Universal basic income UBI (Basic Income Guarantee / BGE Bedingungsloses Grundei

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Please join the collaborative modeling and reflect on the pros and cons


There is also a quantitative model showing its feasibility:  https://www.know-why.net/model/CLYtvCx9NfsfwcpRz8n6WUA 

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Kai Neumann

Kai Neumann replies Kai Neumann

https://eci-ubi.eu an European effort I would very much like to model
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Kai Neumann

Kai Neumann

Again:
1. Success is the product of Capability x Effort x Circumstances (Luck). However smart and diligent we are if there is no job available we have to fail.
2. Automation and digitization currently provide for jobs at least in Germany. But the very purpose is to increase productivity and once our own jobs, the jobs in the rest of the world, and the development and building of robots itself is automised we face the problem of a few winners and many losers with all its implications for social chaos.
3. A taxation of robots and software would make labour more competitive but actually it is not too bad to let the machines do the boring jobs. It is just, that the profit shouldn't go to only a few persons. If our aim is to have more (against the wisdom of peak stuff) the problem would still be that only those producing with machines make money - not those who consume the highly effectively built stuff.
4. A universal basic income should allow people in our society to seek for purpose. We can help elderlies, train youngsters, engage in (urban) gardening, try art, learn to play instruments and speak languages and a lot more "to better ourselves and humanity". Many will want to have more material wealth and thus do the jobs at a fair price and hopefully not full time.
5. After all we need to look at it from the perspective of productivity. How much workforce do we need to provide for the number of service units our society needs? If less than today is possible then we can think of an UBI.
6. Differences in wealth and income are the very driver for progress and innovation so there still will be high incomes and people who would like to work all day in order to live an affluent life style.
7. But no one should work day and night anymore just to provide food and shelter for their kids or do a boring job with little income just to buy some junk stuff that works as an emotional payoff for the otherwise frustrating life.
8. The biggest obstacles will be fixed mind sets fostered by memes from a lobby of people who fear to pay more taxes or they fear the increased price for their work force. Well, and some fear that the lazy ordinary people will just stay at home, get fat and play video games.
9. In order to work we need to look at international competitiveness and the right moment to switch the system because the simulation models that take more money from rich people need to take into account that there will be fewer people who want to have a high income and that many businesses can't be automised yet and wouldn't be able to compete once the work force would get very expensive.
10. The UBI can be reflected on just this scope. Nevertheless, the context is much larger if we look at demographic change, the finance industry, the role of developing countries, the role of a strong EU, or even climate change. That's why we need systems thinking.
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Kai Neumann

Kai Neumann

Brazil provides an interesting example. I cite from Fareed Zakaria's newsletter: "Currency

As countries are figuring out better ways to support citizens economically, at Rest of World, Meaghan Tobin and Márvio dos Anjos point to an ongoing experiment with localized, digital currency in Brazil. In the Rio-area "left-wing stronghold" of Maricá, some 42,000 people can pay local businesses in Mumbucas, a currency only usable within the municipality, either by smartphone or by cards with scannable QR codes.

“To prevent the cash (even if only virtual) from draining away to Rio and other neighboring cities, the Mumbuca is accepted only in town. It’s the largest of scores of such hyperlocal ‘solidarity currencies’ that have gained popularity across Brazil since 2000,” Tobin and dos Anjos write. “The Mumbuca was developed as part of the city’s basic income program, the Renda Básica da Cidadania (RBC), designed to fund a monthly stipend and other benefits for city residents. It currently covers over a quarter of the town’s population and is one of the largest basic income experiments in the world.”

Mumbucas “are effectively [Brazilian] reais that can be used only within Maricá’s limits and can be spent only through the platform’s digital payments,” they write; support payments to residents were upped to an equivalent of $57.60 per month once the pandemic hit. Critics have said the program hasn’t helped Maricá’s problems with unemployment, but Tobin and dos Anjos present it as a test for both universal basic income and localized microfinance."


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Kai Neumann

Kai Neumann

Here some remarks of mine from a German discussion
https://www.xing.com/news/klartext/ein-bedingungsloses-grundeinkommen-ist-leistungsfeindlich-2974?te.....
https://www.xing.com/news/klartext/das-grundeinkommen-wird-kommen-2981?te=c2402ea26ae0a34e.eyJ0YXJnZ....

Wow, wieder mal Deutungshoheiten über Deutungshoheiten. Vergangenheit erklärt keine Disruptionen. Menschen suchen sinnstiftende Tätigkeiten. AI, Digitalisierung und Automatisierung erlauben uns weniger bloße Erwerbstätigkeit. Wer doch mehr haben will, kann. Wer mit dem Grundeinkommen wartet, riskiert ungeahnte soziale Verwerfungen. Aber! Aber Deutschland kommt eine Sonderrolle zu: wir sind die, die exportieren müssen, um importieren zu können (Nutzung des anthropogenen Rohstofflagers und Kreislaufwirtschaft mögen das zukünftig ersetzen). Wir haben die Ingenieursfähigkeiten und Maschinenbaukompetenz, um den Anfang in das neue Zeitalter wettbewerbsfähig nutzen zu können. Bald werden Maschinen Maschinen bauen und Software Software schreiben und Ärzte und Anwälte werden in Teilen genauso ersetzt, wie Reinigungskräfte oder Burger-Brater. Die Bildung wird anderswo derart forciert, dass wir schon bald keinen Vorsprung mehr haben. Und wenn wir den Anfang machen, exportieren wir quasi die sozialen Verwerfungen, die zuerst zu radikalen Tendenzen führen werden - wir erleben das gerade in GB, USA, Italien etc.. Die Anamnese ist nicht leicht, die Behandlung und deren optimaler Zeitpunkt noch viel weniger. Auf know-why.net sind deshalb diverse Visualisierungen und Analysen des Gesamtzusammenhanges zu finden, zumeist auf Englisch unter dem Schlagwort UBI (Universal Basic Income). Unter anderem hat dort ein quantitatives Modell ausgerechnet, dass und wie Deutschland sich das leisten kann!

Habe gerade differenziert etwas hierzu bei Herrn Theurer gepostet. Nur kurz: es ist bezahlbar, wie ein Modell auf know-why.net hochgerechnet hat. Ist ist alternativlos für eine friedliche Gesellschaft. Aber es ist nicht ganz einfach, den richtigen Zeitpunkt zu finden. Wir sollten alles mal zu Ende denken, in Ursache-Wirkungsmodellen die 4 know-why-Fragen stellen. Dann verstehen wir plötzlich (ich musste es auch lernen), warum eine Roboter-Steuer doch kein Unsinn ist ;-)

Dinge werden teurer vs. Geld wird knapp und Dinge müssen billiger werden. Antrieb schafft Leistung - einverstanden, es wird noch genug Möglichkeiten geben, aber eben auch noch ganz neue Beschäftigungen, die nur wenig oder gar kein Geld bringen, wohl aber soziale Anerkennung. Harari hat hier imho in Sapiens die überraschendsten Impulse mit seinem Hinweis gegeben, dass wir als Jäger und Sammler viel weniger als heute arbeiten mussten und sogar genauso alt werden konnten.
Götz Werner mag das am Ende nicht klar ausgerechnet haben, aber ich habe das in einem quantitativen Modell auf know-why.net vorgerechnet. Es ginge. Es kommt wie in meinem parallelen Beitrag bei Herrn Theurer ausgeführt nur auf den Zeitpunkt an, zu dem eben Reinigungskräfte etc. schon preiswert durch zu besteuernde Maschinen ersetzt werden können, aber noch bevor unsere Demokratie radikalen Tendenzen erliegt.
Schließlich: Alle, die wir oberhalb des Durchschnittseinkommens sowohl innerhalb unseres Landes als auch global leben, können dies nur, da viele unterhalb leben. Eine Weile mögen mehr der Mitte entrücken können und wollen, aber das System kollabiert, wenn das Geld nicht mehr nach unten, sondern nur noch in Technologiearbeitsplätze fließt.
Ich war großer Skeptiker aus genau den Gründen, die andere hier mit ihren hochkarätigen Mindsets vertreten. Aber die eigene, systemische Auseinandersetzung mit dem Thema hat mich auf die andere Seite wechseln lassen. Fühlte sich zugegeben doof an, sich unrecht zu geben.
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Kai Neumann

Kai Neumann replies Kai Neumann

Oh, I can give myself an answer: this scheme wouldn't lead to more money to be shared as the amount spent for machine taxes would otherwise be taxed profit. But to a small extent it could increase to price for robotics compared to that of human employment.
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Kai Neumann

Kai Neumann

Hmm, so far I have always thought, that there is no need for a taxation of robots (and software), because I thought a high taxation of high incomes would be it. But consider enterprises that spend a lot money for robots (e.g. fast food restaurants) with yet little profit. The jobs would be gone with no taxation. How could this be included in the model?
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Kai Neumann

Kai Neumann

Here is the start of a (collaborative) quantitative model : https://www.know-why.net/model/CLYtvCx9NfsfwcpRz8n6WUA
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Kai Neumann

Kai Neumann

From a newsletter by Peter Diamandis:
"

Some fear that robots and AI will steal our jobs.

They probably will (in the near-term, at least half of them).

If that happens, what will we do for a living? How will we earn money?

In this blog I’ll be discussing one of the most important proposed solutions to job loss due to automation -- the notion of “Universal Basic Income” (sometimes called guaranteed minimum income).

In specific, I want to discuss:

Predictions on job lossWhat is Universal Basic Income? Who is experimenting with it?Does UBI work? What are the implications?

Let’s dive in.

Predictions on Job Loss

In 2013, Dr Carl Benedikt Frey of the Oxford Martin School estimated that 47 percent of jobs in the US are “at risk” of being automated in the next 20 years.

The figure was recently verified recently by McKinsey & Company who suggests that 45 percent of jobs today will be automated by using exponential technologies such as machine learning, artificial intelligence, robotics and 3D printing.

The concept is called technological unemployment, and most careers, from factory workers and farmers to doctors and lawyers, are likely to be impacted.

The impact will likely be even more severe in the developing world.

The expected implications of technological unemployment vary widely.

Individuals like Ray Kurzweil and venture capitalist Marc Andreessen believe that while today’s jobs will perish, new jobs will be created by technology to replace them.

Other experts project that technological unemployment will be massively disruptive to society.

Still others believe that society will adapt, first by constantly demonetizing our cost of living and next by the the widespread deployment of “universal basic income.”

(NOTE: In case you missed it, in a previous blog I covered, in detail, how we are in the process of massively demonetizing the cost of living.)

What is Universal Basic Income? Who is Experimenting?

Universal basic income (UBI) is a policy in which all citizens of a country regularly receive an unconditional sum of money, either from a government or some other public institution, in addition to any income received from other means.

UBI’s core motivation — to address social ills by giving people “free” money — is certainly not a new idea.

For some perspective, Thomas Paine outlined a plan in his 1797 essay “Agrarian Justice” to create a national fund making payments of 15 pounds sterling to each adult over 21 years old….

Today, experiments with UBI are spreading across the world, from Finland and the Netherlands to Canada and France.

In France, several members of Parliament have supported running an experiment, and the finance minister is open to it.

In the last decade, over eight countries have formally experimented with UBI. Here are the top three active experiments worth noting:

Finland: Early next year, the Finnish government will launch an experiment in which a randomly selected group of ~3,000 citizens already on unemployment benefits will begin to receive a monthly basic income of 560 euros (approx. $600). That basic income will replace their existing benefits. The amount is the same as the current guaranteed minimum level of Finnish social security support. The pilot study, running for two years in 2017-2018, aims to assess whether basic income can help reduce poverty, social exclusion and bureaucracy, while increasing the employment rate.Netherlands: The local government in the Dutch city of Utrecht is planning to conduct an experiment that would give a guaranteed monthly income to 250 Dutch citizens currently receiving government benefits. A two-year test period is tentatively set to begin in January of next year, and some citizens of Utrecht and some nearby cities will receive a flat sum of €960 per month (about $1,100). The Utrecht proposal — called “Weten Wat Werkt,” or “Know What Works” — includes six test groups, and the members in each will receive slightly different stipends under slightly different conditions. In addition to the group that will receive €960 per month without any work obligations, there is a group that will be given that, plus an additional €150 at the end of the month if they provide volunteer services, such as doing maintenance work on schoolyards.India: Over 350 million people (about 30% of the population) remain below the poverty line after two decades of high economic growth. In that context, in 2011 India launched two pilots to test the impact of basic income grants, funded by UNICEF, with SEWA as coordinator. In eight villages in Madhya Pradesh, every man, woman, and child was provided with a monthly payment of, initially, 200 rupees for each adult and 100 rupees for each child paid to the mother or guardian; these were later raised to 300 and 150, respectively. They also operated a similar scheme in a tribal village, where for 12 months every adult was paid 300 rupees a month and every child got 150. Another tribal village was used as a comparison. The money was paid individually, initially as cash and after three months into bank or cooperative accounts.

In January, Sam Altman, the president of Y Combinator, announced that the San Francisco-based startup fund was organizing a basic income study in the U.S.

Does UBI work?

While the implementation of UBI at scale is still in its early days, the results are promising.

Early results in the India experiment show nutrition was improved as measured by the average weight-for-age of young children (World Health Organization z-score), and more so among girls.

In the same study, the UBI grants led to more labor and work, not less, as expected by skeptics.

There was a shift from casual wage labor to more self-employed farming and business activity, with less distress-driven migration out of the region.

Women gained more than men.

That being said, the most compelling study demonstrating how universal basic income could work comes from a small town in Canada.

From 1974 to 1979, the Canadian government partnered with the province of Manitoba to run an experiment on the idea of providing a minimum income to residents called MINCOME.

MINCOME was a guaranteed annual income offered to every eligible family in Dauphin, a prairie town of about 10,000, and smaller numbers of residents in Winnipeg and some rural communities throughout the province.

So what happened to families receiving MINCOME?

They had fewer hospitalizationsThey had fewer accidents and injuriesMental health hospitalizations fell dramaticallyHigh school graduation rates increasedYounger adolescent girls were less likely to give birth before age 25, and when they did, they had fewer kids

The program brought most recipients above Canada’s poverty line.

And the employment effects in Dauphin were modest. For primary earners — those with full-time jobs — there was virtually no decline in work.

Essentially, nobody was quitting their jobs.

Cash from the government eased families’ economic anxiety, allowing them to invest in their health and plan over a longer horizon.

MINCOME is now serving as inspiration for basic income’s comeback in Canada.

In its 2016 budget, the provincial government of Ontario announced plans to conduct a basic income pilot this year.

Implications

I’m fairly confident that in the near future, as technology continues to eliminate traditional jobs and massive new wealth gets created, we’re going to see some version of universal basic income deployed at scale.

While I think the implications of UBI are mostly positive, there are certainly many complexities associated with its rollout.

There are still many questions that remain unanswered – where is the additional money coming from? Taxes?

Will UBI cause problems that we can’t anticipate or create more conflict than it resolves?

Can governments react quickly enough, given the pace of innovation and automation in tech? Is it actually a solution to technological unemployment? Or will we still have to go through a turbulent, violent period as we redistribute our labor in a world of robots and AI?

At minimum, I believe that with decreased costs of living, UBI will be one of many tools empowering self-actualization at scale – more people will be able to follow their passions, be more creative, and spend more time on higher-order, personally fulfilling tasks.

When this happens, we’ll be one step closer to a world of abundance.

"
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Kai Neumann

Kai Neumann

In Germany there is a discussion on the activating basic income (Aktivierendes Grundeinkommen, http://www.bku.de/download?dokument=1&file=83_bkupositionspapier_aktivierendes_grundeinkommen_nov_20....) which has some positive aspects but which is not addressing the prospect of more automation and thus considers having a job a question of productivity and not chance.
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Kai Neumann

Kai Neumann

Here a collaborative quantitative model on this: https://www.know-why.net/model/CLYtvCx9NfsfwcpRz8n6WUA
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Kai Neumann

Kai Neumann

Interestingly, Elon Musk and Joe Kaeser (Siemens) also promote the universal basic income.
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