Scotland may be first to adopt a Universal Income, will give $200 a week to every citizen for life

Keep sight of one thing.

In the future, there will be no jobs.

UBI will allow us to continue living in a world where all work is done by machines.

Today, even China is beginning to replace their "cheap workers" with automation and machines, because they say that the workers have become too expensive.

If a Chinese company takes the position that Chinese labor is too expensive, and has turned to robots, then those "jobs" are never coming back to the West !

originally posted by: luthier
a reply to: pavil

How would you do it without doing it?

Theories need to be tested by trials.

Finland is a trial not a particularly good one. The Dutch, Swiss, Scotland small safe economies.

Yes small trials.... The Swiss outright voted it down. We need to find a solution for when there are very few jobs to available workers. It will happen sooner than we think. UBI may be the solution, maybe some other solution. I know we have to try options.

The Haves won't want to give what they have to the have nots, that's the major issue. It's a whole different way of looking at things. I can see it disincentivising entrepreneur growth and research and such. People like the Dream of being better than others, not being equal with everyone else.

At some point you have to make the basics of life, food, utility, housing ect almost like free if UBI is to work. It's a hard concept to figure out how it actually would function.

Even then UBI would still have inequality.
Maybe that's my problem with it... It reeks of trying to make every equal at the expense of those advancing society. There isn't a historical reference for UBI to draw off of that's worked. Somebody pays the price of UBI.

a reply to: pavil

It's not making everyone equal it's just moving the starting line up from suffering and death to basic needs taken care. Basically it's changing the incentive to work from being work or suffer and die to work and gain a standard of living beyond basic needs.

Everyone keeps complaining that less people will work. This is silly as the opposite will likely happen, as most people staying on welfare are doing it because it's not worth getting off it as all the jobs available to them don't give a standard of living much higher than they had on welfare and comes with losing all the free time they had on welfare.

With a basic income working part time jobs, etc becomes actually worthwhile because you actually GAIN something for it as opposed to just getting less time with your family and loved ones while still basically suffering exactly as you were before once you add the time lost.

Once a person is on welfare the only reason to work the jobs available to most of them is pride, nothing more. Pride is not exactly the best motivator for a populace. Reward works a whole lot better.

So apologies if this was covered but I may have missed it.

IF Scotland goes independent how does this effect this plan or proposal?

Yeah I heard something about Alaska. I think it's like a yearly check though for like $1,200 or so. I'm going to look it up

originally posted by: Freeborn
a reply to: nOraKat

God bless Sturgeon, she's full of grand ideas.....as long as those bastards in Westminster are prepared to fund it!

Horrible, horrible woman who does the Scots no favours at all.

Ehmmm no. Ideally Sturgeon doesn't want the UK to fund anything in Scotland.

Remember the whole independence thing, main policy of the SNP. By definition the exact opposite of wanting Westminster to fund Scottish spending.

originally posted by: FredT
So apologies if this was covered but I may have missed it.

IF Scotland goes independent how does this effect this plan or proposal?

At the moment its not really a firm proposal, more a commitment to look at the possibility.

A UBI wouldn't work with current devolved set up as full taxation and spending powers would be required to make it workable.

I don't even think it would work in a shared currency area like the euro zone.

originally posted by: pavil

originally posted by: luthier
a reply to: pavil

How would you do it without doing it?

Theories need to be tested by trials.

Finland is a trial not a particularly good one. The Dutch, Swiss, Scotland small safe economies.

Yes small trials.... The Swiss outright voted it down. We need to find a solution for when there are very few jobs to available workers. It will happen sooner than we think. UBI may be the solution, maybe some other solution. I know we have to try options.

The Haves won't want to give what they have to the have nots, that's the major issue. It's a whole different way of looking at things. I can see it disincentivising entrepreneur growth and research and such. People like the Dream of being better than others, not being equal with everyone else.

At some point you have to make the basics of life, food, utility, housing ect almost like free if UBI is to work. It's a hard concept to figure out how it actually would function.

Even then UBI would still have inequality.
Maybe that's my problem with it... It reeks of trying to make every equal at the expense of those advancing society. There isn't a historical reference for UBI to draw off of that's worked. Somebody pays the price of UBI.

This is common misconception. UBI does not in anyway make everyone equal. There is still every incentive to work hard, learn or innovate to earn more.

I think we'd really have to hear all the details on how this would be implemented to gain a firm opinion.

But I know that one detail was once very hard for me to grasp in such systems -

It is this question of motivation.
I see some others struggle with that too.

In my past, growing up in America, I lived with a constant low level anxiety for my survival.
I had an awareness that there was always the risk I could be homeless and without food at any moment. A few times I found myself in that situation. These basic needs were the motivation for me to work. My motivation was fear.

So I had a tendency to believe that without that threat to my survival, I would be lazy and never do anything; I could even experience that momentarily when things were secure.... a slow down in my ambition and energy... which would seem to confirm that idea. But even in those short periods, my fear for survival would kick in (omg, am I getting lazy?? I will find myself cld and hungry if I continue like this!!)

So when I moved to France and found out that here, people do not have that fear, I was...well, the word that comes to mind is horrified, though that sounds melodramatic. Repulsed? To see them look at me and laugh at such fears, saying" geezus, what are you, an ignorant child?? This is not the dark ages! Not a third world country! No one is going to sleep on the street (unless they want to), no one is going to go hungry!"

It scared and pissed me off. I HAVE been homeless against my wishes, I HAVE been hungry and unable to eat, I HAVE had to scrape the insides of dirty cupboards for old rice grains to feed my baby! Their nonchalance on that threat did not make sense to me, and I would rant on about how they must be totally lazy and unproductive because they are too sheltered and secure here.


With time, I found out that even with their confidence in their basic survival, even with their incredible benefits like guaranteed fully paid vacation for all, 35 hour work week, universal quality healthcare, a monthly cash allowance for all people with children (no matter what their income ), they still somehow are productive - in some areas even more so than the US.

I couldn't have been more confused by this.

After many years of observing and living this, I found out there are several reasons (there is a difference in where they lie on the guilt and shame culture spectrum, for example) a big one being that which Puppylove has pointed out several times - you do not have to have that underlying fear for your survival to be motivated.

If you are used to that, then you will feel a momentary slow down once secure. But then, that passes, and your mind automatically rises to look towards the next level of needs - self actualization as an individual, social status and recognition, etc.


This became a very important point for me personally when I realized it. Living without that underlying constant low level anxiety was a new experience and took a while to adapt to.

I think us Americans could really benefit from learning this, and looking at many of our current problems within this light. That motivation could be influencing us in more ways than productivity. It could be detrimental in other ways.

Anyway, I got carried away. My point was, you don't need to have your survival threatened to be active.

a reply to: nOraKat

Wow, how can so many people be so short sighted? The universal credit idea is going to be necessary in the future because there just literally won't be any jobs! As robots will have taken over the lion's share! This sounds scary but it's not! It's human liberation!

Where will the money come from... Robot tax...

Next...

a reply to: Bluesma

Actually in the modern survival I'd not only say that "you do not need to have that underlying fear for your survival to be motivated" but any society that uses such means to motivate is sick, twisted and barbaric by it's very nature. That using threats, pain and misery to motivate is slavery. This is the modern age where not only is food and shelter easily provided for all should society decide to make it so, but it is an age where we understand basic concepts like motivation being better through reward and positive reinforcement and we understand the benefits of allowing self-actualization.

It's been proven time and time again threats and punishment as a motivator leads to lackluster results and promotes avoidance behavior and resentment, whereas reward and positive reinforced leads to improved results and promotes an active desire to not only do an activity but do it better and improve upon it. In fact positive reinforcement and appreciation not only promotes that but leads to even higher concepts like loyalty, pride and love for what the person does and the people job that provides that higher sense of self worth.

The work or be punished aspects of society is not only unnecessarily cruel it's ignorant and absurdly counter productive to achieving worthwhile results as well.

a reply to: pavil

The Swiss outright voted it down certainly isn't the reality.

They never really assumed it would pass on the first vote. It is a public awareness campaign. The plan is to continue voting and getting public input.

And it isn't trying to make any one equal.

You need to read some economics. Milton exclusively talks about the negative income tax and a ubi, so does hyak. These are free market aproaches to a safety net.

Not supposed to be equalling anything. It's supposed to be there if your life takes a hard turn or you fall on hard times. Like say getting falsely accused of a crime your innocent of and missing work to fight it, custody battles, cancer, terrible patenting etc...

It's not supposed to be an equalizer

medium.com...

medium.com...


And ps check your math. It's wrong.

originally posted by: Freeborn
a reply to: nOraKat

God bless Sturgeon, she's full of grand ideas.....as long as those bastards in Westminster are prepared to fund it!

Horrible, horrible woman who does the Scots no favours at all.

Free prescriptions
No tuition fees
Opposition to bedroom tax
Extended child allowance
Independent living fund
Opposition to increased retirement age
Etc etc

She's a real menace alright, but not to the Scots.

originally posted by: enlightenedservant
a reply to: nightbringr

Hey, you're the one who pointed out the whole "Less people employed, less taxable income" thingy. And according to 2015 numbers, there were almost 22 million people employed in State, local, and federal positions in the US (HERE). Reducing that number would also decrease the number of people employed and the amount of taxable income. So if you're really concerned about "Less people employed, less taxable income", we could always replace the "lost jobs" with more govt jobs. lol

Did you actually read my above post about the pointlessness of taxing government employees?

Absurd impossibility.
Who's gonna pay for that?
Isn't that communism?

I know what is happening...their stupid government is trying to go bankrupt so that they can default all the debts by changing sovereignty and government.

originally posted by: luthier
a reply to: pavil

The Swiss outright voted it down certainly isn't the reality.

They never really assumed it would pass on the first vote. It is a public awareness campaign. The plan is to continue voting and getting public input.

And it isn't trying to make any one equal.

You need to read some economics. Milton exclusively talks about the negative income tax and a ubi, so does hyak. These are free market aproaches to a safety net.

Not supposed to be equalling anything. It's supposed to be there if your life takes a hard turn or you fall on hard times. Like say getting falsely accused of a crime your innocent of and missing work to fight it, custody battles, cancer, terrible patenting etc...

It's not supposed to be an equalizer

medium.com...

medium.com...


And ps check your math. It's wrong.

Which math?

78 percent of the Swiss and even 65% of the 18 to 30 year olds voted against it. You don't get much clearer results in a democracy.

Negative income tax is not Universal basic income, you keep acting like I'm not aware of these Concepts. As you've defined it Universal basic income is income for everyone regardless of income level, negative income tax only affects those below a certain threshold not everybody gets the same amount of money.

The welfare trap is a huge issue. Especially here in America. It's better for a couple with child to be unmarried and living in separate locations than it is for them to be married living under one roof. That's messed up. The way people get cut off from assistance once they find work is also a huge problem. It's more of an incentive to only work part-time than to get a good-paying job for some people. They can't imagine losing all that assistance at once once they get even semi decent job.

Again I'm all for a discussion and finding a solution to Automation and Robotics taking away a ton of jobs. It's going to happen, sooner than we think and the unrest from not having a plan post automation of work, is scary.

I need details. I understand there's some small-scale tests but seriously, you have to have better answers to the funding mechanism of this that doesn't exacerbate the situation.

a reply to: Bluesma

Great post. You make good points. It is a culture shock moving from work based income to another form. I don't trust the ability of my Government to do what it even does now, let alone controlling and running UBI.

Changes to our system need to be done. Both major parties here in the U.S. don't see the looming issue ahead of ourselves. One prediction is 20% to 35% job loss to automation and robotics in most first world countries. What happens to society without a plan if you have 25 to 40% unemployment of its work Force? Best to have drawn up plans than wing it at that point.

Once a country moves to UBI you have to address Immigration as well. That's a whole seperate issue, but it needs addressing.

I agree, no one should lack the basics in our modern society of plenty. I want clearer ideas of how to do it in a sound manner.

Again, I enjoyed your post.

a reply to: pavil

Your math is off when explaining cost.

You assume the program costs the us 12k x the adult pop. That is a complete negation of the difference between gross and net.

Your figure assumes no human in America is paying taxes and there for the cost is going to be the entire population x $12k

Which disregards the proposal of a flat income tax. I gave a modest sum of 26 percent. The average of taxes at that rate paid into the system is 13k per american from income tax alone. Obviously you can't use the entire sum of income tax on the ubi, however that is an entirely different conversation on restructuring the tax code.


The IRS is a massive drain on business just to comply to the codes. Massive. 100's of billions just for compliance.

Then there is the actual operating expense of the IRS to create and administer a complicated tax code.

It is well within reason to budget the amount of money needed by changing spending with the feds, and restructuring current programs, taxing Marijuana when it's legal etc...

IMO the simpler plan the better and will create less failing in beuracratic chain.

No team of experts deciding who gets what taxes back, no team of experts deciding who gets how much welfare, nobody deciding who gets taxed more.

Here is your 12k and your flat tax.

Corporate tax lawyers and accountants would be out of work but hey Chevy has been laying off thousands for robots for decades. Think of something else. You won't get your benefits take away when you go to college to retrain yourself.

12k plus a part time job gives you some study time.

And if you read the people who wrote the Swiss referendum, they knew it would fail. Nobody knew what a ubi was. They specifically did it to raise awareness. Because people still control politics in some places in the world....

originally posted by: AMPTAH

Keep sight of one thing.

In the future, there will be no jobs.

UBI will allow us to continue living in a world where all work is done by machines.

Today, even China is beginning to replace their "cheap workers" with automation and machines, because they say that the workers have become too expensive.

If a Chinese company takes the position that Chinese labor is too expensive, and has turned to robots, then those "jobs" are never coming back to the West !

Yep, I've been pointing this out for months......no one listens. The other weird angle to this is that if UBI is used to replace other forms of welfare, thaat means more government workers administering those other programs can be rendered redundant, (jobless), which would save the government money but......also add to the unemployment.

a reply to: luthier

You said what is the cost to run all assistance plans in the U.S.? It's about 60% of the Budget according to the Forbes article. I took the US population over 18 times $10,200, the Scottish proposal of UBI. The budget already factors in revenue generated via taxes and we still run deficits. Your math is fuzzy on vague assumptions, I'm giving you bare minimums needed to fund UBI using your own parameters. Are you going to tax UBI?

The effective tax rate for the average American is 13.5% for Federal income tax, your "modest proposal" doubles that rate. What politician is going to advocate that? That's fantasy land, seriously.

The IRS budget is 11.2 B. It will still be needed to collect even flat taxes, which will probably NEVER happen in the U.S.

Even with such draconian cuts to assistance and tax agencies, you will still have much of that infrastructure still in place after UBI. It will take its own buercracy to run UBI. The total numbers of employees and such won't change as much as you anticipate.

You don't give the Swiss much credit for voting, they are pretty savvy when it comes to things.

Again, I'd love for a UBI type system to work......show me how? I'm not seeing it.

The cost of UBI is more than we currently dole out in assistance to only a subset of Americans, not every American over 18. If anything, we shouldn't underestimate the cost of UBI, it will almost certainly be more than our current outlays of assistance.