Basic income vs welfare
A commenter “Jonathan Silber” writes:
There already exists guaranteed income from the government to meet basic needs: it’s called welfare.
Among the underclass that receives it I’m not seeing a lot of self-actualization.
Regarding the welfare argument, that’s not the same thing as a guaranteed income. Welfare comes with many strings attached, primarily that the recipient must have children and not have any savings. This prevents all men, as well as women with future-time orientation who have saved too much money or who choose not to have children until they are married, are not eligible for it. Welfare recipients are also nagged by government social workers to get jobs, so it’s very demeaning.
Regarding the self-actualization of the underclass, people with low IQ are interested in different things. They may self actualize by selling drugs, joining gangs, getting into fights, etc. (Of course I agree that this sort of behavior ruins society for everybody which is why we need a fascist police force to prevent that sort of self-actualization.)
On the other hand, a guaranteed basic income for people with higher IQs could be very liberating and allow for positive self-actualization that’s beneficial to both society and the individual. Who knows what great art or literature was not created because someone was forced to work in a boring job in a cubicle that produces no value?
Lion of the Blogosphere 
I don’t imagine the outcomes of welfare and Basic Income would be much different in practice. It would just widen the dysfunction to a larger and larger part of our society. We’re not talking about Macarthur genius grants here. Most of the people getting them won’t be high IQ people. Successful high IQ people won’t be overtly concerned with Basic Income anyway.
If you want to know what all of America would be like under a universal basic income, read this:
http://www.city-journal.org/2015/25_2_liberal-elites.html
Mike Street Station
May 6, 2015 at 9:44 AM
If Basic Income were dependent on good behavior and not committing any crimes, it could actually reduce crime and make poor neighborhoods more orderly. People would be scared to do anything that would reduce their Basic Income.
Lion of the Blogosphere
May 6, 2015 at 10:06 AM
I’ve not seen any proposals that would put actual requirements on a Basic Income stipend. Some might argue that it would defeat the purpose. But if you could add requirements a clean criminal record might be a good one, or that you get a high school diploma, or that you keep your weight within healthy standards.
However in our system, all requirements degrade over time. If the political pressure is so great that both political parties want to grant citizenship to criminals who crossed the border illegally, and used fraudulent ID and Social Security cards and fake passports (felonies) to work in this country illegally, how much more pressure would it be to remove criminal record requirements from our own, voting, citizens? You can copy/paste the grievance complaint from any other “gimmee.” It’s racist, it attacks the people at the bottom and so on/
Sorry but it sounds like a fantasy to me.
Mike Street Station
May 6, 2015 at 11:08 AM
most blacks have absolutely no intellectual or enterprising behavioral motives to do anything that is self actualizing. Self actualization, in psychological terms, has both a narcissistic and noble tendency, both self-serving, but has a higher order of morality (something most blacks seem to be deficient at). You want to change the world, enlighten, and impose your megalomania for the better, which blacks have lacked and forever suffer, Just look at African civilizations and how unevolved they were.
JS
May 6, 2015 at 11:43 AM
I guess this is the Bargaining stage for this particular program. We’ve seen what happens to these sorts of deals before, haven’t we?
But fear not. If Basic Income was introduced today, no strings attached, in ten years conservatives will see it as a law of nature, a third rail, or both.
Glengarry
May 6, 2015 at 12:08 PM
Plenty of people would still work, they would just work less. Since no one would really *need* a job, employers would be forced to make jobs more pleasant and treat their workers better. A basic income wouldn’t be like 50k a year or anything, probably closer to 15-20k a year for each individual. People will families would still want a job, and would probably work 20-30 hours a week. Most people with modest IQs would be bored with the time on their hands, and are not disposed to criminal activity, so would find a job, which would be more easily available since there would be much less competition for them.
It also might have a eugenic effect. No one would be having more kids just to get more welfare: you get your income and that’s that. They don’t need to have kids to qualify and having more kids now actually hurts them financially, so there is a much stronger disincentive to having many children you won’t properly care for.
chairman
May 6, 2015 at 10:29 AM
No matter the possible results of a basic income, one effect that that I’m sure won’t happen would be a eugenic one. You would have to have a requirement to be sterilized before accepting a Basic Income to accomplish that, and I’m pretty sure our society is more likely to provide MORE basic income to parents. It’s for the children…
Can we actually observe another society somewhat similar to ours try this before we commit suicide ourselves? It seems all the good benefits promised by Basic Income advocates are very similar to what was promised from the Great Society.
Mike Street Station
May 6, 2015 at 11:32 AM
@chairman: Most people with modest IQs would be bored with the time on their hands…
But people w/ less than modest IQs would have sex more often, resulting in more pregnancies and chirrun’
E. Rekshun
May 6, 2015 at 6:33 PM
How about lump sum grants for people who get sterilized before having kids if they prove that they are dumb. All they have to do is give their name and the high school they attended and sign to release their records. If the person sucks enough and has no kids, they get a check for like $100k after the procedure. Perfect for the low future time orientation. I would limit it to women because they are the child bearers, but maybe it could be good for guys, too.
not too late
May 7, 2015 at 5:04 PM
So why not support government grants to artists and writers? That would make much more sense than giving people money to do whatever because they have a high IQ. But that’s an actual existing program supported primarily by liberals so you have to oppose it.
Lloyd Llewellyn
May 6, 2015 at 10:29 AM
I’d support it if they were sterilized. Right on campus, preferrably.
Glengarry
May 6, 2015 at 12:09 PM
hear! hear!
the association of trivial/useless “work”/activity with the American left is itself merely an example of how bourgeois the ‘mer’can left is or has become.
new word:
bourgeois-ization.
selecao
May 6, 2015 at 10:04 PM
does the unemployment benefit in the u.s have job-seeking requirements? in australia, if one is the recipient of the unemployment benefit you are effectively watched like a hawk and must submit proof that you have applied to a certain number of jobs every couple of weeks to your local centrelink (welfare) office. i’ve been on it; you are regularly required to show up to job-seeker network meetings, the staff of which do absolutely nothing to help you but are just there to make sure you show up. the whole system is a big waste of time and money and reeks of political bullying of the unemployed to make it look like politicians are tough on ‘spongers’. the costs of keeping the whole system running, such as paying useless job-seeker agency employees, probably greatly exceeds whatever money is lost on the few number of people who are genuinely ripping off the system. there are no jobs out there anyway. how does the unemployment benefit work in the united states? i cant imagine it could be anymore lenient than what we have here.
james n.s.w
May 6, 2015 at 10:39 AM
Yes, there is a job-seeking requirement. A long time ago, they used to require evidence that you were looking for jobs, but more recently it has become a lot easier and you just collect your payment by going online and checking a box that says you looked for a job.
Lion of the Blogosphere
May 6, 2015 at 10:44 AM
I don’t think basic income will lead to more people dropping out of the cube force and taking up more self-actualizing careers.
Most Americans’ view of status revolves around material accumulation, and until that changes, people will take their basic-income check plus their paycheck to buy something (SUVs, McMansions, college tuition, sports tickets, etc.), which will cause the prices for discretionary goods to inflate, which will cause people to continue working at their soul-sucking jobs.
Look at the ghetto-bangers: why are they working in very dangerous professions, e.g., slinging drugs, when they already have a guaranteed minimum income? Because they desire status, and status is bought by money in that community, so they deal drugs and hustle so that they can buy products that some broke-a$$ can’t buy on his welfare check.
Introducing a basic income for all is like putting a price floor in most products’ economies.
DdR
May 6, 2015 at 11:13 AM
blacks slinging drugs is as relevant as women trafficking drugs.
JS
May 6, 2015 at 11:45 AM
Don’t understand, can you clarify?
DdR
May 6, 2015 at 12:13 PM
again, blacks make poor businessmen, even in the realm of petty drug trafficking. Similarly, look at Eric Garner the heavy set black man who was “choked” to death by the police for selling loose cigarettes. meanwhile the mexicans and other hispanics are distributing truckloads of marijuana to their beloved degenerate whites, with truckloads of stash of cash in exchange!
JS
May 6, 2015 at 12:27 PM
If you view HBD in a casual sense, you will understand that blacks with their stereotypical traits of lower iqs and poor future time orientation, makes them the ultimate losers in the American Game of Capitalism, whether the business activity is deemed legal or illegal. If you bother to read some history, the Spanish colonizers in Latin America, realized the Native Indians were much more “human” than the black slaves. Meanwhile the Anglosphere have repeatedly ignore this hard truth, and continue to pamper this redundant underclass, because they were oppressed as a result.
JS
May 6, 2015 at 12:35 PM
Everyone in the US is “disabled”– the ranks of the disabled goes up as unemployment figures go up. Around 20% of the US population is disabled, qualifying them for payments.
Guaranteed basic income won’t work as long as immigration is infinite. Where is all the money coming from to hand out anyways?
Plus, uncle sam taking care of people is just more stimulus to undermine the nuclear family, which is always a mistake. Guaranteed basic income = broken families, single moms, dysgenics, and crime.
jjbees
May 6, 2015 at 11:21 AM
How can possibly anyone think engaging in illegal activities (common among the underclass) to be a form of self actualization? I mean c’mon, guido proles such as those in Staten Island don’t give a rat’s ass about doing what they love. For them, it’s all about raking in the dough and then partying hard. Do you expect Tyrone who lives in the hood, with a lower IQ profile, would think otherwise? Further, he’s a bad example, given the fact that blacks are losers in the money making business, and when you compare him to Jose the Hispanic, who operate like the Italians, when it comes to underhanded tactics and schemes.
JS
May 6, 2015 at 11:30 AM
JS, are you Muslim?
Round Robin
May 6, 2015 at 11:43 AM
No, I’m not. But a few Muslim Intellectuals during the Golden Age of Islam, who dabbled with Aristotle, Plato, and Greek Science, also wrote on the subject of “HBD”, describing blacks as unfit members of any civilized society. They were the only people that came in contact with the Muslims without an intellectual corpus.
It’s quite interesting/hypocritical that the academics in the Ivory Tower would see this as an exciting endeavor of research and study, but would readily denounce any of us in modern day society, who had similar viewpoints.
JS
May 6, 2015 at 12:49 PM
“Race” is a recent concept, JS. Many ancient writings lump different racial groups together. Pale Egyptian rulers derided Dark skinned Egyptians and vice versa. The differences denoted were more cultural. Plus, Muslims described the civilization of Ghana as a great civilization of blacks.
The people in the “Ivory Tower” of aware of how complicated the actual facts are and how severely motivated the reasoning was in many ancient text translations and initial enlightenment-era taxonomical attempts.
swanknasty
May 6, 2015 at 2:44 PM
There were quite a number of Muslim writers in the Golden Period of Islam, who described blacks unfavorably, calling them dumb, ugly and animalistic. One of the greatest thinkers of Islam, Ibn Khaldun, also considered the father of sociology, wrote that blacks are the only group of people who accept slavery without much resistance, because of their lesser semblance to humans and closer to proximity to that of dumb animals. As outrageous as this seems, there is a grain of truth that blacks were by in large exploited as slaves, more so than any other group of people.
In addition, his writings also feature how favorable climates breed the best people, and all the functional civilizations at the time of his knowledge, he describes are situated in the temperate zone. Further, he wrote how luxury and wealth causes ignorance and degeneracy that one finds with the SWPL population in our modern day, burgeoning American cities, or what some readers here describe as “bourgeoisie decadence”.
His book the Muqaddimah was considered the greatest book written at anytime in history. It was relevant back then, as much as it is relevant now.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0691120544/?tag=googhydr-20&hvadid=30950977341&hvpos=1t1&hvexid=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=243126902898183099&hvpone=19.29&hvptwo=&hvqmt=b&hvdev=c&ref=pd_sl_14zel7w3g5_b
JS
May 6, 2015 at 7:47 PM
From Muqaddimah:
“When the conquest of the West (by the Arabs) was completed, and merchants began to penetrate into the interior, they saw no nation of the Blacks so mighty as Ghanah, the dominions of which extended westward as far as the Ocean. The King’s court was kept in the city of Ghanah, which, according to the author of the Book of Roger (El Idrisi), and the author of the Book of Roads and Realms (El Bekri), is divided into two parts, standing on both banks of the Nile, and ranks among the largest and most populous cities of the world. The people of Ghanah had for neighbours, on the east, a nation, which, according to historians, was called Susu; after which came another named Mali; and after that another known by the name of Kaukau; although some people prefer a different orthography, and write this name Kagho. The last-named nation was followed by a people called Tekrur. The people of Ghanah declined in course of time, being overwhelmed or absorbed by the Molaththemun (or muffled people; that is, the Morabites), who, adjoining them on the north towards the Berber country, attacked them, and, taking possession of their territory, compelled them to embrace the Mohammedan religion. The people of Ghanah, being invaded at a later period by the Susu, a nation of Blacks in their neighbourhood, were exterminated, or mixed with other Black nations.”
I think you’re referring to this passage:
“To the south of this…there is a Negro people called Lamlam. They are unbelievers. They brand themselves on the face and temples. The people of Ghanah and Takrur invade their country, capture them, and sell them to merchants who transport them to the Maghrib. There, they constitute the ordinary mass of slaves. Beyond them to the south, there is no civilization in the proper sense. There are only humans who are closer to dumb animals than to rational beings. They live in thickets and caves and eat herbs and unprepared grain. They frequently eat each other. They cannot be considered human beings.”
So he’s referring to a specific negro people, not all of blacks, which underscores my point: it was mostly about culture/region/location than “race” in the modern sense.
swanknasty
May 6, 2015 at 9:30 PM
You had to copy and paste those paragraphs from Wikipedia to make your point.
In the Muqaddimah Ibn Khaldun in the beginning describes the different African Nations, and call the nation of Ghana a great one. However, later in the book he writes all black people are dumb and closer to animals.
Read pg 117 of the book, what he says at the end: Therefore, the Negro nations are, as a rule, submissive to slavery, because [Negroes] have little [that is essentially] human and have attributes that are quite similar to those of dumb animals, as we have stated.
This is the section where he writes about how humans lose control of their destiny and become subservient, where they no longer maintain or propagate a civilization. When humans lose their destiny, they lose their human nature, which in turn, they lose their ability to produce a burgeoning society. His final words on this topic was to inject that blacks are of this sort of being, essentially not human, and therefore not capable of civilization attainment or management, and remain to be slaves.
JS
May 6, 2015 at 11:35 PM
So?
The point is that the translation you’re using substitutes the word “negro” for the Arab word Zanj. Zanj does not refer to a race or the “negroid people.” That is why the actual translation refers to civilizations of blacks and uncultured/uncivilized blacks in the same general area.
swanknasty
May 7, 2015 at 12:01 AM
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zanj
It’s a very specific region and place. The word does not refer to all of SSA or all of the people in SSA.
swanknasty
May 7, 2015 at 12:03 AM
So? So Ibn Khaldun’s writings are pretty much on point and has all the relevancy today. Negros are unevolved, relatively comparing to others, and they remain to be in slave mode, without any insight to be like others.
A few Ghanian immigrants told me that most of the shopkeepers in their native country aren’t blacks, but outsiders like the Arabs, Indians and Chinese who take advantage of them.
JS
May 7, 2015 at 10:14 AM
So Ibn Khaldun’s writings are pretty much on point and has all the relevancy today
If one group of a race is praised and another group is denounced, then the commentary simply does not apply to the entire “race.” You’re just applying the concept of race anachronistically and seeing what you want to see.
A few Ghanian immigrants told me that most of the shopkeepers in their native country aren’t blacks, but outsiders like the Arabs, Indians and Chinese who take advantage of them.
And that has what to do with the ancient civilization of Ghana which was assuredly run by blacks?
We can do this with the other ancient writers as well. “Race” simply didn’t exist as a concept back then. It was more about regions and cultures.
swanknasty
May 7, 2015 at 11:55 AM
What has Ancient Ghana done and contributed in the grander scheme of things?
Ibn Khaldun described Ghana as being a “civilization”, because it was more bustling than other areas of Africa, probably because there were open flea markets that were selling all kinds of petty merchandise.
JS
May 7, 2015 at 12:42 PM
Ibn Khaldun described Ghana as being a “civilization”, because it was more bustling than other areas of Africa, probably because there were open flea markets that were selling all kinds of petty merchandise.
Are you serious?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghana_Empire
An empire that large isn’t a civilization because it has “petty merchandise” and “flea markets.”
swanknasty
May 7, 2015 at 1:07 PM
Ibn Khaldun describes blacks as being lively and excitable at a flinch of pleasure. This confirms what I said about black students at Columbia University, who stare at their smartphones, watch youtube videos and listen to music, while other students are seriously engaged with their studies. Coincidence? What about blacks having a predisposition of lower future time orientation?
You of course, will brand me as irascible racist, just trying make a point to prove blacks and their inferior behavior. I’m just trying to connect the dots.
JS
May 7, 2015 at 2:54 PM
This has nothing to do with basic income vs welfare, please keep comments on topic.
Lion of the Blogosphere
May 7, 2015 at 3:29 PM
Lion’s obviously wrong (maybe his comment was tongue-in-cheek, but that’s tough to convey over the Internet). See my comment above: low IQ people take on these dangerous jobs ultimately for the money. Why they decide to sling drugs rather than work under-the-table at a restaurant is because the money’s greater in the drug game, and they are stupid, ergo they have a low future-time orientation.
DdR
May 6, 2015 at 12:13 PM
It wasn’t ENTIERLY tongue in cheek. The point is that what low-IQ people want out of life is VERY VERY different than what high-IQ people want.
Lion of the Blogosphere
May 6, 2015 at 12:22 PM
Money isn’t greater in the drug game, though. It’s a winner-take-all-market and the organization runs much like any faceless corporation. The average petty drug dealer will make minimum wage or less. They do it for the self-actualization: they have more autonomy than they would at Wal-Mart.
swanknasty
May 6, 2015 at 2:04 PM
Self actualization needs to have a noble component. Miscreants who become drug dealers, so they don’t want to work at Wall-Mart is only seeking autonomy.
JS
May 6, 2015 at 8:27 PM
The underclass might actually view themselves as above the worker bees who bring them money and food, pay for their housing, medical costs and other expenses and so on, while they get high, screw and watch TV. It’s not an unreasonable point of view.
Glengarry
May 6, 2015 at 12:15 PM
I think there is some truth to that. They think people who are nice to them are chumps, and they despise chumps. They think they are superior. I mean, elites are not that different in attitude.
not too late
May 7, 2015 at 5:15 PM
My IQ is average and I’m on disability. I write simple to medium unix shell programs (pure bourne shelll) and read a lot. One of my goals was to become a writer — can’t write poetry, but essays, I thought, would be doable. No luck. It’s tough as fuck, and with all those muslims and africans coming to Europe, I’m even more depressed than I already am (the reason for me being on disability), so I haven’t really tried much anyway. Europe and its culture is disappearing, and with a Basic Income there would be even _more_ of those barbarians coming. Here in Germany the Basic Income is discussed as well, and one version of it would get you 1000 EUR per person, i.e. the more children you have, the more money you’d get. It’s clear that africans and muslims, who are horny and breedy as hell, would come here and live from a Basic Income. We already have _too many_ of those here. Iff a Basic Income was granted, we’d need to close our borders. Otherwise it’ll be a total chaos, and Europe would become a third world shithole even faster.
So what I actually wanted to say is that maybe people with really low IQs have strange goals, but those with average ones (like myself) actually have similar goals as high IQ to gifted ones would have. The difference is that high IQ people can mostly achieve what they want, whereas I will be a loser for the rest of my life. Therefore, suicide. Or continue to suffer from depression. I think I’ll opt for suicide since the European welfare state will collapse anyway due to all those retards (sub-saharan africans and muslims) coming to this country. God, I hate all those liberals and PC-spewing dimwits who are responsible for this mess.
The Cultured Prole
May 6, 2015 at 12:55 PM
Rather than contemplate suicide, enjoy the little things. You live in Germany, a country that has some spectacular natural scenery and fantastic beer. True, we’re living on the tail end of a golden age of Western Civilization, but the living is still good now, and there are lots of people like you who recognize the Western ruling classes have stupidly destroyed the civilized world. You can’t change that, but you can enjoy a good beer.
Mike Street Station
May 6, 2015 at 1:55 PM
It’s certainly true that moderately intelligent people can be MORE thoughtful and sensitive to beauty than most very intelligent people are, and will suffer when they conclude that their intellectual limitations are limiting their creative powers. Note, though, that some of the best poets haven’t exhibited much intelligence — the Hebrew prophets are morons, for example, and Homer’s pretty stupid too. They’re 90-IQ poetic geniuses, that’s all. Your IQ is probably a lot higher than average, but that’s beside the point. Instead of killing yourself, how about going to the park and looking at trees? Looking at trees always makes me feel better. Also, have you tried writing short metrical science-fiction-poems? Writing within a metrical structure eliminates a lot of the arbitrary choices one would otherwise have to make, and it’s fun to write about things that are fun to think about, such as warfare against alien civilizations.
Garr
May 6, 2015 at 3:41 PM
you can enjoy a good beer
And masterbate three times a day.
E. Rekshun
May 6, 2015 at 6:42 PM
The Anglosphere takes the cake as the most degenerate of all the Western entities, followed by the French and the Germanics (including the Dutchmen). This is what happens when you try to outcompete the English Speaking proles.
JS
May 6, 2015 at 8:42 PM
The legal status of the activity isn’t relevant.
swanknasty
May 6, 2015 at 2:21 PM
What about inflation?
Round Robin
May 6, 2015 at 11:30 AM
Lion, you are the perfect counterexample. You’ve made good money and good investments, and practiced good stewardship, due to your high IQ. If you wanted to quit and go into painting and photography full time, nothing’s stopping you! The system worked!
Fiddlesticks
May 6, 2015 at 11:55 AM
My immediate family gets outraged whenever I mention the idea of early retirement. I guess I just have to tell them to f*** off.
Lion of the Blogosphere
May 6, 2015 at 12:11 PM
You need some chutzpah to show them you’re not a schlemiel or something.
As an alternative, you could play a longer game that will make them draw a sigh of relief when you retire early. First move: “I’ve gotten engaged to this Puerto Rican shiksa from work! She’s a single mother.”
Glengarry
May 6, 2015 at 12:22 PM
Some Puerto Rican girls are pretty hot.
Lion of the Blogosphere
May 6, 2015 at 12:39 PM
If by immediate family you mean parents, non-elite parents want to show off their kids as having “successful” sounding traditional fulltime careers.
Elite parents wouldn’t be embarrassed to say their kid had become an artist.
Here’s the daughter of a Philadelphia employment lawyer who got her wedding published in the NYT – her job is described as “covers independent music.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/03/fashion/weddings/amy-phillips-and-elia-einhorn.html?_r=0
Fiddlesticks
May 6, 2015 at 12:32 PM
The indie rocker is marrying one of his groupies? And they both have rich lawyer parents.
Lion of the Blogosphere
May 6, 2015 at 12:42 PM
Some Puerto Rican girls are pretty hot.
Some Hispanic prole women who work at the Spanish speaking supermarkets in NYC are quite stunning. And one thing that most PC crusading ignorant Whites (such as our stupid mayor de Blasio) fail to take note, is that Hispanics don’t hire american blacks even for the most menial tasks at their supermarket chains, which predominate those such as Gristedes (owned by Katsimatidis), or maybe a few that are owned by Italians or Jews.
JS
May 6, 2015 at 1:17 PM
@LotB: My immediate family gets outraged whenever I mention the idea of early retirement.
Same exact thing in my case. In 1995, my father fully retired at 55 y/o from a 30-year career as an engineer for a couple of large government defense contractor. Since that time, he’s doubled his net worth by simple, conservative investments and low expenses. He gets all upset when I talk about early retirement at age 55 and tries to encourage me to work until at least age 60. I “semi-retired” at age 50 (by reducing my work schedule to a 4-day work week), I just haven’t told him. Last Friday he dropped by my office and got suspicious as to why I wasn’t at work. Though, at this point, his days are starting to run together and he’s not entirely clear whether it’s a weekday or weekend.
E. Rekshun
May 6, 2015 at 6:50 PM
Lion, thou shalt not mix thy genes with shiksas who are not from high-IQ breeding populations. Thus saith the Lord God of Israel.
nebbish
May 7, 2015 at 9:57 PM
There is a prole drift even with Jewish guys. I’ve known some of them who are married to Latin American chicks (Mestizas). I’m sure they’re happy to settle for a moderate IQ Hispanic girl over some yenta regardless of their family background or intelligence quotient.
JS
May 8, 2015 at 10:59 AM
I generate income with my hobby art, but hardly enough to rely upon for a living. During peak season my garden produces enough kale, tomatoes, peppers, squash, and herbs to subsist for 3 months. I’ve hardly squeezed out maximum productivity of my garden. I could, but that takes practice and know-how, which takes time! What am I supposed to do for the rest of the year, starve because I’m lazy and “not working hard enough”? The “you’re not working hard enough” propaganda Americans are constantly bombarded with incentivizes modeling your life around competing for corporate office jobs because it doesn’t matter how hard one works at meaningful work because it rarely pays out enough to make it into a living. Few people live this way, not because they don’t want to, they can’t.
I’ve always imagined a basic income was a great way to fill the gaps for those of us who want to “work” at meaningful work but can’t make it all the way. Point is, we would always be “working” but not always generating revenues.
It’s not the work part that republicans convince proles to go along with hating the idea of basic income. It’s the part of small-time productivity vs. corporate productivity. In the US, if you aren’t the fastest, biggest, and/or the sexiest, you’re a loser and you deserve to be shunned! Sound familiar? It’s republican boilerplate. We can’t “win” per-say if it’s all about being the fastest and biggest. That’s obviously a loaded game. If winning is framed as “staying out of trouble,” maximizing innovative behavior, learning, putting those results into practice, and self-actualization, I think a lot more people might be swayed by ideals such as income-gap-insurance (kind of like short term unemployment until the next job comes along) provided by the government. Presently I think ideas like this hold little momentum outside of educated circles, because again, proles don’t like others having too much leeway outside of the pre-drawn social lines we currently operate within.
I think a lot of people are like me, we only make it half way on our own. The corporate office job is necessary. Our hobbies and side enterprises are only side incomes. Which is ironic, because all I do at my corporate job is, essentially, repackage and (re)organize information. A lot of that information was already there, just in a different format. There is no way the company I work for produces much value. It mostly transfers it by disguising one form of information as another form and using slight-of-hand sales techniques to sell the repackaged information.
professional button pusher
May 6, 2015 at 12:11 PM
On the other hand, a guaranteed basic income for people with higher IQs could be very liberating and allow for positive self-actualization that’s beneficial to both society and the individual. Who knows what great art or literature was not created because someone was forced to work in a boring job in a cubicle that produces no value?
My impression from reading rock band biographies of the late-’70s UK punk era is that the pre-Thatcher unemployment dole worked as a de facto arts grant for a lot of art school graduates who didn’t want to get a square job.
subforum
May 6, 2015 at 12:48 PM
Leon wants an economy where everyone loans each other money and we all live off the interest. hehe
destructure
May 6, 2015 at 1:37 PM
Well yeah, soon we’ll have robots flippin’ burgers and building cars and iPhones. So, okay, who will be harder hit when the robots take over manufacturing? The US or China?
not too late
May 7, 2015 at 5:22 PM
“Welfare comes with many strings attached, primarily that the recipient must have children and not have any savings. This prevents all men ..”
Men are eligible for welfare. It’s called “disability.”
Brendan
May 6, 2015 at 1:40 PM
On reddit there is a sub dedicated to this, /r/basicincome. I haven’t checked in there for a while, but like 6 months ago I stopped in and asked them what they would do about immigration. The sub was pretty much unanimous that unlimited immigration had to be stopped and you could only let in a very small amount of people each year. Even they understand that if you started giving income just for living, the entire world would be on your doorstop in no time.
So if basic income came with heavy immigration restriction, I would be all for it. I always thought if the Republicans were smart, they would propose socialized medicine or some other big social program but tack on heavy immigration enforcement to go with it. These social programs will be introduced eventually, so the Republicans might as well get something out of it.
Nathan Wartooth
May 6, 2015 at 4:03 PM
Since the left will win all battles eventually, I see the point that you are making, however I think it would still wind up the same. Liberals would vote for restrictions on immigration to get socialized medicine, but would say the whole time they would repeal it as soon as they could.
And they would. And then you would have socialized medicine for the entire world, paid for by the US taxpayer, until… you know, collapse
Mike Street Station
May 6, 2015 at 5:11 PM
Haha, you are right.
Here I was trying to be a -little- optimistic and you just trash it.
Nathan Wartooth
May 7, 2015 at 4:29 AM
The Last Psychiatrist, before his identity was known, had some good posts on disability payments as forms of basic income. The posts are apparently off his site now, but you can find them archived by others.
The Terrible, Awful Truth About Supplemental Security Income
http://trilema.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/tlp.html
The Terrible. Awful Truth About SSDI
RP
May 6, 2015 at 6:39 PM
He describes it as a system that the ghetto poor can take advantage of but is closed to the middle class. I praise Obama for creating middle class benefits like Obamacare and SNAP that anyone can get as long as their income is low enough.
Lion of the Blogosphere
May 6, 2015 at 8:12 PM
Increasing numbers of proles take advantage of disability payments. If the “disability” (which is usually Shitty Life Syndrome) also results in a prescription for pain pills, these can be sold to increase income, and/or consumed. It turns out that opiates have become the opiate of the masses.
RP
May 6, 2015 at 8:38 PM
“opiates have become the opiate of the masses”
That’s great!
Lion of the Blogosphere
May 6, 2015 at 10:05 PM
Obamacare is not a benefit or subsidy for the middle class. It’s health insurance sold at a slightly cheaper price than market price, where the difference will be paid during tax filing time.
SNAP is for low income individuals.
JS
May 7, 2015 at 12:28 AM
I have to laugh because where I live, SNAP is the Spay and Neuter Assistance Program that allows low income people to get their pets altered for free. http://www.snapus.org/
not too late
May 7, 2015 at 8:33 PM
Am I the only man in America, other than those addicted to public assistance, who doesn’t think public assistance is the end of the world?
Stealth
May 6, 2015 at 9:01 PM
Permanent, unlimited public assistance dispensed through a broadly based generous program. What’s not to like?
Glengarry
May 7, 2015 at 5:10 AM
I was wondering what happened to my dear Doctor, the Last Psychiatrist. I really enjoyed reading his essays. I don’t know why the disorienting feeling of nausea I got was just from a novel view of the truth or particular to his style.
He’s been outed?
Who is he?
What happened??
Thin-Skinned Masta-Beta
May 7, 2015 at 1:38 PM
Right near the beginning of Paul Goodman’s wonderful novel of New York, The Empire City, comes this passage:
“From a certain point of view Horatio’s family was poor; they were on the relief rolls twice one-and-a-half, or three times: Sis and her dependent Horatio, brother Lothario and his dependent Horatio. But this was solid money, the interest of the wealth of the empire itself.”
In a few other passages he refers to “the dole” as an entitlement (in its original positive sense) and nothing to be ashamed of.
Anthony
May 6, 2015 at 8:44 PM
People who love creating art and literature will do it anyway. Magic is my main hobby, and it’s a rare one in that amateurs often push the “art” (or craft) forward because they’re constantly developing new moves and plots (professionals will often perform the same dozen tricks throughout their career). These hobbyists include people from all backgrounds: plastic surgeons, lawyers (from good schools), economists, and other white collar professions; some of the most innovative and brilliant ideas have come from the working class, including a sailor turned repairman, a machine worker and a postman (although he was Canadian), plus many bartenders.
If you attach strings to the universal basic income, then it’s no longer universal. Politically, it’s doomed. Republicans and Libertarians oppose any sort of “redistribution of wealth” and liberals will balk at the “unfairness” toward blacks and minorities disqualified for bad behavior.
What’s interesting about your scheme is the incentives it would create. Would we see more cops taking bribe money? “Don’t bust me, and I’ll give you 25% of my UBI.”
The fact is that a lot of people are perfectly content sitting on a couch watching television while logging into social media.
Vince
May 7, 2015 at 12:11 AM
Amen, Vince! Keeping Americans in their proletariat status, was the best thing that happened to human civilization. Offering a BIS (Basic Income Subsidy) to everyone would be opening a can of worms of very unfair inequality. blacks and proles will start complaining as to why well to do Whites who live in the liberal centers, also get to receive slush money, where they romp around in the high class restaurants and bars with it, meanwhile the losers are stuck in some ghetto or working class industrial sh*thole, and can’t do much with their free money.
JS
May 7, 2015 at 10:00 AM
This being said, a subsidy that pays for housing costs, based on socioeconomic status would be more realistic. Wasteful NAMs and proles would need to find a job that pays for their frivolous accessories.
JS
May 7, 2015 at 10:10 AM
@JS: a subsidy that pays for housing costs
Why not forego the housing subsidy and just have the government build, maintain, and operate large, sprawling apartment complexes in the downtown areas of most large cities – huge towers clustered close together so thousands of poor people, mostly segregated by race, could live among themselves. …uh, never mind.
E. Rekshun
May 7, 2015 at 12:15 PM
Well, that’s what our current mayor dumblasio wants to do. Institute a large scale of housing projects for those who can’t afford to pay market rate rent in NYC.
But of course, what’s the likelihood of proles wanting to become neighbors to NAMs in those units? Forget about well to do liberals, I’m talking about proles!
JS
May 7, 2015 at 2:07 PM
No one wants to mingle with the social classes beneath them. Rich liberals are so far up in the clouds that they are completely unaware that there’s a very strong social hierarchy at the bottom.
I saw this once at a food place where a bum came in and wanted to use the bathroom (or something like that, I forget exactly what he was doing in there), and the Hispanic workers burned with hatred when dealing with this non-working bum.
Lion of the Blogosphere
May 7, 2015 at 2:50 PM
Liberals are cowards and hypocrites (we know about this part). They have the bravado to denounce anyone who mimics the behavior of the NAM underclass, but wouldn’t dare mince a word about blacks themselves.
JS
May 7, 2015 at 3:02 PM
Why do people without jobs need to live in NYC? Why should NYC do anything to keep them there?
not too late
May 7, 2015 at 8:36 PM
Well, good question. You have to remember NYC is hub for immigration and opportunity, and a bastion of liberalism, that signifies free benefits and money for all.
JS
May 8, 2015 at 11:00 AM
Don’t want to patronize audience speaking about black people, but i thought there was a sort of responsability towards black people in the USA because of something like that ….
“Southern trees bear strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.
Pastoral scene of the gallant south,
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,
Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh,
Then the sudden smell of burning flesh.
Here is fruit for the crows to pluck,
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,
For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop,
Here is a strange and bitter crop.”
Bruno from Paris, France.
May 7, 2015 at 11:43 AM
Bruno, the number of lynchings of blacks and whites were roughly equal — as are the number of crimes committed. It almost sounds as if lynchings weren’t racist acts so much as reactions to outrageous crimes, doesn’t it?
CamelCaseRob
May 9, 2015 at 8:56 AM
l learned it in french school too, once :
“Les arbres du Sud portent un étrange fruit,
Du sang sur les feuilles et du sang aux racines,
Un corps noir qui se balance dans la brise du Sud,
Étrange fruit suspendu aux peupliers.
Scène pastorale du valeureux Sud,
Les yeux exorbités et la bouche tordue,
Parfum de magnolia doux et frais,
Puis l’odeur soudaine de chair brûlante !
C’est un fruit que les corbeaux cueillent,
Que la pluie rassemble, que le vent aspire
Que le soleil pourrit, que les arbres lâchent
C’est là une étrange et amère récolte.”
Bruno from Paris, France.
May 7, 2015 at 11:45 AM
“Who knows what great art or literature was not created because someone was forced to work in a boring job in a cubicle that produces no value?”
If they work in a job that produces “no value”, then why would someone be willing to pay them to do the job?
Joe
May 7, 2015 at 12:34 PM
It creates value transference for the employer, or maybe the job does nothing but it just continues because of bureaucratic inertia.
Lion of the Blogosphere
May 7, 2015 at 12:48 PM
This is the craziest shit I’ve heard recently. This country is broke now and they want another social program? Does anyone realize that as the weather gets warmer another tsunami of gutter trash from South of the Civilization line is about to be driven to a neighborhood near you by Al Qaeda and Iran’s BFF Obama?
You just don’t understand this problem at all. Asians and Whites feel shame in taking handouts, but brown and blacks see it as free money and have no shame or conscience at all. Do you want a Billion freeloaders living here? Where is this cash coming from now?
White people are living paycheck to paycheck and Juan Mountain Dew Alozondo Viva La Raza is getting his rent and food for free. Those blacks haven’t done five minute’s of actual productive labor their entire lives and cost taxpayers close to $1,000,000 by the time they’re old enough to join a gang!
This is just the end right here. If these idiots hand even more money to brown and black loafers, the White population is going to explode! These people are just poking the tiger too much now!
Joshua Sinistar
May 7, 2015 at 3:23 PM
“This country is broke now”
How is the country “broke”? There is so much abundance that the problem poor people have is that they are too fat. In genuinely “broke” countries, poor people are skinny because they don’t have enough food to eat.
“Broke” is just an illusion of rhetoric and accounting.
Lion of the Blogosphere
May 7, 2015 at 3:31 PM
I’m not sure where you live, but in Waterbury Connecticut, the house are being boarded up and businesses are closing. You should check out the site Zerohedge about all the stores that are going to be closed this year. Its an economic disaster. When those businesses shut the workers are out on the street and the tax bases of those cities are going on a downward spiral!
Joshua Sinistar
May 8, 2015 at 8:08 PM
“Poor” is when there are no houses, not when there are houses that are being boarded up. The same is also true in manufacturing. Poor is when there are no factories, not when we have factories that are closed or being under-utilized. We have a structural problem not one of poverty.
CamelCaseRob
May 9, 2015 at 8:42 AM
Man, how can you be broke when you can just print some more dollars? Let the good times roll! It’s the recovery.
Glengarry
May 7, 2015 at 4:19 PM
Have you ever heard of hyperinflation? Zimbabwe thought they could just print mo’ money too. Check out eBay. You can get a 100 trillion Dollar bill from Zimbabwe for just over a buck, and its not even worth that. Its a reminder of what Keynesian Economics does when you do it in real life.
Joshua Sinistar
May 14, 2015 at 11:07 AM
Thought this might be right up on the Lion’s hobby horse.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-05-07/coding-classes-attract-college-grads-who-want-better-jobs
4 – 5 years of useless content in Ivy League liberal arts education then made up for with a few weeks of pricey focused vocational training. It kind of sounds like bar review after a few years far from reality in an ivory tower law school. I’m not a lawyer myself, but people I know who have done top tier law school have shared their frustrations that what they learned in the bar review was much better than in law school itself. Some said if they had to do it over again they might have sneaked into a bar review before going to law school.
Thin-Skinned Masta-Beta
May 7, 2015 at 5:04 PM
I am also curious about what Lion thinks of those vocational coding courses. I’ve met at least one person who landed a decent job from such a course after doing a 4-year biology degree that proved to be useless.
Oh, the point of law school isn’t really learning law. It’s to provide a barrier to entry so that established lawyers can retain some monopoly power, and also to provide students with social connections and interview opportunities which ARE valuable, at least at the top schools.
Ava Lon
May 9, 2015 at 12:20 AM