a certain minimum income for everyone, or a sort of floor below which nobody need fall even when he is unable to provide for himself, appears not only to be wholly legitimate protection against a risk common to all, but a necessary part of the Great Society in which the individual no longer has specific claims on the members of the particular small group into which he was born. (emphasis added)

To those who know of Hayek only through second-hand caricatures of his argument from The Road to Serfdom, his claim here will no doubt be surprising. But as my colleague Kevin Vallier has documented repeatedly, Hayek was not opposed to the welfare state as such (not even in the Road to Serfdom). At the very least, he regarded certain aspects of the welfare state as permissible options that states might pursue. But the passage above suggests that he may have had an even stronger idea in mind - that a basic income is not merely a permissible option but a mandatory requirement of democratic legitimacy - a policy that must be instituted in order to justify the coercive power that even a Hayekian state would exercise over its citizens.

Clarifications - BIGs vs. NITs vs. EITCs
I said in the beginning of this essay that in evaluating basic income proposals, the details matter a lot. But in the arguments above, I’ve mostly put those details to the side, even glossing over the difference, for instance, between a Basic Income Guarantee and a Negative Income Tax. Before I close, I want to say at least a little about the different policy options. But there are a lot of different options, and a lot of details to each. So bear in mind that what follows is only a sketch.

A Basic Income Guarantee involves something like an unconditional grant of income to every citizen. So, on most proposals, everybody gets a check each month. “Unconditional” here means mostly that the check is not conditional on one’s wealth or poverty or willingness to work. But some proposals, like Charles Murray’s, would go only to adult citizens. And almost all proposals are given only to citizens. Most proposals specify that income earned on top of the grant is subject to taxation at progressive rates, but the grant itself is not.

A Negative Income Tax involves issuing a credit to those who fall below the threshold of tax liability, based on how far below the threshold they fall. So the amount of money one receives (the “negative income tax”) decreases as ones earnings push one up to the threshold of tax liability, until it reaches zero, and then as one earns more money one begins to pay the government money (the “positive income tax”).

The Earned Income Tax Credit is the policy we actually have in place currently in the United States. It was inspired by Friedman’s Negative Income Tax proposal, but falls short in that it applies only to persons who are actually working.

The US Basic Income Guarantee Network has a nice and significantly more detailed overview of some of the different policies. You can watch Milton Friedman explain his Negative Income Tax proposal with characteristic clarity to William F. Buckley here. And for an extended and carefully thought out defense of one particular Basic Income Guarantee proposal from a libertarian perspective, I highly recommend Charles Murray’s short book, In Our Hands: A Plan to Replace the Welfare State.

Objections
1) Disincentives - One of the most common objections to Basic Income Guarantees is that they would create objectionably strong disincentives to employment. And those who make this objection can draw some support from experimental studies with the Negative Income Tax in the United States in the 1960s and 70s.

But the significance of this objection depends a lot on the details of the proposal under consideration, and is probably overstated, anyway. After all, with a Basic Income Guarantee, the money you get is yours to keep. You don’t lose it if you take a job and start earning money. And so in that way the disincentives to employment it creates are probably less severe than those created by currently existing welfare programs where employment income is often a bar to eligibility.

With a Negative Income Tax, the disincentives are there, but arguably at an acceptable level. After all, under a NIT if you are unemployed and then you get a job, you’re going to have more money as a result. You won’t keep all of the money. But nobody keeps all of the money they earn from their job - a large chunk of it goes to taxes. It’s the same idea here, except in reverse - hence, the label of “negative income tax.”

2) Effects on Migration - When most people think about helping the poor, they forget about two groups that are largely invisible - poor people in other countries, and poor people who haven’t been born yet (see this paper by Tyler Cowen for more). With respect to the first of those groups, I think (and have argued before) that there is a real worry that a Basic Income Guarantee in the United States would create pressures to restrict immigration even more than it already is. After all, when every new immigrant is one more person collecting a check from your tax dollars, it’s not entirely unreasonable to view those immigrants as a threat, and to be more willing to use the coercive power of the state to keep them out. That worries me, because I think the last thing anybody with a bleeding heart ought to want to do is to block the poorest of the poor from access to what has been one of the most effective anti-poverty programs ever devised - namely, a policy of relatively open immigration into the relatively free economy of the United States. Especially when one’s justification for doing so is merely to provide a bit of extra cash to people who are already citizens of one of the wealthiest countries on the face of the planet.

3) Effects on Economic Growth - Even a modest slowdown of economic growth can have dramatic effects when compounded over a period of decades. And so even if whatever marginal disincentives a Basic Income Guarantee would produce wouldn’t do much to hurt currently existing people, it might do a lot to hurt people who will be born at some point in the future. Here’s a thought experiment for the mathematically inclined among you: imagine that Americans in 1800 decided to institute a social welfare policy that reduced annual economic growth by 1%, and that the policy was maintained intact to the present day. How much poorer a country would America be? How much poorer would the poorest Americans be? Even if the only thing you cared about was improving the lot of the poor, would whatever benefits the policy produced have been worth it?

Further Reading
Tyler Cowen and Jim Manzi put forward what seem to me to be the most damning objections to a Basic Income Guarantee - that however attractive the idea may be in theory, any actually implemented policy will be subject to political tinkering and rent-seeking until it starts to look just as bad as, if not worse than, what we’ve already got. Murray’s proposal to implement a Basic Income Guarantee via a constitutional amendment that simultaneously eliminates all other redistributive programs goes some way toward insulating the policy from the pressures of “ordinary politics.” But I’m not sure it’s enough.

The journal Basic Income Studies published a special issue on libertarianism and the Basic Income Guarantee, with contributions from me , Mike Munger , Pete Boettke and Adam Martin , Dan Moseley , Dan Layman , Brian Powell , and Peter Vallentyne .

Source: https://www.libertarianism.org/columns/libertarian-case-basic-income

Personally I'm for an UBI on the grounds that it replace or partially replace the "welfare state." Furthermore I think the left underestimates how politically feasible a UBI. If packaged correctly it could be a real winner. I wouldn't trust say Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren to implement it but if proposed by Mark Zuckerberg or Mark Cuban I'd tentatively be on board.

EDIT: I screwed up. This was originally going to be a thread about libertarian views regarding UBI and free immigration but I decided to make it just about UBI and potentially discuss immigration in another thread. I forgot to change the title though. If people are still interested in libertarian views regarding immigration (spoiler alert: they are further to the left than the Democrats) than that can be a separate thread

 

[devilhawk]

I've heard similar thoughts from libertarians concerning basic income versus the welfare state and it is very intriguing.

Think of how regressive and restrictive the current welfare system is. Say you are a single mother on welfare, which has requirements that you don't have a job in order to keep the payments coming in. If you do get an entry level job you instead lose your support and now are likely in a worse spot than before. A basic income would fix this dilemma.

 

[Mailbox]

Personally I'm for an UBI on the grounds that it replace or partially replace the "welfare state." Furthermore I think the left underestimates how politically feasible a UBI. If packaged correctly it could be a real winner. I wouldn't trust say Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren to implement it but if proposed by Mark Zuckerberg or Mark Cuban I'd tentatively be on board.

OP, you are seriously gonna have to explain your position on this one, because this reads as you either misunderstanding how complicated and intricate politics (seriously, you'd trust people whom have never taken office before and have basically 0 idea of the real intricacies of society and how legislation affects it on a country-wide scale?) really is, or....

idk.

Seriously? You'd trust the idea of UBI moreso if it came from hyper-capitalists? (edit: i get that you said that from a libertarian perspective, but seriously?)

 

[G.ZZZ]

I work in the social sector and let me tell you, ubi all the fucking way. The hoops required to go through all the possible government welfare checks are insane and often reward the smart over the poor. It's an archaic,paternalistic concept of welfare that need to go die in a fire

 

[Wollan]

Which countries are currently testing this out? Finland and Canada?

 

[Zimmy64]

OP, you are seriously gonna have to explain your position on this one, because this reads as you either misunderstanding how complicated and intricate politics (seriously, you'd trust people whom have never taken office before and have basically 0 idea of the real intricacies of society and how legislation affects it on a country-wide scale?) really is, or....

idk.

Seriously? You'd trust the idea of UBI moreso if it came from hyper-capitalists?

You make a good point about political inexperience. I did not think of it that way. I am more so referring that I do not trust the far left in the democratic party to implement a UBI in a way that doesn't lead to it being just another government program that spirals out of control and becomes another sacred cow.

As far as the bolded go all I can say is absolutely and that isn't even a hard question. I am still a libertarian, however I would prefer this thread not be about the merits of capitalism or hyper-capitalism as you put it unless it's directly relevant to the implementation of an UBI.

I'll further preface if Sanders or Warren proposed the UBI and the proposal was good I'd support it. I don't want people to think I'll automatically oppose it just because it came from Sanders or Warren.

 

[Sheroking]

Seriously? You'd trust the idea of UBI moreso if it came from hyper-capitalists? (edit: i get that you said that from a libertarian perspective, but seriously?)

Basically, he doesn't want UBI to be a workable living wage. He wants it to be table scraps meticulously and coldly calculated as a means to eliminate the "welfare state". Those pesky leftist politicians would want to look at giving people enough to pay their rent and feed their children.

See above that he refers to current welfare programs as a "sacred cow". Libertarians have great difficulty getting representation in government because issues like social security and welfare become political landmines for candidates.

 

[Stinkles]

One aspect of Libertarianism that always baffles me is the insistence that complexity is inherently bad. It's a meaningless but seductive assumption. Lots of systems require a high degree of complexity to function efficiently including organisms, fuzzy logic, chaos theory and yes, bureaucracy.

While there's lots of useless and wasteful complexity in government, there's also tons of healthy useful and necessary complexity.

The idea that big and complex are inherently bad doesn't pass anyone's sniff test yet it's firmly ingrained in almost every libertarian I've ever met, read or heard. That is actually one of the philosophical aspects that appeals to teenage brains, I think. Seeing Alexandrian solutions to Gordian knot problems everywhere must feel empowering. Even if they're faulty.

A post scarcity society for example would have to be incredibly elaborate in order to be efficient. They're trying to solve 22nd century problems with 19th century logic and positions.

 

[Neo C.]

The Swiss proposal was very vague, we didn't know wether it would replace current welfare programms or add to them. And the financing was also left for interpretation.

But an UBI as a replacement for all social safety nets? I would definitely support it. The current system is neither fair nor efficient, the bureaucracy is huge and the rules aren't as transparent as they needed to be.
Of course UBI has its own problem, and every system can be abused, but it would still be better what we have now.

 

[fauxtrot]

Basically, he doesn't want UBI to be a workable living wage. He wants it to be table scraps meticulously and coldly calculated as a means to eliminate the "welfare state".

Those pesky leftist politicians would want to look at giving people enough to pay their rent and feed their children.

Exactly. It's just a scam to "give out" less money overall and allow wealth inequality to continue to increase drastically.

 

[Phrozenflame500]

I'm somewhat skeptical towards UBI, not for any moral reasons more because it's such a massive overhaul to our welfare system it deserves such skepticism. But it is a tempting idea and I'd love to see the results of the ongoing experimental impementations of similar ideas.

 

[Mumei]

Basically, he doesn't want UBI to be a workable living wage. He wants it to be table scraps meticulously and coldly calculated as a means to eliminate the "welfare state". See above that he refers to current welfare programs as a "sacred cow". Libertarians have great difficulty finding real representation in government because issues like social security and welfare become political landmines.

Those pesky leftist politicians would want to look at giving people enough to pay their rent and feed their children.

I don't know if those are his motivations, since I don't know him, but I did see an article on the New Republic about that issue (that people are using the same term but have different goals in mind):

First, the idea that UBI has bipartisan appeal is disingenuous. The left would have a policy that redistributes wealth by funding UBI through a more progressive tax scheme or the diverting of capital income. But libertarians like Charles Murray argue for a UBI that completely scraps our existing welfare state, including programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and housing subsidies. This would be extremely regressive, since money currently directed towards the poor would instead be spread out for a basic income for all. And certain benefits like health insurance can’t effectively be replaced with cash.

Second, Zuckerberg asserts that Alaska’s Permanent Fund—which uses the state’s oil resources to pay a dividend to each Alaskan and is seen as one of the few examples of an actual UBI-like policy—is advantageous because it “comes from conservative principles of smaller government, rather than progressive principles of a larger safety net.” But a UBI policy can only reflect small government principles if one envisions it eating into the country’s existing welfare state, rather than coming on top of it. In this respect, Zuckerberg’s advocacy of UBI “bipartisanship” starts to look more like a veiled libertarian agenda.

This attitude echoes other pro-UBI tech lords like Altman, who sees basic income as providing a “floor” but not a ceiling. In his ideal scheme, no one will be very poor, but people like Altman will still be free to get “as rich as they fucking want.” The tech vision of the world is one where it can wash its hands of the rising joblessness it will generate through automation, but where those at the top can still wallow in extreme wealth. As Altman told Business Insider, “We need to be ready for a world with trillionaires in it, and that’s always going to feel deeply unfair. It feels unfair to me. But to drive society forward, you’ve got to let that happen.”

This is deeply telling of the tech UBI mentality: driving society forward doesn’t mean reducing inequality, but rather fostering more entrepreneurship. The former is viewed as unnecessary and the latter as an inherent good.

At the end of his post, Zuckerberg states that the “most effective safety net programs create an incentive or need to work rather than just giving a handout.” This echoes the “personal responsibility” rhetoric that drove workfare policies in the 1990s, which ended up kicking millions of people off of welfare rolls, leaving them in extreme poverty. The line also directly undermines the push for a UBI, which is quite literally a handout that can help liberate people from the “need to work.”

It would appear that Silicon Valley’s support for a basic income comes from self-interest. As Jathan Sadowski writes in the Guardian, “the trouble comes when UBI is used as a way of merely making techno-capitalism more tolerable for people, when it is administered like a painkiller that numbs the pain and masks the symptoms of economic injustice without addressing the root causes of exploitation and inequality.”

 

[Sheroking]

Exactly. It's just a scam to "give out" less money overall and allow wealth inequality to continue to increase drastically.

UBI is an inevitability because rapidly increasing automation is going to lead to a point where there are fewer jobs than people, and less societal need for people to work.

Unfortunately Libertarians see this as an opportunity to kill the welfare state, when people should see this future as the first possibility of the welfare state being sustainable and humane.

 

[andythinkpad]

US has pretty minimal welfare and he calls it a "welfare state"?

His second point is basically, "Hey Libertarians are selfish fucks and I know people know about it, so let us Libertarians purpose this grand plan to make us look good."

 

[Zimmy64]

I work in the social sector and let me tell you, ubi all the fucking way. The hoops required to go through all the possible government welfare checks are insane and often reward the smart over the poor. It's an archaic,paternalistic concept of welfare that need to go die in a fire

Think of how much more productive you could be if you did not have to jump through all those hoops.

Which countries are currently testing this out? Finland and Canada?

Alaska, surprisingly, has a form of it

Basically, he doesn't want UBI to be a workable living wage. He wants it to be table scraps meticulously and coldly calculated as a means to eliminate the "welfare state". Those pesky leftist politicians would want to look at giving people enough to pay their rent and feed their children.

See above that he refers to current welfare programs as a "sacred cow". Libertarians have great difficulty getting representation in government because issues like social security and welfare become political landmines for candidates.

Not sure where you got that. I'd be willing to figure out what would make an UBI a workable wage and tie it to inflation. I'd also be willing to make it progressive (not actually universal) in the sense that the poor get more and those making above a certain amount get little or none. Furthermore I'd be willing to settle for most of the welfare state being eliminated but recognize that there might be parts of it that have to stay. It would certainly be better than the system we have now.

 

[fauxtrot]

UBI is an inevitability because rapidly increasing automation is going to lead to a point where there are fewer jobs than people, and less societal need for people to work.

Unfortunately Libertarians see this as an opportunity to kill the welfare state, when people should see this future as the first possibility of the welfare state being sustainable and humane.

To be fair, I should have said "this version of UBI"... I'm more of a fan of some kind of melding of UBI with concepts from "full employment", but certainly not from the mentality of "it will save the rich money". Any article that unironically references Milton Friedman, William F Buckley and Charles Murray deserves to go straight into the trash.

The only version of UBI that will work or would be fair in a world where individuals don't need to work for society to function is one that drastically redistributes wealth and takes the power out of the hands of a few rich pricks.

Gimme that fully automated luxury gay space communism, thank you very much.

 

[Stinkles]

US has pretty minimal welfare and he calls it a "welfare state"?

His second point is basically, "Hey Libertarians are selfish fucks and I know people know about it, so let us Libertarians purpose this grand plan to make us look good."

I don't think people mind them being selfish. Greedy capitalist billionaires are inherently greedy. The problem is that they continually ignore human nature when they come up with their unworkable schemes and then blame human nature for the failure of their math.

And the only thing worse than a billionaire libertarian is a broke libertarian.

 

[KingSnake]

The hidden danger in this is that the total costs for survival might not be covered by UBI at some point.

 

[Sheroking]

Not sure where you got that. I'd be willing to figure out what would make an UBI a workable wage and tie it to inflation. I'd also be willing to make it progressive (not actually universal) in the sense that the poor get more and those making above a certain amount get little or none. Furthermore I'd be willing to settle for most of the welfare state being eliminated but recognize that there might be parts of it that have to stay. It would certainly be better than the system we have now.

If I've misrepresented you, I apologize.

The libertarian take on UBI has almost always been half-political and half-ideological in the sense that UBI would help them kill off political hot-potatoes which have long stood in the way of them gaining office. You not only referenced killing off sacred cows, you specifically claimed you would prefer hyper-capitalists craft it. That made it pretty easy to lump you in with all of that.

Certainly, Libertarians are going to want to see UBI as an opportunity for LESS government spending than more, and any system that is near-universal or provides a reasonable living wage while not disregarding health insurance and necessary public services would cost more, not less.

 

[Zimmy64]

I'm somewhat skeptical towards UBI, not for any moral reasons more because it's such a massive overhaul to our welfare system it deserves such skepticism. But it is a tempting idea and I'd love to see the results of the ongoing experimental impementations of similar ideas.

I'm pretty sure this is the crux of my concern

The hidden danger in this is that the total costs for survival might not be covered by UBI at some point.

I'm not sure how this doesn't apply to a UBI in general not just the libertarian concept of it

I don't think people mind them being selfish. Greedy capitalist billionaires are inherently greedy. The problem is that they continually ignore human nature when they come up with their unworkable schemes and then blame human nature for the failure of their math.

And the only thing worse than a billionaire libertarian is a broke libertarian.

Minor pet peeve but you just said that X is X which is trivially true because you defined it to be. I think you meant to say capitalist billionaires are inherent greedily because of course greedy capitalist billionaires are inherently greedy because you stipulated they are greedy. Also not sure what you're trying to say in the bolded.

Overall I'm pleasantly surprised by the reception to a libertarian article on GAF and I don't mean that sarcastically

 

[ZackieChan]

One aspect of Libertarianism that always baffles me is the insistence that complexity is inherently bad. It's a meaningless but seductive assumption. Lots of systems require a high degree of complexity to function efficiently including organisms, fuzzy logic, chaos theory and yes, bureaucracy.

While there's lots of useless and wasteful complexity in government, there's also tons of healthy useful and necessary complexity.

The idea that big and complex are inherently bad doesn't pass anyone's sniff test yet it's firmly ingrained in almost every libertarian I've ever met, read or heard. That is actually one of the philosophical aspects that appeals to teenage brains, I think. Seeing Alexandrian solutions to Gordian knot problems everywhere must feel empowering. Even if they're faulty.

A post scarcity society for example would have to be incredibly elaborate in order to be efficient. They're trying to solve 22nd century problems with 19th century logic and positions.

Have you ever tried applying for government welfare programs? They're a fucking nightmare. This is one area where the simplicity of just getting money instead of dealing with massive bureaucracy would be a huge improvement.

 

[Stinkles]

I'm pretty sure this is the crux of my concern



I'm not sure how this doesn't apply to a UBI in general not just the libertarian concept of it



Minor pet peeve but you just said that X is X which is trivially true because you defined it to be. I think you meant to say capitalist billionaires are inherent greedily because of course greedy capitalist billionaires are inherently greedy because you stipulated they are greedy. Also not sure what you're trying to say in the bolded.

Overall I'm pleasantly surprised by the reception to a libertarian article on GAF and I don't mean that sarcastically

I was being glib and flip and reductive but the bolded is a statement on the logic and rationale of a billionaire libertarian believing that his philosophy has contributed to his success while a broke libertarian has no such "evidence."

But again it was glib and disposable.

 

[G.ZZZ]

Have you ever tried applying for government welfare programs? They're a fucking nightmare. This is one area where the simplicity of just getting money instead of dealing with massive bureaucracy would be a huge improvement.

I agree but keep in mind society is inherently an unsolvable problem, and as such, there's no easy solution, but only a constantly adapting one. In this sense, a solution can never be easy because it has to be constantly patched for the exploits that will inevitably come into existence.
Also, an UBI work only if large unexpended capital is taxed, which is not under current laws (as corporations tend to work outside of the rule of law, which was conceived for non-supra national entities in the first place).

Beside that, Zuckerberg can go fuck himself, he and his clique of asshole techno-libertarians that think they're above the rest of the world.

 

[sohois]

I don't know if those are his motivations, since I don't know him, but I did see an article on the New Republic about that issue (that people are using the same term but have different goals in mind):

I think the OPs article kind of addresses the point about trillionaires with the reference to compound growth.

The New Republic argues that the Tech libertarian position is to award a starvation UBI, say $10000, and allow a small handful to amass incredible wealth. They believe that it's much better to heavily limit the wealth at the top and redistribute it for a far more generous UBI.


The Tech libertarian position is that yes, initial UBIs might be very limited, but doing more will retard growth rates. In the long run, higher economic growth will enable UBI to grow alongside, until the amount is far more generous. In their mind, better to have a UBI of $30000 and some trillionaires, rather than having no one who is hyper wealthy but UBI being only $15000.

Note that I am not arguing the Tech libertarian position is the better or smarter, just steelmanning their position

 

[Timedog]

The true libertarian case for immigration seems immediately obvious. Enough so that I was confused on why you'd lump that in with UBI. Accidentally omitting it seems like not a big deal.

 

[Zimmy64]

If I've misrepresented you, I apologize.

The libertarian take on UBI has almost always been half-political and half-ideological in the sense that UBI would help them kill off political hot-potatoes which have long stood in the way of them gaining office. You not only referenced killing off sacred cows, you specifically claimed you would prefer hyper-capitalists craft it. That made it pretty easy to lump you in with all of that.

Certainly, Libertarians are going to want to see UBI as an opportunity for LESS government spending than more, and any system that is near-universal or provides a reasonable living wage while not disregarding health insurance and necessary public services would cost more, not less.

It's okay. I would argue you overestimated the political part of it. The reason libertarians don't gain office is because it's a fairly new political movement (1970s), it's a third party in a first past the post system, and there is a disconnect between libertarianism politically and libertarianism in academia. My hyper capitalist comment was referenced towards my general belief in capitalism as morally good (see Jason Brennan's "Why Not Capitalism"or Deirdre McCloskey's "The Bourgeois Virtues"). My sacred cow comment was in reference to it having to be implemented carefully since it would be a dramatic overhaul of the welfare system.

You'd be surprised at how many different types of libertarians there are. I belong to a group called the Bleeding Heart Libertarians who believe in free markets and social justice. There are even Libertarian Socialists (which is not a contradiction, see Roderick Long). The saying goes that libertarianism cannot be a cult because we argue with each other too much.

Regarding the bolded. I'm not sure but I would not make any claims without doing the empirical research. My intuition is that you would be surprised. You also have to take into account what it would do to growth and productivity. Regardless of the financials there's the moral side to it. For me libertarianism is about self-authorship and poverty prevents the poor from exercising it so something like an UBI is needed.

The true libertarian case for immigration seems immediately obvious. Enough so that I was confused on why you'd lump that in with UBI. Accidentally omitting it seems like not a big deal.

I didn't accidentally omit it. I accidentally included it in the title when I didn't mean to.

 

[moggio]

US has pretty minimal welfare and he calls it a "welfare state"?

It's hilarious.

 

[fauxtrot]

You'd be surprised at how many different types of libertarians there are. I belong to a group called the Bleeding Heart Libertarians who believe in free markets and social justice. There are even Libertarian Socialists (which is not a contradiction, see Roderick Long). The saying goes that libertarianism cannot be a cult because we argue with each other too much.

I'm curious, you say you're for social justice but you linked an article that references people like Milton Friedman, William F Buckley, and Charles Murray... how do you feel about their views on race and segregation?

 

[pigeon]

Certainly, Libertarians are going to want to see UBI as an opportunity for LESS government spending than more, and any system that is near-universal or provides a reasonable living wage while not disregarding health insurance and necessary public services would cost more, not less.

This seems pretty unproven. There are reasons why studies have shown over and over that the most efficient form of charity is just cash transfers: first, people can use the cash more effectively because they can make their own decisions, and second, because infrastructure is expensive, and lots of our current welfare systems involve lots and lots of unnecessary infrastructure.

I think we need to keep public goods around, but I think it's perfectly reasonable from either a socialist or libertarian perspective to want to wipe out most existing welfare systems in favor of a UBI, and to believe it would ultimately be more efficient.

 

[andythinkpad]

I belong to a group called "I can't believe its not Libertarian!"

 

[Aureon]

I think the OPs article kind of addresses the point about trillionaires with the reference to compound growth.

The New Republic argues that the Tech libertarian position is to award a starvation UBI, say $10000, and allow a small handful to amass incredible wealth. They believe that it's much better to heavily limit the wealth at the top and redistribute it for a far more generous UBI.


The Tech libertarian position is that yes, initial UBIs might be very limited, but doing more will retard growth rates. In the long run, higher economic growth will enable UBI to grow alongside, until the amount is far more generous. In their mind, better to have a UBI of $30000 and some trillionaires, rather than having no one who is hyper wealthy but UBI being only $15000.

Note that I am not arguing the Tech libertarian position is the better or smarter, just steelmanning their position

The fun part, obviously, is that the runup and descent from the great depression and USA-EU comparative analysis heavily vindicated Keynesian economics.
In a demand-limited economy, redistributing wealth from saving-oriented (rich) actors to spending-oriented (poor) actors increases growth.

Meanwhile, somehow, people still believe the "Tax cuts will increase economic growth" voodoo.

 

[dragonfart28]

I can see how the consequence of this can be considered libertarianism since it results in some temporary shrinking of government, but we're still talking about a government service here.

In the end, it just makes people more dependent on the government to support their lifestyle.

I mean, I don't mind that, but I'm also not a libertarian.

 

[Zimmy64]

I'm curious, you say you're for social justice but you linked an article that references people like Milton Friedman, William F Buckley, and Charles Murray... how do you feel about their views on race and segregation?

I don't agree with their views on race. As I said their is a lot of disagreement among libertarians. I think Milton Friedman is an important figure in the history of economic thought and should be studied and that William Buckley was a important historical figure in the history of conservatism (I recommend the Netflix Documentary "Best of Enemies" about the Gore-Vidal Feud). I know your going to say something to the effect of If a person has racist views than none of their other views are worth listening to. I reject that. I listen to positions not people. Feel free to disagree.

Also I linked to the article because I discusses a phenomenon that most of GAF is unaware of (that there is a libertarian case for an UBI) not because Friedman, Buckley, and Murray are referenced in it. Consider the context. Zwolinski isn't trying to convince liberals. He's trying to convince libertarians.

Furthermore social justice can be broken up into two parts. The "social" and the "justice." Justice refers to obligations. The question of justice is what are people owed. This is the oldest question and indeed THE question of political philosophy and I don't pretend to have the whole answer as no one does. Roughly speaking though people are roughly allowed to be the authors of the their lives. The second "social" part refers to what people are owed from society. Roughly speaking then I believe that people are owed the ability to be authors of their lives and to the extent that social arrangements i.e. poverty and racism prevent them they should be corrected.

At the end of the day though I can tell were not going to agree on much as you've already expressed desire for some sort of work free socialist paradise, however

This seems pretty unproven. There are reasons why studies have shown over and over that the most efficient form of charity is just cash transfers: first, people can use the cash more effectively because they can make their own decisions, and second, because infrastructure is expensive, and lots of our current welfare systems involve lots and lots of unnecessary infrastructure.

I think we need to keep public goods around, but I think it's perfectly reasonable from either a socialist or libertarian perspective to want to wipe out most existing welfare systems in favor of a UBI, and to believe it would ultimately be more efficient.

I never thought I'd agree with pigeon so maybe there is hope.

I belong to a group called "I can't believe its not Libertarian!"

You could be referring to two things.Either I'm trying to convince progressives to become libertarians with a seductive but wrong philosophy (I'm a sheep in wolf's clothing) or bleeding heart libertarianism is inconsistent with libertarianism.

Regarding 1. I'm not trying to convince anyone of anything. I know 90% of GAF disagrees with me and libertarianism and I'm cool with that. My goal was to, as I said, to introduce a phenomenon that most of GAF is unaware of (that there is a libertarian case for UBI).

Regarding 2. Libertarian's (and all philosophies) can justify a deviation from general principle/policy based on what Jason Brennan calls a "thoroughly principled" defense. Basically the crux of libertarianism is free market capitalism because we believe that it leads/fosters self-authorship. A social safety net, traditionally seem as a deviation from libertarianism, is justified because it's justification (that it fosters self-authorship, specifically for the poor) is the same justification for the main principle driving the philosophy as a whole.

 

[cubicle47b]

I'm not a libertarian and don't think complexity is inherently bad, but I do think it's best to simplify whenever possible. (The whenever possible part is, of course, where the arguments occur). One of the benefits of universal health care, besides the obvious benefit of caring for everyone, is how much it simplifies the system in a way that reduces waste and stress. Some ideas take things way too far and would end up hurting people, like a flat tax, but even with excellent tax preparation software and Google it took a long time for me to prepare and (mostly) understand my taxes this year so I understand the impulse.

Universal basic income seems like an inevitability as automation increases and it can replace some programs like unemployment and food stamps, but it's not some magical solution for everything or probably even most things. I want to see a breakdown of individual programs, a description of what they do, and how much they cost.

 

[Zimmy64]

I can see how the consequence of this can be considered libertarianism since it results in some temporary shrinking of government, but we're still talking about a government service here.

In the end, it just makes people more dependent on the government to support their lifestyle.

I mean, I don't mind that, but I'm also not a libertarian.

There are two types of theorizing "directional theorizing" and "destinational theorizing." Some libertarian anarchists for example are against the UBI because the think welfare, taxation, and the state itself are unjust (I disagree). They reject an UBI because it doesn't get them to their destination. I tend to prefer directional theorizing or what gets us in the right direction so I support an UBI. Basically if you won't settle for anything less than Utopia you're not going to make any progress. These folks might even have the right philosophy but it's politically inapplicable. I remember Dr. John Hasnas at Georgetown once told me something that has stuck with me. "You're living in paradise if the world is getting a little bit better each year." Think of it like economic growth rates. If the economy grows at 2-2.5% per year then in 35 years the size of the economy has doubled. The same principle can be applied to human growth and moral progress.

Universal basic income seems like an inevitability as automation increases and it can replace some programs like unemployment and food stamps, but it's not some magical solution for everything or probably even most things. I want to see a breakdown of individual programs, a description of what they do, and how much they cost.

This is key for me too. A lot of empirical studies need to be done in political science, economics, and philosophy

If more people want to post or respond feel free to do so. The thread is slowing down so I'm going to play Sonic Mania but I'll keep responding to posts and I'll do it as soon as I can.

 

[Ether_Snake]

Basic income can allow the free market to operate properly. Imagine if everyone could get the sleep they need, the food they need, the healthcare they need. The job market would lose most of its wage-related regulations. There would be no minimum wage.

Ideally that's how it would be. But that means high corporate taxes, and if the balance between revenue, population count and BI cost is out of whack then you lose democracy.

A small country like Iceland with its excess energy production capacity can do great as it has a small population and low energy costs, the later which can rise almost exponentially as technology improves. So BI costs can be so low that any increase in revenue could simply lead to higher living standards.

A country like India or China, the US, not so much. Too many people will cause the cost of BI to be unsustainable and lead to a distortion of democracy or more authoritarianism.

 

[Vicetrailia]

Basic income can allow the free market to operate properly. Imagine if everyone could get the sleep they need, the food they need, the healthcare they need. The job market would lose most of its wage-related regulations. There would be no minimum wage.

Ideally that's how it would be. But that means high corporate taxes, and if the balance between revenue, population count and BI cost is out of whack then you lose democracy.

A small country like Iceland with its excess energy production capacity can do great as it has a small population and low energy costs, the later which can rise almost exponentially as technology improves. So BI costs can be so low that any increase in revenue could simply lead to higher living standards.

A country like India or China, the US, not so much. Too many people will cause the cost of BI to be unsustainable and lead to a distortion of democracy or more authoritarianism.

The US certainly has the capability unlike the other two countries.

 

[andythinkpad]

...



You could be referring to two things.Either I'm trying to convince progressives to become libertarians with a seductive but wrong philosophy (I'm a sheep in wolf's clothing) or bleeding heart libertarianism is inconsistent with libertarianism.

Regarding 1. I'm not trying to convince anyone of anything. I know 90% of GAF disagrees with me and libertarianism and I'm cool with that. My goal was to, as I said, to introduce a phenomenon that most of GAF is unaware of (that there is a libertarian case for UBI).

Regarding 2. Libertarian's (and all philosophies) can justify a deviation from general principle/policy based on what Jason Brennan calls a "thoroughly principled" defense. Basically the crux of libertarianism is free market capitalism because we believe that it leads/fosters self-authorship. A social safety net, traditionally seem as a deviation from libertarianism, is justified because it's justification (that it fosters self-authorship, specifically for the poor) is the same justification for the main principle driving the philosophy as a whole.

Before we continue this conversation, do you support Universal Basic Income or not?

 

[Ether_Snake]

The US certainly has the capability unlike the other two countries.

Not really because it would have to ensure and control BI costs, which would be impossible without reducing freedoms.

 

[Foffy]

I don't agree with all of Libertarians, like Stefan "taxing me is like threatening to shoot me!" Molyneux on this matter: he literally thinks charity to the "parasites" in society is better than UBI just for tax reasons.

But for every 10 Stefan's, there's one Penn Jillette who is totally in favor for it. He's even rightfully called out the bullshit of full employment. His remarks, if I may paraphrase, were along the lines of "if you want full employment, we might as well ban shovels and give everyone spoons to dig with."

The issue of UBI, as it always is, is one of scale. Where is the funding coming from? We can easily fund it, but how you skin the chicken is key. What programs get replaced? What programs might stay if they go beyond the scope of UBI?

All of the above questions are almost always answered from a political party. The left wants to keep everything. The right wants to eliminate everything. Both views here fail specifically because of their goals.

Now, as a side note, I am quite happy to see American politicians support it. Bernie Sanders is no longer pivoting around it as a "last resort to poverty programs" as he was before, and Keith Ellison came out in favor for it without being asked to, which is what Bernie had to go through to finally admit support for it.

The issue today is one of culture. Thanks to neoliberal isolationism and a tad of dualistic theology, many Americans -- particularly Republicans -- believe that we are all separate. For this reason, any program supporting unity and sharedness is now Communism or Socialism and thus is automatically toxic and bad. Unfortunately, this is a case where "both sides" fail deeply, for the problem on the left is a combination of ignore-ance and leaning more conservative in their thinking. Their ineptitude to be aware of the automation problem, which Barack Obama has been talking about since 2011 in some respects, has mostly been ignored by nearly every major democrat I can think of, and it's largely because they take Hillary Clinton's or Jason Furman's nonsense response that a UBI is "giving up" on people. Both of these people said this nonsense, and it's especially bad because both of these people worked in the Obama administration and worked around people talking about the red flags. Clinton has no excuse because per the Podesta emails, she wanted to trial it via retrofitting TANF, but that wasn't her public position, but Furman is worse: he succeeded the position of Alan Krueger, who literally left his position at the White House to join GiveDirectly, an organization literally piloting UBI.

When both sides are wrong on many fronts here, what is the middle way? Why is it Libertarians might actually have a more consistent pulse on this matter than either major party at the moment? Shouldn't one feel embarrassed that the party that sucks the tit of Ayn fuckin' Rand might be closer to truth and reason than major political parties?

 

[Ogodei]

I figure UBI would replace SNAP (food stamps), TANF (temporary cash for the poor), Social Security (including SSDI), and Section 8 (with a caveat that UBI would have to have bounds for different costs of living).

Medicare and Medicaid would have to stay because individuals paying cash for health care, even cash provided by the government, creates perverse incentives.

 

[Tal Shiar Agent]

Honestly this comes off more as Democratic Socialism thab Libertariabism. It certainly isn't the Randian horror show that Libertarians regularly prattle on about.

Beyond a basic income, everyone needs to realize that is technological progress continues as it is, we will see massive unemployment as labor no longer holds any value.

 

[Foffy]

I figure UBI would replace SNAP (food stamps), TANF (temporary cash for the poor), Social Security (including SSDI), and Section 8 (with a caveat that UBI would have to have bounds for different costs of living).

Medicare and Medicaid would have to stay because individuals paying cash for health care, even cash provided by the government, creates perverse incentives.

I've heard of proposals to add UBI to Social Security. It sounds a bit reasonable. Most citizens have Social Security cards. Not everyone has bank cards, if you can imagine, so there's actual logistical problems to consider when devising the program, too.

What you need before any of this is a federal pilot in the US. Right now, some of the largest money used for pilots is now being used by the Economic Security Project and Y Combinator, and I believe this is around $15,000,000 which is only focused on dealing with the States. It will be quick for government to avoid accepting the results or even the importance of trials because "private companies are not the government" sort of non-response. Of any first world nation, America needs it most, as it arguably has the worst support system for precarious people of the first world.

If I were to guess, California or Hawaii will be the starting grounds for a government-ran pilot. Cali might cave to the results in their backyard, but Hawaii is awfully progressive in that they're looking into it specifically because of automation and the concerns of the precariat class. They might be the one of the only places on Earth, right now, that is closest to understanding the full scope of the problem we're about to face.