I think what needs proving is that society at scale can work without this. So far as I can tell, it can’t. At the same time, I’d rather not give anyone the “my ‘whatever’ supports you so get in line behind me” bullshit they like to say.
All monetary policy is experimental to some extent… but you don’t need to start with the big money.
Here in Australia average full time salary is $80k. I don’t really know but maybe an appropriate UBI in a utopia might be half of that, or lets just say $3k a month. You wouldn’t just start transferring $3k to everyone’s bank account every month and see how it goes.
You’d start with a small refundable negative tax. We already have these in our tax system they’re called rebates or offsets. You don’t start with $3k a month, start with maybe $2k a year. So everyone pays $2k less tax every year, and people that pay less than that in a full year would get the balance refunded to them.
With something like this it would be fairly easy to measure whether or not it’s providing the purported benefits.
The state of Alaska has been doing this for some time with the Alaska Permanent fund. Just under a million people in Alaska. Seems rather significant to me.
I keep seeing small scale UBI experiments ‘proving’ that recipients thrive more. But as I see it that’s not the part that needs proving.
what’s the part that needs proving?
That it can scale up to an entire society. That it can be sustained indefinitely, or can be made self-sustaining.
I think what needs proving is that society at scale can work without this. So far as I can tell, it can’t. At the same time, I’d rather not give anyone the “my ‘whatever’ supports you so get in line behind me” bullshit they like to say.
What proof would be satisfactory though?
All monetary policy is experimental to some extent… but you don’t need to start with the big money.
Here in Australia average full time salary is $80k. I don’t really know but maybe an appropriate UBI in a utopia might be half of that, or lets just say $3k a month. You wouldn’t just start transferring $3k to everyone’s bank account every month and see how it goes.
You’d start with a small refundable negative tax. We already have these in our tax system they’re called rebates or offsets. You don’t start with $3k a month, start with maybe $2k a year. So everyone pays $2k less tax every year, and people that pay less than that in a full year would get the balance refunded to them.
With something like this it would be fairly easy to measure whether or not it’s providing the purported benefits.
The state of Alaska has been doing this for some time with the Alaska Permanent fund. Just under a million people in Alaska. Seems rather significant to me.
That money comes exclusively from oil and gas export revenue, though. It’s not a model that most other states can follow.