John Berry <[email protected]> wrote: There are huge advantages of giving people enough to live on, and enough to > better themselves. > > I don't know what can be done about the unpleasant jobs not enough will > want to do, maybe a small increase in pay could be enough. >
A small increase would not work if everyone got a guaranteed income of, say, $50,000 a year. I would never work in a fast food restaurant if I already had that much income. I would only do it for, say, $100,000 extra a year. If I had $50,000 I would take a job doing something more interesting at lower wages, such as teaching or . . . um . . . maintaining an on-line library of cold fusion papers. (Actually, that pays nothing, but suppose it did.) Anyway Burger joints and cleaning can increasingly be automated today, you > know there are robots/machines for this already in the pipeline. > Yes, but until they arrive we need people to do unpleasant jobs. They have to work at a fairly low wage. But not as low as they do now! > Giving people barely or not enough to live on is going to create a poverty > mentality, a meanness. > People will have to live rough or do something wrong to get get by. > Well, if it is "barely enough" -- say $10,000 -- that gives people enough leeway to turn down a job at Walmart or McDonald's that pays poverty-level wages. It means they can demand $20 an hour, instead of $7 an hour. That would be great for everyone. Except it would raise the cost of fast food. That's fine with me. People working on farms as field hands would also be in a position to demand better wages, which I think would be great. I would be pleased to pay more for food. > I think the great opportunity is for people to see what they can do to > make the world a better place, rather than what is needed to turn a buck. > We will gradually transition to that in 50 years, but we are not there yet. We are roughly $10,000 per person along that path, I think. (Not just me; some people who understand economics better than I do say that.) - Jed
