Universal basic income and what it may look like

[porkpiesinthepark]

I've been thinking for a while about the criticism of UBI and I think it's due to people not being able to imagine the government trying to 'match' peoples wages. In my opinion, it never will but there will be alternatives to what we have now, which will be able to offer something better.

So say the UBI is £1000 a month for a single person.
We could change the housing market to allow much more public housing with rents set at an affordable level, much more stability, no private landlords and the option to customise/ change your home. Let's face it, home ownership is out of reach for the majority at present. I don't find people are dying to own their own homes but desperate to be out of the instability of the private rental market, out of parents houses, out of house shares etc. If you could offer the next best thing to owning your own house, I think people would go for it.
There would be much more community linked to people having extra time due to not working or not working as many hours. Now, not having enough to do in the day is bad but most people have these huge dreams for retirement and this would just allow them to do some of these things now instead. Also more volunteering, looking after elderly relatives etc.
I don't think that private car ownership would be a thing. There would be a big system like Uber who you could call rides on. There would be a cheaper option, say if ten people wanted to go to the city centre at the same time, they would have to walk to a hub and then the van would pick everyone up, like public transport but based on demand. It would be a status symbol to be able to call a car out just for you.
I think a lot more people would wfh getting the cost of transport and childcare down. Schools might even go remote, as there wouldn't be both parents working and so in theory they could help facilitate the lessons. Then teachers would have small classes of Sen kids like mine, key workers and vulnerable children. Kids would interact with others through volunteering groups with parents, or just playing out as there would be less cars and more parents around to keep an eye on them.
People will either hate this vision as it's so different to what we have now. Or they will like some parts. But what we have now can't continue.

I actually love this vision of the future and I image the technology will be created to do an awful lot of the low paid jobs eventually...see Pepper the Finnish care robot 🤷🏽‍♀️
The problem is on here, if you dare to mention a future that is not 💯 dreadful then Mumsnetters get very cross with you.
Try again with your futuristic vision but introduce a bit of doom-mongering and you'll be away 🥴😝

The administration of benefits is most of its cost, if im not mistaken. UBI would do away with a lot of that.

It is very weird isn't it? The idea of less work and more leisure time leaves people horrified. My impression is that this strange cultural attitude is primarily driven by people having a serious dose of the green eyed monster and huge resentment at anybody getting anything they don't feel they "deserve" and absolute hatred of anybody who has any more than they do. Even if a change might leave them personally better off, if it benefits anybody else as well their reaction is a flat "NO".

Sad indeed.

I don’t understand the link between all the things you’ve listed? Why would £1k p/m make people want to Ubers, homeschool and volunteer?

Doesn't sound like a very good future to me. People already resent those who get UC, do away with all the low paid jobs and that will mean a whole lot more people out of work, workers will resent paying for them even more.

That’s the same argument made at the dawn of every Industrial Revolution. Nothing new.

I have no issue with less work and more leisure time personally, but I don't want to have enough money just to "survive" and nothing else. If the only jobs available are highly skilled ones, that means all the people who aren't clever enough to do them are just sacked off basically. At the moment people on UC can get more money by working, but if work is only available to those who are highly educated there's even less opportunities for those who aren't.

Some people value state intervention or control more and others value freedom

It’s similar to lockdown, many on here probably preferred it, or would prefer set up where they are subsidised more

We’re not all the same, one persons comfort is another’s lack of freedom

It feels like similar themes to Industrial Revolution and East Germany wrt people trying to leave

To you it sounds nice but I wouldn’t feel the same, but then the whole high state intervention doting Covid wasn’t for me either

Doesn't sound like a very good future to me. People already resent those who get UC, do away with all the low paid jobs and that will mean a whole lot more people out of work, workers will resent paying for them even more.

Isn't the idea that AI will do more so productivity will remain the same so the "norm" will be for people to work less rather than some people working harder and some people not working at all?
That's the way I always envisaged it.
As with everything, there'll be people who can't work or choose not to but then that will always be the case no matter how things are organised.

Well the difference here is the sheer volume of human-performed roles that will no longer be necessary for a human to be involved in at all. Across pretty much all industries, with a vanishingly few small exceptions.

Even software engineers aren't safe. 😆 AI can already write code, much faster than humans. De-bug it. Then refine it. So it basically is now capable of "evolving" itself: rewriting itself to make it better, which will make it more intelligent, and then that version can rewrite it again and so on.

I don't think many people appreciate the scale of the changes that are coming, or the pace at which this will take place. It will be a rough ride I think as not only the public but our leaders are so woefully underprepared. They haven't even understood it let alone thought through, scenario-tested and prepared plans.

One thing that does finally seem to be dawning on them are the risks, which are huge. If AI is harnessed to improve human lives then the benefits may be immense. However, it will quickly become far more intelligent than humans and therefore if it is not controlled then we may make ourselves obsolete. Why would it even "care" about human wellbeing? Not that it would "care" about anything as such, but anthropomorphising to express the point.

There are so many good books about it all. People really should read up, and look at the latest research (what little of it is made public, which tbh is just the tip of the iceberg, hence so many involved taking the drastic step of warning Governments...)

So, you'd renationalise the utilities, make house prices something set by central government, take over all childcare provision, dictate car prices, house prices, rents, food? Much as it would be nice to think that things would stay the same price because otherwise, what's the point of an UBI?, outside a dictatorship (and even then, there will still be those who have far, far more), they cannot be capped or controlled. Moreover, all those overseas interests - property, utilities, consumer items, manufacturing - would be pretty pissed off it a government started trying to keep prices down.

All dropping a wodge of money into people's laps would do is reset £zero to £zero+UBI.

It would be lovely if everything stayed the same and people did have more money/a better standard of living, but the cold reality of the world is that they wouldn't. They'd just be poor with a currency requiring calculations with more zeroes - like having to work with lira rather than sterling; things weren't a hundred times dearer when the £3.50 item's cost was 3,500l, it was the same cost with some more zeroes.

... so how will any of that benefit anyone?

@Room102 It is very intriguing, I shall try to read more. I can see that if AI is given decision making abilities it may use a very different logic to human systems.

There’s another thread going on declining population issues so maybe we just let it decline, and use AI

Just need to work out older people to younger ratio issue somehow

All benefits are money for nothing. They just called them tax credits to make people feel better about themselves

Sure. I agree. I get money for nothing. Except I’m a single parent with a disabled child who works full time as a teacher in a shortage subject area. And I’m entitled to a small amount of tax credits. If I hadn’t received tax credits when my children were younger, I couldn’t have afforded childcare. So one less teacher.

I don’t feel bad about myself for claiming benefits. Why should I? I am doing the best that I can. Maybe my ex and the Government should have a bit of a think, given his self employed status exempts him from supporting his children and the Government agency set up to help with this has done precisely fuck all. In 15 years.

@NeverDropYourMooncup I think renationalising utilities, rent caps and staple food price caps would be quite reasonable, and not a dictatorship. House and car prices probably can't be controlled, and childcare I'm not sure about. I see the issues with some of those items, but not all.

I wouldn't say I particularly enjoy my job. It's ok, and it's fairly well paid, but I fell into it. It wasn't my childhood ambition or anything. Some mornings I wish I could just call in sick and go back to sleep.

BUT. I injured myself quite badly earlier this year and was off work for over two months (walking was difficult and I was on strong painkillers so a bit whoozy and couldn't work from home).

I have young kids but after getting them up and off to school (with a neighbours help) very quickly I was incredibly bored, lazy, demotivated and fed up.

I was delighted to finally go back to work. I find I couldn't enjoy my downtime with no balance.

I think humans need a purpose and to do meaningful work. I think the routine and the structure and the balance is good.

Sure, something like a 4 day working week as opposed to 5 would be fabulous. But the idea of a universal basic income for doing nothing? Nah, I don't buy it. It wouldn't work.

Yes, I'm glad someone said it!

I, for one, am not a fan of communism, so I not keen, OP, sorry.

Perhaps some do but in general no. Why would you be outraged at someone else getting the same amount as you?

The thing I find intriguing about views like this and my personal favourite upthread: "UBI would be the downfall of society" is that I would fully expect someone say in the position of Rishi Sunak, or Elon Musk or Alan Sugar to happily espouse these views and genuinely believe these views to be the truth. Most people, indeed many working people are only one or two pay cheques away from complete destitution yet so many of us hold these views as testament. I wonder if future generations will begin to think more critically about the way society works. I'd like to think each generation starts off thinking it will upend traditional structures and many previous generations have succeeded in this in various forms - but when it comes to this particular issue of wealth, money and capital - it seems so ingrained, weaved into the fabric of society to the extent that people castigate those who they deem have ideas above their station. In other words you should remain in the class you were born, any attempt to go beyond those confines is dismissed as social climbing.

@Changechangechanging don't give these people a moment of your time.
The uncomfortable truth for many people is that the only reason they are not on benefits is because they are in a relationship. It's not their great earning potential. It's not their financial prowess.
They happen to have a child who can attend mainstream school and wrap around care. They managed to marry/ live with someone who can support them financially.
And they have the cheek to look down on us? I said that to someone the other day, the only reason I am on UC benefits and you aren't is that you are putting up with a bad relationship and terrible sex for pay and I'm not. Because we earn the same amount... so if they got divorced then they would be eligible for UC too.

@DojaPhat amen!

I didn’t say I was I said there are many posts where people complained that the energy supplement was to everyone on here.

It didn’t bother me personally although I’m not for UBI

Just can't believe they would give everyone £1600 if it is ever to be rolled out. Even Finland with it's high cost of living was 560 euro

Some people value state intervention or control more and others value freedom

It’s similar to lockdown, many on here probably preferred it, or would prefer set up where they are subsidised more

We’re not all the same, one persons comfort is another’s lack of freedom

It feels like similar themes to Industrial Revolution and East Germany wrt people trying to leave

To you it sounds nice but I wouldn’t feel the same, but then the whole high state intervention doting Covid wasn’t for me either

I'm not generally a huge fan of state intervention as it happens, however it's a misunderstanding of capitalism to think it involves little. Any large scale society requires state "intervention" to organise, administer and enforce its systems. People who claim they don't like it usually mean they like certain types of it and not others.

So you may well very much like for example having a legal system founded in property rights and enforced. Social structures that provide infrastructure like roads and train tracks and fresh water to your taps and electricity and gas to your house. All of this is state intervention. Building sewage plants and reservoirs. Providing educational establishments so that people can learn the skills requires to build and manufacture and invent the products you use, procure the materials to build them. That part requires foreign trade, so state intervention is required to set up structures to trade with other states and physically import these things. Etc.

All of these things will to some extent impinge on your freedom, because any type of collaboration at a country level or international level requires agreement and all people making compromises. This was the fundamental stupidity of Brexit: if you rely on food and energy and materials imports from other countries then of course there is no such thing as pure "Sovereignty" if you mean agreeing no common rules with other human beings for mutual benefit, because then you will have nothing.

I find proponents of "state intervention is bad" on principle seem to forget that unless the built their house themselves, live off grid, grow their own food, have their own well and protect it all with an axe they made themselves out of flint, then they are actually only living the life they have as a direct result of state intervention: i.e. humans developing systems to cooperate together for the benefit of all of them by pooling resources.

For that to be functional there also needs to be some level of healthcare, education, and support for disabled people, etc.

The question as always is balance. It does not need to involve social control. And the greatest failing of humanity that will likely be its downfall is the inability to look at the wider picture and greater good because of intense selfishness and not overcoming the tribal need to "other" people, to get caught up in ideologies rather than pragmatism.