Should everyone get a free income from the government?

I just finished reading Robert Heinlein's first novel, For Us, the Living, published posthumously in 2004. The novel is about a man from 1938 who travels to the future and sees a better utopian society.

In this society every person gets a guaranteed income from the government. Society is so wealthy, people only have to work if they want to.

I think the United States in the year 2006 has reached a level of wealth where we too can do the same thing. Give every adult an income, equivalent to the minimum wage or maybe even higher, for doing nothing at all. People would then be free to work at a job and earn more, or just be a slacker and live off the free income.

Our current welfare and social security systems are a big mess, so this could in one fell swoop replace social security, public housing, food stamps, AFDC, and everything else.

The character from 1938 didn't approve of the system. He said it was morally wrong to let lazy people live without working. But the economist from the future explained that it's no different than a rich child living off of his lucky inheritance, and in fact we are all living off an inheritance left by our ancestors, because our work today wouldn't be so financially rewarding if we were not lucky enough to be born in the United States in the 21st century. Why should only people who work get to enjoy the bounty?

Leftists probably wouldn't like the idea because it wouldn't promote egalitarianism that they like so much. Most people would still work so they can be in a higher social class, and the non-workers would still comprise an underclass.

But the free income for doing nothing model provides much better incentives, than our current social programs because (1) there is no punishment for working, you don't lose your welfare or unemployment income; (2) there's no reward for having children so this should lower the birthrate among the poor; and (3) there's no punishment for marriage--two non-working slackers can marry and combine their incomes.

FOLLOW-UP POSTS

Mathematics of the inheritance dividend

Comments

[Nancy Spungen, Esq.]

What's anti-egalitarian about an equal share for everyone? It would certainly raise the price of labor. But even a lazy, free-spending liberal like me has to wonder where this money would come from. Do you really think there's enough from AFDC and Social Security?

[Frank N Stein]

Nancy,

There is no money in Social Security - the "trust fund" is a warehouse full of IOUs, the first of which will have to be redeemed in about 3 years. There's some good times ahead!

[superdestroyer]

Several major problems.

1. It is very inflationinary. Image what you would have to pay someone to work at McDonalds, Wal-Mart, the local gas station in order to get people to work. The massive increase in pay would be passed on in higher prices. Of course, the higher prices lead to an increast in CPI and thus an increased in the per diem paid by the government dole.

2. Many people would begin to work off the books. Why not claims not to work but the work for cash. Tax cheating would become rampant. Family run business such as the local Korean run cleaners would have a tremendous benefit over a chain. the Korean run family can put everone on the dole except on family member and then let the family work off the books.

3. How to you factor in kids, family, marrige, etc? Does you dole increase with more kids?

[Russ]

Didn't Charles Murray just write a book about giving every adult $10K each year as a negative income tax? Sounds radical but so did welfare reform.

[Half Sigma]

A 25% flat tax should cover all the costs, combined with elimination of social seucirty, which is less than our current tax rates.

Yes, Charles Murray endorses this too.

[SciFiGeek]

A LOT of people are going to be upset that they have to pay taxes so people can slack off.

[Austrian]

Any person who thinks that implementing this will end the various other income redistribution schemes, is smoking some government-grade ganja. Fast forward 20 years, and the industrious/intelligent will have given themselves a standard of living unreachable from the 'income' the government hands out. This of course will lead to the standard egalitarian jealousy, and a demand to increase the tax rate (since our country has devolved from a Constitution republic to a circus democracy, this will be quite effective). Rinse and repeat.
The US government has transfered trillions from productive people to parasites, since the "war on poverty" was first declared. What's the allure of legalized theft?

[superdestroyer]

SF G

Taxes hell. I lot more people are going to be pissed about paying $10 for a quarter pounder and $20 for a Venti Latte.

[SciFiGeek]

Is labor a major cost for the fast food industry? I know it isn't for the megafarms (which is why 'ending immigration will cause huge rises in food prices' is such BS)

[michael vassar]

I don't think that superdestroyer even read your post, as his response seems to be explicitly ignoring the basic income proposal and instead attacking the current welfare system.
I sympathize for his desire for cheap quarter-pounders and Venti Lattes. I really do. Oh, never mind, bad habit. No, I really don't. Not at all.

[superdestroyer]

Michael,

If people can stay home and play X-box all day under the proposed system, then how much do you think the salary would have to be before anybody would enter into what is today called entry level job like at McDonald's? The salary would have to be so much higher that the per diem dole paid by the state that all prices would have to go up and go up a lot. Thus, prices have to do up. Inflation under such a system would make Zimbabwe look mild in comparison because the dole would spiral up as the costs go up.

[Nancy Spungen, Esq.]

I can hardly imagine how many *more* wannabe professional writers, screenwriters, actors, and artists there'd be if no one had to support themselves.

Hey, isn't Saudi Arabia run kind of like this? A big dole for everyone, no need to work?

[superdestroyer]

Nancy,

I believe tha Saudi Arabia works like this for people in the correct tribes/family groups. Of course, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait import their low level service workers from Pakistan, etc who are not eligible for the dole.

[SciFiGeek]

"I sympathize for his desire for cheap quarter-pounders and Venti Lattes. I really do. Oh, never mind, bad habit. No, I really don't. Not at all."
What, are you implying that we should as a society care more about the ability of the bottom 25% to feed their families than of the top 10% to get a cheap coffee? What a nutty thought. ;)

Seriously, I think his point was that rising prices would annoy people faster than taxes...which I'm not so sure, people get pretty annoyed about taxes. Still, decreasing the supply of labor would result in wealth transfers to people doing shit jobs...which sounds fine by me.

Really, guys, you are not going to be millionaires. OK?

"I can hardly imagine how many *more* wannabe professional writers, screenwriters, actors, and artists there'd be if no one had to support themselves"

That actually doesn't bother me that much. At least we'd get nicer waiters. ;)

[Ken]

I don't see too many downsides, especially compared to our current system.

The problem with our current system isn't that there are poor people. The problem is that (a)politically induced shortages in housing and medical care make these things a lot harder to obtain on a minimal income than they need to be and (b)poor people in our society tend to get preyed upon by criminals far too often.

If we can clear up the crime problem, and more freely allow cheap housing to exist, the "basic income" doesn't need to be very high for people to get by. If "just getting by" is fairly unpleasant but not actually dangerous, we won't have too much of a problem getting our minimum wage jobs filled while allowing those who can't qualify even for minimum wage to avoid starving. And supporting them will cost next to nothing, at least until the idiots have had a few more generations to outbreed us.

[superdestroyer]

SFG,

If you pay people not to work, the supply of labor goes down. The only way to get people to then work is to pay them significantly more than what they would get on the dole. Thus, prices go up without the economy growing. It is called massive inflation. Thus, if a person gets $10K to sit at home, then the price paid to someone to clean the toilets goes sky high.

You argue that their is no down side. How about a shrinking economy, cities that no one would want to live in, and if you want free health care, how much to you think you would have to pay someone to work nights and weekends at the free clinic if they get $10K per person not to work. If the free pay economy, fewer people will plan for the future, fewer people will sacrifice, and fewer people will work in order to pay the taxes and to create wealth.

[Randall Parker]

Government-supplied incomes would not reduce the demand for social programs. People living off of $10,000 per year from the government would not divert a few thousand of that to pay medical insurance. Even if they did if they become seriously ill the co-pays on the treatments and drugs would be too much for their meager incomes.

Also, parents would misspend money for kids. Would each kid get a guaranteed income?

As much as I respect Charles Murray I think he's dreaming on this one.

[Big Bill]

We don't even have the b@lls to expel 15 million largely illegal Mexicans from our country NOW.

What the hell is going to happen when the 4,976,000,000 people in the world making less than Mexicans find out they can just come to America and sign up for an income that is equivalent to 10-20 years of pay in their homeland?

A Jewish liberal recently told me he was in favor of legalizing illegals as were every Jew he knew. He told me as a matter of his religion he must insist on amnesty and citizenship for Mexican illegals. He said: "I have no moral right to tell illegal Mexicans to leave America. My own PARENTS were immigrants. What right do I have to shut the door behind them?"

Given that logic on the part of the liberal establishment, how in Heaven's name do you imagine we could possibly control the flood coming here to get on the dole?

We wouldn't have 10-20% of the entire Mexican race living illegally in America as wel do now, we would have closer to 80% of all th Mexicans on the face of the earth AND the rest of the freaking poverty-stricken world following right on their heels.

Son, no offense, but ya gotta be nuts. Anything that makes America a nice place to lvie for poor people, engenders guilt in liberals who then want to let everyone in because Americans "just don't deserve it."

You want to talk about "jobs Americans just won't do"?

EVERY job will be a job "Americans just won't do". We will be BURIED in the illegals necessary to clip Babra Streisand' hedges for $5 per hour, and to suckle the babies of lady Wall Street lawyers for $400 a week.

And of course once they are here, their ethnic cohort agencies and pressure groups will demand permanent residency and free education and free medical care and (need I even mention it?) the FREE DOLE THAT EVERYONE ELSE IN AMERICA GETS!!

Holy Crap! I hope to h*ll we never get a dole. White guilt will require us to give it to the entire world. They are ALL more deserving that we are, we are ALL evil consumers of resources.

As Susan Sontag said about white gentiles, we are "the cancer of history". Do you think that liberals such as she would do a thing to stop mass migration to America? It would be our well-deserved cancerous comeuppance.

[michael vassar]

Wow Big Bill. What bile!
I really don't see any need to argue with that. Antisemitism, Racism, psychotic xenophobia and overt intentional malice towards everyone poor. Try to win with that ticket in a campaign. Might work in Germany in the 30s, but not in the US today.
Thanks for the caricature.

[The Superfluous Man]

"b)poor people in our society tend to get preyed upon by criminals far too often."

They are one and the same. I don't see a practical way to reduce crime. For instance, I remember Steve Sailer saying that the black-white crime murder rate (7-9:1) disparity has existed in Philadelphia since the beginning of records there, for over 150 years (I can't find it now). We could start by blocking the entry of groups with higher crime rates than whites and/or encourage skilled immigration, based on credentials like a college degree.

Though I agree with the critics here, superdestroyer, I believe the income is given whether one has a job or not.

I don't see anything antisemitic about what Bill said (and my being Jewish somehow makes that more valid). That Jew is an idiot - his parents came in legally. The deciding question for immigration is always Is it good for America? Are the immigrants a net positive? Why would say, France (and especially its Jews! They particularly suffer from it.) be obligated to allow entry to the African Muslims now plaguing them? It seems that Jews tend to have an emotional bias in favor of immigration. Ask him if he is in favor of Israel allowing the free entry of Arabs.

I think Austrian nailed it here - it won't eliminate inequality, so liberals will continue crusading for grasping government. Also, Liberals will end up demagoguing on the underclass's behalf for healthcare, as they have squandered the income.

The welfare of the 60's, along with other causes, likely raised the black illegitimacy rate to 70% today, because the woman doesn't need a man to provide for her anymore. What'll happen this time?

[hart]

this is completely ridiculous. there is no chance that we would in any way be as successful a naion if it were not for the hardriving innovation that got us here. We are sitting on our laurels more today than ever before and in the next 10-20 years China and India will take the successes and science and engineering all for themselves. This will leave us diminished in the world. Innovation is driven by necessity, and necessity is around because of the natural competitive process of the market system. It is not fair, and it should not be.