Switzerland's voters reject basic income plan

From my experience, Swiss people form a very cohesive group on most matters and there are very few of these new-agey liberal ideas being widely supported by the general populace.

As far as I'm concerned, it sounds like a horrible plan, but I'm considerably biased when it comes to social benefits. I will fully support a plan to ensure a decent pay for any hard-working person, but I am vehemently opposed to granting any significant social benefits to people who don't work. Effort should be put into making people useful, not allowing them to leech resources. Equality for the sake of equality is garbage. We have more than enough coddled, entitled people in first world already, breeding yet another generation of these wankers is the last thing we should be doing.

 

It sounds like a good plan to reject it. Unless they want to attract any still free roaming Syrians or other immigrants, who'd love to live there and do nothing while getting a good pay.

A higher base income like that will also drive the minimum wages up. Or no-one will want to do the low paying jobs anymore, because they'd get more money by just staying at home.

Also 2500 swiss franc is outrageous. That's like twice the minimum income in Belgium. And Switserland is not that expensive to live anymore. It used to be, but now it's maybe a little more expensive than Germany or some other € countries.

 

I don't understand how anyone who understands "human nature" could think that this would be a good idea.

 

It's early days, but basically with the rise of the robots coming, it isn't a question of if, but when many, many low/no skilled jobs are going to be gone for good. This presents a global problem of what to do with the millions of people who had those jobs. Traditionally they'd just go onto unemployment benefits/welfare while they are looking for work, but the idea of that was to get a fired factory worker into another factory job, if there are no other low/no skilled jobs to be had, that doesn't work.

The other part of it is that as most Western nations have requirements job seekers have to meet to qualify for an unemployment benefit/payment, and in some cases this (job finding) industry requires billions of government spending, to keep case managers employed to keep job seekers looking for work, with the relevant bureaucracy overseeing the entire thing. That whole industry falls down when case manager Dave doesn't have any low/no skilled jobs for job seeker Max, as those jobs have been automated. So if there are no jobs for Max, and he can't get an unemployment benefit, the government says well of course we'll abolish the spending going to employment agencies if there aren't any jobs for the people making use of those agencies. The problem then is those millions of people with no employment prospects and no unemployment payments, are essentially cast adrift.

The most basic reasoning behind a basic income is that you take the money you were spending on various bureaucracies and employment agencies and give that directly to people without work. Depending on the country the number varies greatly, but you're looking at an average of about 15-20% of the workforce working right now in low/no skill jobs. If those many millions of people, in jobs that are going to be gone, are without the money for clothing and shelter and have no alternatives, we'll have a pretty dire situation. Crime and homelessness would skyrocket, economies of entire regions (mining town/city would be a good example) would collapse without the exchange of goods and trades and without tax revenues governments rely on, there'd be no services, health and sanitation decline, diseases and slums pop up, etc etc.

It's a problem that no country will be able to avoid, we're starting to see the early stages of it in elevated youth unemployment levels around the world, where entry level and low skilled jobs that were there 10/20/30 years ago just aren't there anymore.
The issue is massive and complex, because it makes us start to ask questions about what values we want our societies to have.

 

Giving everyone free money isn't a solution though. It's barely even a band-aid and it encourages the wrong kind of mentality.

 

I believe Arkite has summed up my position really well. Low paying jobs are not meant to be careers. My son who is in college is spending his summer ringing a register at Wendy's. He would love to make a lot of money doing so, but he understands that any moron can do what he is doing and that is why he is making minimum wage. As a society what are we supposed to do with people who are either too lazy, too ignorant, or somehow made themselves unable to survive? I admit to not having the answer, but I am opposed to giving them my money through taxation.

 

And yet, the majority of people ringing registers at Wendy's are NOT teenagers, they are adults with families. Always have been, always will be. The fact is that most people do not have the resources to train for skilled jobs, and most jobs that don't require special skills still demand college degrees.

 

It's interesting to note that it is very often the same folks who claim there aren't enough decent jobs for adults so they get stuck permanently in dead end jobs like Wendy's that are against strong immigration restrictions that would keep domestic jobs available to those who need them to get out of places like Wendy's.

This isn't directed at you personally, mind.

 

It is a fact of life. Jobs disappear and never return. It is very Darwinian, you either adapt/evolve or you die out. People that have no skills that are valuable (and working a register is not a valuable skill) are shortly going to be phased out of the economy. All these people advocating for living wages and higher minimum wages don't realize that all they are doing is accelerating the time that they are replaced by robots/automation.

Now, I know everyone wants to lay blame. I'm not sure who to blame. Is the parents who didn't steer their children in the correct direction. Is it the individual who was not motivated enough to develop valuable skills? Is it the businesses? Is it government? Depending on how you answer this question kind of shows your political affiliations.

It is an interesting question as to what is going to happen in the next couple of decades. If the minimum wage jobs disappear, what are the unprepared going to do? We may see governments collapse in an attempt to pacify the unprepared and the taxpayers (who will be shouldering the burden). I see this as a major problem that not only the first world, but the developing nations will have to deal with.

 

There is going to be a point where the total number of jobs needed are going to far exceed the population looking for jobs since so much can be automated. A lot of people are flooding into IT at the moment but that can't hold everyone. We will probably see some significant restructuring of the economy in my lifetime or some serious destabilization.

 

Looks like Finland is giving up on this also.

https://www.cnsnews.com/commentary/daniel-mitchell/universal-basic-income-experiment-ending-finland

Although I am curious as supposedly Finland is keeping track off what the people who were getting the basic income are doing with the money and what effect it has had on them. I think the results will be fascinating.

 

I agree. One of my biggest issues is people like to use things that work in very homogeneous Scandinavian countries as examples. I personally, do not see UBI working at all in a country as large and diverse as the United States.

 

I don't understand what the point of a basic income is. Would it be to *replace* welfare? Because it can't do that...

All emotions aside, the people who generally end up on welfare and stay on it, are not the kind of people who are seeking to better themselves. They generally will take advantage where they can. This has been proven time and time again.

If the government's goal (can't assume these things) is to take care of a subset of population who they believe (for whatever reason) will be unable to earn an income at some point in their lives. Then wouldn't giving them the basic essentials be a much smarter and cost-effective solution than simply giving them money?

Lodging, basic food, healthcare, whatever.

When you give people money, they'll spend it on chips, soda, cheeseburgers, large screen TVs... whatever... usually at the expense of healthcare, rent, and healthy food... which in turn leads them to being fatter and less healthy, and then costing more in health care anyway.


From a purely fiscal standpoint... it absolutely doesn't make sense. The money doesn't materialize out of thin air... it's coming from the people paying the taxes. If we were to assume for a minute that the money CAN be taxed, and that "source" will always be there (this is never true, but regardless), all you're really doing is just rising the cost of product. I'm assuming that *everyone* would get basic income... or maybe everyone at a certain income level.

 

I understand what you're saying... and I absolutely appreciate the intent; however, culture aside... humans are all made from the same stuff. And... human behavior is all pretty much the same. Universal Basic Income has failed everywhere it's been tried. It's actually already been tried in the United States. It was tried in Stockton, California... and it failed. It's also been tried in New England as well, but too lazy to look it up.

Although there does exist a bureaucracy in providing welfare, the goal shouldn't be to "accept" that there's bureaucracy and ignore it. The goal should be to fix the bureaucracy (depending on what we're defining as bureaucracy). This means eliminating fraud / waste / abuse, and reducing cost.


I realize we're coming from two completely different schools of thought... but unless there's some concept I'm missing, I don't see welfare as a constant. It's a temporary measure to get someone back on their feet.

The big assumption we're making here is that with UBI, it will solve this problem. The reality is probably more likely that the money will get spent on luxury items. What then do we do if / when that happens and these people are unable to pay rent, buy food, or necessities? Do we re-institute welfare benefits (housing / food / clothing)... having now doubled the amount of bureaucracy and cost?