I haven't read the book yet, but it looks like there's some consideration of my niggling concerns about UBI as a universal solution to the problems of poverty and inequality. Giving everyone money...
In Welfare for Markets, Anton Jäger and Daniel Zamora show that cash transfers emerged as an alternative to the welfare state favored by a left that had abandoned hope in socialism and a right hostile to democratic management of the economy.
“What exactly do David Graeber, Milton Friedman, Charles Murray, Yannis Varoufakis, and Mark Zuckerberg have in common?” It sounds like the setup to a bad joke. The punch line may not be funny exactly, but it is revealing. Although they share practically nothing when it comes to their political commitments, they have all supported the establishment of a Universal Basic Income (UBI) — cash transfers, or a state-provided wage regardless of employment status. In other words, free money.
In Welfare for Markets: A Global History of Basic Income, Anton Jäger and Daniel Zamora seek to explain how such an ideologically diverse crew could come to share this particular vision of the welfare state. Providing an intellectual history of the origins and ascendence of the idea of a universal basic income — which in recent years has become a major plank in progressive reform platforms — they show that its broad appeal is evidence of a tectonic shift in the ways thinkers both left and right have come to understand both the welfare state and the market.
It turns out that the history of the idea of a universal basic income is, in fact, about much more than welfare. Through a careful study of UBI’s strange career, Jäger and Zamora demonstrate how the basic premises of the market fundamentalism usually associated with the neoliberal turn of the last quarter of the twentieth century run far deeper, and extend much more broadly, than most historians usually credit. Instead of the standard “schools” explanation for the rise of neoliberalism — in which prophets of doom climb down from the peaks of Mont Pèlerin to spread a philosophy of market fundamentalism — by following the development of UBI as an idea, Jäger and Zamora reveal how that ideological victory was spurred by something of a grassroots reaction to the overlapping crises of mid-century liberalism.
In this story, intellectuals across the political spectrum reacted to the endemic tensions running through the postwar welfare state by turning away from the principle of “the collective determination of needs,” that is, provision of in-kind benefits, social infrastructure, and bureaucracy. While right-wing advocates of UBI rejected a vibrant social welfare state on the grounds that it was the first step on the road to serfdom, supporters on the Left were largely disenchanted with the “paternalism” of modern welfare and so found the move to cash payments attractive: give everyone money so that individuals might free themselves from the dictates of an employer. With this, however, came the major concession that money, and therefore markets, would remain the central method of distributing goods. The benefit of a history of basic income, Jäger and Zamora argue, is that it “decenters the neo-liberal heuristic in favor of a more general market turn.” This turn, they elaborate, “also was indigenously left wing and centrist, not just an emanation from the neoliberal right.”
Unable to imagine a society in which the state could build a new commons, left proponents of basic income have used the market to fill in the gaps in their political imaginations.
Much of Welfare for Markets resonates with the arguments advanced by the historian Gary Gerstle in his recent book The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order. There, Gerstle argues that neoliberalism’s rise represented the establishment of a new “political order,” or a set of ideological constraints within which even opponents to the standing regime are forced to operate. By tracking the career of UBI, Jäger and Zamora show how not only have those opponents needed to articulate their opposition in terms of the new order’s rhetoric, but that they have already adopted many of its key presumptions about social planning and the power of markets.
And here lies perhaps the most important lesson surrounding contemporary calls for a UBI. Unable to imagine a society in which the state could build a new commons — an infrastructure that would answer the needs of ordinary people — left proponents of basic income have used the market to fill in the gaps in their policy recommendations and, more seriously, their political imaginations. Unable to imagine a welfare state where needs were collectively determined, UBI has allowed its supporters on the Left to recast “sovereign citizens” as “sovereign consumers,” now empowered by the state to participate more thoroughly (and, so the argument goes, more equitably) in market relations.
Once this premise is accepted, the difference between Left and Right becomes a question of quantity, rather than vision. The Right could call for the replacement of the welfare state with a paltry UBI, while the Left might demand a more generous provision. Lost in the discussion over the sums of cash that the government ought to dole out was a crucial principle: that perhaps the state itself should serve as a tool for reordering society along more egalitarian grounds. UBI is ultimately, Jäger and Zamora show, a product of the low expectations normalized by the defeat of socialism and, with it, the belief that politics can have a say in decisions over the production of social goods and the organization of social relations. Or as Jäger and Zamora put it: “Basic income became the utopia for a world that had lost faith in utopias.”
I haven't read the book yet, but it looks like there's some consideration of my niggling concerns about UBI as a universal solution to the problems of poverty and inequality. Giving everyone money doesn't create housing (unless favelas and shantytowns count), doesn't enable equitable healthcare (unless poorly equipped street clinics and barefoot doctors are "adequate"), doesn't build parks in cities, doesn't make good teachers available in under-resourced schools, etc.
Most proponents for UBI that advocate it as a total replacement for public healthcare and all other social services are conservatives who support it on 'minimal government' grounds. Most of the...
Exemplary
Most proponents for UBI that advocate it as a total replacement for public healthcare and all other social services are conservatives who support it on 'minimal government' grounds.
Most of the lefties are generally agreeing that UBI replaces food assist programs, unemployment programs, childcare programs, rent assist programs, disability income, and retirement programs. Not everything.
The reason is that all of these programs are little more than "cash assistance with extra restrictions." Both for being permitted to access and rules about use. Things like education, housing development, and healthcare are large enough and abstracted more from individual life that they don't fit in that bucket as easily.
Sweeping away the bureaucracy and stigma of using benefits programs, making it a universal solution that everyone receives lowers barriers to access. It reduces costs exponentially, because you don't need a "pass the piss test" department or the "are you actually looking for a job" department. Recouping its costs via progressive taxes means eliminating benefits cliffs. Losing access to free childcare at a certain wage threshold is a very real poverty ceiling in the USA.
It brings dignity to a social safety net by not demanding intrusion into your life by strangers simply because you need some aid. I'm sure there's plenty of people here who would be happy to share their tales of misery applying for disability or maintaining unemployment. Or the giant waitlist for rent assistance or subsidized childcare.
The biggest concern is always 'greedy landlord increases rent by UBI amount,' but is somewhat mitigated by providing enough steady income to all which would enable more freedom in movement. Because it's a known problem pairing it with some level of rent control (ie making landlords apply for approval to increase rents) would be prudent.
If healthcare and a base income isn't tied to my employer, switching jobs is exponentially easier. Which is part of the reason I think the powers that be oppose it so much. Workers not utterly depending on their employers for sustenance is a recipe for workers demanding good conditions in the workplace, which hurts the bottom line.
I'd add another benefit: There aren't many shades of grey in assistance programs. If you make literally $1 extra you can lose hundreds of dollars or more in benefits per month. There is a point...
I'd add another benefit:
There aren't many shades of grey in assistance programs. If you make literally $1 extra you can lose hundreds of dollars or more in benefits per month. There is a point where it can actively discourage people to seek more hours,raises or better jobs since that extra $50 a week could cause them to completely lose state insurance on top of losing $300+ in SNAP benefitsa month. Sure, they earn an extra $200 but they're actually worse off after losing $500+ in benefits.
The dreaded benefits cliff. I've dealt with them in my personal life, and they force some awful decisions. When you hear about a couple divorcing for social benefits, that can often be tied back...
The dreaded benefits cliff. I've dealt with them in my personal life, and they force some awful decisions. When you hear about a couple divorcing for social benefits, that can often be tied back to a benefits cliff or arbitrary welfare criteria.
This is my pitch to convert conservatives and even anti-tax libertarians to support UBI. Just tell them they have a simple option here - keep giving their tax money to the government to waste on...
This is my pitch to convert conservatives and even anti-tax libertarians to support UBI.
Just tell them they have a simple option here - keep giving their tax money to the government to waste on paperwork, or start sending a big chunk of that same tax money to their neighbors where it can do some good for a change.
You pitch this as everyone getting 'their share' of America. Then you explain to them that this UBI is, put simply, the different between their neighbors being unemployed meth/heroin addicts or being regular working people they can share a picnic table with on a Sunday afternoon. If that isn't enough, you explain the joy of all the money saved by the zero administration costs and eliminating, as you said, the mountain of government checkup jobs. Explain it will drive co-habitation, as a couple people on just a UBI should be able to easily afford rent and expenses for one dwelling. Then explain it's for citizens only, so this incentivizes legal immigration over illegal immigration. Point out that once you're making six figures of income, you're paying more into the UBI than you get back from it. Most people don't have a six figure income, including them. Then remind them that the one and only true core competency of the government is writing checks, and that the social security administration would of course be the one to manage it. If they are still waffling, explain how a UBI makes minimum wage redundant, and enables people to both leave bad jobs and pool their UBI to start their own small enterprises at home. When they object based on 'everyone will just be a lazy drug user at home' point out that's what we have now, and the UBI is the fix, not the cause of that problem.
I find this pitch will usually crack their armor even if it doesn't outright convince them. It tickles too many of their biases.
This is really the only risky one. I understand how that's true in theory, but I'd be concerned that gets taken to the extreme. But very much appreciate these details, it's solid work!
UBI makes minimum wage redundant
This is really the only risky one. I understand how that's true in theory, but I'd be concerned that gets taken to the extreme.
But very much appreciate these details, it's solid work!
On paper, wouldn't the "free market" fix that problem though? If everyone is getting enough money for the most basic of basics, they wouldn't need to work an exploitive or underpaid job, right? If...
On paper, wouldn't the "free market" fix that problem though?
If everyone is getting enough money for the most basic of basics, they wouldn't need to work an exploitive or underpaid job, right? If you know your rent is getting paid and you'll have food why would you work a job for $3/hr?
I guess the negative part of that is the unspoken part of "BuT nO oNe WaNtS tO wOrK aNyMoRe (for that wage)" wouldn't be heard and used by people against UBI.
It could, provided that the UBI actually covers all essentials. Otherwise, you've opened the doors to paying people desperate for work $2 an hour and tell them to take it or leave it.
It could, provided that the UBI actually covers all essentials.
Otherwise, you've opened the doors to paying people desperate for work $2 an hour and tell them to take it or leave it.
Another aspect of freedom of movement is that it would allow abuse victims to more easily escape their situation. I heard countless stories of people that refused to leave their abusive partner...
Another aspect of freedom of movement is that it would allow abuse victims to more easily escape their situation. I heard countless stories of people that refused to leave their abusive partner because they've figuratively been chained to their home unable after having their support net systematically dismantled and years without job experience to easily find another one while needing to pay for moving costs and essentials.
I'd add on that they are also enormous and time-concentrated expenses. No one outside the multi-millionaire class can responsibly save up a rainy day fund large enough to withstand cancer...
Things like education, housing development, and healthcare are large enough and abstracted more from individual life that they don't fit in that bucket as easily
I'd add on that they are also enormous and time-concentrated expenses. No one outside the multi-millionaire class can responsibly save up a rainy day fund large enough to withstand cancer treatment. UBI can't simply cover those cases.
There might be a way to do that. Setting up a fund of some kind for everyone at birth that matures when they hit their 20s... but also with the expectation that it's an investment that will...
There might be a way to do that.
Setting up a fund of some kind for everyone at birth that matures when they hit their 20s... but also with the expectation that it's an investment that will continue for their entire life like a retirement account. They can start drawing from it so they can do things like travel at a young age and afford an education or to start a business or make a living as an artist. When paired with a UBI this would go even further. We can also keep on layering social policy on top of this for benefits to education, housing, or whatever else needs subsidizing. Consider having a federal UBI for the entire country, another for the state (like Alaska does now with their oil fund), and perhaps another on offer from individual cities. Socialism defense in-depth, more varied and interesting and flexible than just one single program.
In the event of tragedy, that fund can be tapped to deal with it. I'd argue a good way to socialize the pain would be to have the government pay a chunk of it as well, matching funds at least. That keeps the government aware of and involved in the costs of things, which is necessary for them to be able to manage it well. Build the disaster relief right in, it works for hurricanes as well as it does for cancer.
It would be good to get back to making America into an economic experiment again.
This isn't really how politics works in the US. The reason why UBI is such a nonstarter is because it's such a huge change. The magnitude of change a bill demands must come with a corresponding...
Which is part of the reason I think the powers that be oppose it so much. Workers not utterly depending on their employers for sustenance is a recipe for workers demanding good conditions in the workplace, which hurts the bottom line.
This isn't really how politics works in the US. The reason why UBI is such a nonstarter is because it's such a huge change. The magnitude of change a bill demands must come with a corresponding amount of political capital spent. Someone with a lot of political capital, often a new politician elected on a popular mandate, proposes a large change. A whole bunch of other politicians only agree to it if their pet causes are supported. After several compromises, this bill is passed. The more political capital the creator(s) of the bill has, the fewer compromises are needed to pass the bill.
Right now in the US nobody has much political capital. Presidential elections are hotly contested and the last one even flouted the long tradition of peaceful transfer of power. Congress is sharply divided and unwilling to compromise. In this climate, it's very doubtful that any large change can pass without going through so many compromises that it ceases looking anything at all like what was originally proposed.
I would say it does in effect. The powers that be aren't just the politicians. It's capital, business owners. Those people have much more power over the operation of my community than any...
This isn't really how politics works in the US.
I would say it does in effect. The powers that be aren't just the politicians. It's capital, business owners. Those people have much more power over the operation of my community than any politician in Washington. The ones that generate the pet projects for politicians. It might be masked by the operational workings. But we know that industry lobbyists regularly write laws that get rubber stamped.
All those words politicians make about about how nobody wants M4A because they like their health insurance? Those aren't coming from actual people who've had to work with their health insurance. They're coming from soundbites generated by health insurance lobbyists. Our tax code grows ever more complex because Intuit lobbies against reform, not because nobody is in favor of actually making it happen.
I recently watched the sci-fi series "The Expanse". In the story half the population of the Earth was on Basic Income and hated it. One of the most sought after things was a career that made a...
I recently watched the sci-fi series "The Expanse". In the story half the population of the Earth was on Basic Income and hated it. One of the most sought after things was a career that made a contribution.
I have not seen The Expanse, but in reality there's little shortage of meaningful work to be done. Even if its unpaid. If we had basic income, the only thing stopping people from finding...
I have not seen The Expanse, but in reality there's little shortage of meaningful work to be done. Even if its unpaid.
If we had basic income, the only thing stopping people from finding meaningful work would be themselves.
People improving the spaces around them doesn't really make for gripping television though.
I've always thought that we'd see an explosion in the arts as people dabbled if they ever implemented UBI. Not everything produced would be good mind you, but I could see an explosion in garage...
I've always thought that we'd see an explosion in the arts as people dabbled if they ever implemented UBI. Not everything produced would be good mind you, but I could see an explosion in garage bands that end up getting paid gigs at local restaurants/bars/clubs. I could see more artists selling paintings at open houses or boutiques.
They touched on this at the end of the article, but a UBI is also a good way to level the playing field between people doing unpaid domestic work (raising a family) and people being paid wages....
They touched on this at the end of the article, but a UBI is also a good way to level the playing field between people doing unpaid domestic work (raising a family) and people being paid wages. Even now, thats still mostly women, and that labor being unpaid hides the true costs of it and the value it provides to society.
With the gradual advancement of things like generative AI and automation, what used to be vital careers might simply not be so important in the future. I imagine that some people will struggle to...
With the gradual advancement of things like generative AI and automation, what used to be vital careers might simply not be so important in the future. I imagine that some people will struggle to find fulfillment in the process if what they're doing could be replaced with more effective methods.
I'm not saying that we are at the stage where meaningful work has already been superseded, but rather that it's a possibility in the future. Of course, there may also be new occupations that don't exist today in those times that cater to humanity's need to be useful.
EDIT: I do like your last point. People transitioning into social occupations instead of ones meant to maximize productivity as labour becomes unneeded is a nice vision for the future.
I mean, one thing that always bothers me about these "basic income dystopias" is that they don't really factor that. Oh, you have a mass of 100 bored people who can't find meaningful work? Didn't...
I mean, one thing that always bothers me about these "basic income dystopias" is that they don't really factor that.
Oh, you have a mass of 100 bored people who can't find meaningful work? Didn't a single one of them want to go outside with their ample free time and clean up the outside of their living space?
Or like just. Make things for the joy of making things. Who the hell cares if it makes money or not? That's taken care of. Just make things for your own mental well being at least, or some...
Or like just. Make things for the joy of making things. Who the hell cares if it makes money or not? That's taken care of. Just make things for your own mental well being at least, or some nebulous idea of contributing to the great tapestry of humanity if you need a greater goal.
It reeks both of capitalist realism (like, they aren't able to think outside the realm of capitalism) and of a kind of learned helplessness. They've internalized the "lazy freeloader" stereotype of welfare recipients so hard that they can't conceive of someone being on welfare and contributing back to society in other ways than monetarily.
Like I said. They are holding themselves back from meaningful work because they see it as beneath them. Nobody is above unclogging a clogged sewer pipe.
Like I said. They are holding themselves back from meaningful work because they see it as beneath them.
I don't disagree with your latter point, but just because a job is societally necessary doesn't automatically make it personally meaningful. Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you wrote though.
I don't disagree with your latter point, but just because a job is societally necessary doesn't automatically make it personally meaningful. Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you wrote though.
There's a nuance to explore to be sure, but I would posit that the desire to fulfill meaning at the workplace is one of the more harmful narratives that's been pushed in my lifetime. I think its...
There's a nuance to explore to be sure, but I would posit that the desire to fulfill meaning at the workplace is one of the more harmful narratives that's been pushed in my lifetime. I think its part of what exacerbates so many mental health issues. Can't get burnt out doing what you love, right? We mostly see the opposite: Doing what you love for work makes you love it less.
Doing work that is meaningful for society is rarely going to perfectly align with being personally fulfilling. This is what hobbies and leisure time are for.
As a society, we should be striving to minimize socially necessary labor to free up more time for leisure. So that a job is a job and fulfillment can come from elsewhere.
That said, doing socially necessary labor together with your neighbors will be more fulfilling than commuting 20 miles to do it with a handful of other strangers. That's part of the whole 'social equity' thing that's dying as part of our ever-increasing isolation brought by hyper-specialization.
I disagree. Doing it all the time would be weird, but helping run the civilization would be interesting, everyone would be personally invested in making the crappy chores get easier and people...
I disagree. Doing it all the time would be weird, but helping run the civilization would be interesting, everyone would be personally invested in making the crappy chores get easier and people would meet and learn to work together more effectively.
There would be a lot of opportunities for personal growth. At least for people who don't help with those chores now. Like me.
When I was 14, many moons ago, I worked at a scout camp all summer. My main job was helping teach the other scouts how to build structures out of wood and rope. But I also needed to help with all...
When I was 14, many moons ago, I worked at a scout camp all summer.
My main job was helping teach the other scouts how to build structures out of wood and rope. But I also needed to help with all the other functioning of the camp.
Cleaning latrines was a routine duty that we all shared. We did it on a rotating basis because that was fair. Ditto for sanitizing the mess hall and kitchen.
The medics in the first aid lodge were not exempt from these duties just because they had medical training.
Everyone sees 'mandatory service' as a bad thing, but I see it as a fair thing which insures you don't get to skip on scrubbing toilets because your Dad owns a car dealership.
I am not sure we have seen the same show? In this episode the people on UBI had trouble accessing quality healthcare and people taking care of them were not able to legally get accredited as...
I am not sure we have seen the same show? In this episode the people on UBI had trouble accessing quality healthcare and people taking care of them were not able to legally get accredited as healthcare professionals and thus be able to legally prescribe necessary drugs. But I might be misremembering. It has been a couple of years.
From what I remember about The Expanse, though, is that there were some additional factors. Earth was explosively overpopulated, and there weren't enough jobs for everyone. You had a massive...
From what I remember about The Expanse, though, is that there were some additional factors. Earth was explosively overpopulated, and there weren't enough jobs for everyone. You had a massive listless population in cramped poverty conditions. These were people without access to schools, hospitals, grocery stores, safe housing etc. It doesn't matter how much money you're getting if there's nowhere to spend it. UBI wasn't enough to live on, just enough to barely survive on, so it was just an incubation chamber for crime and suffering.
There were so many systemic issues in their version of Earth that UBI was used to address but couldn't due to bureaucratic ineptitude.
Sort of where we are headed with automation taking jobs away. Almost 8 billion people on the planet with demographers predicting it will not level off until 11 billion is reached.
From what I remember about The Expanse, though, is that there were some additional factors. Earth was explosively overpopulated, and there weren't enough jobs for everyone.
Sort of where we are headed with automation taking jobs away. Almost 8 billion people on the planet with demographers predicting it will not level off until 11 billion is reached.
I watched that too. It was pretty clear their UBI was pocket change and Earth couldn't afford to do better thanks to a variety of factors including catastrophic climate change. They could just...
I watched that too. It was pretty clear their UBI was pocket change and Earth couldn't afford to do better thanks to a variety of factors including catastrophic climate change. They could just barely afford to enough of a UBI to keep the lights on.
Three hundred years into the future, the economy will have evolved well past any models and theories and policies we know, and those will be regarded much the same way we look at feudalism now. The Expanse wasn't written by economists. Not much science fiction is, maybe more of them should branch out. :)
At least in the television series ( I didn't read the books ) I can't recall climate change being mentioned until after the meteor attacks. I got the impression that the paucity of jobs and the...
I watched that too. It was pretty clear their UBI was pocket change and Earth couldn't afford to do better thanks to a variety of factors including catastrophic climate change
At least in the television series ( I didn't read the books ) I can't recall climate change being mentioned until after the meteor attacks.
I got the impression that the paucity of jobs and the meagerness of "Basic" was a combination of overpopulation and jobs being automated away.
As an American, I dread the idea of UBI.
We can't get the richest people in the world to pay taxes ( fair taxes ) support universal health care. I can't see those people gladly paying for UBI.
It isn't talked about much, but there's strong evidence of climate change in the set design. There's large walls around the cities due to sea level rise, and the intro sequence shows Ellis Island...
It isn't talked about much, but there's strong evidence of climate change in the set design. There's large walls around the cities due to sea level rise, and the intro sequence shows Ellis Island being rebuilt.
That would be interesting, most sci-fi authors if they handle it all just make vague references to how their economic work. Having a well thought out system as a story background would be interesting.
The Expanse wasn't written by economists. Not much science fiction is, maybe more of them should branch out. :)
That would be interesting, most sci-fi authors if they handle it all just make vague references to how their economic work. Having a well thought out system as a story background would be interesting.
So I can understand why the author is saying that. Market relations are isolating, and there's plenty of other good reading on that. However, planned economies and markets are not incompatible...
It falls to the Left to imagine a world where people can live and thrive outside of market relations
So I can understand why the author is saying that. Market relations are isolating, and there's plenty of other good reading on that. However, planned economies and markets are not incompatible (think planning for production/manufacturing and markets for services/distribution). Having markets function as the distribution mechanism in particular has great promise in serving as a feedback loop for planned production, to avoid overproduction of some things and underproduction of others.
I think the only way you're going to truly escape markets and planning is with a gift economy. One that functions on building social equity. One where every transaction is not quid-pro-quo. I honestly think the gift economy is the best possible one for services and (especially) secondary distribution. I don't think it will do well for the production of complex goods until such time that producing complex goods is as trivial as baking bread (ie magical nanobot printers that can consume raw atoms and spit out consumer goods).
Markets function well for first-level distribution of luxury goods. It lets the individual decide what goods to aquire with their earnings. I think planning would be better than markets for production of many goods. We don't really need market segmentation for things like washing machines, dryers, refrigerators, cars, and televisions. We just need "best" design for the major use cases, then manufacture that design for 5 years while developing a better one. Heck, market segmentation for things like dishwashers is actively harmful....there shouldn't be a single dishwasher made with a plastic washbasin because it increases rate of failure exponentially. It would be far more beneficial to have "the dishwasher" which is so universally deployed that manufacturing aftermarket parts for it is trivial. It would foster a stronger system of repairing and refurbishing rather than replacing. Artificially cheap goods kill the possibility of a repair market because the cost to repair is more than cost of replacement. If every dishwasher cost $5,000, that leaves much more room for a $200 repair bill than a $500 dishwasher that will fall apart after 3 years. It will be more economical to take broken dishwashers and repair them and resell them at reasonable margins. Part of the reason this doesn't work today is that the excessive incompatibility between manufacturers and models. Another questionable outcome of market production is something like the cabin air filter in cars. Go to an auto parts store and look at the 'cabin air filter' section. There's about 100 different sizes that mostly differ less than 5 mm in any given dimension. Standardizing just that one tiny part to a simple "small, medium, large" would reduce a monstrous amount of complexity.
I'd say their usefulness for providing essentials is more questionable given how much of the state needs built up in order to mitigate how the market functions (ie food stamps, medical care, and housing vouchers) for those things. Healthcare in particular tends to get exponentially worse the more that the market is involved in providing that care.
I disagree with this even in those examples, although in some products it may be true (hammers?). Having only a single production item has a few downsides even in planned production. The simple...
We don't really need market segmentation for things like washing machines, dryers, refrigerators, cars, and televisions.
I disagree with this even in those examples, although in some products it may be true (hammers?).
Having only a single production item has a few downsides even in planned production.
The simple case is the one product being perfect for most people, but not working for all people. Maybe people living in tiny apartments need a tiny dishwasher while most people do fine with a typical size.
Another issue is limiting innovation. Ultimately someone needs to choose between design options for the product. The designs chosen go forward, but the designs that are never produced loose the opportunity to prove superior.
Another benefit to multiple models is the ability for consumers to indicate their preferences by choosing between products. Maybe people vastly prefer knobs over buttons, having a model with each gives you a chance to see which one people pick and then focus on that design going forward.
So in conclusion I agree that markets in distribution are good feedback for planned production, but we still need some redundancy in market segments in order to support the diversity that there's some feedback to give.
I'm particularly interested in ideas around how we decide which product variants continue and which ones to kill and replace with a new variant (some would argue our existing system does that just fine, I'd argue it does not)
Here's the thing though. How much is consumer preference something that exists outside of marketing to make them want it? How much isn't so much consumer preference opposed to artificially...
Here's the thing though. How much is consumer preference something that exists outside of marketing to make them want it? How much isn't so much consumer preference opposed to artificially including/excluding features to hit different price points?
Do people really need any choice more than small/medium/large TV of the highest quality for that year? If your TV breaks, repair parts will likely be more available if you can't afford a new one, and a used market would also have cheap options available. You could run engineering contests where R&D firms compete to design the "next gen" TV that comes out in 5 years.
Is there actually a tangible difference between most of the 5-seater sedans that couldn't be changed with aftermarket parts? Would everyone who likes a sedan actually be furious if everything just didn't standardize on the Toyota Corrolla? Or would they just adapt and then leverage aftermarket customization which would explode now that there's 1 car model with 10x the userbase.
Do we need a smartphone other than the iPhone? A reasonable argument could be made for allowing different software, but the hardware? It'd kinda all be made irrelevant, especially with a small/medium/large variation. Nationalize iPhone production, copying the manufacturing process across existing providers, and then the existing providers lump into an R&D department for developing new models every 5 years or so. Since the model is rolling out in a planned fashion, with a baseline of quality, you could have a 5 year design/manufacture phase with a 10 year+ lifetime. Consumer preference could then emerge...new model comes out but the old model is in more demand? New model gets price lowered and ceases production, old model production ramps up again.
Allowing an unplanned software market makes sense, as the hardware is what has the real opportunity cost. Having standardized, consistent, publicly documented hardware allows a software market to thrive while not needlessly complicating the hard part that requires extraction and refinement of resources from the ground.
But when it comes to customization to handle consumer preference? Leave that to third-parties. Having a planned economy that makes the 'base' good while leaving room for a third-party repair/upgrade market means that the third-party has to build and improve upon the base model. Customization would need to be somewhat compatible with the base model (otherwise it becomes too hard to implement). That leaves a quality 'floor' in place which prevents making a good so cheap you can't maintain that secondary market.
As far as how to insure fairness in a planned economy with UBI, I like the idea of a forced service. Everyone must put in say X hours of work into the planned economy before they are say 30, to insure proper supply of goods. After that, they can retire from the planned economy and enter the secondary market economy. If X was low enough to allow it to be done part-time, it would allow for also doing part-time work in the secondary market.
The USA already has a system for that: It's called Social Security. You must earn 40 credits (maximum) to qualify for Social Security. You get 1 credit per $1,640 (adjusted for average wages periodically). You earn up to 4 credits per year. So to qualify for Social Security at $10 an hour, you need to work full time for 4 months a year, for 10 years. That tells us our absolute minimum needed labor in the USA. If we needed more than that minimum, we could change the requirements. There also needs to be a different carrot/stick for doing your mandatory service, since Social Security would be replaced with UBI. Perhaps just a permanent bump in your UBI for completing your mandatory service would do the trick.
Edit:
And since you showed interest, I'll direct you to the source that introduced me to these ideas: Toward a new Socialism While the whole book should be read front to back (only 200 pages), as it's very much reasoned from first-principals, reading Chapter 8 dives right into it. One important factor to understand for Chapter 8 is that Labor tokens are not like regular money, they function more like a ticket: Created in exchange for work from the government, destroyed upon use...with an expiration date. The 'value' of a labor token is discussed in prior chapters, and it essentially has taxes to cover societal rights like education 'baked in'.
A criticism commonly levelled at the Soviet-type economies—and not only by
their Western detractors—is that they were unresponsive to consumer demand.
It is therefore important to our general argument to demonstrate that a planned
economy can be responsive to the changing pattern of consumer preferences—
that the shortages, queues and surpluses of unwanted goods of which we hear
so much are not an inherent feature of socialist planning. This chapter develops
our concept of a socialist market in consumer goods.
I think that's exactly the right question. Not if consumer preference does exist, but to what degree? Definitely today it's a whole matrix of price and features for most products. Eliminate...
How much is consumer preference something that exists outside of marketing to make them want it?
I think that's exactly the right question. Not if consumer preference does exist, but to what degree? Definitely today it's a whole matrix of price and features for most products. Eliminate quality as a variable and a lot of categories quiet down quite a bit. TVs are a great example. Take the "smart"/online features out and make those modular, there haven't been many big improvements in panels over recent history. Most people aren't going to care about the minute differences between high-end OLED panel A and panel B at the size that fits in their home.
But size is still a product variant, albeit an obvious one. So we do need some variants of the same product. The question is just how we determine what the variants are and when we should allow a new one (when to get rid of old ones is easy, demand will signal that).
I also love customization and upgradabilty, that's a great point as to how we can reduce the number of variants of products by leaving details to late stage production or after-market.
I'll check out the book, I imagine labor could also work similar to compulsory military service, although I wonder how that would work if a whole generation just refused.
Depending on how you imagine it, I don't see a "gift economy" necessarily working any better. Assuming that gifts are a voluntary choice of the giver and they are providing necessities, this means...
Depending on how you imagine it, I don't see a "gift economy" necessarily working any better. Assuming that gifts are a voluntary choice of the giver and they are providing necessities, this means the gift-giver gets substantial power over the recipient. This seems roughly equivalent to trade with a monopoly?
Someone who gives money also has power over the recipient, but if there are no strings attached, at least it's not about how they spend it. There is more freedom.
Communities of Iroquois Native Americans, for instance, stockpiled their goods in longhouses. Female councils then allocated the goods, explains Graeber. Other indigenous communities relied on “gift economies,” which went something like this: If you were a baker who needed meat, you didn’t offer your bagels for the butcher’s steaks. Instead, you got your wife to hint to the butcher’s wife that you two were low on iron, and she’d say something like “Oh really? Have a hamburger, we’ve got plenty!” Down the line, the butcher might want a birthday cake, or help moving to a new apartment, and you’d help him out.
On paper, this sounds a bit like delayed barter, but it bears some significant differences. For one thing, it’s much more efficient than Smith’s idea of a barter system, since it doesn’t depend on each person simultaneously having what the other wants. It’s also not tit for tat: No one ever assigns a specific value to the meat or cake or house-building labor, meaning debts can’t be transferred.
And, in a gift economy, exchange isn’t impersonal. If you’re trading with someone you care about, you’ll “inevitably also care about her enough to take her individual needs, desires, and situation into account,” argues Graeber. “Even if you do swap one thing for another, you are likely to frame the matter as a gift.”
This depends on people remembering who did what rather than writing it down. There's lots of room for injustice due to "forgetting" about things done for you by former allies that you no longer...
This depends on people remembering who did what rather than writing it down. There's lots of room for injustice due to "forgetting" about things done for you by former allies that you no longer like. It also means that outcasts lose everything. That's a lot of power.
It reminds me of interpersonal dynamics within a family.
Meanwhile, as they say in the article:
Trade did occur in non-monetary societies, but not among fellow villagers.
Travelers can't participate in the same way because nobody knows them and they won't be around later. Trade and travel seem pretty closely related? (Some cultures have a tradition of hospitality towards travelers, though.)
It seems relevant that credit cards were invented with the use case of "how can a business traveler pay for a meal" in mind.
This is actually a feature, in some ways. Part of what everyone is talking about when they say "market economics are isolating" is the fact that you don't really get to know your local...
It reminds me of interpersonal dynamics within a family.
This is actually a feature, in some ways. Part of what everyone is talking about when they say "market economics are isolating" is the fact that you don't really get to know your local grocer....for most people in the USA the interaction is "grab stuff, swipe card at self-checkout." Not interacting with the employee is seen as a positive experience for many.
Being forced to positively interact with your community to acquire goods and services incentivizes being a good neighbor without needing a massive set of bylaws. The jerk who leaves dog shit in everyone's yard is gonna have a tough time getting more than the bare minimum goods.
I agree there are problems with this, specifically with escape from abusive situations. Starting fresh somewhere is going to be a challenge. That is why, where we are, I fully support UBI within our existing market dynamics for first-tier goods (food, shelter, etc). I also do my best to support a gift economy for secondary goods....rather than trying to re-extract value out of my used laptops by selling them, I give them away. If I have excess tomatoes from my garden, I put them on a table for people to grab as they walk by my house rather than trying to sell them. When I don't need baby clothes anymore they get posted online for free rather than trying to get $1 each for them.
A gift economy isn't something that is dictated from above. It's a thing that builds organically within a community itself. Be the change you want to be in the world and all that. Ideally, newcomers to a community are given the benefit of a doubt and are showered with gifts because everyone is happy to see a new face....rather than the opposite of the current status quo of distrust and isolation.
Yes, I think we ideally should have both relationships with a community and the ability to pull up roots and move somewhere different when the community isn’t working out. Travel is an important...
Yes, I think we ideally should have both relationships with a community and the ability to pull up roots and move somewhere different when the community isn’t working out. Travel is an important freedom that not everyone has in a practical sense since it requires money, but it’s the sort of thing that people in the US who are at least middle-class folks take for granted.
That can be a difficult balance. If people can leave at any time, what happens to all those informal understandings? They’re often lost.
There are terrible communities, like some religions and some home owners’ associations, but relying entirely on strangers can be terrible in its way too, even if you have money.
I think another thing that gets overlooked is if AI/robots replace enough entry level jobs like almost everyone at a Wendy's who will be left to afford the product? If even 30% of the minimum wage...
As we speak billions of dollars is being put into this technology by companies.
UBI in my eyes, is a solution to both temper automation/AI use as well as help those displaced by it.
I think another thing that gets overlooked is if AI/robots replace enough entry level jobs like almost everyone at a Wendy's who will be left to afford the product? If even 30% of the minimum wage workforce is replaced/out of a job who will buy the products?
There will always be more work. There might not be as much cushy office intellectual work, but there is always more work to be done. AI will consume intellectual work far before we get the level...
There will always be more work. There might not be as much cushy office intellectual work, but there is always more work to be done. AI will consume intellectual work far before we get the level of advanced robotics that obviates physical work. The level of robot advancement you're talking about is no less than 100 years away.
Even the best robots are still gonna break a lot. Soft-serve machines alone need a good bit of babysitting. And that's one that they've been trying to automate forever.
Manufacturing does better than most in that regard because its easier to tightly control anomalies. But say digging a fencepost? There's too many variables at play.
The "robots" don't need to replace everyone in a place but it isn't much of a stretch to see 50% less people per shift at a fast food place. I would be willing to bet that current tech "robots"...
The "robots" don't need to replace everyone in a place but it isn't much of a stretch to see 50% less people per shift at a fast food place. I would be willing to bet that current tech "robots" and AI could easily let a fast food joint be run by as little as 2 people.
The AI could take orders with maybe 1 human listening in just in case there is an issue ("All calls may be monitored"). The AI tech wouldn't be any different from the automated utility or credit card support numbers.
They already have conveyer belt ovens and automated George Forman type grills so maybe either Human 1 or Human 2 will handle watching that while doing anything else the auto-griller can't (extra pickles, cheese on the side, etc).
While Human 1 is listening in on the AI ordering they can handle boxing up fries while the autofryer diligently works away to keep stock at a certain predermined point occasionaly over-riding for less or more product as needed.
We've already seen this process of "do as much or more with less employees " with self-checkout lanes. So if Walmart employs 30% less cashiers, every Wendy's employs 40% people, etc it certainly won't be pretty economically or politically (unrest, civil upheaval, poverty can all lead to riots, etc).
At the end of the day "just get a better job" can only go so far. Not every cashier who loses their job is cut out to be a roboticist or a fence post digger.
Speaking of posthole diggers, is it hard to believe that semi-automation is forever impossible? One person watching/assisting a machine that digs preset diameter and depth holes at predetermined intervals instead of a crew of 3 or 4 guys still means that there are less hole diggers working (unless demand opens up somehow).
One thing I don't understand with proposals for UBI is where the money would come from. From a purely mathematical standpoint. The only way I can see it working is if it was introduced gradually...
One thing I don't understand with proposals for UBI is where the money would come from. From a purely mathematical standpoint.
The only way I can see it working is if it was introduced gradually as jobs were automated. Otherwise I see it leading to a shortage of work. Here's my thinking:
Let's assume that everyone is given an amount of money that fully satisfies them, meaning they leave their job. Suddenly all jobs in the economy become vacant (as people are happy with their guaranteed income), meaning that the economy grinds to a halt. Eventually people will want to use their ideally-sized incomes to buy things like food, but there won't be anyone around to sell the food to them, as they too will be smugly sitting at home with an income they are happy with. This would cause the price of everything to skyrocket, up to a price for which others would once again be willing to provide the service, which would however render people's ideally-sized incomes valueless.
This is my proposed solution:
The economy carries on as usual. Automation will eventually be developed. As a job – let's say a bricklayer's – gets automated, the employer keeps paying the bricklayer their salary, because the work they are paying for will still be getting done. Except that now the work will be done by a robot on behalf of the bricklayer. The bricklayer will now be free to do whatever they please with their time, however they'll still retain a legal bond to their ex-job, as they'll be contracting the robot to do their work for them. The robot would be bought and owned by the bricklayer – not the employer who would be banned from buying robots. The ex-worker pays for its upkeep and insurance out of their (ie. the robot's) salary, and it is in their interest to invest into improvements so that they can keep as much of the salary as possible.
This approach would prevent ludditeism. I would be interested to explore it further. What are your thoughts?
I understand what you're saying and it is a real possibility. I also think that the "welfare queen" talking point is way overblown. I think that after an initial spurt of doing "nothing" people...
Also, how tired are you of headlines like "Millenials and Gen Z are killing x industry" "No one wants to work!" etc.? I expect there would be a good amount of people who, once they get UBI, would actively do NOTHING to otherwise be part of society; if you've heard the term "hikikokomori" before, that's what I imagine a lot of folks on UBI would become. Unfortunately, this could easily give fuel to anyone anti-UBI and let them say, "Look how useless everyone has become with UBI! We must get rid of it after all!" I can imagine that there's a bunch of people who, so long as UBI meets their rent (plus utilities) and food requirements, they'll have no reason to interact with anyone else. I don't think that's a good thing for society in the long run... though to be 100% fair, if Covid is anything to go off... well, there were definitely people who said Covid was the best time of their life, but maybe the majority still want human interaction after all.
I understand what you're saying and it is a real possibility. I also think that the "welfare queen" talking point is way overblown.
I think that after an initial spurt of doing "nothing" people will get bored or stir-crazy (just like in the tail end of COVID). I firmly believe that the work-life balance pendulum will swing back in favor of the worker if UBI ever gets implemented. I think the proof is in people refusing or fighting like hell against going back to the office after working from home.
I'm sure that some people will be content on the very minimal of basics but people, in general, usually always want more.
I think the average person will still work (just not as much) to combat boredom as well as have extra money for luxuries. They won't have to put up with shitty bosses or unsafe work conditions. In my opinion there will always be a breed of overacheivers that won't mind putting in 60 hours+ a week to do things like stock trading, lawyering, etc.
For it to be actually successful there *WILL have to be limits on how the UBI money is spent like "No gambling with it". If they find certain jobs like sanitation doesn't have enough bodies maybe some form of civil service requirement might be a requirement. A serious talk about mental health will be needed to form a plan for people who simply can't manage things on their own as well as a seriously STRONG financial education push to get people to realize what it is for. If the post-COVID economy has shown us anything there will need to be stronger taxes on these corporations who are making record profits quarter after quarter year after year while blaming "inflation".
At the end of it all, we will also need to figure out what to do with the people who will still fall through the cracks either through no fault of their own (Fraud, theft, etc) or because of their ineptitude (financial ignorance, lack of education, etc).
Negatory. Part of the appeal of a UBI is that there's no strings. If someone blows their UBI because they have a gambling addiction, well hopefully they'll be able to seek help at a rehab facility...
For it to be actually successful there *WILL have to be limits on how the UBI money is spent like "No gambling with it".
Negatory. Part of the appeal of a UBI is that there's no strings. If someone blows their UBI because they have a gambling addiction, well hopefully they'll be able to seek help at a rehab facility or family, or work another job to make ends meet. We treat people like grownups, not children. Part of the reason there's the blowback against elitist attitudes is that state assistance also tends to come with a large number of strings that treats you like a petulant child.
If important jobs don't get done when there's a UBI it means that those jobs just need their pay raised until the job does get done. Thats why I think sanitation workers should be paid more than bankers.
Even as a supporter of UBI in theory I have my doubts about it not getting screwed up for that reason. My mitigating thought is that in theory, if you make it high enough to cover basics in the...
Even as a supporter of UBI in theory I have my doubts about it not getting screwed up for that reason.
My mitigating thought is that in theory, if you make it high enough to cover basics in the highest CoL areas, it will inflate the lower CoL areas (if only vai migration) until there's a lot less disparity between the Bay Area and Kansas.
But yea malicious actors will never make for an equitable system, regardless of that system's name.
Is that necessarily a problem for CoL to equalize across the nation? On the flip side, UBI could be enough for an upper-middle-class lifestyle in Kansas yet still below poverty wages in NYC or SF....
until there's a lot less disparity between the Bay Area and Kansas
Is that necessarily a problem for CoL to equalize across the nation?
On the flip side, UBI could be enough for an upper-middle-class lifestyle in Kansas yet still below poverty wages in NYC or SF. Is that an issue?
That is what lead to so much vitriol and problems with the extra COVID unemployment money. The $600/week was seen as barely a drop in the bucket in high CoL places like SF and NY while in rural...
That is what lead to so much vitriol and problems with the extra COVID unemployment money. The $600/week was seen as barely a drop in the bucket in high CoL places like SF and NY while in rural and semi-rural areas it was literally 3x what they made in a week normally.
I would assume (and again only an assumption by someone uneducated in higher levels of economics) that, in theory, it would provide mobility to those below poverty level in, say, NYC to move to places like Kansas. In turn, I think that mobility will have a knock on effect of bringing CoL closer in-line across the nation.
Exactly. If someone is currently in a poverty trap where they can barely afford food + bills + rent, and is scraping by to avoid being on the streets, they can't easily pick up and move to a lower...
Exactly. If someone is currently in a poverty trap where they can barely afford food + bills + rent, and is scraping by to avoid being on the streets, they can't easily pick up and move to a lower CoL area.
Good luck finding a new apartment halfway across the nation without proof of work lined up or the ability to drop 6 month's or more of rent up front. You could theoretically apply for assisted housing...but those often have year's long waitlists.
If there was a UBI, landlords would have little excuse to deny people from a place on the premise they couldn't pay rent. Which makes it a good bit harder to discriminate against applicants. Plus, since UBI is per-person, it would allow people to escape poverty traps by say, putting their stuff in storage and living with family for a month...allowing them to save most of their UBI to afford the move.
I think while not possible to fully equalize for a wide variety of reasons, I think a lot of hidden biases will be smoothed over with a better normalization of costs, yes. Specifically if the...
I think while not possible to fully equalize for a wide variety of reasons, I think a lot of hidden biases will be smoothed over with a better normalization of costs, yes.
Specifically if the distribution of people is part of that normalization. The nation would do well to have 20% of California spread out to the east a bit. Remote work enables that better than many other options.
But a UBI would provide better opportunity for people 'stuck' in their situation to migrate en-mass.
I haven't read the book yet, but it looks like there's some consideration of my niggling concerns about UBI as a universal solution to the problems of poverty and inequality. Giving everyone money doesn't create housing (unless favelas and shantytowns count), doesn't enable equitable healthcare (unless poorly equipped street clinics and barefoot doctors are "adequate"), doesn't build parks in cities, doesn't make good teachers available in under-resourced schools, etc.
Most proponents for UBI that advocate it as a total replacement for public healthcare and all other social services are conservatives who support it on 'minimal government' grounds.
Most of the lefties are generally agreeing that UBI replaces food assist programs, unemployment programs, childcare programs, rent assist programs, disability income, and retirement programs. Not everything.
The reason is that all of these programs are little more than "cash assistance with extra restrictions." Both for being permitted to access and rules about use. Things like education, housing development, and healthcare are large enough and abstracted more from individual life that they don't fit in that bucket as easily.
Sweeping away the bureaucracy and stigma of using benefits programs, making it a universal solution that everyone receives lowers barriers to access. It reduces costs exponentially, because you don't need a "pass the piss test" department or the "are you actually looking for a job" department. Recouping its costs via progressive taxes means eliminating benefits cliffs. Losing access to free childcare at a certain wage threshold is a very real poverty ceiling in the USA.
It brings dignity to a social safety net by not demanding intrusion into your life by strangers simply because you need some aid. I'm sure there's plenty of people here who would be happy to share their tales of misery applying for disability or maintaining unemployment. Or the giant waitlist for rent assistance or subsidized childcare.
The biggest concern is always 'greedy landlord increases rent by UBI amount,' but is somewhat mitigated by providing enough steady income to all which would enable more freedom in movement. Because it's a known problem pairing it with some level of rent control (ie making landlords apply for approval to increase rents) would be prudent.
If healthcare and a base income isn't tied to my employer, switching jobs is exponentially easier. Which is part of the reason I think the powers that be oppose it so much. Workers not utterly depending on their employers for sustenance is a recipe for workers demanding good conditions in the workplace, which hurts the bottom line.
I'd add another benefit:
There aren't many shades of grey in assistance programs. If you make literally $1 extra you can lose hundreds of dollars or more in benefits per month. There is a point where it can actively discourage people to seek more hours,raises or better jobs since that extra $50 a week could cause them to completely lose state insurance on top of losing $300+ in SNAP benefitsa month. Sure, they earn an extra $200 but they're actually worse off after losing $500+ in benefits.
The dreaded benefits cliff. I've dealt with them in my personal life, and they force some awful decisions. When you hear about a couple divorcing for social benefits, that can often be tied back to a benefits cliff or arbitrary welfare criteria.
This is my pitch to convert conservatives and even anti-tax libertarians to support UBI.
Just tell them they have a simple option here - keep giving their tax money to the government to waste on paperwork, or start sending a big chunk of that same tax money to their neighbors where it can do some good for a change.
You pitch this as everyone getting 'their share' of America. Then you explain to them that this UBI is, put simply, the different between their neighbors being unemployed meth/heroin addicts or being regular working people they can share a picnic table with on a Sunday afternoon. If that isn't enough, you explain the joy of all the money saved by the zero administration costs and eliminating, as you said, the mountain of government checkup jobs. Explain it will drive co-habitation, as a couple people on just a UBI should be able to easily afford rent and expenses for one dwelling. Then explain it's for citizens only, so this incentivizes legal immigration over illegal immigration. Point out that once you're making six figures of income, you're paying more into the UBI than you get back from it. Most people don't have a six figure income, including them. Then remind them that the one and only true core competency of the government is writing checks, and that the social security administration would of course be the one to manage it. If they are still waffling, explain how a UBI makes minimum wage redundant, and enables people to both leave bad jobs and pool their UBI to start their own small enterprises at home. When they object based on 'everyone will just be a lazy drug user at home' point out that's what we have now, and the UBI is the fix, not the cause of that problem.
I find this pitch will usually crack their armor even if it doesn't outright convince them. It tickles too many of their biases.
This is really the only risky one. I understand how that's true in theory, but I'd be concerned that gets taken to the extreme.
But very much appreciate these details, it's solid work!
On paper, wouldn't the "free market" fix that problem though?
If everyone is getting enough money for the most basic of basics, they wouldn't need to work an exploitive or underpaid job, right? If you know your rent is getting paid and you'll have food why would you work a job for $3/hr?
I guess the negative part of that is the unspoken part of "BuT nO oNe WaNtS tO wOrK aNyMoRe (for that wage)" wouldn't be heard and used by people against UBI.
It could, provided that the UBI actually covers all essentials.
Otherwise, you've opened the doors to paying people desperate for work $2 an hour and tell them to take it or leave it.
Another aspect of freedom of movement is that it would allow abuse victims to more easily escape their situation. I heard countless stories of people that refused to leave their abusive partner because they've figuratively been chained to their home unable after having their support net systematically dismantled and years without job experience to easily find another one while needing to pay for moving costs and essentials.
I'd add on that they are also enormous and time-concentrated expenses. No one outside the multi-millionaire class can responsibly save up a rainy day fund large enough to withstand cancer treatment. UBI can't simply cover those cases.
There might be a way to do that.
Setting up a fund of some kind for everyone at birth that matures when they hit their 20s... but also with the expectation that it's an investment that will continue for their entire life like a retirement account. They can start drawing from it so they can do things like travel at a young age and afford an education or to start a business or make a living as an artist. When paired with a UBI this would go even further. We can also keep on layering social policy on top of this for benefits to education, housing, or whatever else needs subsidizing. Consider having a federal UBI for the entire country, another for the state (like Alaska does now with their oil fund), and perhaps another on offer from individual cities. Socialism defense in-depth, more varied and interesting and flexible than just one single program.
In the event of tragedy, that fund can be tapped to deal with it. I'd argue a good way to socialize the pain would be to have the government pay a chunk of it as well, matching funds at least. That keeps the government aware of and involved in the costs of things, which is necessary for them to be able to manage it well. Build the disaster relief right in, it works for hurricanes as well as it does for cancer.
It would be good to get back to making America into an economic experiment again.
This isn't really how politics works in the US. The reason why UBI is such a nonstarter is because it's such a huge change. The magnitude of change a bill demands must come with a corresponding amount of political capital spent. Someone with a lot of political capital, often a new politician elected on a popular mandate, proposes a large change. A whole bunch of other politicians only agree to it if their pet causes are supported. After several compromises, this bill is passed. The more political capital the creator(s) of the bill has, the fewer compromises are needed to pass the bill.
Right now in the US nobody has much political capital. Presidential elections are hotly contested and the last one even flouted the long tradition of peaceful transfer of power. Congress is sharply divided and unwilling to compromise. In this climate, it's very doubtful that any large change can pass without going through so many compromises that it ceases looking anything at all like what was originally proposed.
I would say it does in effect. The powers that be aren't just the politicians. It's capital, business owners. Those people have much more power over the operation of my community than any politician in Washington. The ones that generate the pet projects for politicians. It might be masked by the operational workings. But we know that industry lobbyists regularly write laws that get rubber stamped.
All those words politicians make about about how nobody wants M4A because they like their health insurance? Those aren't coming from actual people who've had to work with their health insurance. They're coming from soundbites generated by health insurance lobbyists. Our tax code grows ever more complex because Intuit lobbies against reform, not because nobody is in favor of actually making it happen.
Not just land lords. Everyone providing a necessity. UBI without price controls on necessities would inevitably spiral out of control.
I recently watched the sci-fi series "The Expanse". In the story half the population of the Earth was on Basic Income and hated it. One of the most sought after things was a career that made a contribution.
I have not seen The Expanse, but in reality there's little shortage of meaningful work to be done. Even if its unpaid.
If we had basic income, the only thing stopping people from finding meaningful work would be themselves.
People improving the spaces around them doesn't really make for gripping television though.
I've always thought that we'd see an explosion in the arts as people dabbled if they ever implemented UBI. Not everything produced would be good mind you, but I could see an explosion in garage bands that end up getting paid gigs at local restaurants/bars/clubs. I could see more artists selling paintings at open houses or boutiques.
They touched on this at the end of the article, but a UBI is also a good way to level the playing field between people doing unpaid domestic work (raising a family) and people being paid wages. Even now, thats still mostly women, and that labor being unpaid hides the true costs of it and the value it provides to society.
With the gradual advancement of things like generative AI and automation, what used to be vital careers might simply not be so important in the future. I imagine that some people will struggle to find fulfillment in the process if what they're doing could be replaced with more effective methods.
I'm not saying that we are at the stage where meaningful work has already been superseded, but rather that it's a possibility in the future. Of course, there may also be new occupations that don't exist today in those times that cater to humanity's need to be useful.
EDIT: I do like your last point. People transitioning into social occupations instead of ones meant to maximize productivity as labour becomes unneeded is a nice vision for the future.
I mean, one thing that always bothers me about these "basic income dystopias" is that they don't really factor that.
Oh, you have a mass of 100 bored people who can't find meaningful work? Didn't a single one of them want to go outside with their ample free time and clean up the outside of their living space?
Or like just. Make things for the joy of making things. Who the hell cares if it makes money or not? That's taken care of. Just make things for your own mental well being at least, or some nebulous idea of contributing to the great tapestry of humanity if you need a greater goal.
It reeks both of capitalist realism (like, they aren't able to think outside the realm of capitalism) and of a kind of learned helplessness. They've internalized the "lazy freeloader" stereotype of welfare recipients so hard that they can't conceive of someone being on welfare and contributing back to society in other ways than monetarily.
A lot of meaningful work that would be unpaid would be dirty jobs nobody would want to do.
Like I said. They are holding themselves back from meaningful work because they see it as beneath them.
Nobody is above unclogging a clogged sewer pipe.
I don't disagree with your latter point, but just because a job is societally necessary doesn't automatically make it personally meaningful. Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you wrote though.
There's a nuance to explore to be sure, but I would posit that the desire to fulfill meaning at the workplace is one of the more harmful narratives that's been pushed in my lifetime. I think its part of what exacerbates so many mental health issues. Can't get burnt out doing what you love, right? We mostly see the opposite: Doing what you love for work makes you love it less.
Doing work that is meaningful for society is rarely going to perfectly align with being personally fulfilling. This is what hobbies and leisure time are for.
As a society, we should be striving to minimize socially necessary labor to free up more time for leisure. So that a job is a job and fulfillment can come from elsewhere.
That said, doing socially necessary labor together with your neighbors will be more fulfilling than commuting 20 miles to do it with a handful of other strangers. That's part of the whole 'social equity' thing that's dying as part of our ever-increasing isolation brought by hyper-specialization.
I disagree. Doing it all the time would be weird, but helping run the civilization would be interesting, everyone would be personally invested in making the crappy chores get easier and people would meet and learn to work together more effectively.
There would be a lot of opportunities for personal growth. At least for people who don't help with those chores now. Like me.
When I was 14, many moons ago, I worked at a scout camp all summer.
My main job was helping teach the other scouts how to build structures out of wood and rope. But I also needed to help with all the other functioning of the camp.
Cleaning latrines was a routine duty that we all shared. We did it on a rotating basis because that was fair. Ditto for sanitizing the mess hall and kitchen.
The medics in the first aid lodge were not exempt from these duties just because they had medical training.
Everyone sees 'mandatory service' as a bad thing, but I see it as a fair thing which insures you don't get to skip on scrubbing toilets because your Dad owns a car dealership.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=aFqdJaJQb_c
"They don't think anything (about it). It's routine."
I am not sure we have seen the same show? In this episode the people on UBI had trouble accessing quality healthcare and people taking care of them were not able to legally get accredited as healthcare professionals and thus be able to legally prescribe necessary drugs. But I might be misremembering. It has been a couple of years.
From what I remember about The Expanse, though, is that there were some additional factors. Earth was explosively overpopulated, and there weren't enough jobs for everyone. You had a massive listless population in cramped poverty conditions. These were people without access to schools, hospitals, grocery stores, safe housing etc. It doesn't matter how much money you're getting if there's nowhere to spend it. UBI wasn't enough to live on, just enough to barely survive on, so it was just an incubation chamber for crime and suffering.
There were so many systemic issues in their version of Earth that UBI was used to address but couldn't due to bureaucratic ineptitude.
Sort of where we are headed with automation taking jobs away. Almost 8 billion people on the planet with demographers predicting it will not level off until 11 billion is reached.
Fortunately Marco Inaros was around to help alleviate that over population problem.
As a courtesy to others, please don't post unmarked spoilers like this. Many haven't read/watched the series yet.
Oh, I didn't think that'd give away too much but you're probably right. Apologies
I watched that too. It was pretty clear their UBI was pocket change and Earth couldn't afford to do better thanks to a variety of factors including catastrophic climate change. They could just barely afford to enough of a UBI to keep the lights on.
Three hundred years into the future, the economy will have evolved well past any models and theories and policies we know, and those will be regarded much the same way we look at feudalism now. The Expanse wasn't written by economists. Not much science fiction is, maybe more of them should branch out. :)
At least in the television series ( I didn't read the books ) I can't recall climate change being mentioned until after the meteor attacks.
I got the impression that the paucity of jobs and the meagerness of "Basic" was a combination of overpopulation and jobs being automated away.
As an American, I dread the idea of UBI.
We can't get the richest people in the world to pay taxes ( fair taxes ) support universal health care. I can't see those people gladly paying for UBI.
It isn't talked about much, but there's strong evidence of climate change in the set design. There's large walls around the cities due to sea level rise, and the intro sequence shows Ellis Island being rebuilt.
That would be interesting, most sci-fi authors if they handle it all just make vague references to how their economic work. Having a well thought out system as a story background would be interesting.
So I can understand why the author is saying that. Market relations are isolating, and there's plenty of other good reading on that. However, planned economies and markets are not incompatible (think planning for production/manufacturing and markets for services/distribution). Having markets function as the distribution mechanism in particular has great promise in serving as a feedback loop for planned production, to avoid overproduction of some things and underproduction of others.
I think the only way you're going to truly escape markets and planning is with a gift economy. One that functions on building social equity. One where every transaction is not quid-pro-quo. I honestly think the gift economy is the best possible one for services and (especially) secondary distribution. I don't think it will do well for the production of complex goods until such time that producing complex goods is as trivial as baking bread (ie magical nanobot printers that can consume raw atoms and spit out consumer goods).
Markets function well for first-level distribution of luxury goods. It lets the individual decide what goods to aquire with their earnings. I think planning would be better than markets for production of many goods. We don't really need market segmentation for things like washing machines, dryers, refrigerators, cars, and televisions. We just need "best" design for the major use cases, then manufacture that design for 5 years while developing a better one. Heck, market segmentation for things like dishwashers is actively harmful....there shouldn't be a single dishwasher made with a plastic washbasin because it increases rate of failure exponentially. It would be far more beneficial to have "the dishwasher" which is so universally deployed that manufacturing aftermarket parts for it is trivial. It would foster a stronger system of repairing and refurbishing rather than replacing. Artificially cheap goods kill the possibility of a repair market because the cost to repair is more than cost of replacement. If every dishwasher cost $5,000, that leaves much more room for a $200 repair bill than a $500 dishwasher that will fall apart after 3 years. It will be more economical to take broken dishwashers and repair them and resell them at reasonable margins. Part of the reason this doesn't work today is that the excessive incompatibility between manufacturers and models. Another questionable outcome of market production is something like the cabin air filter in cars. Go to an auto parts store and look at the 'cabin air filter' section. There's about 100 different sizes that mostly differ less than 5 mm in any given dimension. Standardizing just that one tiny part to a simple "small, medium, large" would reduce a monstrous amount of complexity.
I'd say their usefulness for providing essentials is more questionable given how much of the state needs built up in order to mitigate how the market functions (ie food stamps, medical care, and housing vouchers) for those things. Healthcare in particular tends to get exponentially worse the more that the market is involved in providing that care.
I disagree with this even in those examples, although in some products it may be true (hammers?).
Having only a single production item has a few downsides even in planned production.
The simple case is the one product being perfect for most people, but not working for all people. Maybe people living in tiny apartments need a tiny dishwasher while most people do fine with a typical size.
Another issue is limiting innovation. Ultimately someone needs to choose between design options for the product. The designs chosen go forward, but the designs that are never produced loose the opportunity to prove superior.
Another benefit to multiple models is the ability for consumers to indicate their preferences by choosing between products. Maybe people vastly prefer knobs over buttons, having a model with each gives you a chance to see which one people pick and then focus on that design going forward.
So in conclusion I agree that markets in distribution are good feedback for planned production, but we still need some redundancy in market segments in order to support the diversity that there's some feedback to give.
I'm particularly interested in ideas around how we decide which product variants continue and which ones to kill and replace with a new variant (some would argue our existing system does that just fine, I'd argue it does not)
Here's the thing though. How much is consumer preference something that exists outside of marketing to make them want it? How much isn't so much consumer preference opposed to artificially including/excluding features to hit different price points?
Do people really need any choice more than small/medium/large TV of the highest quality for that year? If your TV breaks, repair parts will likely be more available if you can't afford a new one, and a used market would also have cheap options available. You could run engineering contests where R&D firms compete to design the "next gen" TV that comes out in 5 years.
Is there actually a tangible difference between most of the 5-seater sedans that couldn't be changed with aftermarket parts? Would everyone who likes a sedan actually be furious if everything just didn't standardize on the Toyota Corrolla? Or would they just adapt and then leverage aftermarket customization which would explode now that there's 1 car model with 10x the userbase.
Do we need a smartphone other than the iPhone? A reasonable argument could be made for allowing different software, but the hardware? It'd kinda all be made irrelevant, especially with a small/medium/large variation. Nationalize iPhone production, copying the manufacturing process across existing providers, and then the existing providers lump into an R&D department for developing new models every 5 years or so. Since the model is rolling out in a planned fashion, with a baseline of quality, you could have a 5 year design/manufacture phase with a 10 year+ lifetime. Consumer preference could then emerge...new model comes out but the old model is in more demand? New model gets price lowered and ceases production, old model production ramps up again.
Allowing an unplanned software market makes sense, as the hardware is what has the real opportunity cost. Having standardized, consistent, publicly documented hardware allows a software market to thrive while not needlessly complicating the hard part that requires extraction and refinement of resources from the ground.
But when it comes to customization to handle consumer preference? Leave that to third-parties. Having a planned economy that makes the 'base' good while leaving room for a third-party repair/upgrade market means that the third-party has to build and improve upon the base model. Customization would need to be somewhat compatible with the base model (otherwise it becomes too hard to implement). That leaves a quality 'floor' in place which prevents making a good so cheap you can't maintain that secondary market.
As far as how to insure fairness in a planned economy with UBI, I like the idea of a forced service. Everyone must put in say X hours of work into the planned economy before they are say 30, to insure proper supply of goods. After that, they can retire from the planned economy and enter the secondary market economy. If X was low enough to allow it to be done part-time, it would allow for also doing part-time work in the secondary market.
The USA already has a system for that: It's called Social Security. You must earn 40 credits (maximum) to qualify for Social Security. You get 1 credit per $1,640 (adjusted for average wages periodically). You earn up to 4 credits per year. So to qualify for Social Security at $10 an hour, you need to work full time for 4 months a year, for 10 years. That tells us our absolute minimum needed labor in the USA. If we needed more than that minimum, we could change the requirements. There also needs to be a different carrot/stick for doing your mandatory service, since Social Security would be replaced with UBI. Perhaps just a permanent bump in your UBI for completing your mandatory service would do the trick.
Edit:
And since you showed interest, I'll direct you to the source that introduced me to these ideas: Toward a new Socialism While the whole book should be read front to back (only 200 pages), as it's very much reasoned from first-principals, reading Chapter 8 dives right into it. One important factor to understand for Chapter 8 is that Labor tokens are not like regular money, they function more like a ticket: Created in exchange for work from the government, destroyed upon use...with an expiration date. The 'value' of a labor token is discussed in prior chapters, and it essentially has taxes to cover societal rights like education 'baked in'.
I think that's exactly the right question. Not if consumer preference does exist, but to what degree? Definitely today it's a whole matrix of price and features for most products. Eliminate quality as a variable and a lot of categories quiet down quite a bit. TVs are a great example. Take the "smart"/online features out and make those modular, there haven't been many big improvements in panels over recent history. Most people aren't going to care about the minute differences between high-end OLED panel A and panel B at the size that fits in their home.
But size is still a product variant, albeit an obvious one. So we do need some variants of the same product. The question is just how we determine what the variants are and when we should allow a new one (when to get rid of old ones is easy, demand will signal that).
I also love customization and upgradabilty, that's a great point as to how we can reduce the number of variants of products by leaving details to late stage production or after-market.
I'll check out the book, I imagine labor could also work similar to compulsory military service, although I wonder how that would work if a whole generation just refused.
Depending on how you imagine it, I don't see a "gift economy" necessarily working any better. Assuming that gifts are a voluntary choice of the giver and they are providing necessities, this means the gift-giver gets substantial power over the recipient. This seems roughly equivalent to trade with a monopoly?
Someone who gives money also has power over the recipient, but if there are no strings attached, at least it's not about how they spend it. There is more freedom.
I'll direct you to the source that lead me down this rabbithole originally.
This depends on people remembering who did what rather than writing it down. There's lots of room for injustice due to "forgetting" about things done for you by former allies that you no longer like. It also means that outcasts lose everything. That's a lot of power.
It reminds me of interpersonal dynamics within a family.
Meanwhile, as they say in the article:
Travelers can't participate in the same way because nobody knows them and they won't be around later. Trade and travel seem pretty closely related? (Some cultures have a tradition of hospitality towards travelers, though.)
It seems relevant that credit cards were invented with the use case of "how can a business traveler pay for a meal" in mind.
This is actually a feature, in some ways. Part of what everyone is talking about when they say "market economics are isolating" is the fact that you don't really get to know your local grocer....for most people in the USA the interaction is "grab stuff, swipe card at self-checkout." Not interacting with the employee is seen as a positive experience for many.
Being forced to positively interact with your community to acquire goods and services incentivizes being a good neighbor without needing a massive set of bylaws. The jerk who leaves dog shit in everyone's yard is gonna have a tough time getting more than the bare minimum goods.
I agree there are problems with this, specifically with escape from abusive situations. Starting fresh somewhere is going to be a challenge. That is why, where we are, I fully support UBI within our existing market dynamics for first-tier goods (food, shelter, etc). I also do my best to support a gift economy for secondary goods....rather than trying to re-extract value out of my used laptops by selling them, I give them away. If I have excess tomatoes from my garden, I put them on a table for people to grab as they walk by my house rather than trying to sell them. When I don't need baby clothes anymore they get posted online for free rather than trying to get $1 each for them.
A gift economy isn't something that is dictated from above. It's a thing that builds organically within a community itself. Be the change you want to be in the world and all that. Ideally, newcomers to a community are given the benefit of a doubt and are showered with gifts because everyone is happy to see a new face....rather than the opposite of the current status quo of distrust and isolation.
Yes, I think we ideally should have both relationships with a community and the ability to pull up roots and move somewhere different when the community isn’t working out. Travel is an important freedom that not everyone has in a practical sense since it requires money, but it’s the sort of thing that people in the US who are at least middle-class folks take for granted.
That can be a difficult balance. If people can leave at any time, what happens to all those informal understandings? They’re often lost.
There are terrible communities, like some religions and some home owners’ associations, but relying entirely on strangers can be terrible in its way too, even if you have money.
I think another thing that gets overlooked is if AI/robots replace enough entry level jobs like almost everyone at a Wendy's who will be left to afford the product? If even 30% of the minimum wage workforce is replaced/out of a job who will buy the products?
There will always be more work. There might not be as much cushy office intellectual work, but there is always more work to be done. AI will consume intellectual work far before we get the level of advanced robotics that obviates physical work. The level of robot advancement you're talking about is no less than 100 years away.
Even the best robots are still gonna break a lot. Soft-serve machines alone need a good bit of babysitting. And that's one that they've been trying to automate forever.
Manufacturing does better than most in that regard because its easier to tightly control anomalies. But say digging a fencepost? There's too many variables at play.
The "robots" don't need to replace everyone in a place but it isn't much of a stretch to see 50% less people per shift at a fast food place. I would be willing to bet that current tech "robots" and AI could easily let a fast food joint be run by as little as 2 people.
The AI could take orders with maybe 1 human listening in just in case there is an issue ("All calls may be monitored"). The AI tech wouldn't be any different from the automated utility or credit card support numbers.
They already have conveyer belt ovens and automated George Forman type grills so maybe either Human 1 or Human 2 will handle watching that while doing anything else the auto-griller can't (extra pickles, cheese on the side, etc).
While Human 1 is listening in on the AI ordering they can handle boxing up fries while the autofryer diligently works away to keep stock at a certain predermined point occasionaly over-riding for less or more product as needed.
We've already seen this process of "do as much or more with less employees " with self-checkout lanes. So if Walmart employs 30% less cashiers, every Wendy's employs 40% people, etc it certainly won't be pretty economically or politically (unrest, civil upheaval, poverty can all lead to riots, etc).
At the end of the day "just get a better job" can only go so far. Not every cashier who loses their job is cut out to be a roboticist or a fence post digger.
Speaking of posthole diggers, is it hard to believe that semi-automation is forever impossible? One person watching/assisting a machine that digs preset diameter and depth holes at predetermined intervals instead of a crew of 3 or 4 guys still means that there are less hole diggers working (unless demand opens up somehow).
One thing I don't understand with proposals for UBI is where the money would come from. From a purely mathematical standpoint.
The only way I can see it working is if it was introduced gradually as jobs were automated. Otherwise I see it leading to a shortage of work. Here's my thinking:
Let's assume that everyone is given an amount of money that fully satisfies them, meaning they leave their job. Suddenly all jobs in the economy become vacant (as people are happy with their guaranteed income), meaning that the economy grinds to a halt. Eventually people will want to use their ideally-sized incomes to buy things like food, but there won't be anyone around to sell the food to them, as they too will be smugly sitting at home with an income they are happy with. This would cause the price of everything to skyrocket, up to a price for which others would once again be willing to provide the service, which would however render people's ideally-sized incomes valueless.
This is my proposed solution:
The economy carries on as usual. Automation will eventually be developed. As a job – let's say a bricklayer's – gets automated, the employer keeps paying the bricklayer their salary, because the work they are paying for will still be getting done. Except that now the work will be done by a robot on behalf of the bricklayer. The bricklayer will now be free to do whatever they please with their time, however they'll still retain a legal bond to their ex-job, as they'll be contracting the robot to do their work for them. The robot would be bought and owned by the bricklayer – not the employer who would be banned from buying robots. The ex-worker pays for its upkeep and insurance out of their (ie. the robot's) salary, and it is in their interest to invest into improvements so that they can keep as much of the salary as possible.
This approach would prevent ludditeism. I would be interested to explore it further. What are your thoughts?
I understand what you're saying and it is a real possibility. I also think that the "welfare queen" talking point is way overblown.
I think that after an initial spurt of doing "nothing" people will get bored or stir-crazy (just like in the tail end of COVID). I firmly believe that the work-life balance pendulum will swing back in favor of the worker if UBI ever gets implemented. I think the proof is in people refusing or fighting like hell against going back to the office after working from home.
I'm sure that some people will be content on the very minimal of basics but people, in general, usually always want more.
I think the average person will still work (just not as much) to combat boredom as well as have extra money for luxuries. They won't have to put up with shitty bosses or unsafe work conditions. In my opinion there will always be a breed of overacheivers that won't mind putting in 60 hours+ a week to do things like stock trading, lawyering, etc.
For it to be actually successful there *WILL have to be limits on how the UBI money is spent like "No gambling with it". If they find certain jobs like sanitation doesn't have enough bodies maybe some form of civil service requirement might be a requirement. A serious talk about mental health will be needed to form a plan for people who simply can't manage things on their own as well as a seriously STRONG financial education push to get people to realize what it is for. If the post-COVID economy has shown us anything there will need to be stronger taxes on these corporations who are making record profits quarter after quarter year after year while blaming "inflation".
At the end of it all, we will also need to figure out what to do with the people who will still fall through the cracks either through no fault of their own (Fraud, theft, etc) or because of their ineptitude (financial ignorance, lack of education, etc).
Negatory. Part of the appeal of a UBI is that there's no strings. If someone blows their UBI because they have a gambling addiction, well hopefully they'll be able to seek help at a rehab facility or family, or work another job to make ends meet. We treat people like grownups, not children. Part of the reason there's the blowback against elitist attitudes is that state assistance also tends to come with a large number of strings that treats you like a petulant child.
If important jobs don't get done when there's a UBI it means that those jobs just need their pay raised until the job does get done. Thats why I think sanitation workers should be paid more than bankers.
Even as a supporter of UBI in theory I have my doubts about it not getting screwed up for that reason.
My mitigating thought is that in theory, if you make it high enough to cover basics in the highest CoL areas, it will inflate the lower CoL areas (if only vai migration) until there's a lot less disparity between the Bay Area and Kansas.
But yea malicious actors will never make for an equitable system, regardless of that system's name.
That is what lead to so much vitriol and problems with the extra COVID unemployment money. The $600/week was seen as barely a drop in the bucket in high CoL places like SF and NY while in rural and semi-rural areas it was literally 3x what they made in a week normally.
I would assume (and again only an assumption by someone uneducated in higher levels of economics) that, in theory, it would provide mobility to those below poverty level in, say, NYC to move to places like Kansas. In turn, I think that mobility will have a knock on effect of bringing CoL closer in-line across the nation.
Exactly. If someone is currently in a poverty trap where they can barely afford food + bills + rent, and is scraping by to avoid being on the streets, they can't easily pick up and move to a lower CoL area.
Good luck finding a new apartment halfway across the nation without proof of work lined up or the ability to drop 6 month's or more of rent up front. You could theoretically apply for assisted housing...but those often have year's long waitlists.
If there was a UBI, landlords would have little excuse to deny people from a place on the premise they couldn't pay rent. Which makes it a good bit harder to discriminate against applicants. Plus, since UBI is per-person, it would allow people to escape poverty traps by say, putting their stuff in storage and living with family for a month...allowing them to save most of their UBI to afford the move.
I think while not possible to fully equalize for a wide variety of reasons, I think a lot of hidden biases will be smoothed over with a better normalization of costs, yes.
Specifically if the distribution of people is part of that normalization. The nation would do well to have 20% of California spread out to the east a bit. Remote work enables that better than many other options.
But a UBI would provide better opportunity for people 'stuck' in their situation to migrate en-mass.
I don't foresee that as an issue because the opportunity to add to your income would be much higher in NYC/SF than in Kansas, just as it already is.