Look at a basic case, a single farmer is able to produce enough food for 100 people.
There is no need for 99 people to work for there food in this simplistic case.
Yes, these people may want iPhones, and maybe they need to work for them, but the basic income component is covered by a single farmer.
I'm not saying there is some static pool of work available.
I am saying there is a static pool of life sustaining work available.
This is why ubi works mathematically, and people not working are not a problem, for the maths.
> Whether or not people are given what they need to survive is irrelevant to UBI. Welfare does that.
What are you talking about, this is the point. And no, welfare does not do that adequately. Welfare is an incredibly inefficient means of wealth distribution.
> What makes UBI worse is that it provides no incentive to work and create value, and that's a tremendous waste of human capital
I have zero concerns about the incentive to work, that is a fud argument that doesn't hold up when looking at the studies we've seen. Work is meaningful in and of itself, you don't need to be paid to receive reward from it.
> and it worsens inequality.
This is what I'm afraid of too and have not heard any ubi proponents address this in any meaningful manner.
Ubi would quite likely create a proletarian class.
On the flip side, I'm not really sure how this is very different from what we have with capitalism right now.
At least with ubi welfare is adequately taken care of.
You simplistic case is too simplistic. Assumes that advanced tech required for such farming comes from nowhere. Now for farmer to produce so much you need GPS (ability to build and maintain one), oil/energy, millitary power, modified grains, etc. to have this you need some people who spend more on thinking rather than being most of waking day the in field, so you need all the support jobs.
From my POV having job as au pair for example is still better than working hard in the field.
IMO we should focus on reducing much duplication od work, so I am happy that OSS, Wikipedia, SciHub, KhanAcademy, MIT, translations services, open hardware design and similar efforts are in progress.
IMO more focus should be shifted into education. I guess education problem isn't solved in western rich countries only because it's easier to brain drain from less developed ones, so people don't feel the pain.
When this will start I hope they start taxing more at very top and shift economy to more valuable stuff than zero-sum Tinder clones.
BTW in my country(Poland) they introduced small version of UBI (like 500$ per child per month for family). It cost 5% of whole country budget. It's quite controversial but IMO it was good move but we still need to see long term impact.
Look at a basic case, a single farmer is able to produce enough food for 100 people.
There is no need for 99 people to work for there food in this simplistic case.
Yes, these people may want iPhones, and maybe they need to work for them, but the basic income component is covered by a single farmer.
I'm not saying there is some static pool of work available.
I am saying there is a static pool of life sustaining work available.
This is why ubi works mathematically, and people not working are not a problem, for the maths.
> Whether or not people are given what they need to survive is irrelevant to UBI. Welfare does that.
What are you talking about, this is the point. And no, welfare does not do that adequately. Welfare is an incredibly inefficient means of wealth distribution.
> What makes UBI worse is that it provides no incentive to work and create value, and that's a tremendous waste of human capital
I have zero concerns about the incentive to work, that is a fud argument that doesn't hold up when looking at the studies we've seen. Work is meaningful in and of itself, you don't need to be paid to receive reward from it.
> and it worsens inequality.
This is what I'm afraid of too and have not heard any ubi proponents address this in any meaningful manner.
Ubi would quite likely create a proletarian class.
On the flip side, I'm not really sure how this is very different from what we have with capitalism right now.
At least with ubi welfare is adequately taken care of.