Four out of Five?
Aug. 22nd, 2015 06:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
birguslatroAccording to this BBC article, four out of five Finns support a basic income. That seems an extraordinarily high percentage. The Finns must be one of the least self-righteous peoples on the planet!
Anyway, it seems like they may be doing a trial: "The prime minister has expressed support for a limited, geographical experiment. Participants would be selected from a variety of residential areas. Mr Kanninen [of the Tank research centre] proposes testing the idea by paying 8,000 people from low income groups four different monthly amounts, perhaps from €400 to €700."
My guess is that won't tell you anything useful - such as what it would do to the overall economy. A basic income would be revolutionary, not just a tinkering with the system, and there'd be lots of non-intuitive consequences.
And, as with every time I've seen it proposed, there's always a monetary value suggested for what the basic income should be, as apposed to a way to automatically arrive at it.
How should a basic income be viewed? As a good accumulated by society over time - a bit like the roads everyone gets to use. And how should it be calculated? Perhaps as a percentage of the country's total income. That would have the advantage of being self-correcting. As if the country's total income started to decrease because of an increase in the numbers not working, the incentive to work would increase due to the standard of living decreasing for those on just the basic income.
Anyway, it seems like they may be doing a trial: "The prime minister has expressed support for a limited, geographical experiment. Participants would be selected from a variety of residential areas. Mr Kanninen [of the Tank research centre] proposes testing the idea by paying 8,000 people from low income groups four different monthly amounts, perhaps from €400 to €700."
My guess is that won't tell you anything useful - such as what it would do to the overall economy. A basic income would be revolutionary, not just a tinkering with the system, and there'd be lots of non-intuitive consequences.
And, as with every time I've seen it proposed, there's always a monetary value suggested for what the basic income should be, as apposed to a way to automatically arrive at it.
How should a basic income be viewed? As a good accumulated by society over time - a bit like the roads everyone gets to use. And how should it be calculated? Perhaps as a percentage of the country's total income. That would have the advantage of being self-correcting. As if the country's total income started to decrease because of an increase in the numbers not working, the incentive to work would increase due to the standard of living decreasing for those on just the basic income.