Comment by wizzwizz4
5 days ago
You not wanting to work "shit jobs" (without compensation you would consider excessive) doesn't mean that everybody doesn't want to work them (or even that everybody considers them to be "shit jobs").
I agree with your point about commercial productivity. I don't agree that it would crash the economy: it would crash GDP (by eliminating large classes of exploitative and abusive behaviour which currently prop GDP up), but we already know that GDP is a flawed metric. I don't see how this would interfere with food getting to our tables, buildings being built, or communal infrastructure being maintained, except that monied folk would be less able to demand that things be done "or else", so we might have to reorganise society somewhat (such as by providing better working conditions for "shit jobs").
I wouldn't want to clean public toilets if I didn't need to do so. You'd be willing to do it for free. I think one of our views runs rather closer to the overwhelming majority of people, like 99.999%, than the other. This issue is really not the one you want to argue. But I understand that you have to argue it, because if you simply accepted this point then you must accept the fundamental problem. When everybody starts demanding substantial amounts of money for any labor they don't want to do, you're not only going to crash your gdp but see hyperinflation as well.
Now not only is the basic income pointless because it's no longer enough to afford anything (and increasing it further just sends you closer to Zimbabwe), but you'd also completely crash your currency meaning you'd also no longer be able to afford any imports (though exporters would be getting filthy rich - see: why China intentionally devalues their own currency). The country would be obligated to rapidly transition, formally or informally, to another currency as the default unit of trade for anything of value, further nullifying the basic income.
It doesn't matter whether the overwhelming majority of people would be willing to clean toilets for however much money: what matters is whether enough people would that the toilets get cleaned. From what I can tell, the answer to that is "yes".
Given instructions, and absent other immediate obligations, I would do so much helping out, wherever I happened to be at the time. (The only reason I don't now is because I don't understand most jobs – my meddling could do more harm than good –, and they won't let me do jobs in my area of expertise.) I'm not unusual in this regard: perhaps I'm unusual in that I'll do this unprompted, but if it's a societal expectation that people clean up after themselves, and leave things in a slightly better state than they found them, people generally do it.
The problem is not a lack of workers. The problem is not a lack of things that need doing. The problem is a lack of "jobs". UBI (with the necessary patches to, e.g., prevent bad actors from redirecting all the money) is essentially employing everybody to do what they believe needs doing.
So the question becomes: do you believe direct democracy works at small scales? Your answer appears to be "no".
I have no idea what you're basing "from what I can tell" on. In America there are literally millions of janitorial and cleaning staff. The overwhelming majority of those people would much prefer to e.g. spend time with their family than engage in menial labor to make ends meet. And the marginal utility of money decreases dramatically, at least for most people, once you have enough to comfortably survive and provide for your family indefinitely.
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You're getting way too strung up on the specific example of cleaning toilets. You know what job vastly more people will want to do? Installing and maintaining a self-cleaning toilet. Bang, massive benefit to the local community. Focus on profitability creates a blind spot.
I don't see why you think inflation would suddenly happen. You haven't justified that claim.
Also, anality drives me to at least mention the most straight forward way inflation will increase. You'd dramatically increase monetary velocity, which is what drives inflation, all other things being equal. Of course all other things would not be equal in this scenario - they'd also be changing in ways likely to drive inflation so you'd get a compounding effect.
Have you been in a public bathroom, in the US, in basically any urban area? Self cleaning doesn't cut it. People cause damage to bathrooms for no apparent reason, piss everywhere within a 10' radius, and on occasion feces isn't far behind. Oddly enough even women's bathrooms, at least on occasion, can be just as bad if not worse - as you can add blood to the entire disgusting mix, people flushing pads, and so on. Cleaning public bathrooms is an unimaginably awful job that nobody, in a million years, would do if they had any other remotely reasonable way to get money, let alone getting handed it for free.
Inflation happens because increasing labor costs will inevitably get handed right back onto the customer, especially on the scale we're talking about. And the customer isn't just the final customer, but every business operation from the raw goods all the way down to the final product, so it'd lead to rather dramatic inflation.