"Will people with non-great jobs around the basic income level keep going to work, or will they stay home and maintain their current living standard, or will they keep going to work, and roughly double it?"
What would you do? Would you live a frugal life on basic, or would you use the extra to live a fuller life?
"Some of the services will just be foregone with little tangible effect. Lawns will be mowed less often, street swept less often etc. Slightly worse impact on the economy will be when busy people decide to forego help, such as cleaners, babysitters, handymen etc. and do the job themselves."
Speaking for myself, I have less than zero desire to mow my lawn, or sweep my street. I like having a mowed lawn and a swept street though, so if I suddenly had extra money, I would very likely pay someone to do those jobs, which currently aren't being done at my house. What would you do?
"If a person makes the short-term decision to not work (and not studying or working on a startup or something similar), that person moves further and further away from ever participating in productive labour. I'm a bit old-fashioned on this, but I consider allowing people to go idle, long-term like that, is a grave failure of society."
Why should anyone be forced to do work they hate for the sake of proving to those in power that they are not lazy? What would you do if you were unfortunate enough not have a college education and some skills that allow you to hold a good job, and your only option was working in fast food? Then suddenly you have this basic income, and you can afford to live without working that horrible job? Would you just start taking a lot of naps, or would you start pursuing hobbies and skills that you never had time or opportunity for before?
I know what I would do - I'd take a course on motorcycle repair, take up motorcycle racing, and travel to races. Maybe that's not valuable to society as a whole, but I would argue that it's relatively more valuable than fast food. Plus the intangible benefit of another person in the world who's happy and an expert in their field, rather than another unhappy, worthless minimum wage employee. What would you do? I'm asking you to trust other people to make decisions as good as you would make, rather than making assumptions on their behalf.
So you admit that you would change your behavior in response to such a policy. That's my point: People change their behaviors in response to changed incentives.
Now, since society is a very dynamic, it is extremely difficult to predict the consequences of such changes in dynamics, or even to ascribe causation afterwards. That, however is not an argument to throw caution to the wind.
> I'm asking you to trust other people to make decisions as good as you would make, rather than making assumptions on their behalf.
I find that very hard to do, as I have multiple, hard examples of people making poorer decisions than me. Mostly they consist of people asking my advice, then not following it, then failing.
By the way, by the same measure, I am guilty of making poorer choices than other people as well, it's not a linear ranking.
What would you do? Would you live a frugal life on basic, or would you use the extra to live a fuller life?
"Some of the services will just be foregone with little tangible effect. Lawns will be mowed less often, street swept less often etc. Slightly worse impact on the economy will be when busy people decide to forego help, such as cleaners, babysitters, handymen etc. and do the job themselves."
Speaking for myself, I have less than zero desire to mow my lawn, or sweep my street. I like having a mowed lawn and a swept street though, so if I suddenly had extra money, I would very likely pay someone to do those jobs, which currently aren't being done at my house. What would you do?
"If a person makes the short-term decision to not work (and not studying or working on a startup or something similar), that person moves further and further away from ever participating in productive labour. I'm a bit old-fashioned on this, but I consider allowing people to go idle, long-term like that, is a grave failure of society."
Why should anyone be forced to do work they hate for the sake of proving to those in power that they are not lazy? What would you do if you were unfortunate enough not have a college education and some skills that allow you to hold a good job, and your only option was working in fast food? Then suddenly you have this basic income, and you can afford to live without working that horrible job? Would you just start taking a lot of naps, or would you start pursuing hobbies and skills that you never had time or opportunity for before?
I know what I would do - I'd take a course on motorcycle repair, take up motorcycle racing, and travel to races. Maybe that's not valuable to society as a whole, but I would argue that it's relatively more valuable than fast food. Plus the intangible benefit of another person in the world who's happy and an expert in their field, rather than another unhappy, worthless minimum wage employee. What would you do? I'm asking you to trust other people to make decisions as good as you would make, rather than making assumptions on their behalf.