The notion of a guaranteed basic income has serious pros and cons: what one thinks of the possibility seems to reelect ones basic attitudes toward human motivation and work, collective responsibility, social cohesion, leisure-time use and productivity, etc.
The idea is not a slam-dunk. I would guess that scalable social innovations and experiments should take place before any large polity -- in which people are mostly starters to each other -- tries it. Of course, if the amount guaranteed is paltry the idea and experiment become moot. Before the real dynamics of a guaranteed basic income (sufficient to live on) can be understood, the guarantee has to be sufficient and the experiment followed for several years (perhaps even for at least one generation) before the idea can be really assessed. Cheers, Lawry On Jan 2, 2014, at 4:00 PM, James Bowery <[email protected]> wrote: > When a prominent libertarian scholar with the premiere conservative public > policy think tank puts his credibility on the line for it and the Democrats > -- none of them -- do, I'm sorry, Jed: There is something seriously amiss > with the Democrats. > > > On Thu, Jan 2, 2014 at 1:24 PM, Jed Rothwell <[email protected]> wrote: > James Bowery <[email protected]> wrote: > > To be fair, Ed, the left wing fights the solution too. The solution being > the unconditional basic income.. . . > > That is a little unfair to the left wing. The idea of an unconditional basic > income has been around for a while, but people only began taking it seriously > a few years ago. The movement in Switzerland is the first serious effort to > implement it. > > The left wing knows that advocating it would be a tremendous overreach at > present. The U.S. is a conservative country. There is no way an unconditional > basic income would pass. The left cannot even get single payer universal > healthcare. I do not know any Democratic politicians who thought that was a > realistic prospect. > > If many European countries pass an unconditional basic income, and it works > well, then there may a serious movement in favor of it in the U.S. At present > it is Utopian. > > - Jed > >
