I don't understand why the 'Basic Job' idea doesn't get more traction. For all of the talk about a 'post work' world, I still see plenty of work that needs doing, every day.
Excellent! Give everyone a shovel. Half the people can dig the hole, the other half will fill it in again!
Seriously, make-work is a horrible idea and a gigantic waste of resources. Basic income frees people to live their lives and contribute to society in ways that are undervalued by the labour market such as writing, creating art and music or caring for children, the elderly or chronically ill.
How many people might choose to start a small business if they have the security of a basic income? It seems to me like a potentially staggering number of people.
Well, Basic Job is sort of by definition work that doesn't need doing. There's a fundamental conceptual problem with it:
Imagine I, for whatever reason, accept a Basic Job from the government. The job is, by design, bad. I'd rather not do it. So my dream scenario is that I officially hold a Basic Job and draw its meager salary, but instead of doing whatever work it supposedly entails I sit at home and watch TV.
This scenario isn't just an improvement in my life -- it's also an improvement for everyone handling me! The work doesn't need to get done; it's only there as a penalty for me, to encourage me not to draw the Basic Salary if I don't really, truly need it. So when I save myself some effort by not showing up for work, I also save my handlers effort that might have gone into overseeing me. Just as it's easier for me to stay home, it's easier for them to pretend I didn't than to track whether or not I did anything. So overseeing Basic Job is conceptually pretty difficult.
I don't claim that this is more or less difficult to deal with than the problems of any other welfare system, but it is an obvious and fundamental flaw in the concept, and might help explain why it's hard for Basic Job to get traction. On a shallower level, the concept of "pay someone to dig a hole today and fill it in tomorrow" (a.k.a. The Basic Job Concept), has been the go-to example for exactly what we don't want government to do for a long, long time. That can also make it difficult to get traction.
Basic Job is sort of by definition work that doesn't need doing.
This is a fundamental misunderstanding. BJ is work that is not worth doing at current market prices. I.e., picking up garbage in the park might be worth $4/hour, but minimum wage is $7.25/hour. If we spend $7.25 more and get $4.00 worth of value out of it, we lost $3.25.
If we are already spending $7.25 on welfare/BI and getting nothing in return, we are losing $7.25. If we demand that recipients work for their money we lose only $3.25. As long as the BJ workers are not destructive, we lose less money than we otherwise would with welfare or a BI.
Also, the jobs need not be "dig a hole and fill it in" - they can also be "walk around town and find potholes to fill tomorrow" or "there is garbage on the streets, go clean it up". It's not as if we have a shortage of things that would be beneficial if we did them. They just might not be worth doing at current prices.
This raises a pretty interesting question. Suppose I apply for a Basic Job at your institution, where all the work is sort of worthwhile, but not worthwhile enough to happen unsubsidized. What job do you assign to me? How do you choose it? I assume you're not choosing the "most worthwhile" of the jobs, because how would you know?
If the work is digging holes one day and undigging them the next, overhead here is low. If there's some other system behind what the jobs are and how they get filled, potential for corruption seems extremely high. Say I'm a Denny's and I'd rather not pay so much for my kitchen staff. Can I list all the positions with Basic Job and kick back to the administrator when he sends me someone?
Germany has no minimum wage and extremely low unemployment. What would their Basic Jobs be?
The basic income goes towards making sure the worthless jobs don't get done anyway. It's more like eliminating the minimum wage and then using the existing welfare state mechanisms to float everyone's consumption up to a floor of $20k / year as long as they have a job.
"Well, Basic Job is sort of by definition work that doesn't need doing."
Not at all. There are things that provide economic value that is hard to capture. Determining what those things are and how to value them is going to be messy, though.
This has been done in the German Democratic Republic. They had a "right to work" article in their constitution that was basically fully implemented. Almost everyone who could work except for older pupils and university students had a job. In fact, not working despite being able to do so was an offence punishable with up to two years in prison.
Arguably the only good thing that came of this was that equal pay for men and women was also assured by their constitution.
Because it would be cheaper to use a machine to build the bridge, give the money you save to the people, and then let them add value to society in some other way.
But the economy doesn't want them, or is unable to utilize them under present conditions. Eating what you have in front of you is still more filling than waiting (or letting someone wait) for that next, bigger meal.
Of course, that also doesn't mean we shouldn't eliminate the incentives that contribute to inefficiencies being preferable. There are plenty of scenarios where people are employed to dig a proverbial hole and others are paid to fill it (patents and copyright enforcing intellectual poverty; interest on public debt, etc), even if each side spares no expense and might use the best tools available. If we were actually solving problems, prices would be going down and people would be happily unemployed (because there were less problems to resolve and less to need money to buy) at the same time as quality of life were going up. That is not what is happening.
He said "let them add value to society", not the economy. The two are not synonymous. If the economy is unable to make use of them under present conditions, then giving them a job is useless. Giving them a basic income lets them make non-economic contributions to society.
You're assuming the value of a person's time to themselves is zero. If it's positive, and if the economic value we're deriving from the make-work is less than it, then the make-work program is actually destroying value.
But the economy doesn't want them, or is unable to utilize them under present conditions.
Capitalist corporations don't want/are unable to utilize them. Don't confuse them with the economy which is far more grandiose and inclusive than that. There are millions of ways for humans to create value for other people, most of which would be unprofitable for capitalist corporations to pursue.
Sure. That other thing is self improvement, looking for normal employment and helping their family / community or whatever else they think is important. In other words it is a basic income for the unemployed...
Because people would rather pay a small fraction of their wages to buy a machine to do their job for them. And they should. Basic income basically allows that to happen - you're employer gets the extra profit from automating you away, but the money is taxed and given back.
I don't understand why the 'Basic Job' idea doesn't get more traction. For all of the talk about a 'post work' world, I still see plenty of work that needs doing, every day.