[Liberal Agenda] Universal Basic Income: A Follow Up
As a follow up to the article I posted earlier in the week about Universal Basic Income (UBI), I thought I'd discuss a report published this month by The Royal Society for the encouragement of the Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA). The report states that the UK government should give £10,000 to each citizen under 55, and it could pave the way to everyone getting a basic state wage. If you'd like to read the report for yourself, you can here.
The idea is for the government to make two payments of £5,000 over a two year period, but by claiming the "dividend", you would then not be able to claim certain other state benefits and tax reliefs. The reason for this is to try and discourage wealthy citizens from applying for this payout in favour of tax allowances. The payout would help to support UK citizens through the 2020s, "as automation replaces many jobs, climate change hits and more people face balancing employment with social care", the report said. These payments would not be means tested, and claimants would simply need to demonstrate how they intended to use the money.
The report states that the cost of this scheme would be in the region of £14.5bn a year, with over half of it being paid for by government savings. One interesting proposal for funding this scheme was a tax on companies such as Amazon or Google for using or transferring people's data. The UK economy is fairly stagnant lately, and this could be the much needed fiscal stimulus required to breath life into a troubled economy.
What do you think about this recently published report? Do you have any concerns regarding such a scheme? Let me know in the comments below, and as always make sure to follow me for the latest Cryptocurrency, Economics and general Pop Culture updates, Peace!
Source: RSA Pathways to Universal Basic Income Report February 2018 (https://www.thersa.org/globalassets/pdfs/reports/rsa_pathways-to-universal-basic-income-report.pdf)
I'm glad more countries are getting on board with the idea that this is going to be a necessity. It's pretty much inevitable as society shifts towards humans being removed from the work equation. If you see any steemit noobs coming your way send them my way and they can sign up for mine. Sorry for advertising in your thread, but it's directly UBI related so I couldn't help myself.
It's great you even have this kind of thinking and researching in the UK. In the U.S. anyone even talking about such a thing is labeled as lazy or freeloaders. Just recently Trump wants our government to force people who use food stamps (the Gov't subsidized program) to have a very narrow selection of foods. The list of food you can buy with them is already defined as it is. I just don't know how you can talk sense to a government that is even "going there" with messing with people's food. That's dangerous in my opinion... hungry people are not to be trifled with.
To be perfectly honest, our current government is pretty much falling apart and there'll probably be yet another election at some point this year. The tories aren't known for being kind or thoughtful. The leader of the Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, well he's a socialist, and so would probably be quite likely to kick-start a scheme like this.
Although you've got republicans ruling most of your government at the moment, at least you have the ability to govern on a state level. So for example, Alaska has their Alaska Permanent Fund which pays out a small dividend to each Alaskan resident.
Fingers crossed they impeach Trump asap, eh!
UBI is socialism.
The government has no money - only resources stolen from taxpayers. They produce nothing, only steal.
Socialism...never........works.........(or shall we give it another go?)
I'm not being blase about it, read my old posts on communism
here is a link to one..
https://steemit.com/blog/@lucylin/straight-talking-when-taxation-is-not-theft-part-2
You're absolutely right, UBI is a form of socialism.
I completely disagree with your statement about the UK government having no money, however. I willingly pay my taxes, as does my partner, as do my parents and so on. We benefit, in this country at least, from certain government funded services, such as the National Health Service. Here we have a surprisingly different system to the US and other countries.
I have to say, it feels like you only skim read what I've written. To respond to;
with
comes across, to me at least, as a little petty. What I'm stating there is that half of the cost of this proposed scheme would be covered by savings to the already existing welfare system. You've said nothing to counter that.
Socialism is not communism. You could make the argument that Capitalism doesn't work, I often do. No one political or economical model is perfect, which is why we need to adapt, and utilise the best parts of each system. Government funded organisations can help ensure healthy competition in the open market.
I will certainly go read your old post now while I have my morning coffee, but could I ask a favour? Could you use reason to make your points? Making statements with no evidence to back them up doesn't promote good discussion, only arguments for the sake of arguments.
Rather than edit my previous reply, I thought I'd add a bit more. I've been reading the post you linked, and I only really have a couple of things to add.
We don't have property tax here in the UK, so it wasn't a concept I was particularly familiar with. It's not a tax I agree with, and rather than address any societal inequalities, could instead destroy a country if values of property rose far higher than incomes. I can understand why you'd view such a tax as theft.
Socialism is not communism. In Marxist theory, socialism was viewed as a kind of middle ground between capitalism and communism. The bridge I guess you could call it. But I don't subscribe to any one political or economic theory, but instead that we need to work on is addressing societal inequalities without jeopardising our liberties. I believe that both here in the UK and over the pond, our political systems are broken and corrupt. There shouldn't be a ruling elite, career politicians or even the ability to manipulate the system, and no one person should get rich off the fruits of another mans labour, in my opinion.
Tax doesn't have to be bad. Do you completely disagree with all forms of tax? What about income tax? or Value-Added Tax (VAT)? Do you disagree with the concept of wealth redistribution completely? or what if we did something totally crazy, like devised a completely new way of being, no money so no tax, no property rights so no rent. The problem there is us, people. We're inherently selfish, self-centered pieces of shit really. As a species we can do great things, but tend not to. We each have our own ways of thinking, desires and dreams and how we see our lives should be. We can't force anyone into thinking a particular way, we are the result of the lives we've had, and sometimes we just struggle to see things from other people's perspectives. This planet is becoming increasingly small to us, and we've all gotta share it. We've all pretty much agreed to do what consensus says, even if it's not what we agree with in our hearts. Let's just keep tweaking at the system, until we get there. Some taxes are wrong, or don't work, but I don't think they're inherently theft, but I do encourage you to change my mind.
Apologies, that became a bit rambly.