Guaranteed income for everyone

When people hear that I want to replace the social security system universal basic income, they almost always say in response that loafers are living at the expense of hard-working citizens, or that many will live it, without doing anything useful. Or, as said before, receiving a guaranteed income, each surrenders sloth and vice. I see things differently. I believe that a universal basic income (LPP) - our only hope to cope with the coming crisis in the labor market and to breathe new life into civil society.

Great supporter of the free market, Milton Friedman proposed the idea of ​​a guaranteed income shortly after the Second World War. Experiment with a simplified and distorted version of his "negative income tax" was held in 1970 and did not live up to expectations. However, with the growth of social spending, and not to reduce poverty below 10%, the idea of ​​a guaranteed income has again become attractive: after all, if you want to end poverty, just give people money. In 2016, LPP is regarded as quite realistic measure. Finland has planned a similar pilot project for the next year, and in Switzerland recently held a referendum on this issue (as it is known, the Swiss voted against LPP - ca. Perevi..).

LPP Supporters form a very strange group. It includes both the left, who see it as a step towards social justice, and some libertarians (such as Friedman), who see in the LPP least dangerous way to redistribute income. Be that as it may, it is obvious that the LPP the time has come, but you need to enter it correctly.

Here I want to make one important clarification: LPP benefit, which I state only if it replaces all other social security costs and control their bureaucratic machine. If you enter a guaranteed income as an extension of the existing system, it will certainly bring great harm, which is so loved to paint his critics.

Furthermore, the system should have LPP nekotoryre key characteristics. In my version of every US citizen aged 21 years would receive 13 thousand dollars a year, which would be transferred in installments every month into his bank account. Three thousand dollars would be compulsorily directed to health insurance, after which each adult was to 10 thousand dollars per year for the remaining costs. People who earn up to 30 thousand dollars, would not have lost a cent LPP, but larger earnings would reduce the amount of LPP on a progressive scale up to $ 6,500 (but no less) with earnings of 60 thousand dollars.

Means for the LPP have managed to get by eliminating social security, Medicare and Medicaid programs, food stamps, housing subsidies, allowances for single women and all other social welfare programs, as well as agricultural subsidies and corporate benefits. In 2014, the cost of LPP program proved to be $ 200 billion less than in the current scenario. By 2020, this would save about a trillion dollars.

I recognize that some people after the introduction of my LPP plan would become idlers, but it is so problem. A survey in 2015 showed that 18% of unmarried men and 23% of unmarried women aged 25 to 54 years of ignoring the labor market and live on other people's money. Thus, the question is not whether there will be people to give up work because of the LPP, and whether the situation will become worse.

I do not think so. In the current employment system closes access to many of the benefits of the social security system and forced to pay a lot of taxes. In my version of LPP work provides a net profit of up to earnings of 30 thousand dollars, after which you start earning too much (a total of 40 thousand dollars) to an additional tax could convince you to give up work.

Of course, after the introduction of LPP some proportion of potential workers will refuse to work, but instead they will be able to find a job are people who now live on benefits or are not working because of a disability. Perhaps the number of the first category would be higher, but there is no reason to believe that it is high enough to make the LPP inoperable.

Involuntary unemployment - is another matter, and this leads us to the most important: the time is coming that will completely change our usual notions of professions, specialties and positions. Yes, I know that the warnings of technological unemployment periodically appear from the time of the first Luddites and so far none of them has come true. However, many said that the current situation is really unique.

When the first cars, even without clairvoyance gift can be understood that the coachman if taken as a whole, re-classified in drivers, and grooms - in auto mechanics. This time requires much more imagination to introduce new working professions, which will be able to qualify people who lost their job because of vehicles without drivers, and it only has 4 million in the United States. Developments in the field of three-dimensional printing, and "loop manufacturing" put the threat of unemployment is still 14 million people employed in manufacturing and construction.

If desired, the list goes on and on - it will even millions of managerial positions, which are not traditionally threatened unemployment. Decades of development in the field of AI did not justify expectations, but in recent years, AI is finally declared itself, and how! For example, last spring, a computer program beat the world champion in the game of Go, and it was not designed specifically for Guo and used self-learning algorithms. In place of the graduates, I would think seriously.

How serious is the threat of unemployment? According to a study conducted by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, may disappear 9% work in the United States. Two scientists from Oxford estimate this share to as much as 47%. As you can see, even the optimistic scenario is impressive. No matter how events developed, it is clear that in the coming decades, we must come up with some conditions for a full life without a job in the traditional sense, and the LPP can be an important step on the way to this strange, but it seems inevitable future.

But there is good news: a well-designed LPP system can not only prevent catastrophe but also bring huge benefits. It can also breathe new life into American civil society, which has historically been one of the US's greatest assets, but fell into disrepair in recent decades.

The most important feature of American culture has always yavlyaelas propensity of Americans to create voluntary organizations to solve local problems. Alexis de Tocqueville was only one of the first Europeans to observe this phenomenon. By the beginning of "New Deal" of Roosevelt, American Mutual Association included numerous branched network, which included people from all walks of life. Members of these groups have provided each other a variety of social welfare services, not only in the villages and towns, but also in major cities.

Could these networks to successfully solve all human problems of the time? No, but ask about this fair. US then possessed only a small fraction of the current national wealth. It would be better to ask, "What if the present society would develop a similar activity in the solution of current problems, with its current wealth?"

Many of the most ambitious volunteer to address the problems of poor actions came to naught because of the program "New Deal" of Roosevelt and the "Great Society" of Lyndon Johnson, and it was not difficult to predict. Indeed, what is the point to participate in the program of mutual insurance in their community if the government launched a welfare system? Voluntary organizations continue to thrive, but most of them do tasks that spared his attention the federal government.

I believe that it was a bad deal. Government agencies - the worst of all the organizations in addressing human problems. They need to limit the rules which are applied indiscriminately to people who are only on paper are the same, but in fact quite different reactions to different forms of aid. Non-governmental organizations - both religious and secular - by its very nature is much better able to adapt their services to local conditions and individual needs.

According to my plan for the introduction of LPP, the whole bureaucratic apparatus of social security would be abolished, but would that impact on people's sympathy for each other, or wish to participate in the life of society? A wealth in private hands would only increase. The grand restoration of the great American tradition of voluntary mutual assistance - this is not a utopia. Being left to themselves, the Americans always that way and responded to the trouble. Figuratively speaking, it's in our DNA.

Whatever the voluntary agencies, no one would have died of hunger in the streets. Everyone - even those who can not find any work, - he knew that by combining payments under HBC with a few friends, it is possible to provide a decent life. Some irresponsible people would have time to waste UND long until the next deposit, but LPP would radically change the conditions of mutual aid. Everyone would know that everyone has a source of income, and no one would be able to speculate on other people's trust, without giving anything in return, or refer to the inability to repay the debt. This would change many of the social and personal relationships. An unemployed person who lives with his girlfriend, could not refuse to pay their part of the rent. The young man, who earns 15 thousand dollars, much bolder would consider the prospect of starting a family, if you knew that family income will be at least 35 thousand dollars a year. Or take an unemployed father with a young child. Today's society can not call him to account, while LPP judge could send part of the monthly payment for the child support. Examples of how one disposes of its income, which is known for the amount would have been fine lesson for those who are trying to get out of the plight.

These are just a few of the possible scenarios, but they are played by millions every day. Guaranteed income would not save people from the consequences of their actions - a paradox, but he would rather put upon them new responsibilities, and this would be of benefit to themselves and to society as a whole.

However, the LPP benefits extend even wider. There is a public system often (and rightly) criticized for the fact that the poorest Americans have no reason to think that life could have turned out differently. They have no education, no job skills, and they live in depressed areas of the criminal without any prospects for a decent life. Unfortunately, the need for self-esteem often takes the form of rebellion against the system.

Many of the more fortunate members of society believe that these people stubbornly refuse to take advantage of opportunities, but for a man who has never worked, or women knows no examples of a happy family life, these opportunities, at best, seem elusive. My version of LPP would allow them to look at the world with new eyes. Instead meager benefits that must be used in accordance with bureaucratic requirements, they would receive 10 thousand dollars, which could spend as they please. It would not be charity: all citizens who have reached 21 years of age would receive a monthly payment without any humiliation - a bank account.

LPP would open the way for the most deprived in the middle class, once again reminding the old phrase, "Your future - is in your hands", but now it would be true.