UBI ranks high amongst the topics which polarize positions.
Next time you read an article like this one, you check the author's position and there you go, he or she will list these and these points in favour or against UBI. And as you know the positions beforehand, you might as well skip debating.
Really?
Personal Background
As my personal background may not fit the usual categories of UBI-bipolarity, let me give you a little background of where I come from. As a teenager, I became very active in the conservation movement and actually, I spent a lot of time in German Greenpeace HQ, before they became known. WWF, Sea Shepherd and a couple of others. Been there, seen it, done that, got the T-Shirt.
Spent some time on an alternative boarding school in another European country. A lot of good ideas gone down the drain because of eco freethinkers going sclerotic as they went drifting towards being a socialist cult. Saw a lot of people burn out there. My class teacher dissappeared one day, going undercover to escape cult-like group dynamics. It was easier for me. I left just before they could throw me out.
Travelled a bit, two widely different university degrees, pursued three or four economy-related careers and have a bit of widespread network of friends from all kinds of nations and walks of life. Lots of volunteer work for nonprofit organisations, particularly in international understanding. I live in Berlin. But when I look out of the window of the flat I am staying in today, I see the run-down skyscrapers of a little known Russian city some hours from Moscow, looking a bit like the pic below. And I wonder what people here would say about the UBI.
UBI and migration pressure
From different articles and posts, I understand that there are different positions regarding the group of people that would receive UBI. If you want a UBI to be truly universal, you would want it to be applied to all inhabitants of a country. This would then include persons from other countries as well. Or you would want to restrict the UBI to persons who hold the country's repective nationality. I will therefore address these approaches seperatly:
"Nationality-centered" UBI
Restricting a UBI to a specific nationality means that it is not really a UBI. Moreover, you would expect foreigners to pay taxes for the UBI of citizens with the "right" nationality. This may be functional in terms of financing UBI and avoid migration pressure. It is an approach beyond cynism though, as it would create sufficient incentives for foreigners to do "the dirty jobs" and pay high taxes in return. I can see all the racists and colonialists happily clapping their hands in favor of getting back to the good old days of cheap labour from poor foreigners, preferrably from the south.
The only way to avoid this disgusting scenario is to drastically loosen some of the rules for acquiring citizenship. Which brings us to the second scenario of massive migration pressure.
UBI and migration
Germany has grown. Not in size, but in population. Over the past year, more or less 1 million refugees sought asylum in Germany. Beleive it or not, these refugees did not come from neighbouring countries. They crossed several other countries on the way from their origin, but focussed on Germany as a goal. Why? Asylumwise, Austria is a safe country and so is Italy. So is Serbia. Et cetera. If you have a country of choice you want to go to, you have made a choice. And there would be reasons for this choice. Like language preferences (unlikely), family members (who in turn had their reasons) - or monetary factors, including the health system. Or simply rumours. Like getting a car and a house as a bonus for settling in Germany. No joke, this is what human traffickers tell them back where they come from.
Can anybody tell me how to avoid the scenario of a complete stampede when word (and proof) goes around on social media that everybody get UBI in Germany and no one has to work for it? Do you have any idea what incentive that would mean to any African? Or any Russian with an average (!) income of 5000Rub (75€) as people tell me here?
Anybody and their dog would be on the way.
Smugglers would jump up and down with joy losses of human lifes in the Mediterranean and elsewhere would mount, but who cares when you can make it to a life without work in wonderful Germany?
What would you do? Close the borders and shoot at immigrants? Restrict UBI?
Sweden - being the closest existing model to UBI - stopped accepting refugees. And there is serious trouble brewing in society there. Goodbye consensus culture.
Not to mention the already increasing effect of voting for rightwingers primarily in response to migration issues (Brexit, Trump, parliaments all over Europe).
Induce migration stampedes via UBI and you will have to consider Trump a liberal in comparison.
Any viable solutions?
#UBI and automation
Yes, many simple tasks will be taken over by automated processes. Unless it is cheaper to apply manual labour.
A basic misunderstanding about "digitalization" is that whatever can be done will eventually be taken over by machines as they get cheaper and cheaper.
This is not neccessarily true.
Processing power and software gets better and cheaper over time. Hardware, especially complicated robotics, is a different story, which largely depends on standardization. You can standardize the process of driving a truck, hence, you can replace the driver on the long run. But try that for cooking or cleaning toilets. Or loading and unloading the dishwasher.
The first sewing robots are now on the market. Industrial sewing can be standardized and scaled. Mending your socks can not.
We are likely to see a digital ceiling going massively concrete between simple, nonstandardized, non-scalable jobs below and highprofile job positions with power over digitalized processes or simple workers above the ceiling. The latter will be highly paid for, accompanied by a massive communication overhead and hence veryveryvery preferrably by on fulltime. Parttime means the same expenses on training and communication without the corresponding return in terms of output. And you do not want people to come and go in these jobs. Productivity does not like that, no matter how politically incorrect this position may be.
So, UBI will be pretty irrelevant for those above the ceiling, right? For the "plebs"?
And once they go below it, there will be no return. Seen that happen with a couple of colleagues. Like it or not - it keeps people in the hampster-wheel. And UBI is not going to change that, as re-training former experts is often simply not cost-effective. Especially when being old, like above 35yrs. Or women who may have the funny idea of having kids.
From what I have seen on either side of the ceiling it that UBI is only going to fortify this seggregation as the ones below are taken care of. It silences them and one can push even more people down there and stay with a more and more selective elite above the ceiling.
No, I do not like this scenario. We need wholes in this ceiling. Not steel plates to enforce it.
UBI and poverty-related crime
Sure. No poverty, less crime. I am sorry, but this idea seems pretty romantic to me.
Certain kinds of crime are indeed fostered by poverty, but a lot of it is culturally rooted. When you live in a culture where certain behaviour is generally considered inacceptable, it will not occur as often.
If poverty was causing crimes, I should better not go out here without a body guard.
My girlfriend and I went dining out the other day. Nothing special. But it was almost an average monthly income from locals here that went with the bill.
If that discrepancy was causing crime, I would have to fear for my life over here. But this is Russia. Some people cheat on taxes, others dodge fares on the trains and no one really cares. Or people get drunk and do silly things. That is generally as far as crimes go these places. Policemen and conductors often look the other way when people are really poor. After all, they are fellow Russians and need to make a living, too. Board any local train from Moscow and you will see that happening. However, law enforcement can also be very harsh here and no one would want to get into any serious trouble.
But let us consider poor countries. If crime and poverty were immediatly related, people all over the world would kill each other all the time. As they do in Venezuela with once beautiful Caracas now ranking amongst the worlds' most dangerous cities in terms of homicides.
One of the potentially richest and in fact most corrupt countries of Latin America. In which a certain Chavez handed out loads of firearms to local commitees, alledgedly in order to fight a Gringo invasion which never came. Instead, he actively encouraged the organisation of a communist mafia, which is undermining any entrepeneurial spirit. Hardly any toilet paper available in years, now lots of people - actually including friends of mine - starve in a most fertile country. And these are not the ones who go seriously criminal. Starving, any idea what that means?
Welcome to communism meeting corruption. Culture.
Denmark could be one of the world's safest countries. If I remember right, it actually once was. It had a tradition of concensus, not always an easy one but people generally knew their place in society, appreciated it and more or less happily paid outrageous taxes to keep it that way. This is now changing gradually. And I would be happy to give any other explanation than the obvious when checking stats on who is actually sentenced to jail. Culture.
Sure, the odd poor thief may not have to steal in order to get along. Criminals, who see their activity as a business model will only give UBI a cold smile. Fine. Extra pocket money. And quite honestly, in countries that can afford to even think about UBI, the initial category is insignificant.
The UBI's effect on the job market
No matter how one regulates a market - When ressources get scarce, prices go up - or standards are lowered. Goes for human ressources, too.
Try that with police. Neither way would be a good idea. Either costs explode or standards go down.
And no, most policemen will not like many facets of their jobs. UBI or not.
The noble motivation of becoming a policeman in order to help people? Aw common, what do these people think, policemen do all day? Helping old ladies cross the road? Policemen are supposed to protect. To enforce laws, no matter how stupid these laws may seem in a given situation.
And they are supposed to do that without regard to whom they are facing. Do you really want standards to be lowered? I am German. And for historical reasons, I would not like rude, rightwinger law&order-types or corrupt dealers to take over while all the hardworking and calm policemen pull out. As a friend of mine did retire early. Special police forces. You do not want anybody on that job, who just feels like playing around with expensive and dangerous toys. Too dangerous. But thats what you get when people only do the work, they naively "feel like".
And those who "feel like it" would not even last two months in these positions. Ooops. No, not what they thought it would be. No old ladies trying to cross roads, no super-villains to chase. No Bruce Willes. And thats for the better of it.
As with medics. Have you ever worked in a hospital?
Hardly any medic will do bureaucracy. In fact, hardly anyone in their right minds will if given any other opportunities. Which means that any system that relies on largely unpopular tasks will collaps with UBI. Or only bureaucrat minds will go there: Desaster looming. No, these types will NOT do a good job. They will do an extremely EXPENSIVE job.
UBI and the best standard of living
And hey, with UBI, why should I stay in my country? If I had relatives in another country and feed a whole family just from having a registered adress in Germany and hence a UBI, how irresponsible would it be to stay in Germany?
Keep your health insurance and registration here and go living abroad.
Or for travelling. Cost of living being much cheaper in, say, Argentina. On a thousand Euros, black market exchange rate, I could live like a king there. And then move to the next country with a massive currency problem. Or just use UBI as pocket money and work abroad.
Why should people stay in their country? Why should their money stay there? Would you want to control people on that?
The other day, I listen to a report on a German company, which experiments with UBI by the meaning of all work being "voluntary". Sure. No group pressure involved. All free and easy. Haha. Been there, seen it, done that. They work there because they "feel indebted" to the group. Or they withhold their work, thereby blackmailing the rest of the group.
Just another change of incentive. And with some people, it is an even more powerful mean of pressurizing them than anything else. Believe me, I have seen many idealists burn out on that.
Hypocrites.
For cleaning the company's toilet, it somehow didnt work. What a surprise. They hired someone from "the outside" to do that.
Decadent hypocrites.
But I am sure that they took great care to hire cleaning staff according to racial characteristics (north European) to make sure it would not seem like a colonial or even racist attitude.
If so, this made these people:
Decadent, hypocritcal racists.
With UBI, this would not work as most danish-looking servants would get UBI, too.
OK, then perhaps import some Russians, as at least, they do not look like slaves? Sorry, this makes me want to throw up.
(clapping hands and gesturing my servants to clean up the mess)
UBI and job changes
Oh. One more thing.
If people do what they want, they are more likely to change jobs frequently. Who pays or that? Having more or less successfully pursued four different careers in entirely different fields of work, I have an idea what costs are involved and how many people can actually cope with getting beyond a mediocre job profile as a newbie in a new field.
Believe me. Not many.
And it is expensive. Both financially and personally.
Who pays for that? The individual? The state? The companies?
Personally, I would be happy to drop my current job tomorrow, live on UBI and pursue a career as an artist, writer and ultraspiritual person .
However, unless some rich sponsor for some strange reason decides to pay for me til the end of my days, I remain convinced that UBI may produce many self-declared artists and philosophers like myself but will reduce a society's economic productivity and is therefore only compatible with socialism.
And - as a matter of experience - that is not compatible with me.
But as this is a forum for debate, I am happy to hear about any viable concepts that answer the above questions.